An Ode To The Night Circus

I opened its pages and began a new life,
The feel of the book on my lap,
The paper, thick between my fingers,
The inked words dancing on the page.
The image of it formed in my mind;
The black and white circus,
The tents, the grass, the iron gates
The sign that greeted eager patrons.
With them I entered a world
Unlike any other I had previously visited.
When I closed the book,
The smell of apple cider
And caramel apples
Hung in the air.
I could see the reflection of its tents
In the wind.
I longed for the moment
I could open its pages once more
And rejoin the circus again.
For days, I ran away with the circus.
When I finished it,
I felt empty.
The world within these pages holds
A life of its own, a dear friend
I wanted to visit again and again.
To see its endless tents, the brazier burning
At the center of it all.
The tick of the clock
That stood at its gates.
I fell in love with the idea,
Became a rêveur, desperate for one more night
Within its gates.
The mere sight of the book
Made me smile, thinking of the secrets
It hid deep inside.
I still dream about it,
Looming in the distance,
Its paths, characters and gates open to me,
Should I want to come visit again.

On the Curb

As I look at the cars driving by,
The shops and the people passing me,
I wonder what they might be thinking.
Of my suitcase packed tight,
Of my purse, filled as much as possible.
I stop walking, and take a minute to myself.
I think of the previous years,
Of the bullying, the abuse, the humiliation
I'd been forced to endure.
Today is my eighteenth,
Today I packed up everything
And left home.
I look at the world carrying on,
Passing me by without a thought.
I catch a glimpse of my reflection
In a passing car, fleeting.
I see a face with eyes
Filled with hope for the first time in years.
No one knows what happened to me,
And they are very content to imagine
I have a good life.
I do now. I am free,
I think as I step off the curb, and into the street.
Smiling at the people,
Loving the feeling of just melting away
Into the crowd.

A Place Where I Grew Up

When I think about my life,
I don't see people, places or games,
I see the books and characters that filled my life,
I see Harry Potter, Eragon, Percy Jackson,
Who where the first characters that I met on my journey.
After that, I met Jonas, who until recently,
I didn't know how important he had been.
I met Ruby, who taught me that people aren't all bad,
And introduced me to Sarah Dessen, who saved me many times,
Through all of the people in Colby.
My real journey began when I met Isabel,
A slave who was trying to break free of her chains.
My eyes opened when I met Melinda Sordino,
Who taught me that the truth is hidden deep inside,
But the people who care will search for it.
I then met Clary, Tris, Katniss and Thomas,
Who helped me through tough times,
Always there with words of wisdom.
I then met Elissa Wall, through Stolen Innocence,
The story of a teenage bride, and a polygamous sect,
Which drove me to hours of research,
On the subject of child brides.
Soon after, I met Erin Gruwell
Who taught me to put my thoughts
And feelings down on paper,
That they matter.
I then met Charlie, in Perks of Being a Wallflower,
However I did not fully understand until I met
Hannah Baker. Combined, they showed me that
People are terrible, but if you let them,
They can be your salvation.
By this point, I had already begun writing my novel,
And Insurgent, the story of Tris,
As well as A Song of Ice and Fire,
Opened my eyes to death of the characters,
And what it means to the author and the reader.
Death was a tool to use to move the plot forward,
Something I should not hesitate
To use.
This journey has brought me here,
To you.
To whom it may concern,
I grew up in worlds bigger than our own,
Not on street corners, or at the park,
But between the pages of a book,
Alongside friends I will have forever.

Knowledge is Power

A reporter walked into my office one day, wanting to do a paper on the effects of depression, and the steps we were taking in order to find a cure. I am a leader in research on the subject, and so my input would greatly aid his article, according to him. He asked questions about my research, about my leading theories on the tattoos, that they are the leading cause of depression.
“One last question; what was your motivation for going into this field of research?”
I blinked. I knew very well what the answer to this question was, but I wasn't sure I was ready to share it with the world. But then again, maybe it was time. I smiled at him, and shared my story.

