Tag: Love

Sidequests Week 37

On By MaryIn SidequestsLeave a comment

Owing to a sickly cat, only did the one week’s worth of sidequests this week. They included staying off social media for a day, making a fictional character with a backstory. and telling someone I love them even if they already know.

Within the realm of sickeningly sweet, having a boyfriend made the last one easy. Done and done! And done again.

Staying off social media seemed initially easy to me but was a bit hard for a few reasons. Telling myself not to mindlessly scroll/browse wasn’t too bad, but the first day I tried the sidequest, I also looked up the menu for a local coffee shop that just opened, and their menu was on Facebook. If that was the only way to access it, did that count against me staying off social media? I wasn’t sure so I decided to try again the next day.

The next day, I received some links from a few friends, and clicked on them without really thinking about the source. The sources were posts on social media websites. So did that count against the sidequest as well?

At that point I decided that two minor infractions across two separate days wasn’t too bad. After all, I hadn’t opened anything purposely thinking to myself that I was going to scroll through posts on social media in general.

So that leaves the fictional character with a backstory. I’m sure the purpose of the card is the make one up on the spot, but I was thinking about characters I have created in the past. The main character of a story I used to work on in high school has gone through a few different names – at first her name was Nezumi, then it shifted to Panya when I grew out of centering so many of my stories around Japanese culture due to my anime/manga influences. She is a spunky, energetic, and fun loving half-elven teenage girl with shoulder length green hair and green eyes. She is a skilled martial artist, having been taught by her father who was part of the warrior caste.

In this particular world, elves belong to an isolationist society that looks down on other cultures. They’re so strict in their control of their society that intermingling with the other races is illegal, and half-elves are targeted by the assassin caste. Panya’s mother was a young human actress who was very outspoken about the restrictions of the Elven government, which is how she met Panya’s father. After Panya is born, an assassin is assigned to her family – her mother was killed when she was still a toddler, and her father died when she was a kid/preteen. He managed to kill the assassin assigned to them when he died, so the assassin’s daughter (roughly of an age with Panya) is forced to take up his unfinished assignment.

So at the beginning of the story she is somewhat of a vagabond who finally finds a place where she decides to stay – despite the fact her assassin will catch up. The backstory is kind of tragic, but she is very upbeat despite that, and a bit of a “trickster” spirit. I used to draw her all the time, so none of these images are recent.

The More Things Change…

On By MaryIn Poetry, WritingLeave a comment 
Nostalgia triggered
By some small thing
(A familiar smell, a familiar environment 
Some same old feeling
Swelling within the heart)
Leads to reminiscence

Reminiscence triggered 
By nostalgia
(Remembering the time
The place, the people
That were important once upon a time)
Leads to curious inquiry

Inquiry triggered 
By reminiscence
(Looking up an old friend
A place you once belonged
A person you once belonged to)
Leads to a bookend.

Sometimes it is easy to find the lost
And sometimes the lost is just lost.

That school building was torn down.
That park was paved over.
A new building erected where a copse of trees once stood.
I once knew a pretty boy who went to college
For a while he was a poet, and then he became an addict.
Some are dead. Some can't be found.
Some have married, matured, mated.
Some are deeply happy, successful.
Some I do not remember enough about to find.
Or never knew enough about.

Some doors in life are shut. Some reopened.

But there are a few
That I have always held on to
(I have held on to you)
(I will hold onto you)

secret

On By MaryIn Poetry, WritingLeave a comment 

You are the soft song I sing to myself 
Deep in the night when there is nothing else

A wisp of a promise left unfulfilled 
Something I shattered before we could build

Now a memory that shall fade in time
Lost forever, survived only by rhyme

Though thinking else is the dream of a fool
I know your heart was never mine to rule

But sometimes a sweet dream is all we have
So I'll savor this song, my darling lad

please

On By MaryIn Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

ask it of me

if you asked
i would freely give

every ounce
(heart, body, mind)
(soul, life)

i cannot do it
you have to be the one
that gives in
and asks

and if you did
you would find me
malleable

willing to belong
to only you

but you have to ask

personal polaris – National Haiku Day

On By MaryIn Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

April 17 is National Haiku Poetry day! I have already done one haiku, but it’s always fun to do another. For anyone that doesn’t know, haiku are Japanese in origin and are poems that follow a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. Typically, a traditional haiku would be more nature focused, almost like a meditation and appreciation of the world around us, though that is not a requirement. It is also not necessary to rhyme as I do in mine, so long as you follow the 5-7-5 pattern.

i found in your eye
the brightest star in the sky
to plot my course by