Give Up

Author's Note: I guess I wrote this because I was in a bad mood and was for some reason thinking about people who just give up. I chose to write this poem as a big metaphor so I hope it's a good one. I see failure as a type of war, a war that you fight in your mind. You have to fight to keep going, to keep being successful otherwise your own mind will take you down. I think failure is a necessary thing in life but you can't let it get to you. Well, anyway, I hope you like this and please comment and tell me what you think.


Look around
at this place
you look at the
potholes and broken glass

You see
you remember
the sun and joy
that soaked this place

It is no longer here
the place you once knew
is disappearing
almost gone

There is no fighting anymore
just defeat and terror
fill this empty crater
that was once home

There is no hope
there is no love
there is no happiness
like there used to

This place you once knew
is different
it is like that place
drop off the earth-replaced

You begin to cry
you miss it
your home
your family

You lay there
alone and scared
a little child
among the rumble

You become part of it
this place you hate most
you let it take you
you gave up

Author's Note: This is a response to my favorite book, The Kite Runner, this is one of my favorite scenes but I wrote it different. I wrote it from the point of view of a bystander not the boys friend. Enjoy!

A lone kite flies in the baby blue sky
like a lone bird soaring overhead
a child watches, waiting
waiting for it to cut loose

The blue kite is almost lost
in the blue surrounding it
the wind whipping it this way and that
another kite takes action

A string cut loose
the blue kite flies with the wind
the young boy runs
running for the kite

The boys friend follows moments later
only to find that his friend
his brother, his servant
is no longer the same
the kite runner

Author's Note: This is long, I know but it is a kind of free-writing response to the book, Blue is for Nightmares, I thought the whole concept of being able to see the future through dreams was cool so I made this irony piece. I'm not saying I believe in Wicca, which is what the main character did to see the future, because I don't but I thought it was cool and different. Well, tell me what you think about this. Enjoy!

The dark hallway that lay stretched before me, mysterious and dangerous. I cautiously step down it, my footsteps echoing off the chipped, salmon pink cement walls. That whole length of it is in almost constant shadow except for pinpricks of lightbulbs swinging from the ceiling. The eery quiet that spreads throughout the hall makes me edgy and my ears are on full alert, ready for anything. I stay on the right side of the hall, my hand dragging against the ice cold wall. My breathing becomes labored, coming out in quick, short puffs. Then I hear the whisper only a few yards ahead. I step towards it eager to reach the shadow's voice.

"Stacey," it keeps whispering, a male voice but I feel like I know it. I want to reach it, to know I'll be safe then when I'm near it. My feet begin to drag as if stuck ankle deep in thick muck, dragging my slower and slower until it's a few seconds between steps, until I'm near tears in fear. I scream out to him, hoping he'll come to me but he doesn't. He just continues to whisper my name. I feel myself being dragged back, even farther away from the voice. The tears roll down my cheeks, I don't want to stop hearing the voice.

Then my feet are free and I sprint forward, blindedly into the darkness ahead. I can see him, his outline, his shadow. I get to him and gasp, he's just a shadow. Only his eyes are color, intense greenish hazel. He whispers my name and reaches out to me but he's being dragged back too. I yell and reach for him, wanting to stay here to keep me safe but he just continues to fade away into the grayness around us. I feel myself shaking, shaking so hard I can feel my teeth chattering. It's so cold, I fall to my knees and sit there shivering. It feels like my blood itself is freezing beneath my skin, like my body is just stopping. I lay on the ground and grab myself searching for warmth but none comes. My eyes flutter and I feel myself lifting away from this cold. I feel myself going, going far away out of this place, this nightmare of a place.