Shut up and start writing.

Poetry Slam

I fish my hand in the bowl and pull out our psychology group’s topic.
Sigmund Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development.
We find it in our books.
Their chins sink to their chests.
“I’ll take the Genital Stage,” I say, knowing their uneducated fears.

Sex is taboo.
Fuck is a bad word.
You are a whore, slut, skank, floosey if you flirt,
If you touch yourself,
If you let someone touch you.
Don’t do it.
You’ll get pregnant.
And die.

People call me a whore for liking sex.
For finding what brings us into this world fascinating.
For loving the pleasures our bodies have to offer.
For losing my virginity at 16.

“Did he force you?”
Of course not.
But a part of me wants to say yes.
A part of me is twisted, confused by what they tell me.
A part of me feels like I have to say yes.
A part of me has been told, “They only want one thing.
They’ll do anything to get it.”

I curled up into a ball,
Wrapped myself in your blanket,
And thought.
Did I really want to?
I thought maybe I was too easy.
I was just another dumb whore.
I didn’t realize that the only reason I wasn’t saying yes was that part of me.
The words I had been taught my whole life,
Wrapping around my body,
Covering me from you,
Choking me,
Squeezing me.
I couldn’t breathe.
The words were keeping me from you.
I wanted you.
I wanted to be closer than ever before.
I loved you.
But the words.
They were the only case supporting “No.”
No scientific proof, no case study, no potential disease, no potential pregnancy.
Just words.

“Save it for marriage.”
“Your body is a temple.”
“You can never be a virgin again.”
“They only want one thing.”
“Wait until you’re married.”

Said as if a piece of paper makes you love someone more.
As if being joined by law has some sort of magical ability to weld our souls closer than they were in that moment.

You were the first to see me naked.
I felt so amazing. So free!
I loved you so much.
But the words.
The teachers, politicians, parents,
Spewing their bullshit,
Kept me from what I wanted.

I wanted to fuck.

I am so sorry.
It took me so long.

I listened to you say, “We don’t have to. It’s ok. I just really want to. But I can wait”
I wish those were the words that dominated,
That wrapped around my body,
That pulled me closer to you instead of farther away.

I am so sorry.
It took me so long
To say, “Fuck what everyone else thinks,”
To finally do what I wanted to do,
To turn around,
To unwrap myself,
And have sex.

I was sixteen.
I was naked.
I had sex.
And it wasn’t rape.

“The body is a temple.”
“Sex before marriage leads you straight to Hell.”
“Don’t touch those boys. Don’t lead them on.
They only want one thing.”
The words haunted me after that day.
After the ecstasy.
They kept me from what I really felt,
Who I really was.

Rape culture has two parts.
A girl, young and in love, has sex.
She is forced to regret it every night.
“Your body’s a temple.”
“Wait until marriage.”
“They only want one thing.”
They ignore the love.
She was in love.
She actually trusted him.
But this can’t be true!
Teenagers don’t know what love is!
That’s why the most celebrated love stories if all time are Romeo and Juliet and Titanic.

The big, fat-headed congressmen see teens having stronger relationships than their marriages.
They look down at their sweat-stained prostitutes and think of how much they hate their wives.
They go to work,
Sit inside those promising white pillars,
A symbol of the freedom only this country can offer,
And insist abstinence.
Abstinence will save our schools.
Abstinence will stop STDs.
Abstinence will cure the fucking world of impure thoughts.

They are wrong.

Was Eve so terrible when she didn’t resist temptation?
Of course she was.
They say so.

Children, drowned in religion, kept in an uneducated glass box,
Are desperate to know what’s going on.
They don’t know anything about the world around them.
All they want is a flicker of light after being kept in the dark for years.
And who’s there to blame when they tackle that light,
Grip on for dear life,
And create a fire?

The ones who say, “Abstinence is key.”
“Sex before marriage is a sin.”
“Don’t do it. You’ll go to Hell.”
“They only want one thing.”

