Here is some of my poetry and possibly other stuff. All coments or critisism are gladly accepted! Franny (New Stuff is at the top) April 3, 2002. It's funny, I've never had to be brave to post writing before. This is being brave. This is about september 11, leaving camp, and trying to find hope. It's the first thing I've writen about that day, out of many, that I feel comes close to what I want *deep breath* red. red sweatshirt falling. red sweatshirt falling to the sidewalk from where it was tied round your hips jerked me back to reality. red. blood. blood splashed on the sidewalk. blood splashed on the sidewalk of the opposite of this city blood splashed all the way across the country family spread all the way across the country makeshift family breaking up. tears. tears mixed with soda and sucked through a straw with arms around my waist and makeshift family hair mixing with mine crying on our shoulders lean on me baby. chocolate. chocolate after a week of bliss and a day of hell and a moment of confusion switching gears to leave you leave this family go back to the ground I grew up on ground I was a little child little child on free child on. blood. blood on the sidewalks sidewalks on my mind feet on the sidewalk trying to walk through the pain. trying to walk away from it and you, at the same time but knowing I can’t walk away from it the moment of panic when the words first smacked me in the ear hours of tears day of fear can’t leave it but I’ll have to leave you. Watching feet move on sidewalk on city on country on earth knowing everywhere are roads are walls is hate on the other side of the wall walls are not strong walls are to hide behind only these mountains are strong mountains take my breath hold it too tight keep it so I can’t cry while you lower your headphones to tell us through tears more bombs. more blood more falling walls exposing fear. Only these mountains hold me up moon over mountain and your hand on my shoulder while I play guitar and we sing sad songs only part left of my makeshift family breaking crying leaving cry more. More, more we scream for more we cry some more bleed some more run away some more and still we wail for more accept when more people die and we scream no I scream no (you hold me tight, my family) suddenly family family becomes precious you become blood of memory and I become melting into train tracks to find mountain strong. Hat falls from your head on city opposite streets hat falls into the pit of my stomach falls through the sidewalk cement falls to metal earth center center yourself don’t fall hat falls. Family time, you take my arm she ties us together group of family, we’ve cried together cried so hard together we’ve bled to hard together not real blood real tears, real you real me? We’ve joined together and now we get ready to leave together find more family why is family so important to me right now? hang up crying from telling mother I love you you put the phone back on the hook for me tuck my phone card in your pocket let me cry on you mother cried too. Wish on star, star falls on mountain you fall on me building blood drip falls we fall together. Memory of this day will not fall memory will stick like that first bite of chocolate like that fist word that changed the world changed me changed. Words change to hard tears and blood drip too fast you fall too hard I run not fast enough. I realize now you said how valuable is this life how red is my own blood that scares me how this band aid isn’t big enough for blood that isn’t real that’s just metaphorical and bandages won’t stop tears or hold me up and so we fell together to read papers on the cold linoleum floor on a day of leaving and try to wipe up the tears we leave behind mountains will take care of what we leave behind but mountains cannot heal, words can not heal, time and tears and blood can not heal so I’ll stay here, cut, tearful, timeless, empty and tie your sweatshirt back around your hips red. 1/15/02 and sitting in the dark one night i suddenly wanted you to know that when i stood on the roof and clutched for my balance... it wasn't the wind blowing through my hair it was you from my journal the other day.1...13?02 you. and then i smile again laugh again smile a little more. then i will you to have the power to make my fly. and so of course i fall. 12/18/01 truth is i should have talked i should have said "i'm scared to death" i should have said "help". i should have pulled you out and made you dance and then cried you would have listened. i know you would have but words were against me that night you weren't i was scared i'd grown used to being invisible i avoided mirrors that day and when they told me i was beautiful i cried because i wasn't they were lying i was crying you looked concerned 15 is the number of pages of my journal you've filled none of them are right no one knows give me your hand and smile i might catch on. 10/21/10 Oy Vey! I haven't posted on here in a long time and i feel like just writing and writing and writing and so I'm going to. Hmpf. It's the fear really think. fear that makes things exciting, makes you hate them. the fear that comes with announcing "i'm bisexual" is what makes me try and pretend i'm not. the fear of falling in love is what makes me be so very careful not to. the fear of growing up is what makes me try to stop time. there was a day when secrets and words just wouldn't stay ing me