A new story.

I think I am going to write a small book, which will require much heavy reading and research. But, this is just an idea, and usually when I get close to finishing an idea, just before I'm ready to really begin, that's when I realize how stupid the idea is.
So, no promises.

In my English 1304 class, we were reading an article that was supposed to show us the fundamentals of a causal argument... But I found it rather inspiring. It took the beastly phenomena of babies forgotten to die in sweltering cars, and laid claim to its cause. The cause was not nearly as concerning, at least to me, as the effects of the death itself. The effect on the parent.
And, so, as I listened to my classmates chatter on about maternal propriety and devotion and love, a story blossomed in my head...

A book that follows a modern day mother's life, what she gives up for her baby, and when her baby dies, the hopelessness of life itself. It sounds corny, but I plan for it to be very avant garde, very gritty and visual. The story begins with the mother taking her own life, and what happens to her soul after she dies, with flashes of the past littered throughout... years of her life creating obstacles in the afterlife that she must prevail in order to reach the sanctuary she sought all along, the peace of death. I will need to study philosophy and religion, commentaries on death, myths and legends. I plan on this piece being a very dark work of fantasy, I haven't yet decided if it will be an adventure book, because, for the most part, her journey is a solitary one. It may mirror Through the Looking Glass in terms of the mix of reality and fiction.

I'm ending it here, because there is a lot to think about.

- kathryn

new poem

Visceral Contagion

As I stand here, unconvinced

of all of your humanity,

doused with all of your antagony,

thick, viscous dregs of your contempt

leak so fervently, and so stifling,

over the raw, gaping holes of my nose and mouth,

like bloody, gangrenous wounds,

pounded viciously into unrecognizable slabs of meat,

ripped apart and torn, hanging,

dangling against my cheeks,

dripping with that contempt,

and destroyed, unavailing,

from overuse.

As I stay here, in denial

of all of your indifference,

my skull fractured and cracked

with the pulsing of so many useless emotions,

your venomous stare spits

like the bright green acid

of some menacing Amazonian flower,

and swells like a poison deep inside

the putrid sockets of my eyes,

rotting and dead,

no longer used to see

but to accept the progeneration of your hatred,

breeding like maggots

deep within my mind.

And as I will not leave here, content

with all of your vitality,

I have died here.

And while my hands,

they write,

my body,

it breathes,

my soles,

they hold me firmly against the earth,

my quintessence stubbornly decays,

rancid and sick,

until what is left,

but your hatred,

your contempt,

your indifference,

and your spit

upon my grave?

But this is what I choose, happily,

and devoid of fear,

preferable to a death

without life at all.

- kathryn

Wendy's Short Story

The crest appeared as it had every time before this one... Under the head of the sun bent low and heavy beneath the pressing darkness, its fiery haze of red and orange its one last resistance to the crushing inevitable; sweeping its way across the horizon, the wave perseveres to discount the failure of its counterpart, too absorbed in itself to relent a tragedy. Its harsh, salty breath sprays indifferent on the faces of steep cliffs which bend to its corrosive will, their intentions far better than what the sea has carved them for. The battles fought and lost against the billowing mass go unbeknownst, and quite unremarkable, to those who dwell here on the edge of all things structured and safe, except for one.

Her eyes remain open in the face of the raucous sea, unafraid in extolling their fierce adulation for what most do not care to see. Her dirty, calloused feet hold steady on the reef, fifty yards above the crash of water beating its fists against the earth, its wanton cry for a larger arena to bask inside.

--------- work in progress

I failed my piss test today.

Yellow Apple

The skin torn and blemished

with those tiny black dots

shallow in depth

And a red flush

made apparent on just one side

Visual Poetry

As if out of intense vagary

summoned from the boiling depths

coiling and uncoiling

so abhorrent and foul

is the curdling black water,

That the fierce dying croak

convulsed, teeming, from the bodies

of the surmounting dead

comes eerily rising up,

And with it drags an abomination

soaked horribly with that like mephitis

which constricts the lungs

and forces the eyes like corks

redder than wine, and thicker an atrocity

to bulging from the very skull,

It trudges further upward

like fiendish goblins, a hellion

so putrid and dense

too corpulent so

God would have him cast under

far beneath the ocean's floor

carefully embalmed in a petulant stew

marinated for centuries

until its hair grew thin and lank

straight down against its many jutting bones

its skin sallow and gross

transparent and wrinkled

dyed lurid from the brine of salt

and the pounding of many waves,

Oh, desperate woe,

how terrible a sight set laid before me

that I may spend these last quivering moments

relaying it unto you

for I have seen Hell and

not a thing can be frightened of now,

For death comes easily

and so should I.

