sierra-writing-blog

[sierra-writing-blog]

Questioning

I messed up and might be turning this in late as I assumed the class wouldn’t end until the last day of finals, oops oh well here goes nothing

There have never been another four colors 

placed so neatly together

that have inspired such fear

anxiety

hope

belonging

all at the same time.

I can't remember the first time I saw them.

I remember the first time I saw a gay man.

well, probably not the very first, but the first obvious one.

An un-apologetic icon who wore a light pink bow in his hair my first day of Freshman year.

I wanted to learn more and do more to support such beautiful open souls, and be a hand held out to those who still hid 

like flowers waiting for the right sun to bloom.

I wanted to be an Ally.

My heart was soft for anyone, hate and exclusion had no place in it.

I wanted always to embody acceptance, compassion, kindness, love. 

I remember seeing and meeting trans people for the first time. 

I remember wondering what that would be like, feel like, to agonize over the way the world perceived you, or even the way you perceived yourself. I don't remember the first time I learned that Nonbinary existed. 

For a long time, I thought the binary was the only option.

Woman or man

trans woman or trans man

I didn't know for a time that there was another option.

I didn't know there was a word for not relating to the experience of everyone around you 

not fitting in with one or the other.

I remember being a kid.

I Hated pink. Hated dresses. Hated Barbies.

Was it just stereotypical femininity I was rejecting? 

Or was I rejecting an identity that didn't suit me and I had no way of knowing how to describe that experience?

I was told and believed for so long that I was just a "Tom Boy"

a masculine girl.

It was the best I could come up with, and it fit decently enough.

I remember 7th grade, when I sat with a group of girls I became a part of in 6th. 

I remember trying to be a part of their conversations and felt....lost.

"They aren't like you."

"The boys aren't like you either."

In those moments I would breathe in the words

"There's no right or wrong way to be a woman. 

They're just more feminine than you, that's all."

That phrase has always felt like clinging to a piece of driftwood

in a stormy sea.

Of course It's okay to be a woman and like masculine things.

Another thing is this

I like men, I'm not a lesbian. 

My sexuality is one of the few things I've been certain of. Well, at least until I found myself drooling over a few more femme-aligned AFAB nonbinary folks too.

I'm gonna stick with "Heteroflexible" though.

Why then, did something light up inside when my sister told me I looked like "A Dark Academia Gay"

Androgynous people of any assigned sex are breathtaking to me.

I really have to wonder now

am I just attracted to them

or want to be them?

Why did I, out of pure curiosity, put on an old small strapless bra that hugged just tight enough to hide the bumps under my new clothes

when I also playfully jiggle them in the mirror after stepping out of the shower?

I don't want them gone.

Maybe just....flattened out sometimes.

I'm in so many LGBTQ+ spaces, always trying to educate myself and feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself.

The words that flowed from their Youtube videos 

in the dark of night 

while I lay in bed grasping the phone 

watching in secrecy like I was learning some kind of forbidden knowledge.

They planted tiny seeds of questions.

Of doubts.

I never felt like I truly knew who I was.

I still don't know who I am.

I started watching these videos.

I feel like I wanted to be told that I was wrong.

That I was just a woman 

overreacting

overthinking

as usual for my scattered neurodivergent brain.

I wanted a kiddie pool of basic reason

and they gave me an ocean with the singular answer being

"Only you define who you are."

I saw a comic once.

I don't remember the title.

An AFAB nonbinary person describing their experiences in a gendered world

who cut their hair

looked into the mirror

and saw themself for the first time.

"Oh" they thought.

"There you are"

Something resonated about those pictures with me

but the idea of being in that position

feels like standing on a cliff

about to look down over an edge

into an abyss below.

They say as you look into the abyss, so too does the abyss look into you.

Will I like the answer?

As soon as I cut my hair, wear round glasses instead of my usual rectangles like I daydream and make Picrews of now.

Will I feel that way too?