and they all fell out and i wasn't even scared. but the next day i was. there was i time when i wasl ittle and when i was mad i said "i'm mad" and when i was scared i said "i'm scared" but now when someone asks me "who do you think is cute?" i don't say "i'm scared" becasue i can't. fear will not let me move my lips. once you speak there is no taking it back. "just kidding doesn't work" and "i'm sorry" takes longer to sink in. it's saying "i love you" out loud that takes practice and once you learn it by heart you can't remember a time, when it was hard. So before i can get scared and hit "delete" let me tell you..."i love you" after thought: you know whats sad is that the only reason i wasn't too scared to post this is because a lot of my closest friends aren't home to read it. i will get over this dammit! I will. ~franny New Mexico's sun parched your smile but you still wouldn't come in so I brought the lemonade out to you standing amidst the cati "is it true" you asked "what?" the lemonade sloshed over the sides "the poems." "No!" I say quickly too quickly but the answer has to be no the lemonade is sticky on my blue-thrift-store-shorts and you won't look at me you look out across the desert towards the mountains my answer doesn't satisfy you blink over and over as if everyhting is glow in the dark except me the mountains are bigger than me and so much stonger. It was like falling down the stairs, or was it like falling in love? Maybe falling in love is like falling down the stairs, how would I know? Actually I fell in love with a hundred and twenty people once, I think of them when I wash my hair in the rain. Stand in the sheets of water droplets, or maybe they’re tears until my hair has soaked up water to a bursting point and then I rub in the shampoo that smells of jasmine blossoms and run through the wet grass with my head covered in soapsuds. It’s so much better than the cold porcalin bathtub that echo’s every move I make, poking at my self consciousness and criticizing my body and making me cringe. I’d rather run free. I am in a watering can and the water is in me and over me and all around me flowing and gurgling soothing me, relieving me until I am as fluid as the water itself, I glide down the spout, I am a dolphin in another life? My hair is flowing, my arms and legs are flowing I am being sieved through the precise round holes at the end of the spout. Pushing the different parts of me through the different holes, but I pull back together again with a magnetism stronger than the pull of the moon on the ocean or the pull of sleep on ones mind for I don’t like to conform to shapes, I am my own shape. I am a moon dancing with the moon, grass, or something, soft and cold beneath my feet, I am not afraid of the night, only of what it brings, the night can hide whatever it chooses, tucking it in a corner where the stars can’t shine on it, real stars in the sky, not the fluorescent beauties who twirl with their arms wide open to catch all the attention hurled at them, trying to make their mark before the lights burn out, or I fall down the stairs. The fire was warm and soft that night we sat next to the water bucket ready to suffocate the flames with drops of wet laughed and sang with firelight flickering on our faces there was nothing beyond the circle of people that night sitting around the bright flames laughing and leaning on each others shoulders surrounded by the trees there was nothing beyond the trees that night as we sang Beatles songs and didn’t care who heard us told jokes and didn’t care if anyone laughed there was no beyond that night no tomorrow no yesterday no just a few minutes away it was -now- or never there were no secrets that night you were -there- everyone could see you and you didn’t want to hide. I?m trying to fit in and it?s like the tacky sticky stuff that fastens posters to the wall, and it?s like yanking a band-aid off your arm, and it?s like waiting for a phone call or letter, and it?s like opening a book with a beautiful cover and finding an awful story, and it?s like finding the shirt you?ve always wanted, at half price. And I'm trying to undo that secret padlock but after I open it there?s another one and then another and another. And some of the rooms you?ll go through are dark and some are stuffy and spooky and light and sticky and airy and when you get to the last door, or what you think is the last door it?s not what you expected and you run around and try all the windows and doors. And you want to be a baby or a queen or an angel or a cat or a doctor or anyone besides who you are. And you want someone to come and find you and take your hand and pull you through the thick clouds. And you?ll come out on the other side with drops of condensation stuck to your eyelashes and rolling down your cheeks like tears but when you catch them on your tongue they don?t taste like salt. Maybe when those fake tears fall on everyone else you?ll all be connected like a river, flowing individually and in unison at the same time and you can?t tell whose sneaker is whose but you can tell whose heart is whose and you stretch out your hands and scream when they finally touch and your screams grow and grow and twist into all sorts of shapes and sounds, until they vanish into the clouds. And everything is quiet. The problem The problem is that deep inside I?m just like you but I don?t have the strength to venture up and