Wednesday, April 24, 2013

My Starry Nights - A Poem

Um. Written for class based on the prompt, "You don't know it yet, _______, but..."

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My Starry Nights


You don’t know it yet, Vincent van Gogh,
but I will not be you.
The girl from a year ago could be seen
as the female shadow cast by the ghost
of a young you - overly emotional and insecure
about literally everything - but I
am no longer that girl.
A year is a year is a lifetime is an infinity,
and infinity has a way about it that changes
those who it touches.

I am still a suffering artist - and how strange!
How strange it is indeed
for one so young to label herself as such, but alas,
Vincent,
that is a link between us
I am willing to admit survives.

For while I am mad, I will not go mad, per se,
in the manner in which you
so fantastically did.  I’m mad
at the world, Vincent, and did you know?
I’m mad at how beautiful it is -
so fully, infallibly beautiful -
because tell me,
my dear,
what should be allowed
to shine so brightly despite all
those trying to dirty it with lies
and crimes and murder?
And it is that anger, that unjust
and righteous anger,
that fuels my fervent and fanatical love
of art and all that it encompasses.

I wonder -
did you not once feel the same?

I made art my religion, Vincent,
a long, long time ago.
I will not succumb to the world and allow it
to swallow my passion as you did.
I knew when I first heard of you that
in you, I could see myself, and
that would be alright, but I also
saw myself as you, in the end,
alone with your sunflowers.
The girl from a year ago could still see that,
see herself alone in a cornfield,
letting the winds of time weather
her to nothing, “for the good of all.”

But as I told you, Vincent,
she is no longer the one calling the shots.
I will not be you, not wholly.
I carry a part of you but not enough
for me to choose to walk to you in the end.
I will not be a post-impressionist, for I
will leave an impression, and leave it loudly
and boldly for everyone to know.

I will make art, Vincent van Gogh, and I’ll be dead
before anyone tells me my art wasn’t alive.
I will be your antithesis, your counterbalance,
or, at least, I will do my best to be.
And someday I hope to stroll past
the Café Terrace at Night and see
the beauty that you once saw.

And it’s the years that separate us that
have given me a truly unfair advantage
in my quest not to be you, for
I am able to look farther into the sky
than you were ever allowed.
I can see with my own eyes
the sprawling expanses of billions of years
of untold history captured in the swirls
and intricate wrinkles of the starry nights
that you were only able to imagine with paint.
And let me tell you -
it is beautiful.

7 comments:

  1. Reminds me of the Doctor Who episode with Vincent and Amy :D

    This is a truly beautiful and moving poem. It gave me such joy to read it.

    *hugs happily*

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  2. How is it possible that you write so beautifully? This is fantastic and I loves it and it has magic inside of it :D

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    Replies
    1. !!!!! Aaaaa thank you so muchQuinn!!! *hugs*

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    2. *hugs* Hey, there's this poetry competition that I think you should enter some of your poems into! I've been thinking about entering but I'm not sure yet but I would encourage you to because I very much like your writing and I think that other people should have the opportunity to like it too. http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/competitions/fyp/ :)

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    3. Ohh, that looks really cool! I will definitely consider entering. And I hope you do too, because I love your writing a lot.

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  3. Thank you Kallie! *hugs* I'm glad I inspired you!

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