Entry Ninety-Three

This one was one that I wrote for Honors. Or A.P. in high school. I was so impressed with myself at the time. I still think it's one of my better works. It's also more polished than the other stuff because it was edited for class.

Entry Thirteen:

Hope or Hell

To stand upon the precipice of life. Upon the wings of salvation. Only one thing enters the mind. The breeze becomes caught in the threads of my logic and pulls it to

And fro to

And fro

So that no thing...comes to be...making sense at all...so that...which things were true...are now false.
That breeze which whispers what all wish to know and carries with it:
Peace.
The smell of care, the sound of endless possibilities, the feeling of a call reaching to the skies. The knowledge of simplicity. But all good things fade into the darkening sky as the breeze quickens its pace. Pushing and pulling at my heart strings in a roar of sound and I feel eternal damning pain and...

All at once...a window is thrown open and...so curious I peer inside. Seeing what was, what is, and what is still not so. All the same.

Truth!

This is what is revealed to me.
Evil***
This was, is, and always will be...
our fate.
The window closes...
Darkness follows and then it is only I. Alone with that breeze tugging my logic to

And fro to

And fro

So that all...once being...wanted good...had been light...is now darkness. Only one thought comes to mind. Escape. To find a place and join all those who found peace in the warm embrace of what lies beyond. Refuge. The only purpose left. Standing upon the precipice, upon the wings I fly to my fate. My mind clears and sees only one sight.

***
The shells of those who lose all they had to something cold and empty. Crushed souls devoured by the flame of their fellow man. Children scarred by the fear of nations. A wash of fire/ A raging inferno all within the eyes of...
Brothers. Sisters. Family...friends. Withing the hearts of every being. A terrible anguish.
Like boiling sweat
And a tear freezes

This one takes a little more explanation.

First, you must know that at the times I was REALLY into ellipses. Even more so than usual. To me they represented broken or uncertain thought and that was what I was trying to convey in this particular piece of work. The "To and Fro" section was written that way so that the readers eyes were pulled back and forth across the page. Just after those happen, both times, there is a series of broken disjointed thoughts. This is also very intentional. They aren't meant to make much sense because logic is being pulled to and fro and is trying to grasp one concept but failing.

Here is the most important part of the poem. The Asterisk's. The poem is called Hope or Hell because the reader ultimately chooses one or the other. If they read the poem in a linear fashion (that is passing over the asterisk at first and continuing on and then catching the asterisk at the end) they are met with hell. The last thing they read in the poem is a dark passage. Even if they mentally insert it into the place where the asterisk is, their mind ends on a cold note.

If, however, the reader comes upon the asterisk and reads that section before moving on, they end on a hopeful note. The end of the poem ends hopefully.

I know it's weird. Like I said, when I wrote it, I thought it was inspired.

So there you go. I still have more entries but those are for another day.