Tag Archives: creative wrting

About Mer.

The Jungle Poem.

On a visit to the jungle/zoo (kind of)

I wonder if, in the mundane of lunch breaks and star market coupons, people know the magnitude of their influence.

A couple of weeks ago, after debating whether I should bother after a long workday, I ended up attending a writing workshop. A free-write time for poetry, it was awesome. After ruining the sublime atmosphere the instructor had set by barging in late, I read a line from a poem that really touched my heart.

“Grace” by Joy Harjo, in which my favorite lines were;

The haunting voices of the starved and mutilated broke fences, crashed our thermostat dreams, and we couldn’t stand it one more time. So once again we lost a winter in stubborn memory, walked through cheap apartment walls, skated through fields of ghosts into a town that never wanted us, in the epic search for grace.

I’ve always loved the beauty of words, what new ones you can happen upon in a thesaurus and pretend you’ve known for years. But mostly, I enjoyed the vivid feeling of these lines, and it inspired my own during our free-write time.

The Jungle poem was written for my loved one and their time in the steamy wilderness of Blanc which they endured.

………………………………………..

Recently, I have been thinking about the zoo and your unexpected trip there, especially since you have never been the spontaneous type.

The translucent snakes that wrapped around your body.

A blood thirsty cobra gripped your throat, and a garden snake at your nose that poisoned you with O2.

Their hisses were ominous but not like the slow, almost peaceful whispers of snakes on Nat geo or like tea kettles reaching climax.

More like a creeping whisper, to the pace of pre-war apartment buzzers or sympathy claps begging for early show endings.

I remember then how much you hated the zoo. Maybe scared you’d be a lost cry in the faux bird calls that filled that stale jungle.

Perhaps you felt pity for their encampment and after spending time with them realized you too felt like an exhibit.

I wish I could tell you that even if people saw your resemblance in the panther’s roars and your booming voice, they would never be an exhibition that could hold the uniqueness of your being.

Happiest Saturday / Juneteenth

Standard
About Mer.

Myel Man

How do you say “honey” in Creole?

Myèl.

I don’t remember who I asked for the translation of “honey,” but I have loved the way it sounds ever since. Myèl (mel) sounds like it would be a sweet nickname for a friend you adore. One who is open and kind and loved by most, but short for Mellanie or Melisma.

It even drips from your cupid’s bow so sweetly, myèl. Sometimes Haitian Creole can sound so boisterous, but the sound of myèl is so soft. It reminds me of crushes and slow burns.

I like to pace or walk and get lost; it was roaming the aisles of shoes I didn’t need that I smelled something familiar. The scent that sits in my cabinet, which stuck to my spoon this morning when I was making tea.

You were very handsome in a non-traditional way for our local. Hair too dark, a face too blemished, and a nose too wide, but still, you reeked of honey.

You told me your name, and it was simple, but on wash day, you still stuck to my roots even after clarifying. And when I sat down to do some work, I wondered if you were the type to respect a woman’s grit or independence. Or if the books that lined your shelves were a fly trap for women to distract them from your secret animosity, pollinated by an old heartbreak.

But when we sat on splintered park benches to chat, I noticed, alongside your perfume, your eyes swirled with a honeysuckle brown color that I wish I could indulge in. I recall thinking how nervous you seemed and how I found it sweet and wondered why someone so amber mostly wore black.

I was so distracted by your manuka nature that I bypassed the crystalline parts of you. How I wished you could be more patient or open, but by that time, you had already fully turned to myèl.

When I get sick, I take a tablespoon of myèl and think of you, though now, after so long, you remind me of honey.

Happiest Saturday, thank you for reading!

Standard
About Mer.

Dark Cellars of Hope.

On hope, desire, and dream catching.

In high school, I wrote a short story inspired by the book “Living Dead Girl” by Elizabeth Scott.

It was a pretty dark read, but I felt a deep longing to experience the freedom the main character felt towards the end of her story. I envied the brightness of her reaching the reality of hope imagined and finally escaping her captor; the warmth that illuminated those chapters produced a deep ache in me. She was able to leave her prison, allowed to make her own decision on her life, no matter how brief.

A brightness I tried to replicate through my own story about gypsy girls and the turmoil of traveling so often with their mom. It was then that I realized my own talent as a writer, though my English teacher’s feedback brought me back to earth with a simple “that was very creepy”.

I think what really stuck with me was her hope. It may have been tied to the author trying to illustrate her stunted development, but the desire to “keep hope alive” in difficult circumstances was impactful.

However, I was younger when I felt that way, and in becoming a woman, I see it a bit differently.

Realistically, her hope was from a place of delusion or primal need, somewhat parallel to the idea of the “strong black woman”. That is why hope can feel so sadistic sometimes. After experiencing things not working out consistently time and again, even after honest trying, are you really being hopeful or just naive?

Something that can be even truer if you have felt “robbed” of certain milestones. If you were sheltered or “parentified” young, does it make sense to explore passions after becoming an adult by age, even if you performed maturity since adolescence?

I have become so unsure about many things; childhood feels distant, and hope feels very stupid, but it burns beneath my skin. The desire for my own agency, my own right to fuck up my life or make something of it as I see fit.

I love and hate hope; it is very foolish to have, but it has the potential to push you toward your deep passions. I just struggle to know if they are fervors fit for an adult or if it is the younger me acting out like a child.

Optimism has been my lifeblood; it has been a friend since I was very young. I’d dance in my room and hope the future me was happier, but I’m slowly learning that hope can only be a gift if you allow yourself to imagine past its potential to bring joy. It has to be more measured, in the daily trying to unravel what you desire for yourself, instead of when you are a different, more competent version of who you hope to be.

I really hope that you get to be the version of yourself you always wished to be, even if it feels frivolous to pursue. I just hope that our dreams, like children, get to explore and someday mature into a version that may be unexpected, but alive, nonetheless.

Have the loveliest weekend.

Standard