I found this lovely thing on Tumblr. I hope you like it too.
I found this lovely thing on Tumblr. I hope you like it too.
Mutterings and murmurs all quite inane
Tabletops keep turning, turning round
I do think I have gone quite insane
Polychords create a dissonant chain
Of ghastly nails-on-chalkboard sounds
Mutterings and murmurs all quite inane
Dysfunctional symphony in a hellish train
Along the way to iniquitous underground
I do think I have gone quite insane
Fleshy neurons dance vapidly in my brain
Colors – amber, scarlet, vermilion flames – abound
Mutterings and murmurs all quite inane
We stop; the left man pulls me out into acid rain,
Takes my hand and we waltz in an urban burial ground
I think I have gone quite insane
Macabre figures dance, gather in the nefarious fain
Thistles and roses on my head; I am crowned
Mutterings and murmurs all quite inane
I do think I have gone quite insane
I’ve had a penchant for urban fantasy recently, and have read a couple of series in the genre. There are two distinct things I love in the world (among many other things I claim to love) and they are: big cities and fantastical creatures. Put the two together and it’s like a literary cream soda. Everybody knows cream soda is the best thing in the world after Harry Potter.
It looks like urban fantasy is the new “in” thing with people my age. I see more and more of my friends carrying novels about vampires and werewolves, witches and wizards, fairy tales even. They’re such fun to read.
So here are a few urban fantasy novels I really enjoyed:
Roleplay post. 29 May 2011.
It was possible to be alone and not lonely. Alandra Vielhaber was living proof of this. Summers in London were spent in utter independence, taking the tube wherever she liked and shopping at expensive boutiques with nobody but her fine taste and her mother’s credit card. Two, four, ten years had passed since she began this habit, not wanting to be alone in her parents’ house. If there was anything duller than black coffee, it was an empty house, and despite how Alandra carried herself, she was not a dull person. In those two, four, ten years she developed the quick stride she used today as she walked along the corridors at Hogwarts. She wandered around the castle without a companion almost as much as she wandered them with a companion. She ate her breakfasts alone if she found herself not surrounded by the few friends she held close. She didn’t mind walking to class unattended either, though these days she had taken to walking with somebody, which was also fine. The truth was that Alandra was capable of being impartial to company. She was used to being alone and now, she was used to having people around. Simply put, she could be content either way, and it was all because she knew it was possible to be alone and not lonely.
What did it mean to be lonely, anyway? Although she first learned the dictionary definition of loneliness from one of her tutors at age six, she could already connect this word with two instances. The first was her very first memory, waiting to catch a glimpse of the ever so absent people her nanny called her “parents”. Instead she fell asleep in the hallway outside the closed bedroom door and woke up the next morning tucked underneath the covers of her bed. It used to be a mystery to her, but now was a memory that made the sixteen year old frown. The second instance also made her frown. It was being separated from the Corwins. Suddenly, she couldn’t see them anymore. Suddenly, they disappeared and that was a terrible feeling. Although she understood now that her father had been trying to prevent her from breaking the statute of secrecy and although Jacob turned out to be a wizard as well, she couldn’t forget the terrible feeling she had gotten at first. Even now in her adolescence, she could pinpoint a few instances of moments pertaining to the definition of loneliness.
The Ravenclaw entered her dormitory, hair wrapped in a white towel. She wasn’t wearing her school robes tonight but carried them in her arms as dirty laundry along with a small pouch that carried her toothbrush and face washes and moisturizers. Instead, she was clad in a grey tank top and pyjama bottoms, all ready for bed. She took the few quick strides to her four poster bed and neatly deposited her things on top of her trunk. She then unwrapped the towel from around her head, letting her hair cascade downward in damp ringlets and strode over to a mirror in the room to apply a serum in it. The dormitories were empty tonight, as far as she knew. She didn’t pass anybody on the way up, anyway, and there might only have been a handful of students lounging in the common room. But that was fine. Although she was alone, tonight was one of those nights when she wasn’t feeling so lonely. She was, however, feeling a bit hot, so she opened a window when she finished with her hair. She decided to walk to the door to open it as well because the room was so quiet and so empty. These days, quiet and empty weren’t so peaceful anymore. Being prefect exposed you to the thick of things in the castle. As she pulled the door open wide, she glimpsed a figure in the winding staircase that led up to the other dormitories. In fact, it was someone she hadn’t spoken to in a long time. Alandra paused in the doorway, calmly with her hand resting on the doorknob, and an expression of utter nonchalance resting upon her face.
Little bonny eyes blue
With charm, blonde locks
In buckled bows, a bonnet
Upon her blithe little head
Ruffles and frilly stuff
Taped up in a foolish fancy
Fables and fantasies fill her room to the brim
Fester her frazzled mama
Puncture a little pinprick into
Her papal homeland, all pinks
And pansies and petunias
Pristine cheeks pour of perfection
Do dance with Dorian,
Entwine those dainty digits
In darkness; dolorous red lips:
Stained glass of doom
Nyx — nefarious nigger eye
Nought a nuance, nought
No nightmare will end
Her nocturnal lullaby
Sleep soundly, sister dearest.
