Artistic Statement

My previous writing assignments from each module section:

Poetry Module:

Ode to the Chaos

I want to stump,

my toe on the bed,

 

letting the pain reverberate

through my body

 

like the echoing of a church bell.

I want to spill scorching coffee

 

on my bare skin—

the burning is a reminder

that I am yet still alive

 

I want to baptize

my phone in the toilet,

 

when I fish it out

it arises like a born-again saint.

 

I want to consume

A thousand pounds of luminescent carrots,

 

To see the labyrinthine mind of my professor.

It’s a maze of free response questions,

My grades ultimate kryptonite.

 

I want to drive

My shopping buggy into a neat display

 Of Lucky Charm Cereal boxes.

 

They scatter like cards on

A poker table,

 

Spilling out

Heart, stars, and horseshoes,

Clovers and blue moons,

 

Hourglasses, rainbows,

And tasty red balloons.

 

Yet I don’t feel magically delicious—

 

I want Chacha in the mess I made,

To dance like I don’t have a care in the world

 

But I guess I’ll go home

And snuggle in my bed

 

Where chaos is only a memory.  

Nonfiction Module:

Like the pages of an old book, the peach-colored walls curled at the edges and peeled. Despite the fact that Grandma had long since ceased cooking, the aroma of sizzling cornbread and collard greens persisted. Our voices overlapped like a song sung out of tune as we gathered in the little living room. While the adults, stiff-backed and serious, whispered among themselves over plastic-covered furniture, my cousins fought over the final piece of pound cake. With her hands folded over the crocheted blanket that had lost its color years ago, Grandma sat in her window-facing rocking rocker. Once able to cut through a lie, her eyes have softened and are now hunting faces she vaguely recognized. Her silver threads were highlighted by the afternoon sun, which framed her like a sepia-toned painting.

Uncle Ronnie straightened his tie, the same cheap navy tie he wore to all the formal events. He mumbled, more to himself than to us, "You all know that this is probably the last Sunday that we'll all be here like this." With her hands busy smoothing out imaginary wrinkles in her skirt, Aunt Linda hushed him. "Don’t say that." However, we were all aware. Years and history would cause the house to sag, and it would be sold. The stories spoken in between fried chicken bits, the Sunday dinners, and the laughter that spilled out onto the porch would all melt away like sugar in sweet tea.

Grandma's wedding band gleamed with flour particles when I strolled into the kitchen and ran my fingertips over the chipped countertop where she used to knead biscuit dough. Grease-popping meals and midnight nibbles pilfered from the refrigerator weighed down the dense quiet.

No one had touched the old tire swing in years, but it still hung from the pecan tree in the backyard, swaying a little in the breeze. With legs kicking against gravity and joyous cries cutting through the dense southern air, we used to compete to see who could go the highest. The seat was cracked and old now, and the rope was ragged. Grandma was dozing off as the afternoon wore on, her blanket falling from her lap as her head cocked to the side. Tucking it back around her shoulders, I extended my hand. Clarity returned for a minute as her eyes fluttered open. She gave me the same look she always gave me, as if she knew me better than I did.

"Don’t let them forget, baby," she said in a paper-thin whisper. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and nodded. The house was silent when we left that night, bearing witness to everything that had happened and everything that will never happen again. Grandma's rocking chair by the window was still there as we drove away; it was empty now, but it was shifting ever so slightly, as though it were holding the echoes of all the Sundays before this final one.

Less

Fiction Module:

A Letter to the Guy Who Gave Me a Ride Home That Night

Bro, I still don’t know your name but thanks, I guess. I mean, you didn’t say one word to me the entire ride except to ask, “You good?” and I wasn’t and maybe you sensed that. I nodded anyway because was jaw was jammed and my stomach felt it was crawling with electric eels. The world outside of your severely cracked windshield looked like a lava lamp—blurry neon lights and melty taillights from the cars around us and that one depressing gas station with the busted Coke machine, eliminating like UFO in the middle of nowhere.

I was high as a cloud and my feet were bleeding because I lost my shoes at the party and walked three blocks barefoot, past some dude peeing on a bush and a girl crying into her vape talking about how she never should have left her room. I silently agreed with her, wishing I was between my own cool sheets. But then you pulled up with your beat-up Civic and EDM thumping low, I didn’t even hesitate. Just got in, said nothing, stared at your bobblehead Jesus on the dash and wondered if I’d make it home or wind up in a ditch somewhere.

But you got me home. No lecture. No judgment. Just “you good?” again, and me saying yeah. But I wasn’t. Still ain’t.

Peace,

Whoever the hell I was that night

Piece I’m most proud of and show my growth over the semester:

“I Yelled at the Moon and It Sent Me a Restraining Order”

My cupcakes are disintegrating. They scream every time I open the oven. I ask them politely to behave but one calls me “a sellout” and crumbles into ash. My therapist says I need to stop baking my guilt into pastries, but what does she know? She thinks glitter in spaghetti is “nontraditional.”

I put on my moon boots and stomp around the living room. The moon doesn’t answer. I call it a coward. My photo frame tells me to shut up. It’s a picture of me and my ex at Disney, but the ex keeps blinking, like he's got something to say but lost the plot.

So I write a letter to the moon. “You lied,” I say. “You told me tides were consistent.” I don’t even like the ocean. It sends back a cease and desist, glitter-bombed and smelling like lavender.

Remy, my emotional support cactus, rolls her eyes. She has more emotional depth than my last three crushes combined. I throw a cupcake at the wall. It explodes in apology.