Smudge on the Wall

*
* Smudge on the Wall *
The pictures slowly but surely sliding off your wall, the paint peeling off of your ceiling; fix them, reconstruct your room. Fill the deep cracks splitting apart your everything. Fix it; paint it all a new bright color. Cover the mistakes with a beautiful masterpiece that keeps the secrets behind and hidden. Continue to cover it. Hang that family portrait up with smiles that never fade. Make everything better with your constant lies. Don’t let your secrets creep out or else all will surely crash to the ground. Continue to paint the wall. Reconstruct, they say. But you can’t, can you? Because they already know what lies behind the bright colored walls, behind the smiles, the truth behind the picture that you keep trying to hang. Lies, your shaky hands missed a spot when reconstructing the white walls that stood everywhere in your room. You forgot to cover your guilty, sloppy fingerprints that accidentally stained the wall. It turned out that your fingerprints matched those on a handprint on another women’s wall. It was your handprint above her bed that stained red on her white wall that once looked clean and innocent. There’s no more paint to cover up the mistakes and cracks that run so deeply within your area. No matter what color you use, no matter how bright it is, no matter how long the label says it will last, the mistakes still show. The mistakes still pull through and we still see them. Sure is a shame being caught red handed and there’s no way out, there’s no lie to try and further trick the oblivious. It’s your handprint we saw and now it will never come off. Your hand is permanently on this other women’s wall. There’s no way that family portrait will hang on your wall again. There are no nails strong enough to hold it together and keep it from hitting the ground. The paint has run out. That's it, nothing more to do. Your room is a disaster but it’s all because of the sneakiness in which you thought you mastered. Its rough watching it all fall apart, isn’t it? The portrait shatters, the cracks get so bad that the ceiling falls, it all turns so ugly, and you can’t do anything but sit there and watch. There, by yourself on that squeaky, rusty chair you sit. No one knew not even you what was coming. I still don’t understand why you weren’t satisfied with your own room, why did you have to wonder into another women’s room? Your room was already beautiful without any pictures or bright colored walls. Your walls glimmered and shinned without any effort put into them. They stood there holding everything together, doing what they were supposed to do, without any inquiry. Now you sit alone on that rusty, disgusting chair. Alone and lonely, and this happened for what good reason? What reward was so great that makes all of this misery stirred up in your face worth it all? It was for a new color? A change? Following the motto of out with the old and in with the new I see. Out with the old look that fit nicely and worked so well for you and in with the new color that leaves you nothing but ugliness that fills your entire room. I understand now. Well, you are granted with my complement of your decision on color change being a good idea. It is all such a nice look now isn’t it? You could have kept it the same, leave it to be original with its natural beauty; that way you would not have to go through the trouble of finding bright colors to repaint the wall with. Its amazing how such a beautiful masterpiece, could be destroyed with one little mistake, one little smudge on the wall and it just ruins it all.

Creativity: I used metaphors and imagery to describe a man who cheated on his wife and he destroyed their family. I also added coloring to literally show that the paint has "run out," which really means there are no more lies that he can tell to cover up cheating on his wife.
Engagement: This describes the act of cheating in a relationship.
Growth: I never used only metaphors and imagery to tell an entire story. Here I never directly said that a man cheated on his wife and it ruined everything but I let you figure it out through all the metaphors and imagery. I also tried to think of ways to literally show what’s going on in the story by using different colors and symbols so the reader finds it more creative and interesting. (I hope people caught on to that).

A Time of Change

After that the change was complete.

After he said those words, after he ignored me for years

After all those silent, dropping tears

The change was complete.

Every time I think back to when you hit me, my fists clutch and I drive closer to insanity

After your screeching screaming voice that yelled in my ears with non stop profanity

After the constant smell of alcohol which you soaked in

After all your hurtful, sneaky sins

After sitting in the corner rocking back and forth with my head buried in my arms

The change was complete

Your out, your gone, you disappeared

You’re no longer feared

Who’s life do you fit into now?

