Tag: Short Prose

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

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

 

In Remembrance

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

Long walks into the evening setting sun comfort me as the tides creep further and further up the shore grazing my feet as I stand there, washing up sea shells and taking up them back as they go, sinking my feet into the sand as if Neptune mourned my presence with the sea. I’m standing here, thinking of you, while the salty atmosphere winds blows through my hair, and whispers of your voice remind me of how much you loved the sea. As the sea creeps ashore to kiss my toes oh so gently, the scent of salty ocean air is soothing as you breathe against my neck, but the ache of missing you still lingers still in my skin as I reminisce. My bones are captivated by the fresh air they never get to feel. My porcelain skin fades into the white sand, into its embrace wishing it was yours. I start to lose my balance, gravity pulling me but I stay standing so I can see the sun setting in the distance. The soft oranges, rose pinks and yellows remind me that endings can be beautiful, no matter how much I miss the sun would stay just a little while longer. As the sky begins to fade to a somber shade of blue, I close my eyes and allow my mind to focus the white noise of crashing waves, praying that when I open them, the sun will have risen, and you will be standing here beside me because I had the sea on my arm in your remembrance, so your beloved tides could bring you back to me in a bottle washed upon shore. When the sun rises again with its oranges, yellows, crimson, and purple horizons, I will know you will have returned to my memory.

–         Emilyn Nguyen, In Remembrance

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

Catching Light

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

Resting by the open grass field behind our house, her hands are rested on the tips of the grass blades, running her hand through them, much like our mother brushed our hair; gently with finesse, plaiting our locks into a tightly woven braid, pulling the strands I was twirling at my fingertips, and securing them away with the last of loose ends. When my sister starts speak, I am caught by surprise, there is a beauty in her that I have never noticed before. Her voice is familiar but her tone is held captive by solitude at the back of her throat. She points to our neighbor’s stalks of sunflowers faced away from us. “Did you know that sunflowers grow towards the sun? They’re beautiful. Aren’t they?” I don’t respond. I only smile at her, and continue to gaze into the empty air.

The sun’s rays are direct today; there are little clouds, and no haze except the glare from the sunlight hitting my glasses I notice the streaks from the light, wondering if my sister notices them too. She doesn’t wear glasses. Her eyes are too delicate, and beautiful to have anything cover them. She possessed recessive traits, much like our mother, but she has my father’s nose. No wonder she has a quirk for smelling problems, bugging into trouble. They always did, but it’s evident that she has the braveness of my father despite her delicate eyes, and tendencies. She is beautiful – so beautiful. I smile as I watch her immerse herself into the setting.

The sunlight that shines on her does well; does her justice; does mother justice; does father justice. I smile at the thought of mother standing and hovering over us. I imagine her hair getting caught in the wind, and the sunlight catching on her, exposing the roots of her dark hair as a light brown, her eyes become speckled with green, and yellow. In the light, her beauty persists – endlessly – I see her in my sister.

I thought light travels too fast to be caught, but how lovely it would be to have it in a jar – along with a sunflower, my mother’s gold rings, and my sister’s favorite trinkets. It would be beautiful – cherished. When I tell her about this jar, she grins, and tells me that I should leave some of my lemon cookies in it too. “They’re so sweet!” She says. I laugh, “…and yellow! My favorite color!” she adds.

“I know. Mine too,” I think to myself. They’re as sweet as you – just as bright as you, “… like the sun!” she interrupts. Yes, you are the sun. I smile, brushing the grass at my fingertips, looking at my sister in awe of her gentleness, kindness, and beauty. The sun hits her drowning her a little, and I see my mother. “What are you looking at?” She asks.

“Nothing,” I respond. She shrugs, and begins dancing, spinning, twirling in the grass, singing songs, I cannot understand, with carelessness. She clasps her hands like she’s trying to catch the light, dancing with nothing but the beat of her heart. Her laugh contagiously latches on me as we end up rolling in the grass in laughter. Looking towards the sky, she faces the sun, and her eyes are squinted because of her smile. It’s so big, and wide, her happiness makes my stomach flutter. I am happy for her.

Resting by the open grass field behind our house, my arms are reached toward the sky, my fingers trying to pinch the sun, with one eye closed; catching the light for her, when she already had. “Remember when we used to hide here, spinning in our dresses until our hearts gave out, and the light left us, only to return the next dy. Now we’ve decided our ambitions, spinning our minds – never stopping – until we’re wrapped in light,” I say. Lying on the grass alone, looking up at the sun, seeing her. I am happy for her.

