Tag: Lit

“The journey matters more than the destination.” – Tony Fahkry

Posted on by Emilyn in Life, My Journal (My Life), Photography, Prose

It’s been a line, perhaps a bit over said, repeated over and over, at least a million times, for reassurance caught between tangled messes and the highest of climaxes:

“The journey matters more than the destination.”

They had told me of the destination before, and for so long it was just an idea. Perhaps it was a notion that was persuaded by the people that we surround ourselves with, and it would give us prosperity in its different variations of success.  They had told me of the wealth, the favor, the eminence of the comfort it’d bring me. Like a higher being, it was something so magnificent, so devilishly charming, yet defiant it would be an extraordinary endeavor. Yet, I couldn’t possibly believe of settling for a destination.

I once thought about the happiness that it would bring into my life, if I had reached this place. Knowing that the journey would hurt more than a destination could try to make up for, but they had told me day in and day out that through the pain and the tears that it take to get there: that it would be incredible; that I would feel invincible.

They spoke of it like a promise land of wishes granted, and a billion stars, but I could only think about where I could possibly go from there, and one destination became distant, and soon a faint sight.

I have re-thought of my failures, and my moments of happiness in my journey, that they are the same, and I have counted the times I have walked, and each steps I have taken and realized that they count the same. I stand in the same place, the same endeavor, the same destination, still reaching to all my ambitions and aspirations, no matter how far they may be. My feet planted in every step no matter how difficult it becomes, and I cannot imagine a different path.

I cannot count how many times  I’ve told myself that I have to be the person that gets up more times that I have fallen, but each time, I think is a new beginning, and before I am able to arch my back in defeat, I hold my head up, and suit up for the journey, and like I have heard a million times before, “The journey matters more than the destination.”

    –          Emilyn Nguyen, Wise Words: “The journey matters more than the destination.” – Tony Fahkry

To See You Again

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

When we were kids, and they called us boys and girls, we felt like we were the ones building the world around us. We used to speak about high school diplomas as a distant task, and we imagined our dreams like they were our present. I casted my life on little of what happened at the present moment, and worked on so much that is still feels like so far away today, but now you have these ambitions, and I am able to be happy for you, as you were for me.

Now we stand here, and all I hear are about are of the places we used to not be able to talk about before. What were dreams, still stand as a sweet kind promise, and between us, with nothing said, we stand in each other’s lives, half at ease, and our different minds leaving home, and setting our dreams high above each other’s heads.

Take it back to when we were thirteen, and my head was already wrapped around a number of different dreams and aspirations. Many of which I could barley hold in my hands at the time, and many of which I am struggling to grasp in my hands today.

I think of the places of somewhere where people are reuniting after a day, or ten years, and we stand somewhere in between our young encounters, and growing up. We meet, and I tell you that my endeavors haven’t changed, and I feel a change in your countenance, but your spirits are held on to so tight, that I couldn’t express any more gratitude for.

We caught up on what we missed out on from each other’s lives. I recognized every part of your face as you spoke; every word, and meaning. I moved on so quickly, and I’m comfortable enough to call my future, home, but if there’s something else I must admit this feels a certain way I cannot specify. For the first time, my past was what felt as new to revisit, but you were one thing I’ve missed; every part of you. It’s interesting that my messages to you still feel the same as my first, and I’ve forgotten about some people over the years, but I sat there, jogging my mind about those like you that I’ve missed.  We spoke, reflecting on our past, because it was what we only knew; about the music I liked back then, the way you used to speak so confidently, only to realize how much time has passed, and really how much has changed, and the time that we knew was now inevitable to face.

I haven’t seen you in a while, a year worth of time, and I could look at that time that we have missed out on, but I think that we were just busy getting older, and perhaps a little bit wiser.

Now I realize that there is a faint breath between us as we speak, and I know it isn’t the gap in time that we have missed from each others lives. I speak like I haven’t thought about you in a long worth of time, but I’ve built a monument for our memories and the friendship we have built.

I was a girl with big bright eyes with a big dreamy head. I can barely remember all of the books I read those years, but I remember our conversations, and the late nights we stayed up laughing. You consoled the happiness in my ambitions in time capsules – you believed in me, and I carried you on my right side like you were all I had left.

I don’t know how many years I expected to lie in between us before we spoke again, but age caught up to us, and I’m afraid you cannot see all the things that are a part of me now. Somewhere in our history, we are now able to reunite with eager “hellos”, and “its so nice to see you”, but it makes “see you soon” so hard again. There’s a gesture in our language, that tells me that it might be a while again, but with hopes that our futures will collide.

