Tag: Short Prose

The Mistakes

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

When we make mistakes, do we really learn from them?

Especially when we know that our mistakes lie in the witness of others, and our minds ruin the fact that our mistakes will never go forgotten — will never be forgiven. You tell yourself that you were just a child, you couldn’t possibly know. Yet, your mind circles around the fact that your mistake will linger in the air forever and you cannot improve because you cannot take it back.

 It’s already been done: a mistake it was exhibited for show.

So when I ask, do we really learn from our mistakes, I respond, “no”.

I live in them, I swim in them, and they remind me how I must do better. They tell me how I’ve done wrong, and how much I’ve to improve: I’ve to improve everything. I try harder to improve my craft, but God Damn, the mind of an over-thinker will emphasize that “No, whatever you do, you’ve wronged the first time — and that’s the only time that matters.”

Back Up.

No.

Mistakes build character, and even though your head is wrapped up, tangled in, reliving in, and retracing the fact that you’ve made a mistake, it tells me so much that you’re trying. Even though you have a small voice, and your body seems like wither at the sight of a crowd, your mistake is done — it’s over, and if you believe that you are defined by it, than what you don’t know is: you are not. You are shaped by it. Because of it, you will thrive in all your endeavors. I promise you that you will not make the same mistake more than three times, because you’ve put so much thought into it, and the part of you that cares too much will remember that you are determined enough to remember not to. If you do: the first time is to warn you; the second time is to persuade you; and the third time is to … see. I told you.

So if I ask the question again, do we learn from our mistakes, I say,

Perhaps our mistakes must learn from us.

Do they know how much we emphasize them over the good, no matter how little it might have been. More than they know, we know the most that we’ve made them, and we have replayed them over in our heads, seeing people shake their head at us until our minds are dry in our mistakes. What we know is that we know that mistakes build character beside its negative connotation. Not making mistakes is inevitable. It doesn’t make you a failure.

The next time you make a mistake, a question echoes: When we make mistakes, do we really learn from them? Especially when we know that our mistakes lie in the witness of others, and our minds ruin the fact that our mistakes will never go forgotten — will never be forgiven. In the moment that your mind is hovering in uneasy murmurs or doubts, and questions, they have already been:

Forgotten – 

Have Already Been Forgiven.

 –             Emilyn Nguyen, The Mistakes

Roses

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose
Her grandmother told her that her delicate, intricate, beveling beauty closely resembled one of a rose. On lovely, tender spring mornings, she had soft, rosy pink cheeks complimenting her pink lips, and below lengthy, stem – like legs. Her soft skin radiated with a wonderful floral scent and even when it rained, her freckles seemed to dance across her face like raindrops mirroring the dainty dew droplets that lie upon her white – pink petals. Her whole lively being was recognized to draw in others – to love and to be loved – but without knowing: to capture the victims in her hidden, disastrous thorns. Her heart lived outside her chest, hours away at your window garden, roses were her grandmother favorite. When vines reach up through my head again, and the roots sew themselves to my toes, to be consumed by their splendor again and then realizing she is gone, and there is nothing growing inside you. If winters weren’t so cold, I’ll water from the roots to the vines to become the rose beside the garden inside of her that her grandmother once spoke of.
–         Emilyn Nguyen, Roses

Meghana

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

In the reflection of the sunrise,
a cloud disrupts the clear sky with one single tear,
and I can see the joy in the eyes of those who held you first:

White, and pure into their hands, before it evaporates. Notice how she smiles, molding into the palms of your hands, but she may stay or leave you, no matter what she’ll leave you a mark of goodness, reminding you that it exists. It might be an unparticular date, January 27th, but the clouds still form. There might be rain, maybe snow today, perhaps hail, but this cloud stands alone, brushing dust off the back of her hand to start waving, whispering her wishes in a bashful hush. “Something ought to come out of those clouds, something out to come of me.”  Twisting through the white-blue sky, a background of blue snow, her words are a reason to become winded. She becomes all of the elements of the sky that one holds between their fingers while their head is tilted back and up blinded by the brightness of the sky. You don’t even know. Within you, you’ve shared stories, and painted in breezes. Illusions unfold, and rewind together within you sometimes you escape once again though… you always return to watch over me once again. Sometimes, you will not say a word, but in visuals you write in strength, smiles and hope – aspiring to inspire. You grow in shapes and sizes, aside the bright sun, and you’re a cloud. You can become everything and anything here or even beyond the white-blue skies.

