Bangles-hime
04-26-2007, 02:38 AM
I submitted two pieces to my school's literary magazine two months ago, and since they didn't contact me, I assumed that I hadn't gotten in. Tonight, I saw the editor, and she said "Oh, Sarah! You contributed to Guildscript!"
Being the person I am, I said blankly, "What? I got in?!" She confirmed this astute observation of mine, and I felt intelligent.
No matter. Here are the two things I wrote. Concrit is fiercely desired, though I can't edit them for publication now. ^^;; Both the essay and the sonnet are autobiographical, though their tone is drastically different.
Gloves
I.
“Well… the one thing I can remember about your mother is that she was beautiful. What did she have to complain about?”
II.
The daughter has recently taken to wearing her mother’s old gloves. They are cable-knit heather gray yarn with leather palms, lined in some warm insulating fabric, and decidedly ugly. Nobody else thinks anything more about the gloves when they look at them.
III.
Nevertheless, the gloves keep the daughter’s fingers warm. She pretends that this is the only reason she chooses to wear them. The worn knuckles, stretched cuffs, and strained seams are all ignored. They don’t matter, she says. Beauty doesn’t matter.
Nobody knows how these tiny imperfections drive her completely mad. The thought of the gloves unraveling sends the daughter to pieces, but so does the notion of going without them. The gloves were the mother’s, and the daughter remembers nothing about the mother so well as her hands.
IV.
Rectangular palms, she remembers, linked to long fingers. Pale skin, textured in summer like very soft shiny leather, draped over bony knuckles and wrapped around thin wrists. The skin on the mother’s hands cracked and bled every winter, necessitating a covering of expensive lotion every day. “A curse,” the mother cried, “ a curse of dry skin.” Other curses, like soft fingernails, dry hair, and tiny earlobes, hounded the mother every day. The daughter cannot remember a single body part that the mother didn’t complain about.
Watching the mother complete these feminine rituals—reviving her skin and bemoaning her body—the daughter had thought it funny that so much energy had to be put into this. It had seemed strange to her that the mother’s body should become such an enemy. To fight it like this seemed like choosing to feud with a roommate to the daughter, but she learned to keep her mouth shut and disagree when required.
Then, she assumed that her mother’s hands would be forever larger than hers, forever cool and smooth with manicured nails. Naturally, she assumed that she could reach for her mother’s hand again and feel the comforting long fingers wrapping around her smaller ones.
V.
If the daughter had a choice, wearing her mother’s gloves today would not even be an option. It unnerves her a little that she wears the gloves around without the mother’s permission, and though there’s no risk of the mother’s anger any more, it still makes her jump a little every time she puts them on. Still, this isn’t the greatest of the daughter’s problems. The gloves give her a lot of warmth. They remind the daughter of her mother—lotion-saturated bleeding skin, blue veins, classy nail polish, and all—and she thinks that her mother wouldn’t mind terribly if she knew the daughter was wearing them. The fact that she’s wearing her mother’s gloves doesn’t bother her the most.
No. What bothers the daughter most of all are the little pools of blood trapped in the skin on her knuckles. What bothers the daughter most of all are the minute problems she can find with her ankles and her elbows. (That these observations drastically change the daughter’s perception of her own worth bothers the daughter nearly as much.) What bothers the daughter most of all is that the fingertips of the mother’s gloves aren’t too long and the wrists aren’t too tight.
What bothers the daughter most of all is how perfectly the gloves fit on the hands she thought were small in comparison to the mother’s. It’s almost as if she doesn’t want to remember her mother’s hands being the same size as her own.
Romance Before the 8:05 Bell Rings
Forced to bear witness to this lurid sight,
I quickly attempt to avert my eyes.
These sex-crazed fools, regarding not my plight,
Ignore my raised eyebrows and heavy sighs.
If they must choose a place to display lust,
Why must it be against my locker door?
My natural reaction is disgust,
Though this does push them on to do it more.
Oh, that their engaged lips would unlock so
I could get to my books and get to class!
