Her Looming Shadow

I spin her round
Like a top
No, more like a dance partner
She’s mad
She’s not interested in being spoken to this way
What does she know? She asks the heavens
And I dig in
I know about the sex
I know about the dirty little things she does when she thinks nobody’s looking
Those are the least of her worries
Because I have my dirty little habits too
And then she looks up
And her head aches
And her tummy growls
There’s a storm brewing
And it’s not coming to drop a house on the bad guys

Because bad guys don’t always lose

-Saschia

Uplift

I was determined to show up and love you where you were

I propped my chest open to let some air in

And then you had to go and critique my body

I was fine I would have left unscathed

But you had to talk about something I’ve taken years to love.

Something that has always been fragile

And it broke me a little bit

But I know this is just me learning to love me regardless of other’s opinions

So thank you for poking the wound

Thank you for poking my body.

-Saschia

Can literature act as a preparation for life experiences?

 

Spoiler Alert Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

I vividly remember when I finished reading Charlotte’s Web in fourth grade. I cried when Charlotte died. Her loss left me in a strange place where I was contemplating death for days. I also remember the day my grandmother died. These two experiences are not the same. The loss of Charlotte did not prepare me for the loss of my grandmother. There is no book that can prepare you for some life experiences.

Literature supports in experiences we are going through or have gone through. When I thought of death without the real life experience of losing someone, the understanding felt distant. It was something foreign to me that I wanted to grasp without gaining it through my own experience. I was left with a world full of uncertainty and hugged my mom a little tighter after reading it.

Trying to prepare someone for a new experience is like describing what an orange tastes like to someone who’s never tasted an orange. We can explain how to eat it and that the peel isn’t the good part. We can even tell them the juicy fruity part is on the inside, but we can’t tell them if they will enjoy it or how much they will enjoy it. They may even find a different way to eat it than we taught them. That’s how I feel about literature. It can explain what to do and give some insight on how to do it, but an individual can not be prepared for how they will feel in new experiences using literature.

I do believe seeing how characters react to an experience can suggest the right thing to do and it may even give some insight on how someone else is feeling. I don’t think literature can prepare us for how we will feel going through our own life experiences. I do feel it can help readers learn to use understanding and empathy toward someone else’s experience by seeing the world from another characters point of view.

Read More…

Dear Lover

The life you desire doesn’t exist with me

It makes me sad I’m not the one for you

I’ve no desire to grow into something created for you

I’ve stepped away from the crowd

I spend nights on the outskirts of town

Contemplating the darkness within me

I’ve nothing to give but words on words

The only guarantee here is that the end is always near

The only promise I can give is that I will continue searching til my lids close and no longer open

Even then I hope the search continues

I’m not the one for you

I wasn’t placed on this planet for you

My place is separate and set apart from the rest

But I do hope to be wrapped up in you from time to time to ease the pains of constant shedding

But sometimes

I’m shedding you

-Saschia

Martyr

My words have left for the hills

They’ve been slaughtered

Like the fattest calf

And sent to the heavens

In billows of smoke

I hope god accepts them

I hope he let’s me come in

As spirit

After the slaughtering

I hope the priests eat well

Their bellies full enough to teach

And lead

And fight off wolves

I hope I was finally good enough

For something

Solipsism

She’s gone

snuffed out with just a thought

not a person could save her

or her body

or her works

dead and gone

the gift of being mortal

the gift of life

to gift your body into the hands of another

because there is no fight

there never was

pain is an act of life

death is the grand-finale

but there’s no going out with a bang

it will be far less extravagant than that

-Saschia

Read More

The Creative Process

and why we need to get it.

Two reasons why it’s important to understand the creative process:

First, with any job it’s important to understand the workings of the entire machine, the same goes with writing. In writing, the creative process is the machine. It’s what we’re using to put pieces together to make a product for our consumers, so it’s our job to value our machine by knowing and understanding as many pieces as possible.

Second,

There’s many things that go into the creative process including where ideas are born and nurtured, how they are brought to life, and how they are pruned and molded into something digestible for a specific audience.

Once each of these things are fine tuned, it will give the writer space to spend more time on play.

When there’s more time for play, that gives more space for imagination.

And since there’s no rules in imagination, that’s where freedom lies.

So…

it’s important to know the creative process not only to know the inner workings of the machine, but also to help the writer gain freedom. What an amazing way to set a strong foundation in our writing endeavors. I say it’s worth any writers time and efforts.

Writers challenge:

Let’s give your imagination some freedom. I challenge you to use your imagination freely for 20 minutes no limits no boundaries just imagine something great. Don’t write anything til your 20 minutes is up.

And then when your 20 minutes is up write write write. If you’re brave enough, share your experience with me.

 

read more here

Life Sucks, But You Don’t

Life sucks, but in a beautiful kind of way.” — Axl Rose

Life can be a fucker. It can destroy everything you thought you had in an instant. It could take all your hard work and set it on fire leaving you standing there with tears in your eyes watching as it turns to ash.

Life doesn’t care about you. Life isn’t a being. You are a being. You are the one that feels what life takes from you. And you are the one that puts in the effort and hard work to create everything you’ve dreamed of.

And that’s what makes you great. The fact that you are aware of your effort and hard work. The fact that you feel so broken when your hard work goes up in flames and burns to ash right in front of your eyes, is the gift. Sometimes it’s hard work, sometimes it’s just life mowing you down to your last nerve. But you feel it.

That fact that you feel it means

Read More Here