I won’t play this pointless role
Liberate my sordid soul
I will pay the obaled tolls
and will curse the wretched hole

that brought me forth and tossed me out
leaving me without a doubt…
that I am old and dying

Please forgive me for my sins
remove the dry wax from skin
there’s an infinity of pins
I want compassion from my kin
Six billion rounds of gin
would suffice,
if they haven1⁄4t been

but I think that she’s the key
to all this hopeless misery
and I hope that she will see
that world peace will never be

for she brought us forth and tossed us out
and now were left without a doubt
that we’re all old and dying.

You were walking down the way
and I saw you fly away
up above to heaven’s bay
where our angels play.
I saw you last on that day
I wish you’d taken me away
But to my dismay,
here is where I’ll always stay.

The sun forgot to rise
leading to your demise
I heard your anxious cries
but I had to close my eyes

for she brought you forth and tossed you out,
and now you’re left with out a doubt
that you’re also old and dying.

And yet I get glares and frowns and disappointment. Why? BecauseUncleSam has decided that what I feel towards my man is immoral. I don’t intendtototally advocate ‘the older guy’ amongst teenage girls, but to be quitehonest it is the more logical choice. Yet, I am not as foolish as I mayseem.

The healthiest and safest choice both physically and emotionally is toabstain from sex when young. A sexual relationship can create moreemotionalconfusion than many adults can handle. To combine that with our imbalancedhormonal activity, which is ultimately the root of many adolescenttraumas,is not good. Being that sex drives are difficult to tame, I suggest thatmasturbation be considered as tool to help teens abstain from sex asopposedto sick and abnormal. However, if we are smart enough and mature enoughtohandle the situation it should not be forbidden.

Why must I be treated as little girl when I am not? I have friendswhoare with older guys and I have friends with boys. It seems that the rateforemotional stability and ‘relationship’ success is higher among thosefriendsinvolved with older partners. Coincidence? I think not. It may seem hardtobelieve, but we teens aren’t as stupid as we appear. Beneath our thickscullswe do know what is right for our own selves. Maybe if parents weren’tjust ashard-headed and blind to the opposing view, situations such as the oneI’m inwouldn’t be as difficult to handle. I understand that Lolita has instilledfear in the hearts of daughter’s fathers everywhere, but that isn’t me.Thatisn’t many girls. If anything we should be encouraged to have these highexpectations and congratulated on our satisfactory sex life.

Random Info: I was thought to have the “Evil Eye” when I was an infant.A Cuban nanny of mine tried desperately to cure me through an ancientritual, cleansing me with incense, oils and other ritualistic necessities.She seemed content when she was done and was no longer terrified oflittle me after that. My mother firmly believes that my actions are not tobe blamed on the super-natural, I tend to agree. Perhaps I do the things Ido because I’m naturally evil. Because I need to feel power and controlover people in my life and do cruel things to achieve it. After having oneof our pleasant discussions, I decided that I needed to hurt her withsomething that she could not manipulate or destroy. It took me a while tofind what that was, but when I did, I knew it was solid: The Truth. Therewere many things that my mother was completely clueless to about my life.I needed something that would make her feel worthless, like she so oftenmade me. It hit me that one of the most important things to me in lifewill be my children. That my desire to mother and to be a mother isstronger than anything else in my world. I explained earlier that mymother and I are very similar. Motherly instincts in us both are evidentin nearly every situation we are in, expect of course, with each other. Sothere it was. I knew how to hurt her and make her feel like utter shit, toshow that she had failed me as a mother.

In a heated argument I patiently directed the course and waited for mychance to bite. When I did, she was silent. She stared at me like she hadno idea who I was. A stranger in her own home had grabbed her heart andpierced it. I couldn’t breathe. She wouldn’t talk to me for days and whenshe finally did it was in random outbursts, “You lying, thieving littleslut!!!,” “You’ve had us live a lie!!”. I couldn’t respond. I felt thethings she was saying were all true and that I needed to repent for I hadgravely sinned. I came upon her crying and she asked me what she had donewrong, where she had failed and what could she do to help. I’d done it. Ifound the evilness inside me and used it to sting and bite relentlessly. Ifelt terrible and I tried to tell her that it wasn’t all that bad. ThatI’d changed and….. and…..and……