I am aware, if I ask them to go,
That girl will spike my oatmeal with ground glass.
Tactfully I must shove this pair away
For I am getting sick of the delay.
Being the person I am, I said blankly, "What? I got in?!" She confirmed this astute observation of mine, and I felt intelligent.
No matter. Here are the two things I wrote. Concrit is fiercely desired, though I can't edit them for publication now. ^^;; Both the essay and the sonnet are autobiographical, though their tone is drastically different.
Gloves
I.
“Well… the one thing I can remember about your mother is that she was beautiful. What did she have to complain about?”
II.
The daughter has recently taken to wearing her mother’s old gloves. They are cable-knit heather gray yarn with leather palms, lined in some warm insulating fabric, and decidedly ugly. Nobody else thinks anything more about the gloves when they look at them.
III.
Nevertheless, the gloves keep the daughter’s fingers warm. She pretends that this is the only reason she chooses to wear them. The worn knuckles, stretched cuffs, and strained seams are all ignored. They don’t matter, she says. Beauty doesn’t matter.
Nobody knows how these tiny imperfections drive her completely mad. The thought of the gloves unraveling sends the daughter to pieces, but so does the notion of going without them. The gloves were the mother’s, and the daughter remembers nothing about the mother so well as her hands.
IV.
Rectangular palms, she remembers, linked to long fingers. Pale skin, textured in summer like very soft shiny leather, draped over bony knuckles and wrapped around thin wrists. The skin on the mother’s hands cracked and bled every winter, necessitating a covering of expensive lotion every day. “A curse,” the mother cried, “ a curse of dry skin.” Other curses, like soft fingernails, dry hair, and tiny earlobes, hounded the mother every day. The daughter cannot remember a single body part that the mother didn’t complain about.
Watching the mother complete these feminine rituals—reviving her skin and bemoaning her body—the daughter had thought it funny that so much energy had to be put into this. It had seemed strange to her that the mother’s body should become such an enemy. To fight it like this seemed like choosing to feud with a roommate to the daughter, but she learned to keep her mouth shut and disagree when required.
Then, she assumed that her mother’s hands would be forever larger than hers, forever cool and smooth with manicured nails. Naturally, she assumed that she could reach for her mother’s hand again and feel the comforting long fingers wrapping around her smaller ones.
V.
If the daughter had a choice, wearing her mother’s gloves today would not even be an option. It unnerves her a little that she wears the gloves around without the mother’s permission, and though there’s no risk of the mother’s anger any more, it still makes her jump a little every time she puts them on. Still, this isn’t the greatest of the daughter’s problems. The gloves give her a lot of warmth. They remind the daughter of her mother—lotion-saturated bleeding skin, blue veins, classy nail polish, and all—and she thinks that her mother wouldn’t mind terribly if she knew the daughter was wearing them. The fact that she’s wearing her mother’s gloves doesn’t bother her the most.
No. What bothers the daughter most of all are the little pools of blood trapped in the skin on her knuckles. What bothers the daughter most of all are the minute problems she can find with her ankles and her elbows. (That these observations drastically change the daughter’s perception of her own worth bothers the daughter nearly as much.) What bothers the daughter most of all is that the fingertips of the mother’s gloves aren’t too long and the wrists aren’t too tight.
What bothers the daughter most of all is how perfectly the gloves fit on the hands she thought were small in comparison to the mother’s. It’s almost as if she doesn’t want to remember her mother’s hands being the same size as her own.
Romance Before the 8:05 Bell Rings
Forced to bear witness to this lurid sight,
I quickly attempt to avert my eyes.
These sex-crazed fools, regarding not my plight,
Ignore my raised eyebrows and heavy sighs.
If they must choose a place to display lust,
Why must it be against my locker door?
My natural reaction is disgust,
Though this does push them on to do it more.
Oh, that their engaged lips would unlock so
I could get to my books and get to class!
I am aware, if I ask them to go,
That girl will spike my oatmeal with ground glass.
Tactfully I must shove this pair away
For I am getting sick of the delay.