stand up straight before the world and laugh. The problem is that in my hands I hold the key to freedom but I can so easily throw it into the black hole at my feet and watch it slowly lose it?s shine as it falls through nothingness taking with it all my memories of it?s existence. The problem is that when I blink my eyes what am I missing? Longing to be ?accepted? when you?re already happy She longs just once to stand in their presence and tell them what she thinks about life but this pleasure is denied to her Deny her thesaurus tells her: refuse, reject, withhold for until she can wish on a shooting star and feel no shame can walk down main street with dandelions in her hair she will not stand on the sidewalk giggling and talking about trivial matters, grinding sand beneath her purple sandals that have run to the end of the rainbow without touching the ground. WOW. Franny, your writing absolutely took my breath away. Completely. I haven't read anything that beautiful or inspiring in a long time. Thank you so much! Keep writing! ~Becky~ Need I say it? You are an inspiration to me, and full of pure truth. Muah. Landis So I learned my numbers and ABC?s at the same age as you so why do you think you?re so much better than me? So I?m happy laughing and talking with my friends so why do you turn your back towards me, I don?t care, I wish. So I laugh at the same jokes as you look at the same big blaring billboards scan in search of the same radio stations, doesn?t that matter? So I have eyes just like yours the same exact shade of a glass of coke held up to the sun, they sparkle as much as yours do. So I put my sneakers as far away from yours in the line as I can, I keep my eyes on the laces and don?t look your way. So I put a book in front of my face as I hear your footsteps coming and lower it in time to watch you walk around the corner. So I sink farther into the sofa, into my sweater, and eye the magazine in your hands your fingers covering the words July/August. So I will come back later and try to figure out if you were reading it or if the magazine was just to hide your eyes. So you look right past me on the stairway. So I?m not sure whether to laugh or to cry. franny...i remember in the all so rad workshop on the second-to-last night of camp, & i said, i don't think i've met you! & i really regretted it cuz you seemed like a really interesting & cool person. your writings have definitely confirmed that. i am amazed by them. please post more! :) jenny Don't say it out Loud. I could really care less damn you for raising my hopes only to drop them in the gutter like they were a pop can or a smoked cigarette for people to step on as they hurry off to important meetings so much more important than a silly girl and her dreams, head in the sky heart in the gutter I could really care less if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about if you think my lines of poetry are for a boyfriend the boyfriend I've never had and never wanted? This poem is for me. For never swearing in my poetry before because it wasn't "right" But now it is because I hate it, not the poem but "it" the voice that whispers in my ear things I have no desire to hear hate it with all my heart how can I hate with the same heart that can love so much? and yet I listen to the voice without grabbing it and shouting "Shut up damn you. Shut up" It wouldn't change the eyes that stare at me in my dreams at night and dissapear the moment I open my eyes in the morning and won't come back even if I squeeze them shut again that is why this poem is for me because I say I don't care only because the voice tells me to hide the fact that I do. Argh! Why can't I get these poems to stay in the right format. I type them in to look like poems and then it saves them looking like stories. What is wrong. I hate computers. Franny
Thanks! Franny Franny.Your latest poem serves to remind me that you are growing up. When I was reading it I saw the swear word and it hit me...Woah. I don't think I've ever heard Franny use THAT word before...or even anything close to it. I've known you for what? Six years? More? Thank you for reminding me you're not ten anymore.-Lorin The three year old girl with blond curls that are pinned back with a pink barrette is stacking her alphabet blocks and I see the pieces of my childhood each locked in a little colored block with letters on all sides stacked precariously cube on cube on cube of memories of breaking glass Christmas tree balls and my early fascination of peeling stickers off of everything and I no longer have to walk through snow up to my waist or climb up on the counter to get the cookies and I can reach the icicles on the edge of the roof but I don’t get pulled around on sleds and in wagons anymore or fit in the good places for hide-and-seek and I regret walking away from this girl and her blocks and as I turn around she gives a happy screech and whacks the tower and I spin around just in time to watch it topple to the ground. Confusion (it doesn't make much sense) I hate the way your face smiles sweetly from the rolls of film I should have thrown away without developing so I wouldn’t have to sleep with the pictures tucked beneath my pillow rolling dreams through my mind of happy days gone forgotten if they hadn’t happened then I wouldn’t have to cry sitting at the computer typing messages to you when I still can’t decide if I love you or not call