I would think that after totally demolishing the ties that hold ustogether time and time again, that ultimately they would brake forever. Sofar, that’s proved to be wrong. The shit, the pointless arguments, pettycompetitions, attacks, etc. etc. have only made our alliance stronger. Itseems trauma brings people together, and being that is what we base ourconnection on, I’ve never been closer with her. I have always believedthat in any relationship honesty is the policy, but I had never reallyimplemented that belief into my family life until this happened. Once Idid, my mother, after much drama, seemed to understand me. She became moresympathetic with how I responded to certain situations that she couldnever before understand, she gave me more breaks and offered to help inareas of my life that were formally off-limits. Honesty is veryfrightening. It can be like opening a wound or a door. Depending on thepath you take it is rewarding or painful. I can’t give directions, but Ican give advice: Keep an open mind TEENS AND PARENTS. Be understanding andshow you care.

Cried when the ball dropped.

Beware of random gunshots,
disguised in a fantasic show.
Colored lights did hypnotize
fleeting souls computerized.

Tried to find my Innisfree.
But I was left
disillusioned,
meditating in a Motel Six Bathroom.

"Phase one, in which Darious gets her oats…"

Two giddy girls and a bottle of the finest of cheap French wine, a beautiful river that divides a great city and an immortal cathedral with water spewing monsters. Daintily prancing and drunkenly dancing, the two sip, walk and talk as they near a most interesting situation. To their left stands seven young men who quietly murmur and gesture to the faded stars as they smoke their hash cigarettes. To their right a man and a woman sit on a bench and whisper sweet nothings into each other’s ears. Straight ahead two small children kick an empty can back and forward, ignoring the cathedral that towers above them.

The older of the two girls is an observer, a motherly type, whose green eyes survey the scene and fall on the seven smokers to her right. She smiles and awaits their friendly approach. The second girl wildly giggles, dimples and all, and expresses her fondness for the Cathedral ahead. They stop talking and watch two of the seven smokers walk toward them.

"Pardon Mademoiselles," spoke one. "I could not help but notice that you have an empty bottle of wine." He was handsome. Dark hair and dark eyes, perfectly tan skin, lips that gently spread across his face as he smiled and a body that stole the observer’s motherly intentions. He handed the green-eyed girl a half-drunken bottle of wine and stroked her red hair as he slowly wrapped his arm around her.

"Parlez vous Francais," inquired the other man, "do you ladies speak French?" Although he spoke in English and French the man was Italian. He was not entirely handsome, but one would not presume to call him un-attractive. He had a sort of boyish charm despite the wrinkles and roughness of his face. When he heard the giggly girl’s attempted response in French, he instantly struck up a (limited) conversation with her. As she spoke to him she found that he was not only Italian but Algerian as well. His mother lived in Italy and his Father in Algeria. His father was not a slave owner, but a good man who lived like any other. As the four mingled, the young couple to their right quietly left, their sweet nothings tip-toeing toward an anticipated engagement.

The ruby and the raven however, unable to mingle quite successfully, sat in sweet silence. A universal conversation that consisted of blushes and bashful smiles. Eventually, his arm still around her waist, he whispered the solitary English phrase that every French man knew and used in situations such as these.

"You are beautiful," he said. "You know I love you. You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen."

"How funny," the girl whispered back, "Pierre down the street seemed to feel the same way."

"I don’t understand," he said in French and continued to hold her. The can that the two children were playing with crashed beside her feet. She promptly got up, kicked it back and sat down again to look upon her pursuer. He motioned to his cigarettes. She smiled and he began to role.

The next fellow that arrived was an obvious scoundrel. He had sharp, beady eyes and a grin that was so sly that his gold teeth made him no more of a rogue. He eagerly grabbed the seat next to the giggly a girl, a blond beauty with deep ocean-blue eyes, and attempted a conversation with her. She was busy chattering with the Italian-Algerian fellow and neglected the knave’s company. He, with his whiskey scented breath, turned toward the red head and spoke.

"Bonjour. Bon Soir Mademoiselle. Ca-va?" He leaned forward to kiss her cheeks and then drunkenly attempted to reach her lips. The young man beside her strongly disapproved. He pushed the new-comer away and held her closer.

"Bon. Bon," she said, laughing to herself. The rat tried to say something else but she interrupted him, "Je ne sais pas (I don’t know). Je ne parle pas Francais. (I don’t speak French)."

"I see," he mumbled and started singing to her.