It feels like a cotton breeze,
as I watch the sun rise, and you appear.
“Meghana,” they call you.

–               Emilyn Nguyen, Meghana

Draw My Breath

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

I have been trying for days after days, hours after hours, minutes after minutes, seconds after millisecond to figure out a way to describe that echoing in my chest as my heart cries out for you. It beats fast, then slow, only to be fast again because my mind relapses with images you, and the connecting breath from my lungs begin to lack air as you leave me breathless. With every full thump that drags in every breath that catches in my throat when I realize how intensely you lack a need for me. I only hoped your bones were captivated by fresh air they never get to feel; is that why they peek through your skin stretched taut as if they’re trying to putt through your nerve endings or is the air chilling your epidermis making goose bumps arise? Why do your hips and ribs jut out like they crave the atmosphere’s breath? The very act of breathing reminds you that you’re not whole – not without me, cried the heart; cried the skin’s drying touch; cried the eyes; cried the muscles aching. Save her, save me, for my heart won’t live without her breath. Yet the tattoo on her chest, her heart’s fighting beat contradicts the hope the lungs held: Do not resuscitate.

–         Emilyn Nguyen, Draw My Breath

Doors

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

I always had an admiration for doors as you did. The doors were the springs in simplicity that kept me grounded all these years – never to leave the house after six and before six without telling him. You tried throwing away the trinkets she left behind, but still, you loved her like you loved the front door she made aside you. Left open, you exchanged the screen doors for glass because one day, you believed that she would be staring through it again, clear through glass rather than distorted. You didn’t want to admit you loved the light but hated the evening winds – you believed they blew her away. The doors reminded you of hope as they do in uncertainty but in your reprimanding depth, I said they were reminders of hope to create the frames of uncertainty; shall I leave it open or closed, summer sun or in springs rain, glass or screen. No one can discover what lies behind their hinges with a quick glance. If she will return with her eyes of apology or in hope of shelter. Yet, I still loved doors. For every one held its own adventure, its own journey, its own story – fate of love or hate – but see, you began to hate doors. Your mind as hysterical as mine when you began to forget my name. You decided you would rather close them – the doors. You always liked to tear things down instead of build them up. You made me replace the glass with the screen, so you could feel the winds. Now that you’re relapsing into Alzheimer’s superiority, you’ve forgotten about mom, no longer waiting for her to return at the door. Yet, I waited for you to return. When I trusted you to open my doors and you slammed it right in my face, but I knew it wasn’t you, Dad, your conscience slowly deteriorating. You crushed my insecurities in the small cracks I let hope try to shine through. The door we made together, sanded together began to rust into dust. You splintered my heart on the wooded frames I gave to you to protect. I painted you with the brightest, loveliest colors of yellow, invested in every brush stroke I made because even when you wanted it closed, I knew somewhere you wanted the light again. You hated doors and I hate that I trusted you enough to open mine, so I did, and once you saw mom, I had knew that in my uncertainty, you had found hope – only leaving me to mine.

 –         Emilyn Nguyen, Doors

The Eight Figure Knot

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

It was the adrenaline of being tangled, swinging many feet from the ground, with you, holding the rope, anchoring me, keeping a hold of me even when I was levitating miles above. From the top, my arms were cramping up, and my legs were shaking – my fear unbearable – but I quickly close my eyes and climb further up looking down when my heart was speeding at its brink and – there you are.