Not mine, not Lisa’s, not Johnny, and not Mom

No one and its from all that you have done

The change is complete

You are no longer a part of our life

You stumbling in, your stuttering words that we could never decipher are over

Your beatings, your apologizes, your idiotic ways, your bad choices are through with

It’s a new time and it’s a new shift

I guess it took a lot for us to uplift

And leave you standing alone

The change is complete

To go back to you is a choice that would only defeat the purpose

You deserve better even though you hurt so many

But more importantly we deserve better

We deserve happy smiles that last more then a second

We deserve love

We deserve freedom from your disappointments

We deserve a lot

Staying with you will get us nowhere

Running back will only provide us despair

We would only gain a loss of hope in you, a loss in hope in everything

After that, after everything, after it all the change is finally complete

Creativity: I set things up so that the reader discovers that it’s a daughter talking to her father about how he is out of their lives because he is an alcoholic. I made it so that it is like an indirect letter. It’s not a letter to him exactly but you can understand that it is directed towards him.

Engagement: Talking about how alcohol problems badly influence everyone

Growth: This is not about me so I tried to put myself in another person’s shoes and try to understand the pain and hardship of the situation.

Together As One
We played at grandmoms house
We held hands and watched out for each other at the playground
We fought each other but made up every time
We learned to ride bikes together
I remember the time you secretly let go of my waist and let me ride for the first time without training wheels. I remember no longer feeling your strength holding me steady
You let go of me for the better
Now, you let go of me again but not to learn on my own and ride free but to cover it up and forget me.

Remember us?
“We” was our favorite word
“We” was us together every moment of our lives until now
The W and E now stand separate with a dark wall between the letters
They stand-alone
They don’t make as much sense alone as they would if they stood together, next to each other.
Our silly stubbornness continues to overwrite our friendship
Our timing is simply the wrong timing
You were my best friend and I always looked out for you just as you did for me

Remember we went to the ocean and there was a big storm?
We were thrilled by the huge waves crashing down on us
I could tell that when it got dangerous and I would stay under water longer then I should, you were worried
But when we went out to the deep end I was worried more about you then myself

Our timing is off now
Because if this were us young Mom would make us talk to each other
She would break down the brick wall that we built between ourselves

The thrill of the pills wrote pages of my life
They made my life better and you failed to see me and my side
Or maybe it was me?
I failed to see you holding out your hand
I neglected your strength to help me to fight it all, to help me through it all and to hold me steady like you always did

I drove you away with my habit I guess, but WE can become one again
Instead of two different people, instead of two different letters we can become one again
We can become we again
I am sorry you had to suffer as much as I did but I did not notice
For you hide your tears from me
Or maybe it was I at fault again
I was too “out of it” to notice that you face looked redder and your eyes were watery
I didn’t notice you wiping your tears and snot dripping off your nose on your sweater
I did not notice your heavy breathing, coping with the way I was, I way you wished I had never been
Your sad face was just another face I overlooked

I could say sorry a million times and hope that you could believe that its over for real this time
I could ask you over and over to believe me and only hope that you do now
I lost it and I lost myself and even though parts of myself are still missing, the drugs are lost now
The path to who I was will never be found again but the path to who I now know I can become is still being paved

The habit is gone like it never happened
Its put behind me, miles away where there’s no way back.
I’m stuck in the positive direction now
There’s no way back but only a way forward

You, now its about “you”
I as in caring all about me is over now

But I care more about we as in being together again as one
It’s all about us now and sewing the broken hearts back together and patching up the open cuts
So that we be ourselves again
We can stand together as one and no longer pretend that we don’t know each other
That we are not hurt or mad at each other because I know you’re mad
But we can stand together as one and no longer separate ourselves to being completely different people
Of course we are two different people, entirely but different people who make meaning of the word we
“We” meaning we work together as one . I may have failed to take your helping hand but I will not fail in offering you my hand
We’re sisters and being there is what’s right, for all you have done for me its only fair that I am here again.