Or will I hate the look, hiding my short hair in shame and praying it grows back quickly?

Will I hang the flag of yellow, white, purple and gray over my door someday

across the short hallway from my sister's Bi flag?

She has so much Pride 

and confidence in herself

her identity

and I have none

and I am jealous of her for it.

I feel silly for even asking the questions.

.It's too late...right? 

I can already hear them in my head

the voices of friends and family.

"You should've known sooner that you were different"

"You will always be a girl no matter what you call yourself"

"You will regret this"

"You don't have dysphoria, how can you be anything but a girl"

"Girls can be masculine too"

How can I defend myself

if I don't know whether they are right or wrong?

Aren't I too old to reinvent or redefine myself?

The truth is that I don't know the answer.

Am I a "She"?

Am I a "They"?

I've lived this one way so long already

I don't know I could live any other way.

The truth is that I will never know

until I take the leap.

Until a glint of scissors in the light

sends loose hair to the floor

affix the round lenses that keep coming up in Facebook ads that call to me.

Will I look into the mirror

and finally see myself too? 

[sierra-writing-blog]

Micro Manifesto-Brooks

The form of creative writing that I think is underrated and deserves more respect is the Hybrid Form, defined as hybridizing literary forms with other literary forms. I had never heard of it before, and I think it’s an absolutely incredible format for creative pieces. The example that “10 Mixed-Media, Cross-Genre, Hybrid and Digital Works” gave for the Hybrid Form was a very interesting piece. I’m definitely going to set aside time in the future to read more examples of Hybridization in literature. I’d love to experiment with this writing style eventually. 

[sierra-writing-blog]

Analyzing Flash Fiction-Brooks

I chose to analyze the Flash Fiction  “ I Wish Dragons Were Real”  By A.M. Symes

CW: SA

I wish dragons were real.

Some people believe dragons are real and just went extinct back when the dinosaurs went extinct. Or maybe it was after the dinosaurs that dragons were around. That makes more sense, because how would warriors have battles with dragons if it was during the dinosaur time.

So really I wish dragons were not extinct. I could walk through campus at night and a dragon would fly overhead. She would blast out flames and light up the walkway, and I wouldn’t be nervous about walking by myself.

I mean yeah, dragons are kind of scary. More scary than any other animals on campus. We get mostly squirrels, bunnies, an occasional deer.

But a dragon! That would be something.

I mean yeah, dragons are a little scary. And yeah, they would gobble up a student here or there, and that would be really sad. But they’d be no more dangerous than what’s already on campus at night.

Okay, so a dragon flying overhead could blast out a tower of flames from her belly and roast me to a crisp. Or she could gobble me up. I probably wouldn’t even feel it if I was roasted, since dragon fire is so hot. And to be gobbled up? I’d probably die with her first crunch and wouldn’t feel the rest of her teeth shred me to pieces.

Really, getting flash flamed or crunched up is no more scary than the guy jumping out from behind a building and putting a knife to my neck to steal my wallet and cell phone. It’s funny because my phone isn’t worth anything. It’s Grandma’s old phone. I gave it to her five years ago so she could call me anytime she wanted, but she refused to learn how to use anything “techy,” and when she passed away last month I got the phone back. So it’s old, not necessarily used. It’s still not worth anything, but the guy with the knife doesn’t know that, so I give it to him with my wallet. That’s not worth anything, either. He should know college students don’t have money.

A dragon would know that.

Well, probably not. But a dragon would know not to eat the student with the big backpack because the backpack is full of tasteless books. The dragon would know to eat the student running because all that exercise probably makes them tender.

But the guy with the knife doesn’t seem all that smart.

I give him my phone and my wallet and hope he’ll run away, but he looks me up and down and smiles and licks his lips, and I don’t know what that means because he really can’t see what kind of body I have—not enough to lick his lips over—with my snowpants and snowshoes and hat and my blue coat I’ve had since high school that my mom promised I would grow into even though I never did.