You look like the boy who kept his desk too clean in Elementary School. The boy who rose his hand to answer all the questions in Middle School, moving on to High School as Valedictorian. You look like the boy who grew up denying everything, as if you were any less than a common man – you are not a common man. You remind me of myself, with your glasses always standing firm at the bridge of your nose. Securely they stand, reflecting the light when you turn your head from side to side, glancing at the rock wall; glancing at me. You seem like one to savor the rain, and the humidity of an exotic forest; one to capture every moment in a picture even if the droplets are pelting into our skins. Your hair is short but long enough for me to notice the curls above your ears. They collect sunflower pollen, and you don’t notice, but the curls above your ears constantly dancing to the light shown in.

You seem to be the equivalent to my white bedroom walls, holding my secrets to the brown wooden frames capturing my success. I believe that they are bound with the ties to my God. My religion forbids suffering, but my desire persists. I admit that there is dust collecting on my bookshelves and perhaps this is a sin to my desires. Scarcely, I am heard, with my mind that creates the words: I am ready.

The vines I have started growing up these walls, and I know that the time has come. I tuck my hair behind my ears, and let my eyes wander to analyze your face, only when you aren’t looking. I see your eyes in my peripheral vision, so blue, and clear to me, as you tie the ropes to my waist.

My reflexes – even for my eyes – are fast, but it is hard when I am with you. Your eyes keep meeting mine, as you tie the robe to my harness, the rope gliding against my skin, and around my waist precisely. When our fingers touch I wonder if the butterflies that flooded me reached and carried throughout you.

My fingers trace the rocky walls – rough, and I analyze the heights I will climb, and I close my eyes, as I feel your hands bend the rope into an infinity sign – twice. Despite my angst of heights, my fear seems to be approaching its death. I tuck my discomposure away behind my eyes, and this time, I hide from my anxiety, from these thoughts. I glimpse down at the ropes last knot, and lastly at your eyes, and I know that: I am ready.

You tell me that once you reach the top yell at the top of your lungs that you’ve made it, because “you are capable of everything” and your worlds ring inside of me. Your hands are worldly to a fortune teller. You were everything you aspired to be – everything I aspire to be. Climbing became your hobby, for you were afraid of shallow living only aiming to heights. With this in mind, I realize: I’ve made it.

I looked down at my palms, lines and creases, blended alike. You are worldly. Your hands are worldly to me. Eight times again – Infinitely.

–          Emilyn Nguyen, The Eight Figure Knot

Birthday Wishes

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

From the first to the last day, I want to write a story about the memories I’ve experienced and the words I’ve exchanged. Sentences to chapters I’ve written, avoiding the sun, because it was something we could never control. As the earth moves, and the sun – so stationary stays – daylight soon moves to sunset, quickly to night, and the moonlight blinds me, and all I know is the time is drying out. I write and write as the sun rays glide across my paper, sometimes blinding me, and my story never is complete – never feels complete. I sit on a hill; a forty five angle away from the sun, for it isn’t like a candle I can relight, but my candles are blown out, the night sky finally fades and I wish to be a year younger, never to let go the memories, for words were never enough.

– Emilyn Nguyen, Birthday Wishes

My Father’s Shadow

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

My shadow holds me against my bones, reminding me that I am a whole, walking to the place on paper, speaking in dark shadows of words. Be the whole, be the half, be the fraction of a fourth that becomes missing. If this slicked hair becomes hazy in the shadow, my shadow is lying. I am the mess, covered by a shadow – my shadow, or yours. I hope my shadow is the handshake with my father. I hope he’s back to stay, beside me, dancing shadow in shadow until the rose fades to black as night time dawns, taking my father away from me again. Shadow, come back with my father. Be back with his shadow, because I am not whole without his touch, I am lost. Be the handshake with my father for just one night. The roses clutched tightly in my palm, forgetting the thorns for just one night. When the light returns I hope he’s there, but you’ve left me with a white rose, and his shadow behind me, watching me love at my own pace.

–         Emilyn Nguyen, My Father’s Shadow