–                    Emilyn Nguyen, To See You Again

Speckled Light

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

His aura of innocence, but incomprehensible identity is impossible to decipher, and difficult to understand. Yet it is welcoming — discerningly, and I cannot translate it in my feelings. They are half way between the nerves that present themselves by my inability to form sentences, and the churning of my stomach when he taps my shoulder.  From the characteristics strung on his stoic face, to his subtle expressions I wonder if it’s inviting to others like it is to a writer’s analytic, and over-active mind. I can feel his laughter as a breath of fresh air, and his smile lights up his smile like the light that peaks through the autumn leaves, yet the image of him is inexistent to my mind than it is to my heart as it pushes away the figure he could be. There are questions, and contemplation; too many of mystery, and little of certainty. There is no clarity, if anything it is clouded, and up in the air.  I can’t see what is possible if the sun is covered, and all you do is peak through the leaves as speckled light.

–                     Emilyn Nguyen, Speckled Light

Lillian

Posted on by Emilyn in Poetry

Lily, you grow delicately like the dreams in your undefiled mind,
internally defiant of your ambition to the people; kind, and graceful;
Loving all; Ivies and cattails envy you when you bloom lonely on single:
Lilypads, refusing to accept anything that you deserve. You must realize,
in time you deserve to be called by something so beautiful, and stop,
answering to everything but your full –
Name.

–              Emilyn Nguyen, Lillian

Who

Posted on by Emilyn in Poetry

“Bless her Heart,” he says,
to a product of display
but to her dismay:

Silhouette behind
numbers and comments – many
of which carry her.

“Who,” – should cherish her,
could take care of her
would love her: profile.

He saw her display,
with another hundred men,
behind glass windows.

Seeing an outline,
shape with no response throughout,
still, completely still.

“Hello,” she said
tight-lipped as a hushed shadow
in the faint doorway.

–                  Emilyn Nguyen, Who

Seasonal Change

Posted on by Emilyn in Poetry

Days pass in a timely fashion:
Slowly by daytime intervals, fast in a scale of seasons.

Moments happening without hurry,
quickly turning into memories –
with the quick approach of a future.

The world spins tilted,
in sections of dry lands, wet clouds, white blankets, misty fog.

Our minds are open, and our hearts are given.

Full view of and in full view:
sealed memories,
bottled ocean water,
brilliant minds,
endless miracles –
in a year of given time.

There are summers missed,
in a Secret Garden hidden under one tree:
barefoot dancing in our summer dresses,
talking of big dreams with bright eyes,
feeling like moments were timeless,
and nothing could change.

Yet leaves fall,
slanted, never straight;
unless, “it’s the way you look at it.”

A view of covered backs,
packed with essentials:
pencils, pens, paper,
dried flowers, devious secrets,
strengths, weaknesses –
of yours and mine.

to hibernate
and dream,
of a season
left behind.

To what we know best:
there is time,
a countdown,
an event,
a time,

to wait for,
to tell us:
when to return back – and start again.

–              Emilyn Nguyen, Seasonal Change

Dark Brown Eyes

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

What do you see out of those deep dark brown — colorless to human sight, but so riveting in life — eyes? Can I ask you how you see the light, because when you smile, it seems like the sun is show from within them; happiness so clear that even I, can’t help but smile at the sight of it. I can see the shimmering beams of color in between your irises, radiating in all the colors that make dark brown eyes. Do you realize that when you glimpse at me, I can feel the corners of them on the side of my face, and though I am avoiding looking at them, the light never stops shining — not even through your dark brown hair. I feel them closing in on me, behind me, stroking at my neck. I know that you are there. I know. When you look at me, however, I hope you’re looking right through me. I don’t want you to see me through my face lines, and my eyes are so mundane, but there might be the chance that you’ll see the butterflies flying endlessly in the pit of my stomach. Perhaps when you look at me, I hope you see through me, so maybe you’ll see the words trapped at the back of my throat that I’m afraid to say.  When you look at me, I hope you’re seeing right through me because instead of my appearance you’ll see what I have to offer inside my heart – or not, so you have a reason to change me. Tell me what do you see out of those deep dark brown eyes, tell me what you see when you look into mine.

                –                  Emilyn Nguyen, Dark Brown Eyes

Fearless and Free

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

In a crowd of people one day, I hope my voice is heard –

loudly,

clearly,

boldly – and most importantly, I hope that my voice is listened to. Even in the shyness of my quiet breath or the contemplation my mind holds within its self to speak. I hope I can escape my mind, and speak as free as I hope to run one day. Yet, hoping is less fortunate than happening, and when the event occurs, I know my words will be fearless. They will

be enunciated,

articulated,

and vocalized without the permission and pondering of doubt but certainty and confidence.