Is it really that “one thing” adults are so afraid of?
Or is it their children potentially having stronger commitments with their high school sweethearts than they do with the one they share a bed with every single night?
Those insisting on abstinence programs in schools aren’t trying to prevent sex.
They are trying to trap their children in the same confused cage they were stuck in when all their superiors said, “They only want one thing.”
Where does the cycle end?
When do we start spreading the truth?

You don’t need a piece of paper to have sex.
You need love, commitment, trust.
And who’s to say you can’t find that at 16?

Where are your shoes?

writeworld:

Writer’s Block

In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

My last post is based off of this prompt. JUST SO YOU KNOW.

Ok, so I was walking down the hallway and some bitch completely nailed my shoulder and everything I was carrying – three folders and a book – went flying. And these fucking cheap folders my mom bought me hold papers as well as a wall would. So all my papers scatter everywhere. Most of the kids that walked by didn’t even look at me, they just kept on walking. But, there was this one guy, a not-bad looking one if I might add, who got down on his knees and helped me out. Awkward little me just said “thank you” way too many times, and other than that, the exchange was just silently picking up my papers. We managed to get it all back together, somewhat organized, and in my arms. I said “Thank you so much, again.” And he said, “No problem, watch out for those shoulders next time.” I laughed, we both said an awkward “See ya.” and were off. I went off to my next class, English, and noticed something terrible. The huge essay due that day was missing out of my folder. I vaguely remembered him putting his books down on top of it, so he must have picked it up on accident when we walked away from each other. I begged my teacher to the best of my ability to let me turn it in by the end of the day. Despite the fact that she hates my guts most of the time, she understood the situation and agreed to my terms, but it HAD to be in by 3:30. So off I went to hunt down this guy I had never seen before. First, I explained his looks to my friends and acquaintances, but no one knew who I was talking about. Then, I tracked down some of the familiar faces I saw witness my accident (and not help). The first thing most of them said was a denial of ever witnessing such a thing, but I wouldn’t leave without the truth. After four people, everyone saw his face, but no one knew who the guy was. The fifth person gave me my first useful clue. His name; Matt Somers. No other information, but that was enough. My next hour began and I asked practically everyone if they knew him. Practically everyone did (proves how social I am). He was a junior who usually spent lunch in the alcove in the front of the school, a place for jocks, not people like me, so I rarely dared to venture through. But I had to, English essays are huge when you’re in AP, and writing was my only chance at a future after high school. Being seen by a few of those assholes for a few minutes couldn’t be that bad. It really wasn’t. When lunch came around, I realized that if I started not caring if they were looking at me, they stopped looking at me, what a coincidence. It took a couple minutes to find him, but there he was, contributing to the loud, low-pitched roar emanating from a group of seven or eight guys. They kept moving and I was walking toward them, so it was difficult to get an accurate count. Anyway, his back was turned to me so I had to tap his shoulder. He turned around, his face recovering from a recent laugh. “Hey…” I said. “Hey!” he said, “I’ve been looking for you.” “Really?” I said, “Ditto, you took my essay.” “I know, it looked important, sorry about that.” “No problem, my teacher’s still letting me turn it in.” His friends had all stopped talking and laughing and were now staring me down. “Awesome, I put it in my locker. Want me to get it now?” “Oh, no, you don’t have to leave your friends.” “No no, it’s cool. Guys, I accidently grabbed her thing today, just gotta go get it outta my locker. Be right back.” A series of K’s, Cools, and Alrights followed. Then we started walking off to his locker together. I realized that this was probably the hottest guy I had ever been seen walking with. “It’s pretty far, all the way on the third floor,” he said. “That’s alright, I’ve got all the time in the world.” “Cool. Your name was on the essay. Carly, right?” “Yep. I found out yours was Matt.” I’m not sure if that was a little too creepy, but he didn’t seem to mind, “You’re much better at finding people than I am, I just watched for your face in the hallway.” “Understandable, I was just freaking out about that essay.” “Shit, I’m really sorry I accidentally took it.” “Dude, it’s fine.” “Good.” “So, what do you do?” “Soccer.” “Ah.” “Something wrong with that?” “Not at all, it’s just you seem like a jock.” “Come on, give me a little credit, I’m not one of the assholes.” “I’ll believe that when I see it.” That made him laugh, “You will eventually.” “Will I?” “Yeah, you seem pretty cool, I’ll talk to you again sometime.” “Can’t wait.” “You’ll