me some day and remind me that the world is full of people who have been 14 and lived to tell about it who haven’t dissolved into a cinnamon roll of emotions layers of doughy thick and chewy spicy cinnamon sweet sticky sugary emotions of not sure where one layer ends and the next begins dripping tears on my photo album but are they sad or happy? I can’t tell I write notes to people tear them up, put the in the fire those people don’t want/need to hear from me my silly ramblings go on and on and on whisper uncertainty’s in my ear you’re not beautiful no one remembers you misses you loves you be quiet don’t speak up they’ll hate you if you disagree okay then I will sit calmly in a corner notebook in my lap and pretend that everything is fine that I don’t care if no one comes over and pulls me out to dance to extend my whirling dancing arms and legs out of the folds of my self consciousness to sing songs of love into the sky to go home and write a broken promise on every square of my calender. Danm girl... thats go good. like not a LITTLE good like A LOT good. it raps up all my thoughts right at this moment..in one icky fucked up mess... i love you so dearly. Forget Forget the day you looked in the mirror and thought you were beautiful forget the time you reached page fifty of a book then forget the day you hated all fifty of the pages forget the day you stood in the yard an yelled at each other in the rain forget how you went home and cried forget the relief when the next day you loved each other again. Forget the letters you didn’t send the poems you didn’t write the poems you should write but can’t. Forget the day you sat down and wrote until your pencil was gone and the sun was rising outside your window red, the same color as blood forget the blood on your face the day you ran and ran and ran and ran hoping that if you ran far enough your heart wouldn’t ache anymore but then you fell on the gravel and came home with blood on your face forget the tears forget the smiles forget the words “I hate youE forget the words “I love youE Forget the day you knew you were growing up forget how much it scared you. Moon, your golden elegance is my seeing through the curve of your globe my full heart separated into fragments by the branches of a tree stretching up to something unseen unheard unfelt but sensed deep within my reaching soul. The stars surround you in their mysterious patterns as they seem to blink and twinkle so similar and yet so different from the flashing neon lights on city streets if those are the stars then are you the yellow circle on the stop light? the dull glow of the street lamp? or are you hidden behind a skyscraper? When your face stares in through my window I half expect you to wink to close your eyes and roll somersaults to the horizon. Like the Flower Skipping into my life a stone tossed from the other side of the pond and still bouncing through the weird stages of being 14 my purple flower child dances hand in hand with me across some expanse of something we dance hand in hand across the border between one country and another we dance through little love notes typed into a computer so far away hands on keys hearts on the last time we stood together smiling singing twirling around and around until all we could do was collapse in the grass and laugh. lets laugh again. lets laugh till our tummyes hurt and we smell like grass laugh till giggles come out ours ears till we burst lets write again spill out hearts out on paper and love it lets cry soft tears soft clear sweet sailty tears that fall down fastes lets laugh again franny just you and me in the sun
You’re just a silly girl lost in your own precious dreams and oblivious to everything else you’re just a silly romantic waiting for something but not venturing out to look and when it comes to you I am gone fading into the sky full of raindrops that you don’t even notice as you walk down the street swinging your arms and doing little shuffly dance steps on the pavement you’re just a wisher wish on the stars the birthday candles wish on the first rose to bloom the song on the radio at 5:53 wish on enough things that someday your wish always the same wish will come true and when you find that hand to hold those two more feet to dance with on the sidewalk when you find the smile that dissolves your heart I know I will be gone I will be around the corner where you can’t see me I know I will be jealous and hate myself for it I know I will miss the wishes I know one day you’ll come to me crying and need my hand to hold. your writing incites some just amazingly vivid pictures in my mind, and it takes somebody with a magical way with words to do it that effectively. i can hear and see and feel and smell your poems, and the words wrap around my fingers and make me want to write my own. the best gift one can give... keep it up. it's wonderful. Ooh...I like "Confusion". Well, it's sort of painful, but it's honest, and I identify. - Emma "Confusion" is so powerful..It's just raw and true and iknowexactlyhowyoufeel and it brought tears to my eyes...wow. /Landis/ Franny, everytime I read something you've written, I'm astounded all over again. Your an incredibly special person, don't you ever forget it. I love you ~Jadzia~ Franny, you are one incredable writer. Wow. NBTSWikiWiki | Recent Changes Edited 37 times, last edited on April 3, 2002 by franny@nbtsc.org. © 2000 NBTSC Webmasters |