Today, my voice will be heard both fearlessly and free.

–            Emilyn Nguyen, Fearless and Free

 

Seven Billion

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

Last night, deep in conversation, you told me that “seven billion people experienced this day in a different way.” They’re seven billion days of separate people; of countless moments and timeless memories, simultaneously happening throughout a single day’s time. I would think that perhaps these seven billion days would make one feel so insignificant, small, and uncertain, yet my eyes only widen with hope. I know that the greetings of hello are the highlight of the seven billion days – this I know for certain, you are living proof. Though it seems hundreds of days have passed since I have stumbled talking to you, it feels like the first day. Words flow fluidly between us, and it feeds my bright eyes. They grow to your responses. Without your words, I search to find them again; wanting to carve them into my memory. Long nights they have been, but you drift into my heart, and I’ve learned to accept you again. Both the flow of your heat and the brilliance of your mind feed into my mundane irises. I want to cherish you like I the poems I’ve heard from your lips; protect them unlike my forgotten memories. You make me feel like I must live up to it, and I respond, “There must be seven billion ways I can live my life.”

–           Emilyn Nguyen, Seven Billion

 

18

Posted on by Emilyn in Life

“Today feels the same as yesterday, and meeting you in the mirror is no different from any other day,” you wrote, but today you turned eighteen, and all of a sudden you felt like you heard “happy birthday” for the first time. You have always told yourself that each day is for growing up, and each year you said that “Maybe things would be different this time around – this year around,” but eighteen years have now passed, and your journals have accumulated lessons learned, and broken promises to yourself; all of which have built you.

It’s quite simple: I see it in everything you do, everything you say, everything that you work for. The time is now, and it is always now that you always deserve to be celebrated, each coming year; all that you learn, all that you have accomplished deserves to be celebrated. All that has happened this year, and all the years reminiscing leading up to 18.

18 Things I Learned Since Turning 18:

  1. Your most prized possession: Time. The future is a lot closer than it seems. Time in minutes or hour intervals passes by so quickly, seize each moment.
  2. Simplicity is Key. The smallest of things lead to the greatest.
  3. Believe in what you think is Impossible. Hard work can get you anywhere if you put your mind to it.
  4. Don’t forget your roots. Never forget where you came from. It raised you, no matter how bad you think of it, it’s made you how you are to change it or believe in it. Spend Time with your Family. Hug your mom. Talk to your dad. They care you about you more than any one else in this world. They only want what is best for you. Listen to what they have to say, their advice is one of a kind.
  5. Compliment Everyone. It’s they’re – everyone’s – weakness. Their weaknesses will disintegrate as their strengths rise with your words.
  6. Don’t miss a Chance to Tell Someone You Appreciate Them. The sweetest things in life usually come from the acts of others, even the smallest of actions make the biggest of difference. Tell them how much they mean to you. Pass it on.
  7. Kill Everyone with Kindness. Always be Kind: For, “Kindness makes the world go round.”
  8. Everyone is Different – including you. Don’t worry about what other people think. Learn to love yourself, your knick and knacks, each and every part of your self, and your personality. Learning to love and accept yourself will let you learn to love and accept other people just as they are.
  9. Take Chances. You’re going to regret all of the chances you didn’t more than the mistakes that you made doing all of the things you took a chance doing.
  10. It’s true when they say that “Actions Speak Louder than Words.”
  11. You never regret finishing a book. Sneak some lines in between when you go to bed and when you fall asleep, you’ll always have something to take out of it.
  12. Believe in True Friendship. You may think that you’re being left out now, but let time tell. If they don’t put an effort in staying in your life, then don’t put yourself down trying to. Time is valuable. Don’t waste your time on people that will make an impact on your life – positively. Spend it with people who will make a different, who care about your happiness, who care about what you want, and will help you achieve it.
  13. Forgive Yourself. Don’t linger upon what cannot be changed. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Stop overthinking.
  14. Don’t Be Afraid of Change. Change is completely inevitable. Don’t be afraid to face your fears. All that is wonderful takes courage. Accept change’s spontaneity, and its challenge of self-doubt and temptation, but don’t give up no matter how hard it gets.
  15. Write Everything Down – in your little brown leather journal. Write your goals down. Write down what you did today. Write down the things worth remembering and the things that you could have done better. Write lists. Write stories. Write poetry and prose. Write down all that is worth remembering, and all that will not be worth remembering… Write the world – your world. Someday, someone will have wanted to read it too. Nothing is better than reading – especially not a great story.
  16. Never settle. Life is too short to never feel alive as often as possible.

                –                   Emilyn Nguyen, 18