But the guy with the knife looks me up and down and licks his lips and shoves me into the little entry area of the campus library and presses me up against the wall. The guy with the knife has a hard time with all the zippers and snaps and fabric of my big coat so I figure this whole thing is not going according to his plan. That’s assuming he had a plan. Or maybe it was his plan all along and he didn’t see anyone else walking, didn’t see anyone else who had less winter gear on, or even newer winter gear that was easier to slip on and off.

The guy with the knife swears and hits the back of my head and shoves me to the ground and swears again because he’s frustrated how long it took to get the blue coat off. A dragon would not like all this winter gear either. It’d be like eating chicken with a lot of tough skin.

So really, dragons probably wouldn’t bother eating students as they flew around campus, and I could just watch them fly and tell people how cool it is to walk through campus and watch the dragons and tell people it’s not scary at all to walk alone at night, that I feel totally safe, because the dragons scare off the bad guys.

And if a dragon did gobble me up then it must have been my time. At least I’d be dead quickly and I wouldn’t worry about never sleeping again because I see the guy with the knife in the corner of my bedroom and always feel his hot breath on the back of my neck and feel his hands rip at my skin. If a dragon gobbled me up, people would go to my funeral and remember how nice I was, instead of abandoning me because they don’t understand why I can’t go out at night—even in a crowd—without freaking out.

I never walk through campus at night anymore. So I guess I’ll never see a dragon if they ever come back and decide to fly through campus.

I wish dragons were real.

I like this Flash Fiction because it uses an eye-catching title that draws the reader in but ends up writing about something far more traumatic than fantastical. The writer describes an assault while contrasting it with fantasy imagery, but it does not lighten the event, it contrasts it with a subject we often find innocence. It contrasts innocence with evil. The writer did an excellent job with the formatting of this piece 

[sierra-writing-blog]

TryThis10.3 Poem-Ant

(I took the 5 senses prompt, but in a different way than you might expect!)

The humble ant

she is small and black

Shiny exoskeleton, strong and fragile

at the same time

wiggling little antenna

searching for food to bring home

she skitters across a sidewalk 

not making a single sound

there’s an amazing world at your feet

if you would only look down 

on a city street, she walks

a human man sits on a bench

he drops something

food! 

She runs as fast as her 6 little legs carry her

She dances around her prize 

leaving a scent trail for her sisters to follow

They feast and rejoice 

in the safety of the mound

[sierra-writing-blog]

My life story in three incidents involving hair

The first hair story involves me as a little baby, probably just a year old when I got my first haircut. My mom saved a little lock of this bright red hair in an early childhood photo album that I like to look through every once in a while to remember a simpler time.

The second story takes place during the summer before I started Junior High. My mom had an idea to give me a shoulder length cut and get blonde streaks dyed into my hair to give me a fresh new look to start at a new school and I loved the idea. It was trimmed and dyed by a family friend who used to do cosmetology.

The third and final takes place during my freshman year of college. I got my first professional hair dye job. I kept my natural root color but got a midsection redish-purplish dye that faded into black on the last couple sections at the bottom of my hair. I loved that dye job and I’d love to get it done again. Sadly natural red hair doesn’t like to hold hair dye for very long. 

[sierra-writing-blog]

Flash Fiction

The Flash Fiction I chose is “In Every Girl There Is a Forest” from the 100WordStory website for anyone looking for them Cottagecore vibes, lol.         It’s less a story and more of a poem but it’s really beautiful. It uses repetition to build an environment and a circular logic sort of story.

http://www.100wordstory.org/in-every-girl-there-is-a-forest/

[sierra-writing-blog]

TryThis 6.2 Brooks

CW: Snake, predator/prey interaction

Photo description: There is text that reads The snake emerges from its crevice at dawn in search of food. Before long, it spots a mouse. The mouse’s whiskers twitch. The snake strikes. A frightened squeak echoes through the trees.                    The mouse escapes to live another day.

