[Ophelia's Pond] Jumping on the bandwaggon

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[Ophelia's Pond] Jumping on the bandwaggon

Postby Ophelia on June 13th, 2011, 10:14 am

This is the first time I ever wrote something that was original, that I was proud of, and that wasn't compulsory. I thought I would share with you all.

A Manuscript of Soul


The clack of a typewriter. Yes, a typewriter. Vintage stores, op shops. They are what she can afford, and her hidden love. Her love for all things old and forgotten. Somewhat like she. In her rusting townhouse, a reluctant gift from a deceased relative, she types away every night. Clicking, clacking. The scrunching of paper. The sighs of frustrations. The sounds that remind her of a physical reality, not just the abstract, fantastical world of her writing - her poetry.

Her poetry is what she lives for. The daylight hours are a necessity, a nuisance - merely going through the motions, putting on her favourite vintage blazer as her routine layer from the world. Steps out onto the platform every morning, the platform which takes her to the dull world of paperwork and signatures. Her train comes - step to the side to make way for the elite business men in their Armani suits - steps onto the train - "mind the gap." The thirty minute train ride commences, and she takes out her dusty paperback of Donne. Some days it is Wordsworth, others it is Yeats. But it is always that which she aspires to create - brilliant, creative, beautiful poetry.

Her step slows as she walks into the office. The dread of the officious world settles in. A nod from the young man at the reception - a nod ignored. Waiting for the lift to the seventeenth floor now. A vague acquaintance steps up and starts chattering, she nods at the appropriate pauses, making noncommittal sounds of agreement. In her head, she is not contemplating the benefits of the upcoming stockmarket meeting - rather, she is wistfully thinking of the next poem she will write.

A day like any other. The daylight is what drives her mechanical motions, as if the Sun were her fuel. But the darkness allows her to take off her covers, to strip away the layers and to be her poetic self. She arrives home. A sigh of relief, a breathy sound of freedom. The taking off of the vintage blazer, resting it on the Victorian wall stand she found at an antique market. Filling it up results in the whistling of her kettle on the stove - pouring the hot water into her china tea cups - a cup of Earl Grey. Changing into her calico pants and her woollen jumper is like changing from tension to relaxation. A tramp up the stairs, second wooden door on the left.

A room, small and cramped - and covered in paper. Yellowing paper. Pristine, white paper. Stacks of it. Folders of it. Pinned up onto billboards. A wastepaper basket filled to the brim with it. These are the unnoticed, lovingly created expressions of self. This is her forgotten poetry. She is the only one who knows they exist. She deliberates each and every day about showing them to someone. She has a desire, greater than the human urges to eat and drink and sleep, a desire to be known. Be known as a poet, as a great poet. But every time she gets the courage to hand the portfolio in, she withdraws. She knows that the only way she can accomplish her goal is to hand those poems in. But she invests so much in the poetry. It is her being written in black ink along the page. If her poetry were to be rejected, it would not only be her writing, but her very self which was rejected by the world.

No. Instead, she writes, and as she writes, she dreams. Fantastical dreams. Melancholy dreams. Dreams of reality, of the abstract. Dreams that worm their way from her mind into her typing fingers. Dreams escaping on the paper, forever to be frozen there. She does not live in the day, in the moment - she does not care for the mundane reality the rest of her race indulges in. Instead, she exists only in thoughts and emotions, thoughts and emotions that will never be shown.

She is alone. She has no one. And yet, somehow, she does not mind. She does not mind having no lover, no parents, no friends. She has more than that. She has John Donne to keep her company, Plath to be there with her in her melancholic moments, Shakespeare to fulfil the need for love. She has great comfort in the words of a page - more comfort than she could ever have from that man at reception.

And so, every day she carries along like the rest of the cattle. Every day she does what is expected of her. But every night, she lives vicariously. She lives and loves and exists through her poetry.
Ophelia
Just A Fool's Hope
 
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[Ophelia's Pond] Jumping on the bandwaggon

Postby Jilitse on June 13th, 2011, 1:46 pm

Does this mean Nicky's muse is back?! :-*
I love you and I miss your writing.

-Jil
I. Vox Populi, Vox Dei
II. The Night the Watchtowers Cried

I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common woman with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.
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[Ophelia's Pond] Jumping on the bandwaggon

Postby Chemar Tisserand on June 13th, 2011, 2:57 pm

Exquisite.
xoxox
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