Character Profiles

NAME: Wendy May Barringer.

BIOGRAPHY: She is small, observant, diffident... yet strangely prone to the consuming trait of endurance. She has to be, born into a world worthy of the claim "dystopia", a world that took a different turn in history to remain more primitive, and in so many ways more advanced than that of modern day earth. It is industrialized, though many of the machines still rely on the concept of steam locomotives. Wendy works and lives in a factory that produces a variety of steamboats and motorized vehicles. Her father died when she was young, and her mother had always been absent. She fell into the care of her Great Aunt, who taught Wendy the value of strength, knowledge and challenging society. Wendy often went exploring down by the ocean where her Great Aunt lived, teetering on the edge of sharp tall rocks for lack of smoother beaches. She picked up much of the marine life and kept them as her pets, and has since reserved a fierce adulation for the sea. Her Great Aunt died of a mysterious cause after working very secretively in her study for hours on end, refusing Wendy access to the room or her thoughts for the months that this habit reigned. Wendy was nine when her Great Aunt was buried at the Bancroft Cemetery on the outskirts of town. She left Wendy nothing. With no other living relatives, Wendy was placed into foster care until the age of thirteen, when she was released on the condition that she work at the steamboat factory in Ireton, the next town over, until her sixteenth birthday. Wendy was grateful for her release, but appalled at the condition of the ocean's bay in Ireton, and when she wasn't working twelve hour shifts, she was rescuing sea creatures drowning in industrial waste. Animals were not allowed in the factory, so Wendy had to hide them amongst the clanking pipes and billowing steam that overwhelmed the humid basement. Wendy's confusion and pain at the circumstances of her Great Aunt's death still plague her mind in the factory, and her aggression toward to her co-workers stems from her resentment at being left out of her will. This is where her story truly starts.

AGE: About fourteen or fifteen.

HEIGHT: 5'2".

WEIGHT: 110 pounds.

BODY TYPE: Though she has an even distribution of lean muscles throughout her body, Wendy is rather thin and modest in her height. Her posture is rarely strong and square-shouldered, and her demeanor suggests a desire to remain unseen. She is adept at climbing, has impressive balance and sharp agility. Her development is immature and the men she works with hardly take any notice at all.

FACE TYPE: Wendy's face is well defined. She has large eyes, a slightly upturned nose, and full, though at times severely chapped, lips. Her cheek bones are hallowed, and her chin is pointed.

COMPLEXION: Wendy has cream-colored skin, pink cheeks, elbows and knees, and a dusting of light brown freckles across her nose. Upon the death of her Great Aunt, however, her complexion changed from a healthy dew to a languid sallowness, especially around the eyes. She has several scars from her many excursions onto the faces of steep cliffs and the tumbling of harsh waves. A dark splattering of grease is always present on her face and hands, and a light sheen of sweat and dirt make themselves apparent on any area of exposed skin.

EYES: Wendy's eyes are slightly bulging due to their great size, and are a shade darker than malice in a deep viridian. Somber grays and purples mark the circles beneath her eyes, and her brow seems to be in a permanent furrow of bitterness. If one is able to see past the husk of animosity that is perpetually folded in place, her eyes remain the key to her pain.

HAIR: Wendy's lank, straight hair is often hidden beneath a hard hat or tied up in a messy bun. Though the chestnut brown color is considerably unremarkable, when visible beneath the surface of water, glinting with sand or masked with the dazzlingly sharp colors of a polluted Ireton sunset, her hair turns the golden color of precious metal and falls freely about her face. However, few are lucky enough to see the sight. Wendy's strength and natural composure only come with tide, a solitary venture that Wendy treasures more deeply than anything she has left, and is determined to keep close.

