It was really an ashtray. October 14, 2007
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A crystal make-shift candy dish sat
Upon the corner of the old marble table
Possessing a single, gold, treasure-filled wrapper.
The whirls and swirls of deceased finger prints
Were etched safely into the glass.
He died in the bathroom.
The milk jug was cold at first
But lay forgotten at the bottom of the staircase.
She died in her sleep.
No tongue touched a cigarette
But this is a rare crystal ashtray.
Cages rusted in the attic along with her bones;
Her hearts had flown away.
Central Park September 26, 2007
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Lonely park benches
Shadows
Dead city lights
Fresh cigarettes
No mothers
No lovers
Sunglasses masks
Paper cups
Escapes.
Ivory August 18, 2007
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Ivory
Haunting guitar strings pledged peace with the morning;
Her coffee-stained napkin spoke of the long evening
With which the gentleman-caller struggled to keep his heart.
He was not victorious.
Shell-pink lipstick clung to his jacket
Reminding the world that no one is safe from a woman.
Caramel eyes stroked the strings of that ancient guitar
And together they made music.
A Quarter a Day April 23, 2007
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Gray palms extend skyward only to beg for change
Their bellies are swollen with blackened copper pennies
Their cracked heels can bleed no more;
Yet God has not forgotten.
Yellow dust replaces bitter water
Their throats dry along with the clay beds
One by one they die with the trees;
Yet God has not forgotten.
Slowly weak frames appear
Their pale skin stretches to hold in life
But the husks break and join the dust of Earth;
And God has not forgotten.
Midas March 15, 2007
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So much grandeur does a goldfish hold;
Its alabaster mouth is haughtily upturned.
Watch its golden scales flicker in the light;
“I’m richer than you.”
But as riches come, they easily go,
And, alas, so do goldfish.
July March 15, 2007
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The sweet smell of southern jasmine
Crowds the hot summer air as
Yellow Georgia hopes for some
Sign of grey-toned skies to
Quench the Indian colored clay beds.
Broken Children February 28, 2007
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Old cola cans and broken beer bottles
Litter the ground, nested in the pinestraw.
Candy wrappers slowly decay in the sun
As they rot away in the streets, their homes.
The yellow paint clings desperately to the walls
Like the milk bottles they used to hold,
Only milk was replaced so long ago.
Now Mary Jane is the only one cheap enough
To be their friend.
Today February 27, 2007
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So there we were, sitting in seperate waiting rooms–only, he was waiting for death. We didn’t know it at the time, of course he never will. I didn’t even want to be there. All I wanted to do was go home and finish my homework already.
Mulan had just about ended and as her father hugged her, proud of her for saving China, a black woman came from the corridor of the Shock/Surgical ICU, shaking and huffing-barely able to catch her breath. My heart sped up and I started to get up and ask her what was wrong but I kept my seat as she walked back into his waiting room and it hit me that someone didn’t make it.
I got up out of my seat and walked to the corner the joins the corridor to my waiting room and sat down. The sun was setting by now and illuminated the whole hallway in an orange glow. Another black woman came out with her little girl hanging onto her, unaware of the situation. She was wearing a green, velveteen jogging suit and waiting for someone to pick up on the other end of the cell phone. Someone must have answered because she replied, “Dion’s gone…” , and walked towards the elevators and then back into his waiting room.
After my thought was confirmed I just sat there and stared out of the glass wall down into the gray parking lot and surrounding area of MCG. People were riding bicycles and getting wheelchairs out of cars. An ambulance had arrived and the EMT was rushing someone somewhere and I thought to myself how funny the situation was in a morbid type of way. No one had a clue. No one, not even the various doctors who had walked passed me. Hell, I didn’t even know he existed until fifteen minutes before. Dion probably wasn’t the only one to die that day and I had never even thought about him or the others the whole day, or for that matter, my whole life. I never even told the woman in the green jogging suit I was sorry, even though I desperately wanted to. I wanted to tell her it was okay and that I knew how she felt, because I had gone through the same situation three times now in five years, but after the sun comes up, the night you spend crying and sighing with relief or pain is over and you tend to lose that feeling until it happens again.
Why are we afraid to console someone we’ve never met, even though we’ve been through the same situation?
Tennessee February 11, 2007
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It was dusk when we used to climb those dewy hills.
The whole world was yawning after supper
Except for winking fireflies who guided our way and
Into the barn we’d go, climbing Step
After
Step
Up the ladder to the wooden loft where we felt
One hundred feet high, looking past the train tracks
Across those sleepy mountains, and
Into the star studded ink above us.