be waiting.” “Again I say, will I?” “Here’s my locker.” He skillfully winded in his comb and fished out the essay. He handed it to me, “Here ya go!” “Thanks.” Our fingertips touched in the interval between him giving me the paper and me touching it. I’m not sure what happened to me in that moment, I swear I was possessed by the soul of a 1920s socialite for the next ten minutes, but the feel of his fingertips on my sort of release a reflex and I leaned in and kissed him. Of course, I immediately regretted it. Until I felt him kissing back. We stood there kissing for a little while and then stopped, looking into each other’s eyes and knowing what was going to happen next. Without saying a word, he intertwined his fingers in to mine and we sneaked down to the basement floor and into the boys bathroom way back in the corner of the school. We went in the handicap stall and he locked the door behind him. Things blurred together in a mess of taking clothes off and kissing and rubbing and him picking me up and realizing my shoes were causing a problem. They were boots with little metal decorations that kept clanging together. The laces on the were pretty intricate, but he went through the semi-complicated process of removing them as I sat on the toilet, jeans and underwear wrapped around my legs right above the boots, muffling my constant laughter from watching him fumble with the boots. Then things went back to being a blur. What can I say, we knew we had to be quick. Once the second boot was off, he tore off everything from my waist down, pulled me up, hiked me up against the wall, wrapped my legs around me, and pushed himself inside me. Luckily, we were short enough that our heads didn’t reach over the walls of the stall. He covered my mouth with his left hand and balanced me with his right. I didn’t reach the peak, so I didn’t moan too much, but the excitement of the moment caused plenty of noise that needed to be muffled. He exited me and let himself go into his jacket, something I assumed he wasn’t planning on wearing for the rest of the day. We were both sweating a panting when we heard someone enter the bathroom and go into another stall. We both froze. I quietly gathered up my clothes and crouched on top of the toilet, just in case this person looked for feet. If he need, he would see a pair of male feet with pants and boxers wrapped around the ankles, nothing irregular in a bathroom. Now, he went in a stall, so it took a while for him to finally leave. I have no idea if he knew what was going on, but judging but the smell, he had other things on his mind. We both let out a sigh of relief and quickly put our clothes back on. I didn’t take the time to put those damn boots back on, so I just carried them. I had made sure my essay was safely placed on a clean (or at least, not moist) floor surface. We walked out, talking and laughing about the whole thing. We went up a flight of stairs and I saw my English teacher coming down the hallways we entered. I, being an extremely panicky person, as stated earlier, thought of only not wanting to explain to my teacher why I was carrying my boots. It didn’t cross my mind that there were probably a million reasonable explanations for it. So, I abruptly whipped around and threw my boots down the stairs. “What the fuck are you doing?” Matt said. “Sh, just go with it,” I replied. We caught up to my teacher, who was leafing through some papers in her hand, “Oh, hello, Carly, do you have that essay?” “Yes I do, got it right hear.” I handed it to her. “Thank you. I’m guessing this is the young man who helped you out in the hallway.” “Yes it is.” I said. “Well, you just made her day a million times better, I’m sure.” “Oh yeah. I know I did,” Matt said. Him and I shared a hidden giggle. “Well, have a nice day,” my teacher said. “You too,” I replied. We parted ways and I swear I felt her eyes on my sock-covered feet. “Do you want to go grab your shoes?” Matt asked. “No, we can’t just walk behind her now. I go up those stairs before next hour, anyways, so I’ll grab them then.” “What if she walks down those stairs?” “She’s going to her classroom, it’s at the end of the hall.” “Oh. Ok.” “They’re my boots, I’ll worry about them.” “I just feel obligated for them after what I just shared with them.” I laughed, “Were you a virgin ten minutes ago?” “No.” “Damnit, I don’t have any virginities yet.” “Were you?” “Nope, lost it last year.” “Should we like, go out now?” “How romantic.” “I’m serious. We can’t just do that and then never speak again.” “I agree. Tell ya what, I’ll think about it for the rest of the day and you meet me at my locker after school. Then I’ll give you an answer. 2-376, ok?” “2-376.” “Good boy.” “But-” I kissed him before he could finish, “Just be patient. Be there after school.” “Ok.” I whispered into his ear, “See ya,” then immediately turned around and walked the other direction. Leaving him, hopefully, in shock. I went back to the staircase a few minutes later after lunch ended. My boots were gone. They were just gone. So, I spent the rest of the day shoe-less. I guess I’ll have to go into the lost and found tomorrow. But, anyway, to answer your question, at the moment I have no idea where my shoes are.