I had walked into the hospital as I did everyday, only that day was different. It was the day of my twenty-fifth birthday, you see, and I was quite nervous at the thought of getting my first tattoo. I didn't know what the future held for me, but somehow, I didn't want to know. I did not want that kind of burden. I had watched my best friend go through it, and it had almost killed him. It was my first year as an intern, and I was quite overwhelmed already. I did my usual routine, rounds and check-up exams, and everything looked good. We had a new patient on the floor that day, and I usually kept the new patients for last, to be able to devote my time to them, without having to worry about other patients for a little while. I went over the chart before I went into the room. Car accident, brain trauma, but no one knew for sure how extensive. I introduced myself, and she introduced herself as Andrea. I did a routine exam, and everything seemed fine. I told her to call the nurse if she needed anything, and I left the room. As soon as I had left, I felt a burning sensation on my lower stomach. I ran to the bathroom, and lifted my shirt. I starred in the mirror as the tattoo was drawn on my skin. Once the pain was gone, I examined it. It was an old fashion scroll, blank. I knew tattoos were suppose to represent something big in your life, something that would come to pass in the coming year. Everyone, on their date of birth, were registered with the tattoo ministry, and given a date of when they would get their first tattoo, the year something big would happen to them. For some, it was eighteen, others, at the tender age of ten. Mine was twenty-five. Something big was going to happen this year, and it had something to do with a blank scroll. I had no idea what it meant at the time, but today I look back and call myself an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

“What did your tattoo mean?” Asked the reporter.
I told him to be quiet, and to listen. For I was not done.

I walked into work the next day, picked up my charts, and went to see Andrea. I was assaulted by a pillow when I walked into her room. After speaking with her for a little while, I was able to understand that she had no idea where she was, or where her family was. I had to explain to her that her family had died in a car accident, and that she was in a hospital, being monitored after a severe head injury. I wrote it off as a dreamstate. It often happened that patients woke-up on their first day here having no idea where they were. I did a routine check-up, and left the room. 
I was woken up in the middle of the night by my pager. I ran to the hospital, where I found the nursing staff being assaulted with various items. I walked into Andrea's room, but stayed out of reach, for she was holding a flower pot. I asked her what was wrong, and she expressed, very loudly in fact, that she didn't know where she was, that we had no right to keep her against her will, and that the only thing she wanted to do was to go home to her family. I explained where she was, and she eventually put the flowers down. 

This event went on for a couple of days, until we came to the conclusion that the amnesia was not temporary. We started looking for more permanent solutions. The entire staff was constantly having to get stitches from the various items she threw at us, and we even got to the point of taking almost everything from her room, but she kept finding things to throw at us. A nurse gave me a notebook to give to her, saying it was an idea from an old movie she had watched in history class. I gave Andrea the notebook, and asked her to write her story, as we have explained it, and as she was living it. It might help her remember. She wrote in it everyday.


“What does this have to do with depression?” Asked the reporter, bored.
I smiled, and continued.

I went to visit her everyday, and for a while, she improved remarkably. Her moods were better, the notebook helped her remember what was going on, and she stopped hurting the staff. It was perfect. We had entered a pattern; she would read the diary, cry over the loss of her family, let me do her check-up exam, we'd talk a little, then I would leave. One day, she started showing up at the cafeteria for lunch. I was the only familiar face in the crowd, and so, she sat with me, occasionally stealing fries from my plate. We talked a little that day, about her family. She asked me about mine as well. She showed me the map she had drawn a few days ago, to help her find her way around. It was quite a good one, very accurate. I began spending quite a lot of time with her, trying to improve her moods, but they started to go down. With each passing day, she would grow a little more restless, a little darker, and was no longer the Andrea I had come to love, for I did fall for her.

She was eventually released from our care, and into a more permanent home. I still visited her in the little free time I had, and she lit-up every time she saw me. She had sketched my face into her notebook, so she would recognize me when I visited. I was the only one who did, since her family was all but gone. I tried to visit at least three times a week, and stayed for as long as I could. I always looked forward to seeing her, even if she didn't know me very well. Every time I went to visit her, she was more and more distant, pulling away. The nurses told me she didn't eat much, and slept a lot. I asked them to keep a special eye on her, but they had so many patients that they didn't have the time to spare.