Pomegranate February 10, 2007
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Hold her stare and promise you won’t be disappointed to find
That everyone holds secrets like mothers hold their children.
It’s a way we have with our words and we are angry when
Someone discovers our secret and takes it as their own.
Oh, how easy it is to be tangled in a writer’s web!
For it is here we weave our secrets like bright bulletins.
The more you pull the silver strings, the more our lives
Unravel before you, naked and cold, forced from the
Comfort of ink spattered pages.
Yesterday the stars glittered within the mass of people.
She plucked one and then
She pinched the ruby between her two fingers and
Watched the pigment run down her pale stems.
If you were to take her hand, I again promise you that
You won’t be disappointed to find you alone are her secret.
Untitled. January 19, 2007
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At the corner of 9th and King Street stood a woman in a red dress waiting at the bus stop. Every day at approximately ten o’clock in the morning this woman would wait for bus number seventy-three to arrive and further more, upon its arrival she would check her gold watch as if the bus were late. Of course, the bus was never tardy and she knew this much. It was habit.
Today is Thursday and it is five til ten at present. The woman in red was sitting under the shelter of her bus stop, for it was an unusually rainy day, reading yesterday’s news. If she had read it yesterday, she might have known it was to rain today. She might have brought an umbrella. The bus arrived at ten o’clock exactally and on cue she checked her gold watch before standing and carefully boarding the bus.
Pretend December 17, 2006
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Let’s pretend that it’s okay
To whisper love notes behind their backs.
Let’s pretend it’s yesterday
That we are younger and life’s much sweeter.
Childhood fantasies don’t last that long,
But out there, we still have eachother.
Hold my hand and don’t dare look back-
Leave the life you knew before me.
Show me what it’s like to love in secret,
Don’t you worry, blankets don’t tell.
Let’s pretend we’re grown ups now,
I’ll ignore the truth.
Untitled December 10, 2006
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Two iron curtains fell over an ocean-
A sea of ink formed where they forgot about you.
The ice was broken and felt like glass
Crushed into soft skin.
Citizen America rejoices at the birth
Of another propaganda baby.
Round greedy cheeks and
Eyes not yet open to the inhumanity
Of Situation 24/7.
Spray paint an enigma about life
Onto brick walls and
They’ll be there to cover it up
Before someone solves the puzzle.
One piece is missing for
Every few hundred yellow ribbons
With sand in their wounds.
Pretend to be the brave, the proud, and
The few who survived by Semper Fi.
Falling headfirst into stone
As saline mixes with the acid and ashes of
Hollywood Heroes-
The next big cover story, or a hit in the face from God.
There’s a detour to heaven called oxygen-
Don’t waste it.
Disease-ridden knowledge fights for the cure of stupidity.
We are not alone, but no one will join us as we
Spread our toxins into empty space and
Shoot euphoria up bright red vines.
Give ‘em the ol’ one-two
Three-four suicides today and counting.
Lift off, and God’s Speed just isn’t enough anymore.
Selling yourself is the next big thing
One step backward from the KKK.
We live in a newspaper world-get over it.
Milk chocolate tastes better anyway.
Unwanted: unborn baby.Let’s play God
Bless America.
Personal Essay December 10, 2006
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NB: My printer is unable to print anymore due to lack of black ink and is being tempermental, so I’ve decided to post my essay here.
Brittany Pirtle Pirtle 1N. Sladky
Writer’s Workshop
12/10/06
Daddy’s Girl
The things I remember most about our visits were sitting on my grandmother’s lap in the passenger seat of my father’s car, trying on her lipstick on the way to McDonald’s. I always order a cheeseburger Happy Meal. Happy? My father would separate it into four pieces, not allowing me to play with my toy until I had eaten at least three of the hamburger slices.
I used to look forward to our visits, to the field trips we would go on together when I was in Pre-K and kindergarten. Eventually it turned to house calls, and then phone calls, and now I am lucky if I even get a card for my birthday.
I have not seen this man in four, long years. He is always busy with my half brother or his girlfriend. At first I did not mind and thought nothing of it, but gradually I began pushing him out of my life and into the street as he had done to me. My Aunt Teresa, his sister, knows how I feel. My grandfather had treated her the same way my father treats me. But she says he still loves me. I don’t believe her.
He is not my dad. He is my father. My dad was there when I was born. My dad has been here to raise me the past seventeen years. My dad gave me food to eat, a house to live in, and clothes to keep me warm. I cannot say that about my father. He is a stranger in my life now.