Your Always There

Your Always There
You always stared at me. You realized what I was going through and you understood everything without any explanation. I wish I could break you and then put your glass pieces back together to see a different me. I want to see the old me. I hate waking up to you only to see another eyelash is missing or how much hair I have lost. I hate this sickness and I hate you. You make me face myself with your odd way of reflecting back only what you see. You stand tall, attached to my bureau so I cant find a way to make you disappear without breaking you. I want to smash you into pieces with my fists and ignore all the pain. Why cant you reflect what I want to see? Make me the girl who has a full head of hair. Make me the girl who has long hair that lies down her back and nearly touches her butt. Make me the girl who does not have a near bald head, make me beautiful. Reflect me so I don’t look like a little boy. You spell words backwards so draw me backwards. Go back to when I was healthy, reflect the old me because this is
something I cant stand to see. I could suffocate you, place a huge blanket over your face and never see me again. Yet you don’t just sit in my room on my bureau, your everywhere. Every store, every bathroom, and every house I go to. How can I avoid you now? How can I avoid myself now? Every time I look into you I get extremely nervous. My palms sweat, my stomach drops and I shake. Only because every time I look I see someone different. You make me paler, I see less and less hair, my eyelashes are gone and my eyebrows are coming off. I get even sicker with you then the actual disease. Please over the next times I see you, unless I get better don’t continue to picture me differently.


Creativity: I talked about how a person is speaking into the mirror but I let the reader figure that out without me clearly saying it.
Engagement: I am writing about how a person with cancer feels when looking in the mirror.
Growth: I tried for the first time writing a whole piece on a characters inner thoughts.

The One

The One

Are you the one I can trust or are you the one I should be afraid of? Are you the one I can tell everything to and you will keep it all to yourself? My words, my thoughts, my feelings will go no further then your white pages? I would like to hope so. The downside of you is that you could hurt me more then anyone else could if you land in the wrong hands. You can’t keep everything to yourself then. You would tell my deepest secrets and you would let people know everything that I trusted you to never tell a soul. Telling you everything is so easy because you let me talk without any interruption, you listen, and you tempt me to explain everything as you just sit there with endless amounts of blank lines. For once, when I talk to you the voices in my head leave. I am not pressured to write something fantastic but I still learn from you. Every time I read you from months ago you trigger memories and let me learn from my experiences. You remind me when I forget about things and even though some are bad it’s a lesson. Your pages also do tell of something good and you make me proud of myself. You make me feel good when I am mad, sad, and even happy. I trust you for some time as you stay hidden but I will not keep you forever. I will have to destroy you at some point because I cannot fully trust you with so much.

Creativity: Tried to make the reader figure out on their own what I am talking about and I gave hints throughout the piece.

Engagement: Talks about how you can never fully trust anything even if you think you can.

Growth: Continued to write without giving away what I am talking about. Trying to keep the reader engaged with story being set up in a creative way.

Bittersweet

I don't want to think about it
I don't know how I feel about it all
The thought of you and her makes me weak
Able to easily fall to my feet
Yet makes me stronger every time
Every lie that easily slipped out of your mouth and told straight into my eyes is nothing now
I'm numb to pain
Numb to feelings
Numb to having a beating heart

Your were in my head with
All the words you said
My eyes wandered for you in every crowd although it was over
My scattered thoughts came together only to draw us
We almost had each other didn't we?

We were the perfect lovers
But I was betrayed and played by you, so I let us fade
You never cared for me
But I was to blind to see
Blinded by your one sided face
So oblivious to notice there was another dark side
Your two faces were so carefully and easy for you to hide

You painted a different picture of us
The kind that's torn in the middle
How could you think we had so little?
We had everything
Who knew how bittersweet it would all turn out?