It was only a cheap trick played by the kind,
Soulless neurotransmitters that flit
Between neurons; the myelin cracks
But I assure you that I am sound of mind.
I fell into a hollow the other day
And into a stasis of utter unreality
Honey-sweet, carnation pink, yellow tinted purity.
I cannot lower myself to a simple stray.
The strings at unmeasured edges fray
The court turns. Rainbow colors mesh simply,
Coddle my eyes from liars and tricksters and dummies,
Puppets of the Seelie’s ubiquitous say.
I used to dream of rose-cheeked fairies and shallow knights.
I used to dream of bright balls and charming princes.
I used to dream.
What is fickleness but a fortuitous fight?
Fruitless in hindsight, it foolishly pins
Unanswered pleas into timeless seams.
—
It is the illusion of a liar,
Sucks up the stuff that composes reality
And emits putrid charcoal into the black sea.
I am none the wiser.
What if I told you we could escape this dire
Cloud? Bluff our way away from insanity
And black-white drama-tragedy
(And seers and mind readers and soul searchers).
I used to dream of singing lilies and honking daffodils,
Of wonderful freesias and rhododendrons,
Of fireflies and moonstruck kisses.
But the whole world in shadows stills,
Mars time and the movement of photons
Because people let themselves believe in wishes.
Hello World with a capital ‘W’. I am five months away from being initiated into the real world, but not really because it is absolutely essential (at least where I live, I don’t know about anywhere else) to keep on with my studies and obtain post-secondary credentials.
In other words: I’M GRADUATING FROM HIGH SCHOOL B****ES!!!
People keep telling me that second semester will rush by in a blur and before I know it, I’ll be walking across the stage at the Centennial Concert Hall and shaking the principal’s hand as he hands me my diploma. There’s something scary about that — that one journey across the stage marks the next steps I will take into the unknown. Even if I’d already been accepted into engineering, even if I’ve already planned which student groups I’m going be a part of, and even if I know exactly what I’m going to do with the rest of my life after my decree, I’m still scared. I’m so scared I might wet my pants just thinking about it.
(Just kidding, but I’m still really scared.)
The truth is, I have no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life. All this planning… it’s really just for show. The guidance counsellors tell me nobody really knows what they want to do until they’re 24, but is that the truth? Sometimes I get the impression even adults don’t know what they’re doing half the time.
So now I ask you — do you know what you want to do? Or if you’ve already reached the levels of a career-person who is perfectly stable, did you know when you were in my shoes?
Shrouded by hunger and malice,
Daybreak shatters the sword,
Daybreak shatters the chalice;
The mirror sings seven years; its word
Is eternal so seven years shall pass
Before its flimsy voice cries relief
And forgives the girl in desolate dress;
Spare us immortal grief.
Bend and bend and please do not break
Your sanity, your staple, your soul is at stake.
When I started this blog, I intended to keep it all about writing, and not about much else. Maybe I’d write about films and music in films because I love films and music with such an intense passion that one of these days I’d be hard-pressed not to write something about them.
(By the way, I recently watched Howl’s Moving Castle and it is wonderful.)
Yet the more I try to put things down on paper, the more scratches I make (I always write in pen), and ultimately nothing ends up becoming a final product. It drives me nuts. Not only am I a perfectionist, but I also like to see results. When all I’ve got are several pieces of paper covered with scratch marks and no end product to boot, I’m going to start panicking just a little bit. And then everything piles up: Biology projects. Calculus tests. Newspaper articles. Important documents and proposals. Sectional reports. Scholarship deadlines. University applications. Not to mention, I’m supposed to be cutting down and gaining muscle for the upcoming rugby season.
No matter what anybody says, it’s hard being a teenager. It’s hard being a senior. And that’s without all the emotional/hormonal crap we’ve all got to deal with.
When I stop and think about what I’m doing, I wonder why I’m doing it at all. Why don’t I party and drink underage like other kids my age? Why don’t I go out and get a boyfriend and spend all my time with him? Why don’t I go out and shop every weekend? Well, because I simply can’t. There are people relying on me to get things done. Heck, I’ve got the wind ensemble clarinet section’s grades hanging over my head like six round apples that are about to fall down.
And in that moment when I stop and think, I realize I’m kind of growing up. It kind of sucks, but I guess it was inevitable.
So what was the point of this four-hundred world ramble? I’m not ranting about my life. I’m not even complaining at all. I’m just thinking that when everything dies down, I can create something that I can be proud of again. I guess in retrospect, I went around concerning myself about my future and making connections that I forgot all about just me — that I’m a girl who likes to curl up with a laptop and a movie playing on TV. And that’s something that shouldn’t ever be forgotten.
