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a string
of
beads
exploding     over
hardwood floor

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she was a cyclops when she held a camera

waiting for the moon to outrun the clouds

her glasses dangled precariously on her nose

coffee clung where sleep didn't

string of beads exploded over hardwood floor

the moon succumbed to the reeds 

submerged in valerian nights

she spoke in a broken blue 

the cold grip of the forest edge

a dead plant is nothing when all the plants are dead

sunlight peeking through the trees like paint splatter

the pansies played a floral symphony 

she’s faceless but i see the way her shoulders sag

a dead plant is nothing when all the plants are dead

gone but golden 

the breeze tries to find its favorite page

there’s something about diamonds and dirt

broken bottles lined the road like rose petals at a wedding

the trees continued to bicker

Who am I? 

21 years of talking but i have no voice

the bird felt compelled to answer

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This is a form that I think is representative of how I feel right now. I have many midterms and projects due soon and I've been burning for the past few days. I'm slowly running out of wax and my flame isn't burning as bright as it was two weeks ago. The flame is constantly gasping for air, and at times when I feel most overwhelmed, I feel like I too can't breathe. Luckily, reading break is coming soon and the wick can take a break soon!

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My sketchbook is something that's indispensable to me! Whether I draw in my sketchbook or not is entirely dependent on my mood. Large gaps between dates of drawings indicate days where I was stressed or unmotivated. My sketchbook is a direct physical manifestation of my moods and attitudes! Creating this gif made me realize that I haven't drawn in weeks.

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The light festival I mentioned in my ghazal! I was looking through my gallery for memories I wanted to write about. The one that stood out to me was this light festival! The most memorable sensation from the entire light festival was, surprisingly, the donuts I ate there. I ended up incorporating them in my poem.

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the sound of this engine sputtering was the inspiration behind when I said "flowers sputtering pollen" in my villanelle. I was making the flower blossoming motions in my hand and the only word that came to mind was sputtering in the dying, fatigued sort of way an engine does.

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the inspiration for the "explosive orange" flowers of my villanelle. The color of the flowers also ties in with the way they blossom in my poem, as "sputtering" usually is used for an engine dying. In my villanelle, it reflects how I put all of my effort into something (explode) and am left struggling to put any more effort in, where I'm sputtering.

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(photo by michellerlee)
This line came from me remembering Pacific Spirit Park and how cold it was under the shade of the old growth trees and how it felt like they were pulling me in.

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My mom loves winter because all of the trees are stripped of their leaves. She believes that without their leaves, the trees speak to each other and argue over which tree is most beautiful. She feels sympathy for the trees with few branches, as these obviously ugly trees are the targets of harsh bullying from the other trees. The trees with many branches constantly brag to the others about their beauty. My mom tells me this with so much conviction, she can't help but say "aww" when she sees an ugly tree presumably being bullied.

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"a dead plant means nothing when all the plants are dead"

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"a dead plant means nothing when all the plants are dead"

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One of the lines of my monostich that I wrote after a walk. Normally a dead plant makes me sad, but seeing this one in a field full of dead plants, I somehow felt nothing. Its death was meaningless because it wasn't the only plant that died. It made me cynically realize this was the case for any things in real life, where some events are less special/meaningful/important if EXPERYONE experiences it.

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Swimming in this lake and feeling algae between my toes when my feet grazed the ground was the inspiration behind "bobbing in blue- oh geez! algae! squishing between my toes / struggling to stay afloat in seaside memories" (yes I know I said seaside, but I liked how it sounded more than lakeside, haha)!

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A Cold Pursuit

Stuffing her fingers into her pockets to keep the wind from pursuing them

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biting into warm sugar dusted donuts at the Bear Creek Light Festival,
each bite dissolving in my mouth with the aftertaste of vanilla deep-fried memories.

bobbing in blue- oh geez! algae! squishing between my toes, struggling to stay afloat in seaside memories.

rhythmically rocking on the legs of my chair like a metronome
as my balding biology teacher draws whiteboard bonds between nucleotide memories.

nature walks with my brother, sunset orange pollen on his nose
buried in a botanical bed of outside memories.

sweaty palms on stage in a frilly floral purple dress,
as “Dalia” is called and i’m teeming with pride. Memories.

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I used this line in one of my poems when I was trying to describe the taste of tea and feeling soothed by it... the name of the flavor of tea I was drinking at the time could also double as a time/experience so I used that description of the experience in my poem.

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This was the inspiration for this line in my monostich! At this angle during my walk, it looked like the moon was being grabbed and dragged down into the weeds so I tried to take the picture as if moon was being pulled down.

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I've never pranced through fields of wildflowers for fear of snakes but there's something so elegant and liberating about this... This photo makes me feel more free and closer to nature. It makes me search for beauty in overlooked things like weeds.

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Snow dusted evergreens towering over me. This picture makes me feel claustrophobic but somehow also protected by the trees.

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"The Earth yawned beneath my feet". I love the personification Wiesel used here and it inspires me to use more personification in my poems.

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"sunlight peeking through the trees like paint splatter"

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"sunlight peeking through the trees like paint splatter"

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used this in my "one monostich poem" as well! i love the way sunlight pierces through trees

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like a tree being swallowed by ivy, im consumed by stress

its roots entwined around my brain and scaling down my spine,

coiling around my vocal cords, my protests are suppressed

the roots weave around my veins, tormenting them with every press,

they branch out into my shoulders, rigid, my movements confined,

as my arms accumulate with stress

the flowers feebly sputter when i'm at my worst, i guess

pollinated by the perennial problems that are mine,

the petals dying, an explosive orange suppressed

seeds left dormant in every nook and recess,

dislodged by delight, their numbers in decline,

their sprouting suppressed.

waiting to be fertilized by stress.

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How cold her fingers and knuckles are and the way the early sun warms her back. this art makes me feel very warm and I want to describe sensations like this in my poems.

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the pattern of the flowers erupting from the grass

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21 years of speaking and I still don't have a voice

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21 years of speaking and I still don't have a voice

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I'm not sure what device this is but I've always enjoyed it whenever I see it used (maybe a pun)? I tried to incorporate a similar line in my monostich poem but it doesn't have the impact that Nabokov has.

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#3 Underlying Pattern: "her glasses hung precariously on her nose"

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#3 Underlying Pattern: "her glasses hung precariously on her nose"

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A common underlying pattern for me is the way I shade my drawings. I've been shading hair the same way for the past few years and it's very therapeutic for me. I make long, repetitive light strokes over and over again for, in the case of this drawing, twenty minutes. I shade the same way I write poems- I write long sentences and they're usually very... weak and non-impactful. I have to keep reworking them and mulling them over to give my words the impact I desire. Sometimes it would take me twenty minutes just to turn my initial line into something I'm content with. I used this in my monostich poem!

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 With his nose buried in botanical beds of memories

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 With his nose buried in botanical beds of memories

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Used this as inspiration for this line in my ghazal because I was remembering how my brother buried his nose in these flower beds trying to smell them.