Again the young man, who was so territorially guarding her, highly disapproved of the rat’s actions. He stood and with a quick flick of his wrist, he spun her into his arms. Tap, Tap went her shoes and they proceeded to walk away from the other three individuals. He mumbled something in French and she smiled.

"Alexis," she called. Alexis followed with her Italian-Algerian friend. His arms were around her and she was all giggles. The third fellow quickly ran up to the first couple and continued singing into the girl’s ear. Her guardian placed sweet kisses upon her cheek and repeated his solitary English phrase. She smiled and returned his favors.

Welcome, sweet thoughts.

"So which do you prefer?" inquired the raven.

"The purr-fectly poetic." replied the ruby.
 

How wistful was the walk. How charming were the fellows. Nearing the drunken departure, our shortened farewell, the moon was waning and the two young maidens felt weary. Pleasant kisses were bestowed upon each and as a floating clock reminded them of home, their feet began to whisk them away. Moments of perfection, cruelly stolen by the rat, dwindled in the distance and left with the wind.

"Au revoir. Au revoir," sang the girls.

In an exaggerated southern drawl, the man began to speak and did so with the utmost of charm. “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome. Welcome to my humble home. I would like to tell to you the story of my life, the strange occurrences, the bizarre circumstances and the even stranger conclusions. You see, as a lad I went through some very difficult times, and, as we all know, difficult times call for desperate measures. The funny things is, after you act upon your desperation you are left with the same difficult life, a series of terrible mistakes, and you still don’t know what the hell is happening. There are, of course, those mysterious things in life that save you from falling deeper into whatever hole you have formed for yourself, like music for example…” before the words had fully left his mouth another spotlight, from the same source of the original, shone upon a different part of the stage. A shimmering blue light hovered above an ancient gramophone and Mozart’s ‘Requiem’ began to play.

As the actor continued his monologue, an interruption came from the audience. “That’s enough! I’ve seen enough for today. Francis, darling, you were magnificent, absolutely magnificent. Everyone I think we owe him a round of applause,” the theater’s silence, with the obvious exception of the directors bellowing voice, was eliminated by the clapping hands of thirty or forty individuals. “I’m sorry to interrupt you Francis, darling, but I simply couldn’t stand the accent. You still haven’t fully ‘become one’ with your character and it really shows, but other than that, magnificent.” Murmuring voices again disturbed the golden silence of the theater and our dear Francis was left on stage lacking the simple, yet forever comforting, presence of a congratulatory rose.

Francis walked off stage and casually smiled as he passed his fellow actors, friends, and stage members, accepting friendly smiles, informal greetings and the tedious conversation that stank of artificiality. After passing through the ritualistic torture, Francis quickly grabbed his belongings and walked out the theater door. Neglecting to change from his theatrical persona, a symbolic action considering the events that follow, he walked the three lonely blocks to his cozy apartment and instantly collapsed on his worn and ragged couch. Still wearing the suit that molded his character so well, the haunting words, ‘Become one’, continuously echoed in his thoughts. This was a constant criticism that he received. As he stared into his favorite painting, Rothko’s ‘Yellow, Blue on orange’, he wondered how exactly this miraculous transformation would take place and slowly let his eyes close as his thoughts and questions lured him into a deep sleep.

Three nights ago (August 31, 1998), I came home from an exhausting day at school, my back aching from carrying over fifty pounds worth of books and my head pounding due to the lack of ventilation in a few of my classrooms. Due to these circumstances, I was not in this best of moods, I was stressed and in desperate need of coffee. My mother, too, was not in the best of moods, she was also extremely stressed and upset for various reasons. We argued over the dishes, we argued over vacuuming, we argued over the dogs; and finally we had our last argument of the evening. I was leaving to take my two dogs for their walk, when my phone rang, it was my friend Sarah, we we’re having a very brief conversation that was about to end when my mother unfortunately interrupted it. She came downstairs demanding that I take the dogs out immediately, I responded somewhat rudely and told her to wait because I was on the phone. She proceeded to come towards me and tried to physically remove the phone from my grasps. She failed, but during the struggle we fought physically and she used many obscenities.

