Thursday 9 May 2013

"twisted hope"

Last night, I had a dream that had me thinking for hours. It wasn't a nightmare, nor was it a dream that I would call pleasant. It was just a very aberrant and abnormal set of thoughts. Today, I was attempting to tell my friends about this dream, yet I just couldn't find the right words for it, so I thought it would make for an interesting poem.


the supple age of 4
i woke to the sound of 
the man who was supposed to be 
the guide to my affections
the guard of my afflictions 
the solution to my hunger 
leave us

he left with the woman 
from down our tranquil street
who talked on the phone 
all day
all night
she wore too much eye liner 
and drank too much whiskey 

the growing age of 9
my brother's world grew dark 
and solemn 
because the girl he loved
cut up his heart 
and threw it in the ditch 

all my brother saw 
was black 
so he began to do something
at the time i couldn’t comprehend 
he initiated turning 
his wrists red
so that his world 
wouldn’t seem so dark

the blurry age of 15 
my best friend calls me at 
the early hours of the morning
telling me that her boyfriend 
with alcohol on his breathe
had kissed the other girl

the other girl with eyes
so dead
so buried
deep within hours of 
drunken mistakes and 
wasted apprehensions 

i understood nothing
as i hadn’t felt heartbreak
until the night that you were here
next to me 
and i woke up deserted 
amidst a pool of empty sheets
and twisted hope


Poetry Unit

For English, our new unit of learning is Poetry. Our first lesson of poetry consisted of the group having a discussion on its perks, flaws and what we think about it. Many disliked poetry, because of its complexity, some were Poetry enthusiasts and some were neutral. We talked about the main characteristics of poetry, such as the meter, rhythm, the sounds poetry makes, structure and also poetry devices like personification, metaphors and similes.

Personally, I am a fan of poetry. I love reading and writing it. Reading another individual's poems almost always sparks an idea, or inspires me to write a poem of that sort. Also, reading gives me a great outlook on the reader's personality, and it is extremely rewarding to be able to help capture the same feelings the author is trying to convey. 

The type of poetry I enjoy writing is abstract. I love writing in a lyrical sense of form, where my words are almost a song. I like writing poems where the meaning is not obvious in the verses, where there is a sense of complexity. Even though I like mystery, I dislike poems that are too dense, as enjoy experiencing and feeling poems instead of spending long periods of time decoding them. I also don't write poems so that the reader knows the exact emotion I am trying to convey, as I like my poetry to be interpreted into whatever the reader wants, hoping that in some way it is relatable. 

I believe that there is far too much pressure in understanding the poem more than feeling it. As I said in the paragraph before, I don't think it is so important to know the exact emotion the writer is writing his poetry on, since if the writer didn't want any sense of mystery, he wouldn't have written it in an abstract form. 

Saturday 9 March 2013

"pain demands to be felt."


You haven't experienced phenomenal literature that gives you apocalyptic bursts of emotion unless you have read "The Fault in our Stars" by John Green. This post somewhat resembles a book review, but I feel like an unexperienced kid (which is what I am) writing it. 

I started the book with the one thought in my mind: "When is the tear bomb going to drop" All my friends basically represented the book as a collection of veritably unfortunate events that happen to a pair of cancer ridden teenage lovers. Personally, I enjoy feeling a great deal of emotion. I  am most inspired to write poetry, pieces of texts, or blog posts as this one when I am feeling one of the extremes. Either happy, or sad. Right now, I am to a great extent, sad. 

There is actually no way to explain the book unless you yourself read it. I will attempt to give you an insight as to how exactly Green plans and executes his chapters. There is always a life lesson. I have, at least thirty times in the book, put it down and deeply thought about the message he so eagerly tries to convey to the reader. Messages such as how: everybody gets tired of the beauty they originally found so fascinating at some point, how there are smaller, and larger infinites, and how there nothing great truly lasts forever. Some of these life lessons have been revisited in the book, yes, but the way Green recites it is like nothing I have ever read before.

The best part, there is no happy ending. Sorry if this is a spoiler, but everyone is dead. Which at the end of the day, is usually the case in the world. There are rare cases where people with a cancer recurrence or a terminal tumor end their life festooned with positivity and happiness. There is hardship and struggle, and John Green represents that brilliantly. He writes a real story. A story of a girl and a boy who are both dying. They are dying, and they die. There is no sugarcoating, they die. 

At the end of the day, a book is just a collection of blank pages filled in with printed text. Everything is just as basic when an individual thinks about a certain concept in its simplest form. Its the content that brings something alive. John Green, it is inexplainable how a 35 year old author who has no personal connection to the death of a lover, can create such a heart wrenching piece of literature where for even the strongest of people, tearing up or sobbing is inevitable. In my opinion, Green is by far one of the most skilled authors of our time. He writes with such clarity and grace, that he can turn flipping pancakes into either a crying fest, or an event that deserves manic laughter. The reader cannot help but ponder over every beautiful word. 

Personally, I am still grieving. The book is emotionally sabotaging, and I am practically drowning in my own tears. It is a brilliant read and I highly recommend it to everyone. 



Thursday 28 February 2013

"Society Killed the Teenager"

Tumblring on a late weeknight as usual, I came across an extremely thought provoking picture. Not in the "What is the What" sort of way, but a "how do I find words that are respectful yet can still help me execute this rant" sort of way.

This is the image. 
Honestly speaking, it was staggering how many of these images were on tumblr.
Like this..
..and this
....and this
.....and this
.........and this

Before I proceed with this choleric rant, I would like to say that this post isn't directed to anybody. If you I think I am talking about you specifically, I am not.

