@Liberty500, a utopia is a paradise! You might be more familiar with the word dystopia - it's when something is meant to be a perfect society or thing, but isn't.
@JabberHut, thanks! It's a lot of fun referencing some of my favorite parts of KH, and I'm glad someone can get the references.
A Quick Explanation: This poem is another KH-themed poem, but is told from the perspective of my oc Kirux. He's Riku's Nobody, and is currently traveling to different worlds in the hopes of finding him someday.
heartache
heartache. a word meaning longing for a lost loved one. can i say that my heart aches when you don't even know i exist?
i've searched under a million skies, looking for you. i feel something growing in my chest— a pain that those without hearts aren't supposed to have.
i trace the lines of the constellations with the tip of the keyblade i've never been taught to use as i lie with my back on a grassy hill. were you once here, looking up at the same array of lights?
our stars make the same constellation, but mine is missing the bright star that everyone always looks for in the dark night sky.
A Quick Explanation: Though this poem isn't a KH-themed one, it's another surrounding a character. This particular character is Asteri. He's from the novel I'll be working on soon, and I wanted to get back into writing about him. Another protagonist - Kentaro - hears Asteri as a voice in his head a few years before the story starts, but the events at the very beginning of the story forces Kentaro to realize that Asteri is more than just a figment of his imagination.
silent screams
you fidget with what you're holding in your hands— it's a game controller this time, but it's been a pencil, a phone and a remote. i can read you even without the anxiety seeping off of you in thick waves.
i offer words of comfort, promising that things will be alright even when i know the future is uncertain and that i have no control over the inevitable.
but you don't want to hear the words i've been screaming out since the day we first met. because god forbid you listen to the voice in your head.
i remember sitting in church pews, listening to sermons that i had no interest in. i'd daydream about whatever story i was writing, and feel a wave of relief when it was time for sunday school instead.
at some point, i began to think that the bible wasn't entirely real. that god did exist, and jesus, too, but that the bible was just a collection of stories meant to inspire good acts that followed the teachings of my religion. i kept my thoughts to myself, never breathing a single word because i thought everyone was secretly thinking the same thing.
then the church pews were forgotten among memories of scandals in my little neighborhood church. of suicides, illicit acts, and a broken community. sunday school had been growing empty for years, and this was just the final straw.
we left church. i left behind the uncomfortable pews, sunday school lessons i had always secretly been bored by, and a building that had never felt like home.
now i've created a religion of my own. one of kindness, of perseverance, of treating others the way you want to be treated. my church wasn't a bad place, but i can't believe in a god i don't know exists. i don't have to sit in church pews or take part in sunday school classes to feel like i'm doing my part. i just have to be understanding to those that i encounter, whether we believe in the same religion or not.
i always feel the sands of the hourglass slipping through my fingers. i worry that i'm not doing enough in the precious seconds that pass me by.
my mouse hovers the right corner of the youtube video as i desperately try to skip an ad that says it'll end in five seconds.
i panic when i realize it's almost the end of april, and i still haven't completed a specific set of tasks that i can do next month, too. what if i lose the plethora of time that i've been blessed with?
and as the sun begins to rise over the forest behind my house, i rush my brother to finish getting ready for school so we can get the last chore of the morning done before leaving with plenty of time to spare.
my parents have always said that i go too fast. but i can't sit and wait when i know that each moment is impossible to get back.
we were standing in the middle of town when you first told me what friends were. you said with that musing yet gleeful look on your face that "friends eat ice-cream together and talk and laugh about the stupidest things".
then we climbed up to the top of the clock tower devouring our salty yet sweet summertime treats to the ticking of the clock above. i still couldn't understood what friendship was but your definition felt right.
so i led her up there, too, and taught her about ice cream and friendship and everything you had ever told me to memorize.
but you never told me that friendship was the pain of betrayal when your "friends" can't tell you the truth. i couldn't memorize the right reaction to you pretending like our connection didn't exist, only to come running back to me when you thought you should care.
you look so sad as i start to turn away after i speak words i can never take back. don't pretend like you don't know why i'm hurting. you're better than that.
we had known each other for days i couldn't count when i first spoke your name. i won't ever forget the look you had on your face.
i didn't understand that we were different, then, but i don't think you would have cared. you brought me to your sanctuary and showed me your secret delight— a salty but sweet summertime treat.
we listened to the clock chime above us and dangled our feet over its side. sitting there, everything felt right. you and i were meant to be together, even if i didn't know why.
then he joined us. he taught us about the importance of the little moments and what best friends were. i like to think that we were all best friends, even when you hated him for lying to you about me.
i have to go now. you won't remember me, but please don't forget him, roxas. don't forget the ice creams we shared under the summer sun, and don't forget how excited you were for me to meet him— even when you don't remember that you had two best friends instead of one.
