Tag: Spilled Ink

From Arm’s Reach

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

What do you do when your dreams are further than what feels like you can reach, but it is the only thing that feeds your heart and mind with adrenaline tingling throughout your body to the tips of your fingers and toes to only stretch further than you possibly could believe before? What do you do when your dreams are so full of uncertainty that you can’t help but ponder upon it every second of every day? How do you make the time pass faster to see where you would end up?  How do you slow down the process to make sure that you haven’t missed a step, or a moment to record this journey on paper with pen? Give me a moment to breathe, and ground myself in my roots; to inhale the air of determination, and exhale the stress that it beholds. I’ve found my voice and ambitions on the other side of places, those I am unsure of and unable to talk about until I get there. All I hear about, even now, are comments of uncertainty, and the shouts of markers that I have missed. All the thoughts that surround me are those of what people is unknown, and there is no faith from people but myself. They told me to walk away, but I know that I can push from millions miles further than they believe I can. An arm’s reach is only a step, but day by day, it’s an arm’s reach that will get me there. Reaching for heights that I will grasp one day, but for now, from arm’s reach.

–                Emilyn Nguyen, From Arm’s Reach

 

Blank Canvases: New Beginings

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

In a bundle of blankets wrapped around my legs, my toes still wander among them. They curl in a cold numbness, but move slowly outside of the sheets, only crawling back for sanctuary when it had decided to wander too far, sending a glimpse of the winter air invading the warmth I feel.

In retrospect, there are several candles burning simultaneously. Scents intermixing and seemingly to interchange with each other – “Vanilla Bean  Noel”, “Leaves”, “Vanilla Frosted Cupcakes”, and “Apple Orchids”.  The beginning of the wax melting and the ends of the wicks burning into the glass Mason jar, their aura of entitled seasons and settings – colliding with memories gathering at the frontal cortex of my mind, telling me to “remember…”

I remember faintly, but waking up to a New Year, my eyelids are heavy amongst morning light, but I can still feel the ache of my body against the hardwood floor beneath me. There is a mess of my books scrambled amongst the polished hardwood floor. Paint brushes and pens are spread apart messily from each other next to opened paint palettes, and untouched new sketch books – all lying still as if I were painting still life; a beautiful mess.

My journals are opened up to my favorite entries, for I was frantically flipping through them for inspiration; in a frantic search for a new idea. I have a fear to become a closed, quiet, and reserved mind, but against the wall, a blank canvas is still at the head of the mess is white and waiting patiently for a painting anew.

I think I must have fallen asleep staring at the canvas. There is still a paintbrush in my hand, wet with moisture. I reached for my brown journal the simplicity in the page catches my eye. It says, “If you want to know where your heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders.”

Useless.

I must admit I have been an empty mind, searching for what my mother calls a “lost cause.” Empty canvases are bad luck.

I can taste the candle burning now, overpowering in the memories they have connected to this room – this home. I drag my blankets off my legs walking to the window, and the snow is too bright for my eyes. A new sheet of ice has appeared on my window, but the white sheet of blankness and stillness appeals to me, leading me to start wandering.

I am falling into a white abyss.

There are indications of where I am, but I am inclined to find the root of its origin. There are parts that remind me of my childhood like a flashback of photos – quickly, so you feel like so much time has passed. What you don’t see is all the time that is coming.

You don’t know how much time is coming, but think far. Think far ahead. Dream far ahead, and only look back when reflecting, to better improve yourself. Wander. Wander far ahead with your dreams tucked behind your ears.

I recall memories of comfort and dread and in between them now is where I lie. It is something that I am sure of; something I am connected to. It is a tangible feeling that I feel. One minute you imagine that you’re eight, and others an age of sixteen.

To realize, I quiver in a dream walking as a paintbrush on a white-as-snow canvas, letting myself fall heavily into a white abyss. New snow falls for a new year; this lost cause is a new beginning.

–

I’ve picked up the paintbrush and begun to paint.

Photography By: Michelle Dee

Currently Listening To: Move Together By James Bay

–           Emilyn Nguyen, Blank Canvases: New Beginnings

Twenty-Fourteen

Posted on by Emilyn in Life

Hellos are met at the front door with sincere waves and smiles. Notice the curvatures of their lips – their off-white teeth and cracked lips shining like moonlight towards an opening of one’s heart and letting someone in. The creak of the porch served as a stoic warning, but I entered. My awkward posture, fidgeting hands, and a discrete smile, I entered with such caution, and propriety; still feeling the uneasy step in to a white abyss: a new year. A blank space it was. In the depths of my persona, I was a pair of bright eyes, very little of a voice, and an overfilled brown leather journal. On the twenty-fourth page of it, I wrote:

 “Twenty-Fourteen is about an evolution; a change in time with an entirely different meaning; an emerging voice; another side of fear; laughing endlessly; loving ceaselessly; running regularly; remembering the smallest moments; reading hundreds; writing even more; an exploration somewhere near, and somewhere far; an adventure; learning something new, and something old; freely living – infinitely, and fearlessly.”

Now, I think:

Changing. Perhaps.

