piano keys

My fingertips send shooting stars

Bold, blazing 'cross the night.

Piano keys and galaxies,

I touch the infinite.

sandstorm

As midnights fade to dusk pastels
I settle like dust on the shelf.
Slowly I become myself,
Softly strum that string farewell.

Swirling in the the sound awake,
The sandstorm and this subtle ache.

Motionless in the earthquake,

A desert chill, a winter heat.

I play the earth like a guitar,

Find beauty in each passing chord.

In tempest tune and song of storm

I'm shaped like desert sand, reborn.

And slowly I'm becoming me-
Softly succumbing to the sea.

radio

You're a song I can't get out of my head,
Like fingers through my hair.
Twirling every strand,
Unconscious radio of fear.

Repeating the same pattern
In a tapestry of song-
Under my scalp and crawling out
Whenever I'm alone.

My body screams, I rip the seam.
Follow the string, unwind.
I tear this tortured melody
From the fabric of my mind.

a new song

When it's not easy to converse,
That's when my mind is filled with verse.

I'll sing the song that awakens the throng
Of demons, dark and dead.
And I'll ponder the ways that I went wrong
And all the words I said.

Awake, awake, beneath their wings
What shadows, what great shade.
This wretched song I'm singing,
All the messes that I've made.

And the verse that fills my mind tonight
Comes easily to me.
Oh, how expensive is the light
When darkness is so cheap.

When it's not easy to converse,
That's when I'm trapped within the hearse.

But You sing a new song, awaken the throng
Of angels at your side.
And I see the ways that I went wrong,
Then how You bled and died.

Awake, awake, beneath Your wings-
You make the shadows flee,
And with the new song that You sing
You've resurrected me.

And the verse that fills my mind tonight,
It echoes with Your praise.
Oh, how expensive was the light,
How costly is Your grace.

timpani

I won't be timorous today,

I'd rather be a timpani.
Bold, a rhythm of my own,
Percussion, pounding palindrome.

Each way I go I sound the same
No doubt or inconsistency.
No need to be timid or afraid,

Today I'll be a symphony.

cannons

The brain fires off its neurons

Like a war zone filled with cannons,

Just waiting to explode,

To send my body into action.

Fight or flight from all the violence,

But I have to sit in silence.

Building,

Broken string, my violin.

I wish I could replace these cannons

With the ones by Pachelbel,

But my instrument is broken

And the music cannot swell.

Raging, ruthless battlefield,

And I can't run away.

Help me find the melody,

When the music in me fades.

in every crescendo

In every crescendo
I see a flower blooming,
Bursting from it's seed
Into fullness of beauty-
For the first time
Knowing the light.

In every diminuendo
I see a poem ending-
Knowing the light
In fullness of beauty,
Then tucking it away
To treasure inside.

a sweeter song

A sonnet for English class :)


I am the floor beneath the dancer's feet,
The shining, vast expanse under her toes
Where melody and sweetest motion meet-
I'll be the stem so you can be the rose.

I'll hold you up and watch you from below,
Your beauty as you twirl and spin and soar.
The greatest gift that I could e'er bestow,
Each precious step you take to give support.

For anywhere you go I won't be far-
A firm foundation never leaves you 'lone.
If you choreographed your way into the stars,
I'd compose a sweeter song to bring you home.

So rest your weary feet on solid ground,
And dance where trust and faithfulness are found.

tension

Here I am,
Stretched out like a guitar string,
And you are the player.
You twist each tuner
Tighter and tighter,
Carefully turning each knob
Until rings out
The perfect pitch,
Pleasing to your ear.
My tone rises higher
With the strain.
Rapid vibrations
As you strike me,
Controlling each movement.

Here I am,
Suspended above every fret
In increasing tension-
The instrument that you use
To write your sad songs.
I yearn to be free,
But what song can I sing
Without the striking of my strings?
How can I be anything
Without you, my heart-
My tormentor.
Without you is the most empty silence,
And I might almost prefer the pain.
Each chord I play
Is tuned perfectly
To the sound of your malevolence.

Here I am,
Pulled taut across the neck,
Stiff and spiteful,
And held in your hands.
At the mercy of your fingers,
I play your music.
Oh my heart, your beat
Is the rhythm of my vibrations,
But why does your beat
Feel like a beating?
I am stretched so tight
To be what you like.
You told me that music was freedom,
But your song is hate,
And it pulls me so tight that I might break.
You're something that I can't escape.

whole note

Today, the measures of my song are filled
With whole notes,
Those empty little ovals
That allow me neither movement nor rest.

And I find it funny
How something that fills an entire measure
Can be so hollow inside.

Riding on a single line,
I watch others dance across the scale,
Skipping over spaces
And soaring above the staff.

Other notes filled in
With flags flying behind,
Connected to each other so intricately-

While here in my measure,
Nothing ornate-
Just one plain and lonely note.