The picture includes a small doodle of a snake perched upwards looking down at a tiny mouse which is looking up at the snake. There are tildes on either side of the doodle.

[sierra-writing-blog]

Outdoor Adventure-Brooks Pictures

My parents built this grape arbor from scratch, concord grapes are the best!

The field outside my house with an old rabbit hutch we haven’t used in years.

My sister’s overgrown garden, lots of biodiversity here! Also, stop mowing your lawns!!!

This is a huge wild Jewelweed bush, and they hide something really interesting if you only take a closer look!

Regular old seed pod, right?

Boom! If you gently roll them in your hand or push your thumb down on them, they EXPLODE, scattering their seeds all around the ground! This is why another word for this family of flowers is “Touch-me-Nots” There are a few species of caterpillar that feed on them; you can find really funny videos of caterpillars eating them and then getting flung when the seed explodes, only to crawl back up to the bush and start munching again!

Fuzzy bumble bee butt!

_______________________________________________________________

I enjoyed taking pictures of nature around my house that I don’t usually look at. Being close to nature is part of the reason my family bought this house. I love that I got to grow up out here rather than in town or in a city somewhere. I get to here the songs of various species of birds and insects and interact with a variety of wildflowers and other wild plants. There were a few little chunky bumblebees around a few of these flower bushes that I loved watching. I’m not scared of bees, I love them! Now, wasps on the other hand....not so much! 

Also friendly reminder that cut lawns lack biodiversity and are a totally outdated concept, stop mowing your lawns like 17th century lords! Embrace native biodiversity, attract pollinators! Save the bees doesn’t mean naturalized* European honeybees, it means all bees and other pollinators!

*Naturalized means invasive species that has now found a place in the ecosystem without causing damage to the environment or native species

[sierra-writing-blog]

Plot Twist/Adopt-a-Weirdo-Brooks

I do not know why my reblogging isn’t working, but I adopted @pbcswrites coworker and here’s my writing for it.

It’s been a little over a month since I got my new job and I’m really starting to miss my old one. At my old job we just chilled out sitting in an office waiting for phone calls to come in. At this new job I’m on my feet the entire time, have to make different kinds of coffee and sandwiches and also restock things as they run out throughout the day, doing dishes, sweeping/mopping and other tasks. It’s been rough but I’m getting the hang of things pretty well now, but I have a coworker who makes things more difficult than they need to be.                               My coworker is overly critical and a tad passive-aggressive. Kind of reminds me of a coworker I had at my old job. We were making drinks for an order yesterday morning when yet another incident took place between us.  “Why don’t you let me help you out with that honey, then you can start on the next order” She asked, even though I knew full well what I was doing that moment. I let her do her think and finish up the order. I pack everything into a drink carrier and set it on the counter next to the window for coworker 2 to hand out. I grabbed another cup, about to make an iced cafe mocha for the new order when my coworker says  “Honey those drinks were ready to go out the window”   I blink at her for a moment.  “Umm....isn’t Coworker 2 managing the drive through window right now?” She waves her hand and says  “She’s grabbing the cookies for the order honey” I think to myself  “That literally only takes like 5 seconds” but I’m one for avoiding conflict in the workplace, so I just grit my teeth and hand the drinks out the window, almost bumping into Coworker 2 on the way who was walking back with her small paper brown bag with one or two cookies inside.                             I really miss my old job.

[sierra-writing-blog]

Try This 4.7-Brooks

My coworker James

My coworker James is probably the weirdest person in my life currently but in a fun, quirky way, not in a creepy way. He is pretty tall, lanky and blond. He has a voice/vocal pattern that I swear I’ve heard come from like 8 different guys. If you know any tall lanky nerd guys you know the voice. He’s my age, like 20-22 years old but he looks 30 and it threw me really off to know how close in age we actually are. He makes up and uses his own like 3 NPC dialogue lines for work because “I’m an introvert and I don’t like talking to people” He’s probably my favorite coworker. He’s kind of nerdy and used to play D&D in high school. He’s lived in several states around the US throughout his life including Hawaii, Florida and Colorado. He’s a simple person and a simple character that you don’t normally give much thought to, but if he wasn’t around anymore, I think all of us who work there would notice.