When I got up, I started yelling at her. I asked, “Why?” over and over again, each time louder and louder, until finally I was screaming as loud as she had been, if not louder. I angrily questioned her actions, demanding to hear her attempt on a reasonable explanation. She, of course, did not have one. I was crying hysterically at this point, and I was insisting that she leave my room. She refused and I shoved her out and locked my door. She pounded on the door for a few minutes, but my sobbing kept me from paying any attention to her. I was collapsed on the floor, crying, confused and practically delirious. I couldn’t understand what had happened in those last few minutes, it was a complete blur to me. My phone started to ring again, I let it rang once all the way through, twice, and then on the third call I picked up the receiver. My friend had unfortunately overheard the entire conversation, including the events that had occurred. Sarah was insistent on coming over, but since I was still very confused, I hung up the phone.

I realized that I needed to get out of my house. I started packing up certain necessities, such as my books and clothing for the following day, and stuffed everything into my backpack. As one last tear dripped down my cheek I looked around my room, it was in complete chaos. My freshly cleaned laundry was strewn all over the floor and the basket was on its side. My jewelry was torn off its hanging place and most of it was broken, the tapestry hanging above my bed was torn down and my computer key board lay on the floor.

My phone rang again, it was Sarah, she told me she we coming over to get me. I agreed and said that I would meet her at the bottom of the hill. I took one last look at my room and then turned off all the lights. I walked out the door and locked it so that my parents would think I was sleeping. I crept past my mother’s office, through the front hall, and out the front door. I locked the big black gate, put on my sunglasses, and left. I did not look back, I did not shed another tear. I have departed, and I haven’t been home since.

My field of lost dreams will always be remembered, to me, as the most perfect and wonderful area of this world; a secluded mystery that could only be seen through the eyes of little children, who desired nothing but to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. I have lost this now, my secret realm that was unseen through the eyes of others, now that my own eyes have closed, and are blind to abstract thought and my once vivid imagination. “Past the clock tower, second to the right, and straight on ’till morning,” was this all a dream of mine? Why then, I ask, would this sequestered sanctuary seem so sincere? There was once a place, a place that no longer exists, where children could play so freely that you could almost see the wings on their backs begin to form. A place where the sun shone so bright, its gold-crimson light shinning over fields of swimming green reeds, that not a tree or flower could escape its radiant glow. A place that I had the pleasure of visiting a few times in my childhood, but to which I have never returned, nor ever will, since my adolescent years.

There lay a small stream that came through my domain, my secret world, where ancient willow trees brushed the floor, and sun light peered through these giants. The water was so clear and so pure that my reflection, as well as the trees that hovered above, would seem like a completely different world that lived its upside-down ways in the secrecy of the waters. The sound of the water, the rippling of the tranquil current caressing the smooth stones that lay in the stream, would beckon me to come and lay my feet in the cool, lucid pool. Its chilling touch enveloped my toes, water droplets joyfully dancing about my feet, would often annul any melancholy thought that was, at the moment, present in my mind.

I loved to go to this place, my fantasy world, where I, along with my friends, could escape the limited reality of our urban dwelling lives. In this land — this world within a world, where fairies flew about with flowers in their hair, where little elves danced within the mythical stone circles, and where Sorceresses and Warlocks would cast their magical spells beneath the open sky — I would play.

High above, surrounded by the luminescence of the setting sun, I would freely sail through the skies; my winged arms spread across the eternal heavens, and I, without any restrictions, would confidently splash through the clouds and then let my body freely fall down again until I was inches above the ground. I would soar the grassy green fields, with music in my ears — the whistling of the reeds in the calm wind, the songs of a solitary bird that sang of a lost love, the gentle sways of the willow’s arms sweeping the watery floor — and absorb every beautiful moment and place it deep within the fathoms of my heart.

The human mind works in mysterious ways. A dream, which could be called by any other name and still sound as sweet, can be thought of in many different ways- possibly our secret desires, perhaps a way that our subconscious forewarns us of the future. Or maybe our dreams are simply abstract thoughts and the result of our over active imaginations. Whatever they may be — dreams, visions, or fantasies — they have the ability to leave a generally permanent impact on our lives. This world that I speak of, this truly majestic place, remains incredibly intelligible in my thoughts, if it was indeed just a childhood dream, why then would is seem so genuine?

I end this essay in the same way I begin, with questions, whose answers are purely opinions and can only be sought through the completely individualized thoughts of separate people. To some, a dream is just a dream, when to others, a dream is doorway to an entirely different state of consciousness. For me, my dreams are a connection to my past, to lost thoughts and memories long forgotten. This world that I have created, my secret realm in which I live my childhood for an eternity, will forever exist in my mind, and heart.