–          Emilyn Nguyen, Catching Light

 

 

Dear New York, I Am Looking For Something in Millions

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

“New York is made up of millions of different people, and they all come here looking for something” ― Lindsey Kelk, I Heart New York

When I slept last night, I dreamt through a thousand unknown years. Every year, I was looking through someone’s perspective. I felt their hands sweat to the pressure of the men in black suits; their feet move to the audition music of Broadway; their hearts beat faster when they confessed their love; their eyes become brighter to the city lights – their dreams becoming what they had only seen in their sleep. In a thousand unknown years from black and white to the serenity of color, tranquility fell into my heavy life, and pulled me from the darkness where I fallen from, and into the daylight in which even amidst my dreams – seemed to have whispered my ambitions and aspirations to a city that belonged to millions before me, leaving me to search for a single speck of hope in the city. I felt hopeless until when my soul departed the muted black and white history of home, I remember that I became a flock of pigeons to be with it. Five second of its atmosphere’s presence on my skin, I was taken and embraced by it – this, made me think that these ambitions and aspirations of mine will be forever at my palms. To think, once in time, I saw this city for its gray and blue. I took it for its heat, but these cool evening take me back in time. “Do you remember,” I think, “the nights I’ve stayed up, even in the bad times, thinking there is a glass half full though only of sinking hopes, waiting to be revived.” I might have figured this out as these city lights are keeping me up, and I cannot possibly wait to fall asleep to another thousand unknown years belonging to those looking for something in a single city. Perhaps when I awake, I must be the next perspective in this first night in the big city.

–   Emilyn Nguyen, Dear New York, I Am Looking For Something in Millions (Dear New York Series)

Dear New York, I Am Hopeful for You

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

“London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it.” ― Dorothy Parker

There is a sight in my mind, of strangers brushing my shoulder, and a view taking the breaths that leave my lips. It guides my eyes through the cracks of cement statues, gray air, and a transition of memories – all of those who pass by from the sweeping spectators to those who commenced our reunion. Statues stop many of us in our tracks to admire their silenced symbolism. They speak as if to whisper, “Hello”.

I reckon it’s a tangible abyss we are in. This is art, one attempting to foreshadow what comes. To it: it’s a chance to live outside of what is expected – a new frame of mind. They even tell me that, “it was what should have come much sooner.”

There are paintings concealed by glass, and there are statues concealed by people, all concealed by an aura of such energy. People surround them freely, even at the sight of expired ideas, and dreams, a new melody and harmony is redeemed.  It lands on my tongue and tastes of a muse of discovery.

I imagine stone statures that seem to breathe and move along with the people it captures amongst its personas. I thought I felt one tap my shoulder. Backs are turned away to meet bright faces. They are too, begging for a grand entrance, they say “nothing can hold them down,” but their feet are bounded, and so instead people discover them. Some grab their cold hands to dance with them. Their feet barley move at all, but the energy is swirling around seventy hundred feet sky scrapers, collected in April rain puddles, and gracefully gliding down the streets. Time is in short supply but they live timelessly in movements granted by those who own the chisel.

Within them there are people of melody, and there are people of harmony. There are drafts of pure greetings, and fossilized farewells. I see them all, and yet it is welcoming me with new written sonatas, with freshly molded tempos. I hope to dance to them.

My friends are tugging at my arms for they have gathered our belongings and I have already begun collecting dust. They tell me that the stones have already started moving; the air has been blaring in tunes; the light has already started to glimmer; they say, “good is about to come off, and we must hurry to meet it,” – Soon.

–         Emilyn Nguyen, Dear New York, I’m Hopeful For You (Dear New York Series)

The Good

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

I want to imagine falling fast because you’ve pushed me off a bridge but before I go, kiss me quickly while making it last so I can determine how much it will hurt when you say goodbye. To determine if it was too soon or too late because I had understood that you were the one that didn’t feel the same. Yet, I understand that people come and people go but I don’t ever want to say goodbye to you. I question why you couldn’t let the future pass and simply let go. I only ever so slightly want to say goodnight to you. I only hope that the good in our good nights will mean I will see you in my dreams and goodbyes will mean that we will always end up meeting again tomorrow. I want to see you, even if it means for a slight minute like the moon meets the sun just before daylight forty five minutes after five and after the late eight o’clock orange-crimson sunset. You were convinced that there was no good in goodbye; no good in goodnight, but at first hand it may appear too hard, but look again. Always look again. I promise there’s good in that.

–         Emilyn Nguyen, The Good