I feel obligated to say….

I suck at blogging that doesn’t involve just hitting reblog on posts I like. I haven’t even logged into this one in I don’t even know how long. I apologize for the death of this unknown blog. It’s not like I think anyone will read this or miss me posting stuff. I’m doing this more for me, as closure, and maybe for a person who comes across this blog, likes what I wrote, and wonders why it stopped so abruptly. No I haven’t given up writing, not at all, I just suck at committing to things that have a regular schedule (yet I want five kids…). So I’m sorry to anyone who may have kept up with my stuff, but don’t count on me posting much else. Maybe someday I’ll return and actually commit to blogging regularly, but from now on, all I’ll post will be the rare response to a prompt from yeahwriters. Goodbye and stay gold.

PS I succeeded at NaNoWriMo last year (feels weird to say that because it was only three months ago), I just thought you should know that. I should’ve used this blog to post updates about that, but I used twitter instead (@kmelton27 shameless plug…). So yeah, I still write a lot.

FUCK MY LIFE. I seriously wanna disappear right now.

Who is your favorite author?

crankyashley:

writerchatter:

And what have you learned as a writer from reading his/her work?

I don’t have just one, but I it’s part of my writing goal/dream to be able to make a world come alive as much as Robin McKinley does in Sunshine without the writing becoming clunky. The details of the world make it feel as if it’s possible to realistically live there and have an everyday life the consists of the supernatural which for you, and everyone around you, is just natural..

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Jeffery Eugenides. I hope someday to come up with a novel with a plot half as strong as the one in Middlesex. That is my favorite book. If you haven’t read it, DO IT. NOW. IT’S AMAZING.

(via writerchatter)

My Sixth Grade Talent Show

            Let me tell you a story.

            In sixth grade, my life was terrible. A few girls who claimed to be my friends unexpectedly turned on me. They were ruthless. No one would be my friend. I never did find out what exactly they told people, but it was enough to encourage the entire school to isolate me. I ate my lunch alone, the only person who would talk to me was the janitor, occasionally asking if I was okay. I spent recess in a shaded corner next to a small tree, the perfect place for gossip, but of course, who would do that with me? And I was forced to stay quiet in class, pretending like I didn’t hear what they were saying.

            But, in the midst of this Hell, I found some rare happiness. My school had a talent show. Since this was elementary school, every auditioning student made the cut. I have no idea how, but with only discouraging faces looking down on me, I auditioned for that show, in front of my crush, I might add. When I got up on that stage and sang “Don’t Forget to Remember Me,” I finally knew what could make me happy. I probably sounded terrible and looked extremely awkward, but appearances didn’t matter while I was up there, all that mattered was that I was actually up there.