Firstly, let's just take a look at how each of these images say "society" Can we also take a moment to address the fact that absolutely every living, breathing human is a part of this "murderous" society. I was looking through Yahoo answers and whether they agree with this quote, and surprisingly, about 90% of the respondents do. Why do people not understand that society includes them too. And that they are not special just because they are smoking and have their own adolescent problems to deal with, just like every other teenager in this planet. 

I find that so many teenagers blame their problems on the people around them, which again, they refer to as their society. Personally, I believe that this is just an excuse to have a smoke or a quick puff of weed or a snort of cocaine. Once they are hooked, shivering in the corner of a darkened ally way, with absolutely no recollection of the previous events, they blame their friends, strangers, T.V shows, books, movies. Conclusively, blaming everyone and anything but themselves. Many of them refuse to show any sign of self empowerment, or having the ability to just say no. And if they have already made that starting bad choice, having the willpower to turn their lives around once again.

I am not saying people shouldn't smoke or drink or do drugs (actually don't smoke or do drugs, kids) but if they are, they should have the decency to take responsibility for the decisions they themselves make, since no matter how much peer pressure applied on an individual, at the end of the day- it is one's decision to do something or not to do something. They should have the ambition to get better, to climb out of any hole they have dug for themselves, instead of blaming it on "society" And by the way, factually- is themselves, which I find rather self contradicting.

Tuesday 26 February 2013

Thanks, Megan.

I have finally opened my eyes and realized why Mr. Raisdana mentioned every lesson how important it was for us to write a post on our blog once in a while.

Before reading Megan's blog, I thought of this space to be somewhere I talk about my political views, book reviews on books I don't/do like, a place to basically sound super smart so that your peers can read it and praise your intelectual thoughts through literature. I realize now, that is is more than that.

I am going to start treating my blog as Tumblr. Everyone loves Tumblr. I love Tumblr. The main reason I love Tumblr, is because even though its a photo sharing site, I can express my thoughts as boldly as I want to and not be criticized for it. I think I will start doing that on this blog too, minus the swearing and nonsensical grammar. So I hope to be looking at days of drawn on rants  and obsessing.

Hurling Emotion

TWO BLOG POSTS IN A DAY.

For all writers that are at the age of 12/13/14: Do not attempt to write a book unless you are oozing willpower, determination, patience and fired up hard work. I have successfully written 2 crap books in the past 3 years. They aren't good. I thought it was about time I really sat down and started writing a novel I was actually proud of. It was a bad decision. Not only does it take up a lot of your time, but for a lot of the time you aren't actually doing anything. Suppose I finally get myself to drop the procrastination act and sit down to write another chapter, 50 minutes of that one hour is spent staring at the screen wondering how to spell basic words. Writing this book has actually made me secretly despise writing fiction, so I gave up on it. I think waiting a few more months before I write my saga on two people falling in love would be a good idea.

Even though my book took up a lot of time, I still had some stuff in there I was proud of. Specifically, a paragraph or two when my protagonist goes through a negative time when everything he knows and trusts falters. I used what was going on in my own life, applied it to the book, wrote it in his context, and came up with a few lines that I take extreme pride in.

"I think before I leave, I need to spend a day plunged into nostalgia. I need to sit and plough through what has occurred over the past three months- ever since the concept of "mistake" won any value. They say life is best looked at through a single window, and I have been looking of this one for too long. Everyday I try and leave something behind, rather hope to, and fall at my own feet graveling in disappointment. Crossing the land with her has brought out so much in me this summer. I feel I've left myself slip back into fear and mediocrity. I am selling myself short with too any people because of my lack of incentive. By exploring a new place and reuniting myself with her, I want to be pulled back into being free spirited and uninhibited because that is where I'm comfortable. That where I am at home. Although that feeling is far from my ownership, I shall never fail to attempt it."


What does the term "Real Women" mean?

On a bored Monday evening, I sat at my table sipping a cup of tea and read an old article about Karl Lagerfeld and his rather honest words to Adele. The tabloids twisted what the Chanel mastermind had originally said about Adele's body shape. Lagerfeld (by mistake) said Adele was a "little too fat" but followed it up by how "she owns this body image and looks divine no matter what she wears." Adele followed up the fat jibes with a very stern comment saying she represents "real women" and "refuses to settle being unnaturally skinny like the models that walk down his runway everyday. "

Adele's comment made me think. Why is it that being un-slender (basically relatively unfit) women are considered real? And girls with lean bodies are considered un-real? The majority of this grade is full of girls with beautiful, toned bodies- are they considered un-real?

I searched up "real women" on google images. It bothered my beyond words how only pictures of chubby women showed up in the results. This type of generalization is usually associated with fashion and models. The reason models are required to be relatively skinny on a catwalk isn't because thats what fashion is all about, its so that the designers can make one size of the showcased dress and the model can fit into it. Also, so that the model's curves and body aren't in the spotlight, but instead, the garment is. And its not like models never eat. Not eating actually makes people gain weight (not to mention get a lot hairier so that the body can store heat) Models eat strictly healthy food and exercise a lot, which I think just about everyone can do.

I don't mean to sound superficial or shallow. And I'm definitely not saying everybody should be skinny. I just don't find it necessary women with a curvier shape are labeled "real" and women with a skinner body type are not. A body is a body. It is an individual's decision as to what she wants to do with it. I don't think people should be calling a skinny girl anorexic and automatically presume she never eats or a chubbier girl fat and assume she always eats. And I definitely don't think being a certain body shape makes you either real, or fake.