January 16

Forced Sleep

You slide my eyelids shut

and braid my lashes tight

into silent, sleek ropes

of prison.

You pour liquid shadows

into the pupils of

my softening eyes,

so it hurts to see the light,

so that sharp glares spin themselves with

pain into the sleep-twisted

caverns of my mind, like

hard, unchewed food as it

slides down throats: scraping and

stinging and striking my

soft flesh.

You play lyrical lullabies on my

harpsichord-key teeth and

whisper to me tuneful fantasies of sleep

soft beds with smooth sheets.

You numb the throb and stab of a

fraying awareness… yet

you also sooth the demons-

who touch and flirt with my

insides until they seep blood.

You make me forget:

suffering does not equal serenity.

Sleep does not equal rest.

You play my heartstrings like

a harp,

you coax my frantic lungs

into slowing their pace.

Your teeth are pens seeping

ink into my bloodstream like a sedative,

You course through me faster

than adrenaline, but

just slower than panic,

seducing me into your

tyrannical embrace.

You hum sweet cradle songs

to the tide of my blood,

you match my breath to the

flutter of eyelids whose

tenants see worlds made

of fantasy gone wrong.night

And when my eyes do close-

you braid my lashes tight

into silent, sleek ropes

of prison darker than night.

 

 This poem is an expression of sleep’s oppressive nature. Perhaps few of us realize it, but sleep has become increasingly forceful in our lives, to the point where many of can barely function because sleep has a sharp hold on our minds. We covet sleep constantly, yet what we are really looking for is rest. Nevertheless, sleep clings to us all day everyday, and slowly seduces us into succumbing to its tyrannical and deceptively soft nature. 

 

 

Citations:

“Sleep Tight.” By Frankief on DeviantArt. Web. 6 Dec. 2015. <http://frankief.deviantart.com/art/Sleep-Tight-324800884>.

“Is Seven Hours A Night The Optimal Amount Of Sleep?” Fast Company. 22 July 2014. Web. 6 Dec. 2015. <http://www.fastcompany.com/3033373/work-smart/is-seven-hours-a-night-the-optimal-amount-of-sleep>.

 

 

October 9

About Me ~ Ziyana

I am not an easy person to understand; the different aspects of my emotional and mental personality are entwined across heartstrings and silver tendrils of my soul. They weave a tangled web that to many may look like an intricate knot, but to me is a prismatic sculpture of unbreakable bonds.

Emotionally, I am closed off to the world. I wear a metal mask that I can shape and mold to reflect what I want others to see. As an actress, this comes easily to me. However, on the inside, my emotions are fire. Euphoria, despair and everything in between burns the hottest with dark blue flames. The unendurablity of the heat, however, always waxes and wanes with the intensity of the emotion. Ranges of anger, fear, empowerment and determination glow white hot with intensity to rival that of the blue flames… and yet the blue is somehow hotter, stronger, and brighter. Amber and copper consume peace, love, and hate as fuel for to their flames… curiously, while these are the coolest of my emotions- though by no means cool enough to touch without sustaining severe burns- they also happen to be the flames that blaze the highest and the longest. They are the emotions that when ignited, sear me the most often. My metal mask expands to encompass my entire psyche, in order to protect the vulnerable flesh and blood within. I use caustic words as a defense when people begin to probe the cracks in my steel suit of armored protection. But the majority of the time, an image of false origins will be reflected onto the cool, molten silver surface that encapsulates the smouldering heat within. This keeps them all at bay; people watch what is projected and believe it.

Meanwhile, the hollow caverns of my veins reverberate with stinging pain and scorching joy; my hidden emotions and the ways I allow them to affect me have become a large part of who I am… or at least a large part of who I perceive myself to be.

Emotion Quote             Mind Quote

Mentally, I am a strange creature. I describe my mind as a glass of water- and not as a metaphor. When I look into my mind, unclouded and unblemished by worries or reoccurring thoughts, it is literally a transparent glass full to the brim with clear, iceless water. Thoughts constantly fall into the glass, each with a different colour, texture, taste, emotional feel, and scent. For example, in my mind Sundays have always been a violet-blue colour, with flecks of gold imbedded into them. They are soft and fluid, as if they are silk woven from water. Sundays smell like lavender and honey, and are nostalgic, quiet, and somewhat wistful. The song of Sundays is Bad Day by Daniel Powter.

Different words, too, each have their own feel to them. The word ‘no’ for example, is a violent red colour that falls like a stone into the glass. When it touches into the water, steam rises because it is so hot. ‘No’ tastes like butter and dirt. To give another example, the word ‘remembrance’ falls silently through the water- neither liquid nor gas- and has a green-grey colouring. It feels thin and slimy yet somehow is intangible, and it smells like seaweed.

However, in my day-to-day life, I never think about the individual words; my mind is like Alice in Wonderland at times because I think with such rapidity that the glass can be full of a thousand mismatched words, phrases, and thoughts all at the same time. When this happens, which is most of the time, my world becomes a conglomerate, heterogeneous fusion of every colour, texture, shape, scent, and taste known to man, all coalesced into a mass chaos of fluids.

Sometimes the glass overflows. This happens if too much plunges into the water with too much force. All at once, my mental faculties will halt and flee because there is a flood and suddenly- physically- I need to get away from the world.

This is why I write. I write because the overflowing water, tainted with a thousand distinct thoughts, is somehow channeled out from my mind, through the pen, and onto the paper where it forms itself into carefully crafted words. I write because sometimes my skin is seared off by the fierce, cutthroat scorching of my emotions, and the only way to quench to the flames is to put pen to paper. I write because it is what I am meant to do.

I write because I must. I write for the same reasons that I sleep and I breathe- because if I didn’t, I would die.

Writing Quote

 

Photo Citations:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ba/a8/5b/baa85bc685926980926f7f9e386a0805.jpg

https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_400_400/p/5/005/08d/0ee/0ae2822.jpg

http://www.hdwallpapers-3d.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/writing-quotes-hd-wallpaper-19.jpg