when you first told me that your grandfather was in the hospital, i thought of how my nanna had been in and out of it since she got her cancer, but i didn't know how to say "i'm sorry".
you told me how he wasn't eating or drinking, and how his days were running out. and i didn't know what to say. i just offered an awkward hug and hoped i could find the right words when he finally did pass away.
and then he passed away, and i found myself at a loss. you said he had a week to a month left to live— he died that weekend. i offered condolences over texts, a broken record of "i'm sorry" that you've heard a thousand times by now.
it's not my story to tell. i'm not one of the girls crowding into the bathroom instead of the classroom, gossiping about my love life and my worries about prom— you just never realized that i was in the stall right beside you all, trying to make sense of a conversation you didn't bother to hide.
it's not my story to tell. i'm not supposed to be writing about how your girlfriend broke up with you on the phone, and how you spent and hour talking to our parents about how unsatisfied you were with life— even if i understood your pain from the next room over as i accidentally overheard your conversation.
it's not my story to tell. i'm not the one who got a cheap, broken car from his parents. i never lost my precious car to a brother who should have never been allowed to mess around with the stereo— i'm just your daughter, sitting in the front seat as i drive my first car and you reminisce about times long ago.
when i was a child, i liked the color pink. i would wear little dresses with flowers and worn fabric, dressed in a coat of pink from head to toe. i would twirl the skirt of the dress around and feel the wind catch it. i liked my hair long but had to cut it because i could never stop myself from twisting it this way and that.
but standing in the mirror while trying on dresses for junior prom, i squirmed in discomfort when i wore a pale imitation of a princess dress, the pink waves flowing out all around me. i settled with a bright blue one instead, something "different" even though all i wanted to wear was a suit.
and though my hair is short, we still put it in a plethora of little curls. i wished i kept twirling my hair so we couldn't manipulate a single stiff curl in.
i couldn't keep still as my mom tried to apply makeup on a face that had never worn it outside of school plays. it felt heavy and wrong, and i wanted to take a wet washcloth and wipe it all off.
as i look back at the pictures taken from that prom, i realize that the girl smiling beside her best friend wasn't me and will never be me.
"hero is a title reserved for those who perform truly great feats." the words were spoken from the lips of someone who was far from heroic, but they continue to ring out in my head every time i look up at the newest poster plastered in the movie theater's windows.
hero isn't the title one gives someone who has defeated a slew of aliens invading earth yet again. it's not a title belonging to those who win in cgi fights against those villains who are them with a different name. it's not a title given to people characterized by their fights with others like them. it's not a title for the dark and gritty.
hero is a title reserved for those who show kindness in everything they do. who help the weak even when their limbs are too tired and their bodies too battered. hero is a title reserved for eacons of hope, who tell you "i am here" and give you a smile when you feel like your world is about to break all around you.
hero is a title reserved for those who know that the truly great feats a hero performs are the ones that show the truth all heroes know: that they are nothing more than good people.
there’s a knot of emotions all tangled up in my chest, a conglomerate of strings from a variety of bundles. it’s a rainbow of anxieties— of red worries and violet anxiety and green envy and pink doubt. i’ve tried to pull them free and burn them in the fire of my mind, but they’re wound too tight for more than a piece of thread to break free.
yet there’s ways to make a tangled mess beautiful. i take a pair of scissors and cut through the thread i can see. snip, snip, snip. the pieces fall to the ground in quick succession. the smaller ones are taken by the creatures in my mind’s dark corners to make nests and knots in the distant future.
the longer strands are ones that i run through my fingers. my hands are clumsy, but i keep the pieces of colorful thread together in the bracelets i made as a child. i look at the bracelets lining my arms whenever i feel a knot growing too big. then i pick up my scissors once again— snip, snip, snip— and a rainbow falls to the ground around me.
my story always returns to this point. no matter how many times i flip open the worn pages of my book, i find myself sitting only a table away from the people i once called my friends. i listen to how they talk about the people that i used to know. their words drip with venom, but they don’t try to hide the conversation under the guise of silence.
they always make comparisons to people who “betrayed” them— a strong word for people who haven’t even been to college. i wonder what the offender did to receive their scorn. was it a series of pointless arguments that dug a divide they didn’t want to cross, or was it a single comment that made them see themselves in a distasteful way they were previously blind to?
even after they fall into silence, i can never pull my mind away from the thought that i used to be the person they compared to. what did they say when i finally gathered the courage to say how i felt? did i become the monster under the bed, the taboo? was i just someone i used to know—did they say, “oh, she seemed so nice, but underneath it all she was a b——”?
i ran as far as i could, and hide to the best of my abilities. but i can never outrun them, and i’m always found. they speak kind words but i still flinch when i remember the venom on their tongues.