Slowly and steadily,
Rings out restless
The same tone.

garden of sound: part two

Everything around me is quiet, and the atmosphere still, but inside I feel the opposite of peace. Sitting on the stage, waiting for the concert to begin, I feel every extreme of nature. My heart pounds like rain in a thunderstorm, yet a bright light washes over me like the sun. The air is filled with anticipation and nervous energy, like lightning about to strike. My palms are sweaty as I grasp my flute, nestled among the other musicians, and yet I feel the chill of winter. The familiar anxiety rolls over me like black clouds roll through the sky, slowly churning into a tornado of all my fears, gaining speed and reaching, reaching towards the ground, towards destruction.

I am sitting in the eye of a hurricane. Chaos surrounds me on every side, yet no one else can see it because all is still. My eyes like anchors are fixed permanently on the conductor as I wait for the approaching waves. The slightest movement of his hand will cause all the world to burst to life with the crash of drums, the tsunami that sends me spinning into a swirling sea.

Waiting and watching, I take a deep breath and swallow my fears. They travel all the way through my body, feeling their way through every corner but finding no way out. Trapped, the noise builds inside until I close my eyes and try to think of a new song. I know that the music can take me to another place.

Tighter, tighter I close my eyes until the noise begins to fade, and my lungs are filled with a sweet fragrance. I look around and find myself in a garden, only faintly aware of the symphony still around me as the stage and audience melt away. I am in a garden of sound, surrounded by life and song. I hear the music of leaves scattering from the treetops and floating on the gentle breeze. The warmth of the sun and the fragrance of the flowers fill my lungs with a sweet melody and my heart is calm.

A million distinct sounds fill the air, and in my dreamlike state I hear each instrument. Each so different, I watch them burst into bloom, filling the world with their colors. The brass is the soil underneath me, a foundation from which flowers can grow. Roots break through the earth with the laughter of the bassoon and oboe, and then soar on the wind with my flute.

Suddenly, the notes I am hearing are coming from my own lips, travelling through my flute and following the movements of my fingers over the keys. I am transported back to the real world, standing upon the stage that haunted me for so long. But this time I do not turn away from anxiety’s millions of watching eyes. Rather, I invite them inside. I continue to play my song, so that they can see my garden too, because I love the flowers, and I think that maybe love is more powerful than fear.

first anniversary

Today is a very special day! It is the birthday of "Winter Notes on Summer Impressions" !!! I created Winter Notes on December 11th, 2013, and a TON has happened since then. So many good things and so many bad things. I wish that I could have captured every memory and feeling and experience in this place, but there are so many words I haven't written. Writing on this blog has given me an awesome creative outlet to work through the hard things and ideas and feelings, and also to discover my love of writing, especially of poetry, so I'm really thankful for it, and anyone who reads it. (even though they might think I'm crazy or really depressing sometimes)

So, in honor of this momentous occasion, I wrote a poem. :) It's short and sweet and it's called "This Year I Wrote a Lot of Things" because I did, and also because I couldn't think of a better title. So yeah.


This year I wrote a lot of things,
I wrote them down in ink.
My favorite pen, each thought dispensed
Spiraling and succinct.

This year I wrote a lot of things,
I wrote them in the air.
My flute would sing, each fingering
Wrote joys and hopes and prayers.

This year I wrote a lot of things,
I wrote them on my skin.
With razorblades my hate displayed
In scar and wound and sin.

This year I wrote a lot of things,
Some things no one has read.
Songs unheard, unspoken hurt,
Words that I never said.

garden of sound: part one

The excitement before a concert.

All is still.

Sound has deceased,

Filling the air with anticipation

And nervous energy.

Waiting,

A million eyes watch intently.
Silently

As the conductor raises his wand.

Then

Bang!

The crash of drums

As the symphony begins.

Musicians follow the conductor's every movement.
Breathing in and breathing out,
Air rushes across each mouthpiece,
Through each twisted tunnel.

Fingers fly across the keys,
Skillful and precise,
Hitting each pitch at the correct time
Just as they had rehearsed.

A great diversity of sounds come together

To create a colorful garden.

The brass lay a foundation.

Thick and rich,

Soil underneath the ground.

The snickers of the oboe and bassoon

Cause the sound to break into laughter,

Break through the earth.

The sparkling trills of a piccolo

Soar above the ground.

Saxophones, flutes, and clarinets

Instruments of the wind.

Walking together in a garden,

Audience and musicians

Are mummified-

Trapped within the layers of sound.

the collision

I need imagination like I need oxygen. It is the spark of passion inside me that keeps me moving, most alive in the collision of the real world and a dream.

My imagination comes to life when I listen to music, and when the music spills out my fingers, synchronized with my breath into the flute. The notes on the page are footsteps, leading me to a different place through the shapes and colors and movements of sound.