CLOTHING STYLE: Before her internment at the steamboat factory, Wendy often dressed simply and casually in light khaki or blue jean shorts and alternated between the few faded t-shirts she owned. Her style of dress was often matched to fit her comfort. Her ripped, worn-out sneakers and sterling silver earrings her Great Aunt had given her were the only things she still possessed after her departure from foster care. Wendy now wore the same blue-gray jumpsuit, white t-shirt and pair of baggy blue jeans that was distributed to all of the other workers. Her small stature proved to be difficult to clothe, and her jumpsuit and jeans had to be cut off short to fit her slight limbs, and as a result were severely frayed.

SPEAKING STYLE: Wendy speaks very infrequently, though when she does her small voice holds an edge of slight vexation. Her thoughts are sewn carefully into her words, and one can hear the amount of consideration put into each string of speech Wendy utters. It seems as though she calculates exactly what she must say, but replies as if it hadn't taken any time at all. Her voice is dark, low and rough, which entices the curiosity of many who speak with her. Her eyes seldom meet whomever she is talking to, and simply fall to the floor or out of an open window.

GENERAL DEMEANOR: Wendy takes many things in life warily, and is cautious of the motives almost everyone around her. She is constantly suspicious or on guard, and darts furtively away from any sign of confrontation, not unlike a bird or a mouse. When cornered, however, Wendy's tongue has been known to cut even the thickest of egos and evade the swiftest of blows. In essence, Wendy Barringer can talk her way out of anything if need be, but otherwise remains unseen and unspoken. The opinion of her from others varies widely from mysterious and frightening to fidgety and embarrassing. Co-worker Humberto Wallace once described her as a "sadly misunderstood girl in need of encouragement." While other girls her age from a nearby dance academy wrote Wendy off as a "dirty weirdo in need of a right struggle with her soap dish."

CAREER: Wendy works at a steamboat factory, usually operating machinery but working with her pliable size to fix jams between cogs in hard to reach places. Wendy has aspirations of delving submarines deep down into the sea.

PREJUDICES: Wendy despises the autocrat leader the government in her country follows, and hates those with closed minds too ignorant to seek the truth. She holds many qualms with industrial companies as well, especially the one she works in, because of their improper waste disposal system. Additionally, Wendy has just a general contempt for mankind, seeing humanity as weak, corrupt and greedy beings overall, making her highly susceptible to the distrust of her fellows.

BEST QUALITIES: Wendy is particularly intelligent, in marvelous shape, and has the cunning of a fox.

WORST QUALITIES: Wendy is extremely wary of her surroundings, which makes her enormously nervous of new people, things and places. She doesn't talk to anyone around her, and is severely unsociable. In general, she does not care about the plights of others, making her far from compassionate.

WEAKNESSES: While it is what gives her her enormous strength, what Wendy fears most is that her passion of the sea will be discovered and taken from her. Her family's past is also a sensitive subject that Wendy holds dear. In order to thwart Wendy, however, one must be brilliantly crafty, because brute strength of will or body alone is not enough to confine Wendy's fierce agility.

HOBBIES: Wendy loves to spend time on, in or by the ocean, capturing sick or unhealthy creatures to keep as pets. She enjoys reading books of all kinds, although, unusually compared to her classmates, marine biology textbooks seem to enthrall her. Wendy used to love riding her bike through the winding hills and cliffs where her Great Aunt lived, although in Ireton, suitable places for riding are far from abundant.

TALENTS: Wendy's talent is her wit, agility, and her strength of heart and mind. She is an expert swimmer, nimble rock climber and fierce explorer, and it is her wariness that attributes to her expertise. If one were to come blundering through the obstacles that Wendy has learned to overcome, they would find themselves face down on the sharp, jagged rocks that lay near the ocean's bay.

My College Essay

Bottled Violence

Kathryn Holmstrom

The summer heat was white with hate that day, and the sun shone down its objection of mankind, just far enough away from its fiery grasp to continue to produce life. The grass was damp and sodden with the coarse pounding of the thousands of insects hidden beneath it, and as I dressed myself I could hear the whizzing of June bugs tapping themselves against my window, a calamitous attempt at sanctuary.

