When Demick and I sit down to write it’s complicated. She’s complicated, intricate, slightly confused and usually won’t focus unless I give her a pin-point idea. So specific and small that when I speak it, when I tell her it, it gets lost in the air between us. Swept away and consumed by everything else that is floating there, sucked up and gone like a hole in her atmosphere.
But sometimes…yes sometimes it will explode and she will see it and it will reflect back in her eyes. Bright colors snapping and sparking in the two glistening mirrors set on her pale face. I never look in those eyes, those mirrors-that’s the explosions job and a line that I never dare cross.
Her hand will begin flying across the paper, her lips cracked and papers edges burned. Words collide with the paper. The fire spreads like a disease, a patch of mold, across every page, hungry and out for blood. No spot is left un-tarnished. Nothing is left white. But that’s just how Demick likes it. I watch her, an atom bomb, the sparkler that burned me as a child, just a lighter. She ignites everything around her and creates a story that had never been there before.
But soon I’ll dose out the flames and tell her it’s time to stop. Smoke will fill her lungs, her inability to speak only furthering her need to write. And she won’t understand. She’ll be confused and look at me with those eyes and I’ll look away, walk away. The story won’t be finished. Because I lost faith her, because you can’t control a firework, because sometimes she lies to me. She makes me believe in things that I can’t do, can’t have, won’t ever have. So I leave her alone until I’m brave enough for next time. Sometimes it takes years to build my strength up. Sometimes just a day.
I enjoyed the piece, but Gruber found it worrying. He worries that some day I will stand against him like Nora did.
ReplyDeleteGoodman thinks that Demick and I are very separated but they both need each other to survive, and therefore, co-exist. I think that the use of language is very strong and cerebral.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this piece. I think the flow perfect. Palmer thinks this is beautifully written. Palmer loves the imagery that is shown.
ReplyDeleteNora--The way you stick with the fire motif is beautiful. That's what I'm talking about. Lippman's talking about the way in which you navigate between what strength is and how language builds muscle. You write with clarity and precision. The two sides of your subject come alive in a most illuminated way. Excellent.
ReplyDeleteSchechter and I both love the juxtaposition between Demick and I. I really like the back and forth feeling between the two and Schechter enjoys the excitement it brings the reader. It leaves us wanting more.
ReplyDeleteDynan and I really enjoy this piece of writing. Its so personal and complex. I like how Demick and I resemble heaven and hell.
ReplyDeleteJoseph really enjoyed your piece, he liked the way that Demick was not afraid to patiently cultivate the language until it bloomed.
ReplyDeleteWest and I think the use of light is powerful in this writing. When West listened to you read it, she had a strong vision and could picture all the descriptions vividly.
ReplyDeleteMamon and I enjoy the personification used in this post. It's as if the flames give her the ability to write. It also seems as If being confused is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteSteinberg and I like the fact that Demick was not really an altar ego, like many other's. We like how Demick is not a hero, but rather a tool. We also think that the fireworks metaphor was very clever (and it reminded us of that project we did in seventh grade in G's class, the "You's").
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ReplyDeleteFurr and I think you you did an amazing job describing "Demick" and "I" and enjoyed how you start and end the piece.
ReplyDeleteJaff is so impressed by this piece. The descriptive writing as well as the comparison to a bomb are extremely powerful. My favorite aspect of the piece was the fact that "I" seemed to watching Demick from the outside, as if floating above Demick and watching over her, yet at the same time struggling to control Demick. The writing is very intricate, and I was taken aback by the struggle between Demick and I.
ReplyDeleteAswad loves the darkness in your writing. Your writing is very poetic and it shows how resilient and powerful you are, and how you get lost in your imagination.
ReplyDeleteHarrington is confounded by the indecision. I am not. The doubting and the confusion create a miasma through which wading with fine words is the task of a lifetime. Here though, that is harnessed into a forceful display of the other side of the swamp.
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