Dreamlike Musings and Practicality

This is a set of three poems where I explore little ideas I wished to center poems around the use of visual language and one poem where I explore getting personal with my writing.

I.
A thin layer of water,
Between the earth and my toes.
At Salar de Uyuni,
The salt plains of Bolivia,
I see two skies, two suns, and thousands of clouds.

I see two of me,
Faces identical as we look at one another.
She opens her mouth to speak.
I stomp my foot and watch
As her face ripples and distorts,
And the movement of her lips are mangled by the waves.

She appears again,
As I walk the winding path along the Amazon River
She follows the way I slouch and trudge through the muddy dirt
Just as she is about to speak,
we reach Salto Angel Waterfall.

As I climb my way down alongside the waterfall,
She is not there,
And I cannot hear what she has to say about me
As the drumming melody of crashing water fills my ears.
And I gaze upon the paradise of every shade of green.

She is there once more,
Her frustrated face glaring at me from the white yulan magnolia flowers,
As I grapple for ledges up Huangshan Mountain,
Taking in the scent of the native pines
growing sideways off the rock faces.

Her mouth opens wide to scream into my face,
But at the peak of the mountains,
Standing on a rocky beach before a sea of clouds,
She has faded into the rich mountain alyssum haze,
as the sun turns everything golden.

II.
Bright stars behind my eyes
Innumerably iridescent
Filling the dark space with glittering gems of stardust

I float by Aquarius as he fills his bucket with
Amethyst, garnet, opal, jasper, and moss agate.
Watering the midnight of space with twinkling sparkles.
Little buds like seeds buried into wet, black earth,
Each one to grow into a complex thought.

I hold onto the fins of Pisces, sailing through an aquamarine sea,
The shark fins of Aphrodite and Eros leading me through an ocean of emotions
Paving a trail through the crashing waves of anguish, passion, and rage.
As they escape the wrath of Typhoeus, the ancestor of all monsters.

They leave me by the garden within the cosmic space of my mind
Where Virgo herself tends to the blue sapphire, garnet, peridot, and citrine flora.
The Astrea of my cosmos, tending to the virtuous verdure that thirsts for pure water
Cultivating an extravagant creativity that lusts to grow beyond the confines of the garden fence.

III.
The Five of Cups.
A cataclysmic disputation
Has made loss tangible,
The liquid drained away.
I know that my wet fingers
That try to fix the fallen cups
Will eventually dry.

The Temperance.
Perhaps I should focus instead
On the cups that remain full,
Do not give up on what survives.
Fill my soul half-full
Rather than half-empty
As I regenerate and rejuvenate.

The Nine of Swords.
Do not ignore the costs that come
With victory through preponderancy:
The death of the tender umbra.
Aspire instead for the light at the end of the tunnel,
And seek contentment sans sacrifice of oneself’s
Vulnerable feeling soul.

IV.
A list of things to pack when I move out of my dorm for the school year.
A list of things I need to do to finish this semester.
A list of things to say to my mom the next time I see her.
A list of things to text my mom just in case I never see her again: thank you, I love you, I’m sorry….
A list of things to chat with my sister about when she comes back from class.
A list of things I need her to bring back to the dorm before she comes back from class.
A list of things I want to do before I’m 21, my first partner, my first kiss, travel to Singapore.
A list of things I want to do after I’m 21, finish my undergrad, get a job, go to a concert.
A list of things I want to draw, saved pictures and tutorials in a folder on my desktop.
A list of things I want to eat, foodie reels and recipes sent to my sister to save.
A list of things I want to write, little snippets of prose and poetry in my notes app as I ride the subway.
A list of things I want to get into: sewing, exercising and socializing.
A list of things I want to be better at: practicing gratitude, self love, and dancing jive
A list of things like birthdays, because I can remember names and faces after one try but not birthdays after years of friendship.
A list of things to say when I’m speaking to my relatives, a Cantonese basics cheat sheet so they can understand me and I can understand them.
A list of things I want to talk to my dad about, but I’m scared to be anything but silly with him.
A list of things I want my dad to ask me about, but I’m scared to see him serious.
A list of things that I can make lists about.
Check that one off the list.

Process

The development of these poems is largely attributed to the pair sessions I had with my mentor, where I was encouraged to write based on a large variety of prompts. This method was used in order to get me to write more and to write about something or in a style that I had never considered writing in before. It really broadened my horizons as a writer and opened up new things for me to be inspired by. For instance, the fourth poem of the set is in the style of a list. It was my first time writing a list poem and the first time I attempted to be more personal and vulnerable with my writing. I feel that I would have never stepped out of my box if it had not been for the pair sessions I had with Christine to encourage me to try something new.

Prior to my pair sessions with Christine, I was also unfamiliar with tarot cards and readings. However, Christine introduced a free write at the beginning of each session where she would pull a tarot card for me and I would write based on the meanings of that card. This fun experience introduced me to an entire new world I could take inspiration from, as is seen in poem three of this set.

Genre / Medium

Poetry

Topic

Nature Religion & Spirituality Self-Reflection

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Fiction

Olivia Wronski

Olivia Wronski is a hopeless romantic, growing up surrounded by the romance genre in books and movies. As an artist, they find ways to express themselves through creative outlets like art and dance. She is an environmental activist, working to change the way we treat our earth, starting with her immediate family and local neighborhood. They are also a queer activist, pushing for rights for all. As a side note, she is a twin sister and is very interested in understanding the phenomenon of twins.