The sound of my mother cleaning chickens filled the house that morning, so that the kitchen rang with the methodic squish and thud of their already rotting entrails slamming into the bottom of our metal trash can. At twelve years old, the carnage of the task both intrigued and disturbed me, and as I sat entranced, watching her, I was reminded of all that I had done in prospect of this moment. All of the mistakes I had made, how selfish I had been, and how our family’s situation had reflected my actions. The heart came out as shriveled and gray as I felt, beaten and won by infectious bacteria that it could have fought if it were still alive.

My bags lay packed by the front door, ready to be jammed into the car and driven three hundred miles from any place I called home. Looking around at the kitchen and everything I had destroyed, I sighed in a desperate attempt at relief from the guilt that every day sunk further into my heart. My mother smiled at me, a sad smile that made my guts cringe with the shame in receiving it. I didn’t deserve her love or her sympathy, and I turned away from her reprieve that told me, “I’m sorry.”

After that grave night when I finally realized the damage my father had done to himself and my mother, I began to lose faith in myself, my abilities, and the strength of all humanity to persevere in their small lives. If such venomous habits presented themselves in the way of all men, what would make me any different? The stench of alcohol and the words that spewed from its hindering discounted any belief I had otherwise, and my expectations of the life ahead of me grew exceedingly dim. I ate less, slept more, didn’t try in class, and failed the seventh grade. If I had still been attending school after that year, my parents would have had a reason not to uproot us and relocate because of their jobs.

I stood trapped in the kitchen with my failings and my back turned on all of the disappointment. The harsh sun flooded through the window, threatening us to come no closer, but at that moment I could think of nothing better for the world than to take that one last leap into oblivion. Then, at least, we could be free from our sins.

I used to feel like those bereft of life, like those cleaned chickens. Once vernal and ignorant, then dead and cavernous, emptied of everything that once made it move and walk and think. Our puny lives seemed to be moving along a slow assembly line, pigeon-holed and uniform, with nothing to look forward to except a harsh chlorine bath and the sweet release of death. I used to feel like my life was insignificant and navigable to those mistakes I witnessed as a child. I had given up, and by doing that, I had ensured my retentiveness to those banal traits.

Years later now, I have returned home and to everything I left behind, and to see more clearly what I have become. What I have realized is that I am nothing like I expected. I have finally fought and tried for something better than the example presented to me at twelve, ten, eight years old. I am not prey to the hollow disease of addiction, and I have not ignored but honed my talents in search of a fulfilling career devoid of monotony, resentment and bitterness. I do not find myself subjected to just one choice but many, and I plan to live my life as if I asked for it.

Leftover Salmon

A gun is drawn,

warm and shiny and wet

bent on opposition

like a sharp blade of grass

---- definitely a work in progress, there is no complete thought here!!!

At the Edges

Your lips stained with wine
Like an apparition
Molding the minds of the listless
With putrid intentions
Spewing from a scorching vermilion mouth
And pale, dead skin does decorate
Like the bloodless do
In the cold, hard ground
With eyes that shimmer and writhe
Like a horde of ants
That make my heart seize
And my blood curdle
Where delicate papery skin peels
The wrinkles back
To reveal your jade teeth
And sour, drunken breath
So must your hot wax hands leave their mark
Down my shoulders
Melting
And bubbling
And burning
Until I can no longer stand the touch of you
And your liquor soaked discussion
Determined by the lawless
And lack of divinity
You choose to see in me.

- zelda

What it is to Be Pure

The candor to which you cling so desperately is most noticeable in those perfect, indefinable moments. It drips down your face, off of your jaw and onto your chest. Soaked into your flesh, it is both what keeps you alive and makes you want to die.
Your eyes so deep and unrelenting in their quest for purpose. Your hair drenched in human weakness. Your face contorted with lust and the immaculate contempt of your consciousness. Your body entwined with mine, desperate for animosity and compassion.
In those perfect, indefinable moments, I look at you and see a masterpiece of both benevolence and hostility alike.
In those perfect, indefinable moments, I sometimes wish I could tell you that your sincerity frightens me.

- zelda