My imagination comes to life when I read a book, twenty-six letters arranged and rearranged to tell a million different stories. Underneath the covers I wrap myself in a new perspective, trapped between the sheets. Imagination weaves together a fabric of ideas using letters and words and sentences to form paragraphs and chapters and eventually a library of infinite potential.

My imagination comes to life when I spend time in nature, as the sky stretches on without limit and the trees wrap me in their embrace. Layered leaves pattern the ground with their shadows as sunlight breaks through the deciduous dome. I look at the endless sky and towering trees and see that the world is so much bigger than me, so full with dreams.

My imagination comes to life when I am doing the things that I love. It takes me to the places where I long to be and enhances the places where I am. It shows me that everything is so much bigger than my perception of it. There are so many places to see, ideas to explore, and dreams to dream. I know that I am alive because my imagination is, and it won't let me give up. Where possibilities are endless, so is hope.

glass staircase

I rush up and down
On a spiraling glass staircase.
I move with the music-
Each interval a step,
Each long note a landing.

Light on my feet
As if I were floating on air,
I ascend and descend.
Quickly and skillfully,
Full of grace.

Notes scattered across a page,
Footsteps light and gentle.

The sound grows and swells,
Then-
A hush.

A flurry of movement,
A moment of rest.

Like a spiraling glass staircase
The sounds are delicate,
Yet strong.
Soft, but shining.

Small and sparkling,
Grand and full.

i listened to a happy song

I listened to a happy song,

Yet sadness dripped from every note.

It accumulated in teardrops,

And oh, how they sparkled in the sunlight.

I reached out to touch them and they broke,

Spilled out their despair.

But it was a beautiful kind of despair,

The kind that you want to hold on to for a while.

Soothing, yet searing.

Filling me with warmth, yet striking me with a coldness.

For sorrow can be so lovely,

Dressed all in white.

But white can be such an empty color,

And sometimes I feel empty too.

the song of her solitude

Timidly, she tiptoes through the old house,
Afraid for her weight to press against the wooden floor.
To awaken with her creaking the beast inside,
As the darkness awakens her senses.

Tiny sounds fill the night around her,
Echo through her being.
Whispers turn into screams inside her mind.
They crash down like waves, drowning out everything else.

She longs to break the silence that surrounds her like a fog,
To pierce the air with her voice and shatter it like glass.
For her lonely melodies to swell and glide through the darkness,
And sing the words she cannot find.

But she stands here frozen, afraid to take a step.
This house is a maze, and she cannot find a quiet room,
Where no one can hear her-
Where she cannot hear herself.

She tries to shut herself away from all the sounds
That so constantly grate on her mind.
But she cannot escape the music that comes from inside her-
The music that she fears most of all.

The silence she treasures above all else,
Her endless pursuit,
Is choking her, paralyzing her, torturing her.
Searching, always searching, with these harsh painful footsteps-
So afraid of being heard, so afraid of hearing.

The song of her solitude she tries to hide, even from herself.
But through her attempts to eliminate all the noise around her,
Forever remains the song within her-
Her own heartbeat pounding, pounding, pounding;
Air rushing through her lungs, thrashing and roaring in a never-ending storm-
The whirlwind of her soul that she can never escape.
For where there is life, there can never be silence

teach me how to sing

For Kortney...


She sings her favorite melody
With a voice big as the sea
Like pure water, clear and strong
The waves in her heart form a song

She wonder if she'll ever fly
Lately her head's been in the sky
Do you know how bright you shine?
You make me smile on the inside

And way up high in your castle on a cloud
In paradise though I don't know how
When night grows darker, you smile brighter
And it makes no sense to me
When you teach me how to sing

You are my laughter every day
The silly things you do and say
While the love you never found
Makes you strain to hear the sound

Of songs that beckon you to sleep
Wide awake in restless dreams
When your world is crumbling
You can hold on to me

And way up high in your castle on a cloud
It hurts to hide when it gets too loud
When night grows darker, you smile brighter
And it makes no sense to me
When you teach me how to sing

Will you teach me how to sing?

The songs now beckon you to sleep
Feel the summer ocean breeze
When your castles fall apart
May I hold your heart?

a flower reaching for the sky

I was made for a harmony;

To fly just a little higher.

The melody my roots,

Pulling me into the earth-

While at the same time,
Looming above;
I'm free to bloom.

A small and precious duet,

I cradle the sound in my hands.

Blow its seeds away to the air-

Scattering into sunlight

To cast shadows underneath.

Parallel we glide,

My shadow and me.

At equal intervals

We soar up and fall free.

Coming so close,
But never quite touching.
Where you go I will follow-
Close beside;
Carving my own path.

Cold and clear notes
Contrast with your gentle warmth;
Cut their way through the space around us
Where we bloom-
Together, but apart.

Roots reaching for water and earth-
A flower reaching for the sky.