[sierra-writing-blog]

Brooks-Author’s Voice: Christopher Stasheff

Dragonlight

    “What this dungeon needed, Matt decided, was light. He took a deep breath, extemporizing a spell, then began to recite. There was a shattering roar, and light seared Matt’s eyes. He fell back against the wall, while something huge and scaley rasped and grated against stone.                                                          “Who hath done zhish to me?”  Light came again, a five-footed gout of flame, showing a mail-scaled snout with pointed teeth. “Thou! Dost think to hide from Shteo-from Shtegoman, worm of a man?”                                                        Flame seared out again, and Matt leapt. The fire missed him as the dragon lurched to the side. The great eyes were bleary. The fool beast was drunk! And apparently he was the sort who grew mean in his cups. Now he was taking another blast-furnace breath, preparing to incinerate Matt to a cinder!” -Christopher Stasheff

Page 2

    “So what are you going to tell your committee? That you dropped everything because-so you say-this piece of manuscript fell out of an old copy of the Njaalsaga while you were poking around the library stacks?                               “It did!”                                                                                                               “So how come nobody else ever found it? They’ve been sifting that library for fifty years. How do we know it isn’t a hoax?”                                                          “It’s in runes...”                                                                                              “Which you-and who else knows how many others-can write.”                               Paul shook his head slowly. “One scrap of parchment, with runes spelling out words in a language that sounds like a mess of German, French, maybe Old Norse, and probably some Elvish and Barsoomian worked in.”                               “Yeah, but I feel like it’s a real tongue.” Matt managed a tight smile. “The words just don’t make sense-yet.”                                                                                      “So you’ve been trying to translate it from root words for three months-without a bit of luck.” Paul sighed. “Give it up man. June’s next month. Your fellowship will be up, and none of your dissertation done. There you’ll be, without a degree, and not much chance of getting one, either.” -Christopher Stasheff

Christopher Stasheff authored my favorite book series of all time, the Wizard in Rhyme series, Her Majesty’s Wizard being book one, which is where these two excerpts (That I had to type out by hand) come from. I like his voice because even when dealing with subjects like death in his books he always has an air of positivity, humour and wit. I always enjoyed this writing style and have emulated it in my own work.

[sierra-writing-blog]

Try This 3.13-Brooks

I wave in the breeze on a hot summer day.                                                            Birds singing, crickets chirping, cicadas hissing.                                                    Cars come and go on the road from dusk to dawn.                                                A boy on a bike passes by.                                                                                  He takes on look at me                                                                                          and wipes his eye.                                                                                                   He rides away.

I am but a simple piece of cloth to many.                                                           The great annoyance of some in the neighborhood.                                              My colors wave bright, day and night.                                                                      A rainbow that needs no rain or sun to shine.

I am a community.                                                                                                    I am equality.                                                                                                            I am love.

[sierra-writing-blog]

Boreas

https://youtu.be/frC97DhJQYc

The Oh Hellos is an incredible band that I discovered late last year, and while all of their songs have gorgeous lyrics, the imagery and art of the title song of their newest album which was just released two weeks ago is absolutely breathtaking, both in instrumental and lyricism. I’m begging you to actually listen to the song instead of just reading the lyrics and moving on. I promise discovering this band may be as magical a moment for you as it was for me when I first discovered Soldier, Poet, King (20/10 also recommend)

Lyrics: 

