Full Circle

A bit of autobiographical prose I wrote in an English class I took (and failed) in Spring.




Full Circle


I remember being small. At one time, I was thin, long-limbed, and flexible. I was both frail and strong. My strength came from knowing how to maneuver around an opposing force. But if I couldn't avoid something, it would usually knock me down.


My family made light of my thinness, or perhaps it really concerned them. I remember my grandmother always trying to make me eat, and complaining that I was too picky about food. Really, I'm surprised all the hearty German home-cooking she provided didn't put any weight on me.


But I did wish to be sturdier, stronger, able to stand up to opposition and not get knocked down. My mother and grandmother are sturdy. It shouldn't surprise me that I've begun to look like them. But it's made me realize that ultimately their kind of sturdiness can be detrimental. Ailments caused by decades spent under the burden of their own strength have become more evident lately. And they've become evident in me. Eventually, I'll have come full circle. Frailty leads to strength leads to frailty. Over and over.


—Adrienne McKay 2010

Old Thoughts New

Try to imagine this with a steady, melancholic melody to it. It might help to listen to Black Star by Radiohead beforehand, as that's what I was listening to just before I wrote this. Without the tune, it'll probably just seem goofy/rhymy.




Old Thoughts New


I'm too afraid of death to keep on living
And I'm too afraid of life to tell the truth
I'm too afraid of lies to try forgiving
And I'm too afraid of age to keep my youth


Already I'm too old for this
And too young to feel like that
It's too bright in this abyss
And too dark to shine a light at


It hurts too much to see you
But I'm praying for the pain
And all these thoughts feel brand new
But they're only just the same


—Adrienne McKay 2010

Night Musings

Sorry for the lack of words. Here's a spontaneously psychotic bit of blather (alliteration is fun).




Night Musings


Beyond these windows and walls
The chaos of worlds harmonizes
With the symphony of trains flying through the air
Outside, a war is waged by boys
And boys of men who sit immobile
Only their voices charging the enemy
Ghosts of the victims of self-inflicted violence
Take shelter with me
In my dreams I rush to meet them
Desperate for their false touch
And their silent forgiveness


—Adrienne McKay 2010

Hey Look

Nothing new for today, sorry. But if I may, I'd like to turn your attention to my new, non-poetry blog, The Other Side. It's just a regular blog full of my obscene thoughts (hence the mature content warning you'll find when you go there). If you're really squeamish about language, I suggest you don't read the entry entitled Pink Is Not My Color. Otherwise, enjoy.

Sleep Talker

Just another bit of a fragment.



Sleep Talker


No words can convey my sorrow
No emotion befit these ragged days
When sleeping on a bus is the only way
To guarantee I won't sleep alone
When the perpetual amber twilight
And the whisper of the populous
Are my greatest comforts
When endless nights of seclusion
Cause dreams of nihilistic narcissism
And somniloquence knows no bounds


—Adrienne McKay 2010

The Cream-Colored Cat

A new piece with not much explanation. The photo is of my cat Buu (who lives with my parents). She's not the cat in question.

The Cream-Colored Cat

The cream-colored cat resides with me

Like the asterisk at the end of the sentence that defines me

Appearing from the shadowed corner of an empty room

Staring at me with lily eyes

I ask her the questions I’m too scared to ask myself

When will my soul return?

Will I sleep tonight with this hole in my chest?

She abides my derangement

Silently nagging me with her piceous cry

Telling me I am weak

Worthy of nothing more than the subtle mockery

Only she can convey

She ties the cord around my neck while I sleep

So that the screams from my nightmares don’t disturb

Her midnight prowls

And if, when I awake, I’m still alone

I know I’ll see her there

Defying my existence

—Adrienne McKay 2010

Untitled

Just posting so this blog doesn't die. I haven't been able to write much lately. There's too much going on (in my head) to really focus my words. I'm in more of a visual art mood these days. Here's an untitled fragment I wrote while staying at my parents' house. It's another one of those wannabe-song poems, so it rhymes. I feel awkward writing in rhyme. I'm more likely to say something that rhymes than to write it. But it's all I've written in the last two weeks.


Swallowing pieces of pain to forget
Making confessions I always regret
Seeing the sunlight and wishing for rain
Trying to lose you then find you again
Asking for freedom from being alone
Hoping to lose myself on my way home
I see in the mirror I'm no longer sane
All as I swallow, swallow the pain


—Adrienne McKay 2010

Update

Sorry for the lack of poetic non-poetry the last few days. I'm in a bit of a verbal rut, with too much on my mind to focus any of it into a creative form. So anyway, I'll just post a bit of news.

Tomorrow I'm taking a road trip with my best friend Victor down to our home town to visit out respective families. I'll be down there at least until the 20th (figured it would be nice to actually see my dad on Father's Day). I'll be running around quite a bit for the whole week, visiting some of my seldom-seen friends, spending the 16th with one of my other best friends, Eman, for his birthday, going to the dentist for the first time in over a year (oh shit help me), and finally getting my hair cut (I look like a palm tree).

In short, it's unlikely I'll be posting anything for the next week or so. But then again, I might be so homesick and missing my roommate/other best friend Crestal (I have four best friends, btw), that lightening may strike. Who knows.

Anyway, after I get back, I've got about a month before I have to move out of my apartment. Victor and I and another of his friends are getting an apartment together in Oakland. I'll be sad to leave San Francisco, but it's a step in completing my dream to live with all four of my best friends at some point in my life. And besides, Oakland is a much cheaper place to live than the city, and it's a veritable housing goldmine at the moment. We haven't picked a place yet, but that will be the easy part. The hard part will be timing everything right, so I'm not homeless between places. The homelessness itself doesn't bother me (I have places I could stay), but I do need a place for my stuff... sooooo...

Anyway, I've bored you enough.

Substance

Wrote this last night while marveling at my not-quite-addictions. Not my best work, so I would appreciate some technical critiques.

Substance

Trying to balance the turmoil

Only substance can save me

One to soothe the raucous fears

Another to extract me from sorrow

The only medication

For my tattered self

The calm, the thrill

Each is bitter, mask it with sweetness

Forget that it’s a sickness

My body’s protests are muffled by my weary brain

Forgetting to warn me that pain is bad

Do not touch the hot stove

Do not slide my finger down the cold edge

Do not examine the precipice

Everything is dangerous

In the end, what will it be

That gets me?

—Adrienne McKay 2010

Birth

Here's a fresh poem, something I wrote just a few minutes ago. I drew inspiration from a Star+Gate reading (it's a little like Tarot) I did at a friend's house last weekend. I found it rather insightful. In this poem I used the images in my "where you came from" section: the egg, the harp, and the star of reaching.

Birth

An egg lies beneath a barren sky

A silvery presence in the night

A pearl, and at its center a grain of life withheld

Like a seed beneath the soil

Unknowing, and unbeknownst

Sheltered from the cruel and mirthless world of night

Silence envelopes it, waiting to be broken

Suddenly, a single star breathes light into the sky

The silence and the shell are splintered

And the egg overflows with life

As the star emerges, so does the creature

The star takes the shape of a hand

And in the hand of the creature, a harp

Music quivers in the frozen air

And there, beneath the star of reaching

With my gift already in hand

I am born

—Adrienne McKay 2010