            As any performer would say, when the day of the show rolled around, my mind was split between nervousness and excitement. Finally, they would see that I had talent, that I was someone worth their time. Finally, I’d stand up to them and they would have to back down and accept me. Finally, the loneliness would end.

            I got up extra early to do my hair and make-up. All by myself. My mom let me borrow her long, black skirt that I thought was the most beautiful thing in the world. In fact, on this day, I thought I was the most beautiful thing in the world.

            After getting to school, the show started almost right away. Of the many performers, I was one of the first. After a couple other singers and a tap dancer, I was up. I strolled on stage, took the microphone off the stand and started singing along with Carrie Underwood. I sang as loud as my nerves would let me. It was over before I knew it. Not bad at all.

            I walked back to class with two girls who were also in the show; they of course didn’t acknowledge me. But I didn’t care, I felt amazing, defiant even. When we opened the door, our whole class dashed to greet us. I smiled bigger than ever before, said something ridiculous, and watched the entire class rush to praise the other two girls, pushing me aside.

            I didn’t cry. I stayed strong. I tried to listen to my teacher tell me how good I was. But I didn’t hear her.

I’m about to post something (I know). I want to know if it makes you sad. Feedback highly appreciated.

shannahmcgill asked: Thank you for following me!

You’re very welcome :)

Blood Bath

Before laying in the tub, he swept his fingers through the velvety smooth liquid that created a small red pool surrounding a naked woman, throat slit, eyes wide open, jaw dropped and drooling blood. Each stream joined together to form this pool, slowly still filling the bathtub. He was proud of his work. He had kept his heart rate under control, his restraints had been a little tighter than last time, her screams were kept under control almost immediately and he had beaten his previous time of an hour. He deserved his prize. He lifted her out of the tub, swung her over his shoulder and placed her on a premeditated tarp. Then he stripped down entirely, taking off his gloves for the first time that night. Walking as though slipping in the several puddles was impossible, he stared down the tub, experiencing his own euphoria. With no resistance, one leg stepped in followed excitedly by the other. Chills rushed through his body as he lowered himself into an upright position. He soaked his hands and rubbed them over his entire body, including his face and hair. Licking his lips, he traced a smiley face on the wall next to him. His genitalia would’ve gotten excited if only twenty minutes before he had not committed a violent sexual assault on his victim. If he could have, he would’ve spent the rest of the night soaking in the red lotion sacrificed by the woman laying dead five feet away. What was her name? Cara? Linda? Rachel? His only reason for trying to remember was to properly thank her for this gift. But he couldn’t waste time thinking, he had to clean up his mess quickly. Reluctantly, he stood up and turned on the shower. Watching the blood slowly clear out of the ivory container, he thought of his next victim. Who would she be? He didn’t care. All he cared about was what he would do with her. And her blood. Excitement boiled over inside of him and he had to halt his thoughts and focus on the task at hand. He saw the last drops swirl into the drain and got in himself, rinsing off the liquid uniform he put on. He borrowed her shampoo, her soap, thinking they deserved to be used one last time. After the shower, he proceeded to clean up the rest of the bathroom, considering making a much cleaner kill next time, clearly only one room wasn’t contained enough to make cleaning up somewhat easy. Once the stains were no longer visible, he fetched two bottles of bleach and, after putting on a pair of socks and his gloves, carefully wiped down every inch of the bathroom twice. He then walked out to the body, folded it in half, wrapped in up in the tarp and stuffed it in a large duffle bag. After putting his clothes back on, he collected all his belongings, a knife, a bat, sedatives he never ended up using, a golf club that assisted in the sexual assault, three trash bags, two now empty jugs of bleach, and one souvenir; a left foot. Double-checking for any traces, he picked up his two duffle bags, walked to the garage and loaded the car he had taken her home in that night. Without much effort, he stayed serene and drove home. Looking back at the duffle bag slowly gaining more blood stains, he thought of the amazing fire he was about to have. S’mores were his favorite food.