Gingersnaps

I wrote this last June, possibly with the intent of posting it in December but sometimes I am not on top of things. Sorry...

Gingersnaps

Flour

~puff~ ~puff~

Like a bowl of snow

Perfect for making little snow angels

Or snow men

Or...

Cookies.

Dash of baking soda

It's so... White

The flour looks less like snow

Baking soda snow on sand of flour

Two dashes of cinnamon

Some ginger

Ground cloves

Soil of all different colors

Whisked together

Layers and layers of spices

Contrasting and then mixing

All shades of brown whisked up into one big

...Flour mixture

New bowl

Brown sugar

~Do not touch the sugar~

~Do not eat the sugar~

~Do not give in to temptation~

Molasses. "Slow as molasses" is truly no joke

And molasses mixed with brown sugar? Even slower

Canola oil? A glop of molasses-sugar in canola oil?

They... really... don't... mix

At all

And an egg

...This is not promising

Add to flour mixture

Glop

And mix

Glop glop glop

Mix... Glop

Mix mix mix

Arms hurt

Roll into balls

Roll in sugar

Truly sugar coated

Little crystals on balls of molasses

Oh but they look

So

Very

Delicious

Can I eat them now?

Bake

Remove

But they're all... Runny

Undercooked?

Even softer than when I put them in

Hmmm

But they harden

Snap

Ginger
And soon they are scrumptious
Ginger

Snaps!

Fallen

I need a better title but for now this is what I've got.
I'm always hesitant to write love poems in the first person because you might confuse the narrator with me, Erin, and that would be quite a disaster. I've tried writing them in third person (see Dew) but usually first makes more sense. In any case, do not think I am my own narrator, I would never say such things :P

Fallen
I said I would not fall for you
You said you'd prove me wrong
But it's easy to see that you fell for me
And I just played along

Those adorable little truffles--
You wanted to make me fat
And to make me think you cared at all,
Lord knows I didn't fall for that

And the butterflies in my stomach,
They must have come out of thin air
Because looking back upon it,
It wasn't you who put them there

And to think you thought I liked you!
You naïve, deluded boy
To think that you could bring me
Any lasting sort of joy

That night we danced together,
And I said you were good
You fell for all my flattery
The way I knew you would

I was madly in love with love
And never, boy, with you
But how I enjoyed watching
For you quite confused the two

Imagine if you'd been right
And I'd been head over heels,
I would have loved to adore you
Just so I'd know how that feels

But you were so happy in my arms,
We both know all too well
That we might have become something--
Thank goodness I never fell!

Shoebox

She opens the old cardboard box, "Converse" across the side
And searches through the memories she worked so hard to hide
His too-long hair and awkward smile and gap between his teeth,
She glances at the polaroid and then looks underneath
A picture from the ocean beach, their legs and backs all bare
A necklace on a golden chain that now she'll never wear
A bright green tank top that forever smelled of his cologne
The yearbook page where he had sworn "You'll never be alone"
That bastard, she thinks to herself, that cruel, dishonest jerk
Months later, she still can't admit that they both needed work
The first Mike's Hard she ever drank, its bottle still in tact
A list called "Why I Love You," barely any of it fact
A love letter she never sent, their picture torn apart,
A ripped out journal page that says "He fucking broke my heart"
A shoebox full of memories of him and her and them
And each time there's another boy, she'll buy new shoes again.

Rwanda

¿Quién te dejó matar?

¿Quién te enseñó odiar?

¿Quién te dio permiso destruir?

Y ¿qué permiso tiene esa persona para dártelo?

¿Quién del cielo o infierno o cualquier otra parte tiene ese tipo de poder?

Pues yo te lo digo.

Nadie.

Yo te juro que no hay ninguna persona tan inteligente, tan sabia, tan respetada que él merece el poder de matar.

Y si la raza humana crece por cien miles de años, nunca habrá una persona así.

Porque nunca habrá una persona que merece morir por el odio ciego y la ignorancia de otro humano.

Qué sencillo es, dejar vivir a una otra persona.Qué obvio, ver su corazón tan parecida a la tuya.

¿Cuántos años tenemos cuando aprendemos amar? ¿Un mes? ¿Una semana? ¿Una hora?

Pero, cuánto tiempo requiere crear un odio, y cuánto más requerimos enseñarle odiar a una persona sin conocerle, por un prejuicio sin razón

¿Y por qué?

Yo nunca entenderé.

Pero te digo, te prometo, te juro en mi vida

Que nadie lo merece

Y yo te pregunto a ti,

¿Vale la pena?

Castles in the Sand

We waited til the lowest tide and ran along the beach
Setting aside all of the goals we thought we had to reach
We swam as far as we could go and danced back on the sand
And didn't have to wait til sunset to walk hand in hand
Remember that? We built a castle with a great big moat
And I couldn't stop laughing as you showed me how to float

We drew a heart into the sand and each wrote our own name
We knew the tides would rise and yet we wrote them all the same
Some kids came to the beach so we just sat and watched them play
And you told me we'd have children as great as them someday
I tried hard not to tell myself you'd change your mind for good
Although somewhere behind my heart I'm sure I knew you would

As we pretended to count each miraculous sun beam,
I prayed to God I wouldn't wake to find it all a dream
Yet when we came back to the shore at dawn just the next day,
The names and footprints and even castles were washed away
What fools we'd been, when we'd known their inevitable fate
And yet we'd drawn, so focused on the works we thought so great

Of course I woke up soon enough to find that you had left
I wiped away a tear or two and continued, bereft
Waves have long since erased the shores and summer turned to fall
And now I wonder, was it all a nice dream after all?

¿Quién Soy Hoy?

This was a Spanish essay prompt, but then we didn't turn it in so now it is a poem.

¿Quién Soy Hoy?
Soy una niña, desordenada, confundida, decidiendo
Soy una mujer, independente, impaciente, lista para salir
Quiero correr, escapar, mudarme a otra parte y nunca regresar
Quiero quedarme aquí, cómoda, alegre como ya soy
Estoy lista para la competencia, estoy loca con ansiedad
Hago lo que quiero, cuando lo quiero, como lo quiero
Y temo que los demás me juzguen
Soy hija, hermana, estudiante, maestra, amiga
No sé quién yo seré en cinco años, un año, una semana, una hora
Apenas recuerdo quién era hace una hora, y el resto se desvanece en mi memoria
Pero ¿ahora misma?
Soy una niña-mujer
Impaciente-contenta
Inteligente-confundida
Lista-inquieta
Emocionada-aburrida
Feliz-triste
Y llena de esperanza

Writer's Block

There is a yellow sheet of paper in my lap
It is small, and two of the sides are jagged
They have been ripped.
A little green pencil is in my hand
(How did it get there?)
And I am waiting

Waiting for the ideas to come to me
Waiting for some supernatural inspiration
For that moment they call "Aha!"

I look around
They are writing
Are they all so inspired?
So clever?
So filled with original ideas?
Or just pretending to be?

I close my eyes, to speed the waiting
Listen to the radio waves of imagination
Who? How?
I'll write it down when I figure it out
But for now

The paper sits
Small, yellow
Folded funny
Unfolded funnier
Rough around the edges
Empty