It was all so new for me
You came out of nowhere
I guess you could call it all part of a game
I didn't know how to play but that's why I stayed away for so long

Then is no longer now, we are no longer one
On two different sides filled will with uncontrollable anger that just stirs up in your heart
Flames burst out into hurtful teardrops falling from the red eyes
It’s the only feeling that could make you feel like someone stabbed you once in the back and twice in the heart

The pain caused by just your few words was so unexpected
But its all okay the days will go on
The time will heal my open cuts
My mind will think of everything but you
Our time is up, our love is gone, and our war is finally over
Don't forget our priceless moments, our gentle kisses, and our warm touches
Because Ill go on
But to forget about us is all too much
The memories are what is cherished
And you were simply the lesson and now I'll pass every future class in session


Creativity: Explains both a situation and a persons inner thoughts with a rhythm to it.
Engagement: You learn from experiences in life.
Growth: Wrote a love poem that rhymes

Assigned Writing #1 Final paper

Judy Zityniuk 
Final Draft



Dear…


There must be a certain way of doing this. A way I know your familiar with. A way I know every normal girl is familiar with. I don’t want to write your name, I rather it feel like I am talking to myself. For some reason its easier for me, perhaps maybe because I am the “weird” girl. Talking to yourself is much easier then letting someone else know how you feel. When I was little I fell off the monkey bars and hurt my wrist. I kept wrapping my wrist in duck tape over and over again, I put ice on it everyday until it hurt so bad I had to tell my Dad. He screamed at me for not telling him how bad I was feeling and the look of bewilderment on his face can still be seen clearly in my mind. I was oblivious walking into your arms because it was new to me. I was smart from the beginning though. I was cautious the entire time where I never really believed you. My walls were made up of bricks that would never tumble down for anyone. Was it a game or was it true? I never really knew but I thought you did, I knew you did, and I think you still do at times. You have feelings for me. You have told me numerous times you like me but it didn’t feel real, they felt like words to me. Words that you blurted out of your mouth as our relationship progressed, words you thought would make things right. I never told you though. Instead I told you things that should have made you vanish from my life as soon as you entered it. Yet, you kept chasing after me, always trying to get my attention. Walking in the same path I was where you would almost bump into me if I hadn’t looked up and noticed you. I had you in the palm of my hand. I was the trickster and I always played games with you, leading you into a kiss and then pulling away laughing. Telling you things I really did not mean. Then you left, exactly what I wanted.

There has to be a way of telling you this, a trick, a skill I can learn or a technique where it’s simple to let it all out. Let you know how I really felt about you. The words you had spoken to me, the complements you had fed me had caught me onto you hook and you reeled me in. You were on my mind everyday after we completely stopped talking to each other. Every single day. Love songs that played on the radio I would shut off because they reminded me of you. The pain in their voices when they sang of how it all hurts I understand now. These words I can only speak in my head, they cannot come out of my mouth. They sit there in my mind, lingering and trying to find their way out. I cant and I am glad I kept them inside trapped.



School was finally over for the year and summertime was beautiful. I completely erased you and I went down the shore. I spent most of my summer on the beach. The ocean was amazing everyday. The sun shinned in the bright blue sky; the loud excited screams of children filled the background that rang along with the sound of the crashing waves in my ears. I never had one thought about you at all. My best friend Lea and I worked on the boardwalk at a pizza shop. She was the person who got me the job there. We were paid nine dollars an hour, which was great for me. I loved waitressing down there where everyone walked in with a bright smile. They all just came from the beach where they would still have wet sand on their feet. I wore a white shirt and black pants with a red apron in the middle, it was a weird uniform they made us wear but I didn’t mind.
One night, it rained so hard we barely had any customers. There was a hurricane in the ocean and a pretty bad one, so we were told to close up early. Lea had long black hair that laid all the way down to her butt. That hair would become a huge frizz ball once the rain touched it. She asked me to start bringing the gate down so her hair wouldn’t get all messed up. This was this night I saw you. I was busy trying to close the restaurant so I had my back turned to you when you asked me if you could buy just one lice of pizza. I turned around and we just stared. Unknowing of what to say or what to do. “I was just closing now” but…, I told you. You were with your friend and two girls. Before I could answer you cut me off saying okay. Then I watched you walk away laughing with everyone. I could easily make the assumption that everyone had a date, including you. You see I fail to make you realize how mean you were to me in this letter. There is no point to complain to you, I think I would rather just let everything go now, but what is so questionable is what could have we been when everything was a big misunderstanding? We both loved each other but we couldn’t tell because we were both stubborn at the wrong times. Your still on my mind at times and I wonder if I ever still come across your mind as well.