I got a call one day from a nurse that knew me well. Andrea had cut herself with a knife, and seemed to find it amusing. I went to see her right away, and talked with her the rest of the day. She laughed like she hadn't in a while, going on and on about how funny it was that all of our lives were dependant on blood, and how it pours out of us when we get hurt, and if too much comes out, we die. I was getting really worried at this point, as you can imagine, and asked the nurse to take her to go see a psychiatrist.

I stopped my story there, rubbing my hands together. Did I really want to tell the reporter the rest of this story?

“What happened after that?” Asked the reporter, enthralled by my story, that seemed more fictional than realistic.
I told him the blunt version; she died, overdosed, end of story.

After he had gone, I went to the bathroom to look at the faded tattoo of a blank scroll, with the day she died inscribed in it. It had been a clue to her, the page that was wiped blank every day, my blank page, the one fate intended me to end up with. 
That night, when I left my office and went home, I stopped by the cemetery where she was buried. I placed some flowers, and told her about my day. For the hundredth time, I asked her why she had taken her life, why she had chosen to die in my arms, blood pouring out of her wrists like a dark river. As usual, the gravestone didn't answer me, and I was left with more questions than answers. I looked at the stone once more, at the faded waterfall that adorned it. It was her tattoo, the only one she had received, the one that gave her the idea to end her life in that way. As I turned away, and walked back to my car, I thought of her, of the different states I had known her; when she was alive, full of laughter, and when she was depressed, a simple shell of her former self. Depression leading to suicide was the leading cause of death in our society, and it was linked to the knowledge of our future.

Writing, a four-line poem

Nouns, verbs, adjectives,
Words, flowing through my veins
My fingers,
The pens that set them free.

The Ultimate Fight

Seven billion humans and counting, how
Can you ever hope to change the world, shape
It into the one you see in your dreams,
You, little and unimportant, longing

For a better world. How can you succeed
In challenging centuries of a way
Of life. The answer, my dear, is right in
Front of your nose, dangling, waiting for you.

Small against the vastness of the world, but
Yet you are the most important thing in
The universe, holding the power to
Bring change upon our world with your actions.

You, one amongst billions, must take up the
Call, show everyone the better world we
Can build, working together, uniting
Against enemies of humanity;

Hunger, thirst, sickness, death, mental illness,
Depression. Things we can end by working
Together, collaborating, as one
Unity, one team, one person, one race.

Trapped

I am tired,
Weary of the world,
Its inhabitants and its petty problems.
Angry, at being misunderstood,
Mistreated, set aside
As just another casualty of the system.
I am angry at the world I live in,
Angry at previous generations
For handing us a broken world
And expecting us to fix it.
I am tired of trying
To prove to others I deserve to be here,
I am done trying, done holding it in.
I will scream and fight
For myself and all the others like me,
Who feel cheated by the system
They were brought-up to believe in.
Its time to rise up, denounce all
The injustice done to us.
I am no longer the quiet girl in the back of the class,
You will hear me loud and clear,
For I am just like you;
Angry, tired, desperate for a change
In a dismissive world.
I will scream until you hear me
Until changes are done,
Until something is fixed,
Until students don't feel trapped
Nauseous at the thought alone of school.
Something is wrong with the system
When students would rather die,
Than learn.

Our Broken World

Humanity has grown tired
Of the company of others.
We search for companionship
Through screens and messages,
To convince ourselves we are not alone.
But we are.
Who could we call,
At 2 am, when our world
Has been torn to pieces.
When we can only scream
At the injustice that has been done to us,
When we take to social media
To tell people what has happened to us,
We get love, attention, help,
But only if the situation is truly horrible,
Or if we are of privilege.
We no longer speak up for the weak,
The poor, the hungry.
We used to help others,
Collaborate all together.
What has happened to us,
For humanity to grow so selfish and self-centered
That we no longer care about war,
The suffering of millions,
About children crying, going hungry
How has it come to this?