Evolving. Entirely.

I finally found my voice, and it was no longer in the symbolism of neither my poetry, prose, nor strokes of my brushes, but the sound waves when I spoke. I didn’t believe my mother when she told me that “you’d grow into your voice. It’s okay to be shy,” but eventually I did. My anxiety when speaking eventually evaporated and my voice did emerge along with an obnoxious laugh, the way my mother says my father tilts his head back and squeals in silent laughter, and a contagious chuckle. I evolved. I was no longer just entering the front doors with sincere waves, and smiles, but I was letting people enter with a darling hello. I became observant of the smallest of memories in book characters, and new found friends. I was the greeter at the door by the end of Twenty-Fourteen.

I let people freely enter my life. I welcomed them. I met people that loved me, changed me, cared for me, but also love, and cherish in return. I met people for days a time, only a week, to grow as sisters – still growing, still evolving. I met people that laughed and loved me for one bad joke and an obscure giggle. I met people that understand me, and that don’t; people that were distinctively at the opposite end of the pole of where I was, but those were where the adventures were best. For once, I was content with not being able to understand content with having neither an explanation nor reason for all that I do in my lifetime. I can love science while loving religion as an old blanket; I can be creative while being innovative…

 

“With a mind like yours, stay true to what you believe…”

I was blessed with adventures, small and large with these people. Explorations with them, I found pieces of myself in each place I found myself wandering in, the good and the bad: my plan to start anew. I was met face to face with my fears and my failures, and this alone was a blessing. Through my books, my long strolls, running reminiscing in the rain, spinning in summer dresses, getting lost in old libraries, biking in the woods, I was no longer afraid to let go, be wild, be free, and be misunderstood. Twenty-Fourteen loved me, made me, broke me, and changed me.  Until now, I realize that I’m surrounded by such energy in this life, of both love and such fearlessness, I am no longer afraid to wander alone into a welcoming white abyss: this New Year.

 –            Emilyn Nguyen, Twenty-Fourteen

 Currently Listening To: Your Song By Elton John

 

Collection of Memories of Twenty-Fourteen:
(Opening My Memory Jar)

  • Beyond the Microscope: (January) Medical Center Science Research Symposium – With Claire, Matthew, and Allison
  • Love in 14 Ways: (Valentine’s Day, February) Carnation Giving at Hospital – With Claire, Juliana, Meghana, and Allison
  • Discovering Water Colors: (March) Rediscovering Water Color Paints! How Beautiful!
  • First Large Canvas Painting: (April) C’est Paris! Painting of Paris Completed!
  • Honored: (May) National Honor Society Initiation Ceremony
  • First Fears: (May) First Science Research Presentation – With Matthew, Allison, Claire, and Science Research Class
  • All Dolled Up: (June) Junior Prom – With Allison, Claire, Juliana (and Meghana in spirit)
  • Claire Bear: (July) Claire’s Birthday Surprise! – With Meghana, and Allison
  • Motivational Friends = Motivation is Contagious: (July) CURIE Academy at Cornell University – With CURIE Girls Internationally
  • Carolina Shores: (July) Outerbanks – with Lily, and Family
  • Hurricane Arthur: (July) Maryland for Sanctuary – With Ethan, Emma, Lily, Danny, Timothy, and Family
  • Land of the Free: (July) Little Ethan finds comfort in my arms for the Fourth of July Fireworks in Maryland – With Lily, Emma, Ethan, Danny Timothy, and Family
  • Seventeen in Ithaca: (July) Birthday Insomnia Cookies, Breakfast, Presentation, Lunch & Dinner – With CURIE Girls, Lily, Timothy, and Family
  • Broken Humerus, Not Humorous (July): Timothy’s Surgery
  • Running in Place: (August) Rochester Scholars Session B: Biomedical technology: Engineer, Doctor, or Both?
  • I’m Listening: (August) Rochester2014 Session B: Cochlea: Microphone of the Inner Ear
  • “I Can’t Pose!”: (September) Senior Photos – With Michelle
  • More Bitter than Sweet: (September) Last Year of High School
  • Trojans, Trojans what’s Your Cry? V-I-C-T-O-R-Y: (October) Spirit Week/ Homecoming! – With Friends
  • Last Season: (October) Meghana’s Last Tennis Match of her High School Career: She won! – With Juliana, and Bethany
  • At Hallows: (October) Cat for Taekwondo Halloween Party, Zombies for Halloween Trick-Or-Treating – With Lily, Danny, and Timothy
  • Before Thanksgiving: (November) College, College, College [Applications]
  • Thankful Thanks: (November) Thanksgiving at Lynn’s House – With Lynn, Michelle, Lily, and Family
  • Midnight Rumble: (November) Black Friday – With Lily & Mom
  • With the People of the Era, Where I Belong: Senior to Senior Intergenerational Dance – With Kat, Meghana, Claire &
  • Elephant Santa: (December) Gag Gifts Secret Santa – With Friends
  • Baby, It’s Cold Outside:(December) Holiday Party – with Allison, Claire, Meghana, and Juliana

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To Be Sorry

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

 “Don’t come back here! I have a bomb,” he said with no hesitation in his voice.