However, I am not the only daughter out there in this situation. I know there are some who don’t have a dad, or a father at all. I used to think about when I get married. I wondered who would give me away. I realized my father had already chosen to do that,and I have decided that my dad will. I know there are also many sons out there who have no father to play sports with or to teach them the way to treat a woman-to teach them right from wrong.
Such situations can cause a young lady to grow up and place herself in an abusive relationship subconsciously. This happens when then partner she’s with exhibits the behaviors she had desired of her father, though typically these behaviors are more exaggerated and the relationship becomes abusive. In the case o f a boy, growing up without a father could possibly make him appear more feminine to society and he could end up being teased or, stereotypically, choosing to live a homosexual lifestyle. But with twice as much maternal influence he would learn to do things most males would shun (such as cooking and cleaning) and thus become better prepared for living on his own. Plus, most women like a guy who can cook, clean, and is sensitive.
In today’s society, the number of mother-run households is increasing and seemingly it is not a bad thing. I have plenty of friends whose fathers are not part of their lives and they have grown up to be some of the smartest, most outgoing people I know. When asked about the lack of a dad or male figure in their lives they tend to respond, “I like living alone with my mom better.” Also, this social phenomenon is proving more and more that women are strong and independent and can do much more then men tend to give them credit for.
I have waited long enough for my father. I have given him plenty of opportunities to communicate with me, and I have still been ignored. My life has been put on hold long enough, but I will continue on, hoping he realizes how much he has hurt me and praying that one day he will wake up and realize his son is not the only child he has.
Shotgun December 7, 2006
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Chocolate Kings and Queens
released by pure-skinned captors
Thank God We Are Free.
Two-For November 16, 2006
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Trapped in a distorted ballet-
My worlds melt into a breakdown-
A two for one special
And give birth to inner genius
Which I translate from false perceptions
Into tangible reality.
Beautiful children
Stand proud in grey cities.
Prayer November 3, 2006
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Like the sea that makes Venus virgin again, prayer is my way to purge self-filthiness–a whispered secret to God and only God because I-I know no matter how dirty and sinful they are, they are safe from the soul paparazzi-Bible thumpers. Whose religion is hypocracy? Who preaches His word and practices lies? Do not judge me as an infidel, filthy Christian-we are made by the same father, equal from the beginning. Where flesh is present, there was once dust.
Innocence is Ignorant of Sin November 3, 2006
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Omens hung heavy in the churchyard air. It stormed last night, washing away the white coat of paint we had applied just last evening. The ground was now a sea of milk and the church ladies tiptoed across the pure grass so as not to dirty their God clothes.
There was a quiet mist hanging around when we were dismissed to Sunday dinner. Gradually it turned to heavy drops, thudding against the car windows as we rushed home to cast off our holy cotton and put on sinner clothes. I ran my fingertips across the window and a chill penetrated my spine. My whole body became alert to the fact that we weren’t fooling anyone. It was ignorant to act like a child and play dress-up before God.
Hello, I’m from: November 3, 2006
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A firey sea of starving immigrants and a people red as Georgia clay. Both experienced their own Trail of Tears and concieved me through their determination-each hardship, a pulse of life.
A room in a sterile nursery where soldiers of wars I’ve slept through came to be mothered. Their spirit and bravery nourished me.
A time when echoes of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down your wall!” were heard around the world-a symbol of liberty and justice for all; from a time you raised your kids on McDonald’s and Disney; from a time it was okay to cross the street for a sno-cone and scraped knees felt like the end of the world.
A Southern woman and a Yankee man who were just laying down the foundation, who could barely afford stuffed animals yet always filled two hungry mouths. I’m from a couple who lacked a good education, but realized I didn’t have to and taught me some of the most valuable lessons any child could learn and gave me more than they were given in a lifetime in just 17 years.
(I don’t know if I like the last part, any critiques on it would be great!)
Bang, Bang November 3, 2006
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My words are bullets,
And you, dear, are my target.
The mind is a magazine
And in my case, it is very full.
Kiss me, honey, and I’ll make you swallow lead-
Fill your lungs with sulfur.
Your heart is nothing but a
Gun Shot Wound.
And Now November 3, 2006
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Poised high and rigid,
Formerly known as young and agile,
Barely there with bodies fragile.
Spinning, leaping, swirls of color-
Faded faces; wrinkled, palor.
The art of dance, no censorship:
Those same steps could break a hip.
Yet young minds are stronger; older-insane,
Old heart, young heart-they are the same.
DFA Writes 