With my back on the floor Cold linoleum icing my growing pains Watch the ceiling fan turn it's shape again My threads are coming loose Yeah, I'm one spoon away From setting the ends of my hair on fire If I'm kindling for a little while At least I'd feel of use Maybe then my breath could embody A wildfire starting I'd sweep up the forest floor And my body breathe life into the corners Be a darker soil Making lists, folding laundry Keeping tidy with my radio show I'd be lying if I told you I'm keeping tidy anymore Yeah, I swing from believing That maybe my working will all pay off To considering drinking with Molotov I'm halfway out the door Maybe then my breath could embody A wildfire starting I'd sweep up the forest floor And my body breathe life into the corners Be a darker soil Promise me that you'll start Where I end And I promise to give you everything That I am We'll go on and on and on again In the end, all I hope for Is to be a bit of warmth for you When there's not a lot warm left To go around

    I relate deeply to this song as someone who battled depression/depressive episodes during high school, the imagery of laying down on a cold linoleum floor watching a ceiling fan is kind of what that depression felt like. The line “I'd be lying if I told you I'm keeping tidy anymore” Makes me chuckle a bit thinking about my struggles with ADD and disorganization. When I hear the lines  “Maybe then my breath could embody, A wildfire starting, I'd sweep up the forest floor, And my body breathe life into the corners, Be a darker soil” I imagine someone who believes they may find their courage to speak, to speak up for themselves, to speak up for others who don’t have a voice. “A darker soil” I think refers to the ground after a forest fire, but from that burned ground new life emerges, just as one voice speaking out may lend courage to others to speak out. One voice can become millions. 

[sierra-writing-blog]

Try This 2.6 Brooks

Cliches:

Killing 2 birds with one stone

Nose to the grindstone

chip off the old block

the elephant in the room

bull in a china shop

diamond in the rough

deer in the headlights

Switched around cliches:

Killing two elephants in the room with one stone

Chip off the china shop

diamond in the headlights

Nose to the rough

The bull in the room

Deer in the rough

Elephant off the old block

[sierra-writing-blog]

Try This 1.2-Brooks

CW: Abuse, Sexual Violence, SA

.

.

Things I have lost:

Friends, passion, pets, loneliness, grandparents, self esteem issues, abuse.

    Abuse is one of those things that everyone knows about, but few ever talk about it. I did not go through the worst that abuse has to offer, but I was also no stranger to lying, manipulation, gaslighting, shoving and gripping, sexual coercion. I can speak on this freely and it brings me no shame or great discomfort. Normalize sharing our experiences. Normalize baring our trauma to the world that we may be a beacon of light for others to step into from the darkness of shame and fear in which they often hide. Most abuse goes unreported. Few cases ever see court. Even fewer lead to legitimate convictions. #MeToo was a wake up call of the abuse that people in this society endure. It started as an emphasis on the trauma of cis women but it has since grown and flourished to include not only cis men but trans, nonbinary and gender-non-conforming individuals.  About 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men are victims of sexual violence at some point in their lives. A survey conducted in 2015 found that nearly half (47%) of their trans and nonbinary responders were sexually assaulted, and that stat was even higher (53%) for people of color.

friends are not around forever, and are often replaced with the changing of the seasons, but the marks they leave on our lives may stay with us our entire lives, for better or worse.

Passion and drive are difficult things to muster up and maintain when you battle ADD or some other disorder or disability, for me it’s a daily battle with hyper-fixation and lack of physical and emotional energy.

Pets bring indescribable joy to our lives, they show us unconditional love even as we may still struggle to love ourselves, and they show us how we should be treated with kindness even as we may feel it is undeserved.

Loneliness is a slow death, even as the introvert wishes to be alone, alone should be a choice; loneliness is the cruelest punishment that can be inflicted on a biologically social species.

Grandparents can be incredibly wonderful companions for the growing and learning child, they share life experiences that left a little girl with awe, and in their death taught her about the pain of grief very early on.

Self-esteem issues are quite constant in our world, they cause us to suffer the things we cannot change, and moving past them to find my self love was a difficult but rewarding journey.

Abuse changed my life in ways both good and bad, altering my perspective on abuse entirely and it made me a stronger and more confident person, but I can also acknowledge that some lessons shouldn’t have to be learned that way, I deserved to be safe.