Time

Take a moment and look around you, think
About due dates, bedtimes, travel times. Think
About when you were late, how much time you
Put into tasks, assigned to each person.

Time is a human invention. If you
Look around, birds are never late, a deer
Is not rushed, squirrels don't have a mealtime.
Dogs don't have a bedtime or a naptime.

Humanity alone is the one ruled
By time, a law of our own invention.
Clocks are everywhere, there is a time for
Everything, yet there is no time at all

For what really matters. Not enough
Hours in the day for the things you want to
Do. Obligations piling up as we
Go, fearing the day when time will run out.

Being a reader

Everyone in the world is different, we all know this. However, certain people are similar, see the world the same way. Values, upbringing, education, all of this varies from person to person. However, the gifts with which you were born cannot be explained. Some people can run faster, jump higher or sing better than others. Some are prone to depression, or alcoholism. Some see the world as a dark and lonely place, others, as the most beautiful thing in the universe. Some can see beyond the ordinary, see what makes everything so beautifully extraordinary.

When we are born, we are either born readers, or non-readers. Being born a reader is the greatest honor and privilege there is. It allows us to become one with the characters on the page, to see and feel a world much different than our own. To be a reader, is to identify with these fictional characters in such a way that they no longer are fictional. They are there, waiting for us; words of wisdom on ink pages, their presence always comforting. A reader lives a thousand lives within the one they have, and gets to know so many kinds of people on such a deep level that it helps them deal with real people. If you are lucky enough, you find that one character, the one that you know is who you are, and it helps you have a deeper understanding of yourself. Once you find that one book, that one character, your whole view of the world shifts, and you begin to see all the beauty it holds. You see everything unfolding like a plot. Everything is interconnected, and if you are also a writer, you understand how all these strings eventually come together to weave the fabric of the world. Once you understand this, everything that happens has a reason. You are like a character in a book, you go along your path, not knowing what the end of the book holds for you. You can't skip ahead, there are no detours, only the long way around. You have to go through everything the author wants you to, because in the end, all of those experiences are the things that are going to help you make the difficult choices, the seemingly impossible ones. When tears are streaming down your face, when you think you've made the wrong choices, pick up that book again and give it another read. Remember that even though it seems hard now, you can get through. Its one kink in the long journey one little detour amongst hundreds. You will fall apart, you will be brought to your knees, you will fail. But there are people out there ready to put you back together and help you back on your feet. You will live the death of your innocence, and at some point, the death of people you love. It will hurt, and it will be unbearable, but your burden does not have to be just yours to bear.

You are a character in a book, even though your life is mundane and ordinary, you are the main protagonist in your life. You, and only you, gets to decide what happens in your life. If something makes you unhappy, stop doing the thing. If people treat you like crap, stop talking to them. Take control of your life, show them who you are, and let them know that you are worth getting to know. Everyone around you is different, and no, you won't get along with everyone, but you can at least say that you tried.

Fictional characters help us understand ourselves in a way that is impossible to explain. Its like looking at yourself from above, watching yourself do and say all these things, and know in your core that this is who you are. When they react to things, you think that you would never react like that, but in the end, you do.

Every character, as well as every person has their own journey to follow. Yes, free will is a major part of what makes us human, but no matter what we choose, there are some things that are out of our control. However, how we react to certain things, like the death of a loved one, can send us on a path we would never have expected. Authors use this to send their characters on a destiny they have chosen for them, and use death to make them capable of becoming a better person, of wanting a better world for the ones who come after them, or simply for themselves. They also use this to try and mend the characters, as well as themselves, because only through writing and reading about experiences like these can we reach a deeper level of understanding of the situation at hand, and only then can we ever hope to know ourselves well enough to predict how we will react in the future. Does that not help us mend the pieces the world believes to be broken? Or does it simply prove to ourselves that we are not broken as people, but as a society?

Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, everyone. We can't escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other. (Roth, 526)

Roth, Veronica. Alliegent, Katherine Tegen Books, 2013.