With an undertone of laughter, he pointed at me with pure determination to frighten me away. As laughter arose from the depth of the leather bus seats and the black aisle, he was joined by the other kids in roars of squeals and giggles. I walked down the bus aisle to find an open seat, praying it would be the next. As he pointed, I took a few steps back. Hold your head high. Hold your tears back. I heard my father’s voice in the back of my head. Hold your chin up, look him right in the eye.  I remembered my grandfather said in his story of a war he once lived through. His wrinkles on a corner of his eye as he pounded his fist against the table to get a strong point across. There was no fear in his eyes, his body figure was tall and strong as I looked up at him. I’ve been through this before. Pre-school, when I came home with red blotches on my skin – bruises forming from an abusive friend. She was ‘just kidding’.

 As I made me way to the back of the bus to find a seat, he began to chant louder into my ears. “Don’t come back here! I have a bomb! Don’t come back here! I have a bomb! Don’t come back here! I have a bomb!” he repeatedly shouted. A silent storm started to erupt. Snowflake turned into hail as its rage, but I forced the tears behind my eyelids till it ached; till my heart began to pound harder and my skin began to react to the heated yellow bus.

Slowly but cautiously my feet started to move, as if courage was something I was taught; as if my heart could tread any faster or as a myocardial infarction could erupt. My feet were weights, dragged on by life, as it must go on. My dry slanted eyes of my ethnicity forced tears back until my eyes were a desert that never sought water. My hands climbing back to the back while eye were captured on me, my hands trembling towards every seat. A treacherous journey, day by retched day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by slowing second. My head was constantly on a move to find a seat. I repeat: a seat.

 My eye caught onto a girl crying. I remember her face. Her long dirty blonde locks down her back. I remember her. “Sixteen and pregnant”. I remember her name from the whispers down the hallway. To believe them was enforced by the cliques of popularity. She was a savage sent off from the clique: let go. A used tool of a popularity game. True or not, she was human, and beautiful. Her beauty was a bright, glowing face, blonde hair down her slim figure against the others in her group of friends. Her face in the hallways, as she stopped me. My face covered in acne, from the late nights stress and heredity’s genes. My eyes in complete shock to what exploded out of her mouth, “There might be some acne cream to fix your face, but it won’t fix you.”

As if the rumors were worth a death of innocent girl. Rumors hold a fate, as if words meant more than truth. Jealousy raging and fighting an innocent girl who gave me the same fate. I looked at her, and her eyes were placed on mine, and I opened my mouth and said, “I’m sorry”, as if there was no past between us. I smiled at her, and her tears started to ease. Her stained face of mascara started to dry upon her face. She smiled and started to laugh among the other on the bus.

Quick remarks, and kind hearts could only go in such way. Maybe we met at the wrong time, and that’s what I’ll tell myself for now. Maybe one day, years from now, we’ll meet again, and we could give a friendship another shot. For now laughs from afar seemed too close, and hallucination-like views were too real to be forgiven. Chanting kids like screaming angry chimpanzees on Animal Planet.

If finding a seat was this difficult, maybe walking a few miles home seemed to be easier. I turned away and started to walk towards the exit of the bus, the bus driver giving me an ugly stare, “Where are you going?” he asked. The bus monitor’s stubborn eyes glared at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. ‘Sorry’ seemed to be the only thing I could say. I repeated, “I’m sorry”. Sorry, a word of apology, a word for expressing pity.

“Nothing to be sorry for, but please take a seat,” he said.

 I nodded. “Sorry.”

Again, a seat on a full bus of kids was rare. Two in a seat. “Can I sit with you?” I asked a girl. Her brown hair was put up in a messy bun, her soccer cleats on her lap.

“No. This might be too close to the back for you. I don’t want to be hurt by the bomb too.” She replied.

I nodded. Again: “Sorry.”

I reached the back of the bus, closer to the boys who acted as terrorists. As if my eyes defined who I was – it did, but as if it defined who I was in the inside. Stereotypes are too mainstream.

 Closer I came to the back of the bud, kids were joined in by other kids on the back of the bus, one screamed, “Do come back, maybe It’ll straighten out your eyes!” Laughs started to erupt, exploding from a volcano. Sparks falling from the sky, first piercing my skin, then burning it, killing me. I sat next to that boy…the bus monitor asked him to move over so I could take a seat. His eyes were watering. I wasn’t sure if he wasn’t taking his bad day out on me or if it was from the laughter. As if it was funny from the beginning.

 To this day, these words still ring throughout my ears, and it’s still packed in the back of my mind. I still remember the people who were on that bus, their faces and how they still give me dirty glares as I pass down the hallways. Maybe a few years from now, in a café shop, we’ll get along, and maybe we could give it another shot, starting with a hello.

 I looked at him with his spiky hair in class today, and he helped me pick up my stuff when I dropped it. While picking papers up, our hands collided and our head bumped, and I didn’t realize it was him, but he has the same eyes: blue and bright. I forgave him for everything…”Sorry.”

–         Emilyn Nguyen, To Be Sorry

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