My Face by Jacob Layne

self portraitMy hair is soft. It is disobedient and gets hot when I'm in the sun. Once it goes up, it's hard to brush down. Sometimes when it's flat, hairs slither over both my ears like snakes sliding over a wall. My hair flops in the wind like a dog sticking his head out of the car with his ears flopping and flipping. I loathe the way it gets in my eyes because I can't see and THAT'S really annoying! Some of my bangs like to hide behind other hair leaving spaces that aren't covered on my forehead. Standing straight up like an oak tree, with chestnut brown twigs standing tall. My hair keeps my head warm when it's cold, like a lazy cat lying around my head. Uncontrolled, it has a mind of its own. My hand slides across my thick and shiny hair, as if on ice, sparkling like diamonds in the sun.

My eyes are very special to me. Without them, I wouldn't be able to think or see because the optic nerve connects to my brain. When I'm depressed or sad, my tears are like a faucet dripping out my emotions. My eyelashes are like brooms sweeping dirt away every minute, every day. Always changing colors like a disco ball depending on what I wear, or the type of light. My eyes are exactly the same, like the reflection in a mirror. My eyes almost know more secrets than me because they see it all. They shimmer in the sunshine like a sapphire. Like two eggs, sunny-side up, but a different color. They look like two small city pools overflowing with a variety of colors and emotions.

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The Haunted House: A Halloween Story

halloween-pumpkinAs I slowly, but steadily walk down the endless sidewalk, I see a large, old creepy house. I decide to enter. As I open the door, I hear a creaky noise. I slowly creep up the stairs. I hear thuds and booms and bangs. I feel the hairs on my neck rise up. As I enter the room, it's pitch dark. All I hear is the wrath of silence flood my mind. I hear a sharp hiss interrupting my thoughts. I tightly close my eyes shut then I open them. Light beams the entire room. It pours down on my face and stings my eyes. Out of nowhere, a smokey, black coffin sits right in the middle of the bright room. I try to find a way back out, but the doors are locked! The key hangs on the coffin which was not there a couple of seconds ago. I have no choice but to approach the coffin and snatch the key. I breathe in. I smell the stale air.
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A Prayer and No Wings

  
They live with little hope and power, cast aside by smiles, shrugs; 
Swimming against a tide of paper, fates decided distantly,  
By slammed doors, bottom lines, lives misfiled. 
Barely existing in a sunless land, spirits spent. 
Daily I meet them, their arms raised,  
Eyes pleading, souls filled with pain. 
Drowning unheard in a sea of jargon,  
No markers or compass to guide them. 
Looking for answers, relief, comfort, 
A way to staunch the bleeding, bind the cuts.  
A husband cares for his wife, crushed by the depth of her suffering 
A single mother helplessly watches her dying daughter. 
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Black Belt on a Journey

Black Belt on a Journey

By Diane T. Padilla

I have been a student of the martial arts for nearly 20 years. I started out in karate, and for the last several years, I have been training in the Korean martial art of Taekwondo. I am a 56 year old woman who practices in a small school in New Hampshire, close to my home. I am one of the oldest students in the school, and I go through the same training as everyone else. I kick, punch, run up and down stairs; I crawl on my back, sides, and belly. Sometimes I learn about self-defense, other times, I learn martial arts philosophy. I am a third degree black belt. 

Some people think I’m crazy when I tell them I study Taekwondo, others are pleasantly surprised, as in, “that is amazing, especially for someone your age”. I am used to hearing that response, so I just smile and shrug it off. And I keep on training, because my life is so much better for what my martial arts journey is teaching me.
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Meditation at Hampton Beach

Written By: Diane T. Padilla

 


I am not an afterthought
dancing to the tune of
a silver starfish
Beached on the shores
of a fractured life.
Slate gray tide of smiles
Rolls in then a rapid retreat
when an outstretched hand
takes the bait.
Only once were the waters
stilled long enough to gaze
into the blue, finding deep
Currents of confusion.
In an underwater cave of hidden passions
Swirling, roiling, tossing, churned up, pulled under.
No more fishing in these waters
Dark and stormy.
I fight my way out of the riptide
and stand on solid ground where
I see a starfish
bleached white by the sun of my indifference.


(This is a revision of a poem published in the fall 2002 issue of Centripetal, the arts magazine at Plymouth State University, under the name, “Afterthought”).

 

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