Shattered Glass

 Author's Note: This is a possible continuation for William Carlos William's poem "Between Walls". 

the back wings

of the

hospital where

nothing

will grow lie

cinders

in which shine

the broken

pieces of a green

bottle

The story of it

fragmented 

Just like its

glass

But legend is

Tears

Once filled the 

bottle

To the very

brim

A heart is broken. This is what I think "Between Walls" by William Carlos Williams is about. Whether or not I'm right, there is definitely sadness in this poem. The mentioning of the hospital, nothing ever growing, and the broken bottle itself all led to the depressing mood of the poem.  

For my analysis, I added the background story of the bottle. I believe that my prediction was correct because I kept the mood of the story the same. 

Another reason my analysis is correct is because I made a simple object from the poem more important and placing significance on a simple object is something Williams does a lot throughout his pieces. For example, in "The Red Wheelbarrow", Williams wrote "so much depends upon a red wheel barrow."  

William Carlos Williams was an excellent poet that made ordinary things beautiful. I am greatly inspired by him and his piece was difficult to continue, but I loved the challenge.

The Meaning of Thanks

Author's Note: When Thanksgiving comes around, most people write their essays on what they are thankful for.  But I know what I'm thankful for, so I decided to write an essay on what exactly being "thankful" means.

A husband takes a bag from his grocery-laden wife.  She smiles and says "thank you."  Meanwhile, across the globe, an old man lays on his death bed.  He grabs the hand of his best friend and just manages to get out "thank you" with his last breath.  The same words are used, but the meaning is different by a landslide. The word "thanks" has many different meanings and emotional depths.

"Thanks" can just be a polite thing to say when someone passes you the potatoes.  It could also mean that you simply appreciate something, you are thankful that your parents bought you a brand new pair of shoes.  The meaning of this small word could mean something a lot deeper as well.  It could be used by a man to express his incredible gratitude to a fireman that rescued his daughter from a burning house.

Thanks could mean as little as a bag of groceries, or as much as a lifetime of friendship.  We have and we will say thank you many times throughout our lives, and some of those times we will wish that we have another word to say.  Though, we wish we can pay back the favor, sometimes we can't.  Thanks will just have to do.

Jar Story Prediction

"Hi Troy." Said Molly.

"Mmmbabablem" Mumbled Troy as he pushed past her, eyes glazed over.

Troy walked the whole way home and when he went through the front door and his mom greeted him, he didn't respond.  "Troy, it's rude to ignore me.  Say hi back."  Troy turned around and looked at her.  She gasped.  "Your eyes are so glassy, did you do drugs?" Troy just looked at her.  "Troy!  Answer me!"  "Steven, come quick, something's wrong with Troy."

As his father ran to his mother, Troy  started wandering up the stairs.

"Troy, come back here."  Said his father.  He kept on walking and his dad ran up the stairs and went in front of him.  Shaking him by the shoulders, he screamed "what is wrong with you?!  You are scaring your mother!"

Meanwhile, Molly was in Mr.Mason's house.  She had snuck in after Mr.Mason had left for town.  She was terrified, but she had to do this for Troy.  She had a theory and if it was right, then she would be able to save Troy.  Molly wandered through the creepy house until she stumbled into what looked like a science lab.  At the back of the room was a sheet covering something with a rectangle shape.  Drawing back the curtain, Molly's hairs prickled at the back of her neck.  Behind the sheet was a big book shelf that was holding probably fifty mason jars, all filled with different colors and labeled with names.  She gasped when she found a purple filled jar labeled "Troy".

Suddenly, she froze.  There were car squelches coming from outside.  Quickly, she grabbed Troy's jar and recovered the shelf.  Before, when she was exploring, she had discovered a back door.  She slipped through that now and continued sprinting into the woods.  The woods weren't thick, only about a quarter mile or so.  She came out the other side and tripped over a root.  Try as she might, she couldn't hold on to the jar and it slipped through her hands and smashed against the ground.  Awed, she watched as a silvery fog drifted from the purple goo and headed east.  Molly scrambled to get up and she followed it.  It led her to Troy's house.  Breathing hard, Molly ringed the doorbell.  A zombified Troy answered the door and as soon as he did, the silvery stuff went into him.  He inhaled sharply and rocked back on his heels.  "Mr. Mason this is awesome!  I-"

Molly cut him off with a hug.  Her theory had been right.  Troy's eyes focused on her and his face turned into a baffled expression.  "Molly, what happened to the science room?"

Analyzing Amy

Author's Note: This piece is analyzing Amy from an original piece called "Conference Piece."(Lame title, good piece.)  This is for my character analysis score.  You can find "Conference Piece" under 2011, November.

In "Conference Piece", two girls are suddenly reunited with their father.  Though this should be a happy moment, things turn out to be terribly wrong.  The girls discover that their "father" is actually a shapeshifter, a demon-like creature that feeds off of animals and humans and is able to then shapeshift into whatever it has just eaten. The girls escape from it, but the shapeshifter catches up with them and eats Sabrina before Amy manages to kills it.  Amy is a dynamic character.  She changes mentally due to several events.  However, her story is quite common among songs as well as novels.

We are first introduced to Amy as a girl absorbed in a book.  Here we can gather that she is educated enough to know how to read.  Then she went outside and was reunited with her "father".  However, with her being intelligent, she suspected something wasn't quite right. With her father randomly showing up, she had a reason to be suspicious.  Her suspicions were proved correct and saved the two of them at that moment.  We can infer that her suspicions came from being protective of her sister and not trusting anyone until proven safe.

I think this next line is really important because it shows just how badly Amy wants to believe that she was wrong, that she didn't see red eyes instead of blue.  "Amy couldn’t help herself, she had to ask him.  It was her only hope.  “Dad, what is my name?”  Whether she asked the question for her sister, for herself, or just as a last stitch effort of hope, it's definitely asked out of desperation.  You can almost hear her heart shatter when her "father" answers the question wrong.

Amy was Sabrina's motivation to run away.  If Sabrina was alone, she wouldn't have known anything was wrong.  She wouldn't know to be suspicious.  Our inference of her is that she doesn't know about anything bad, that she's gullible because her sister protected her from all bad things in the world.  That is perhaps Amy's biggest flaw.  If she had introduced Sabrina to bad things, Sabrina would have been suspicious, she would have seen her "father" change, her and Amy could have ran without Amy having to explain, they would have had more time, and they would have survived.

Amy was overcome by a feeling of helplessness as she watched her sister get eaten.  All that protectiveness, gone.  There is nothing left for her to protect.  And this realization actually angers her.  It is her fuel and her fire is revenge.  Blazing, she gets her hands on a sword as soon as she can and she kills her monster.

As I said before, Amy's story is not unique.  It occurs often in songs.  For example, in "Demons" by Imagine Dragons a man fights with a different kind of monster, an inner demon that is slowly taking over his life.  "Look into my eyes, it’s where my demons hide" (More on that below)    Though slightly different, Westley's story (from The Princess Bride) is mostly similar as well.  Buttercup is taken from him by three men and he has to fight them to get her back.  The men being his "demons" and Buttercup being his Sabrina.  The difference is that he got Buttercup back.  Though, that might be exactly what happened to Amy.  The story ends with her killing the shapeshifter.  We, as the readers, have no idea what happens next.  It  could be possible that after she kills the monster, all of the things that it killed are revived.  It never mentions in the story what happens when a shapshifter dies.  I suppose that's why the author left such an open ending.  For all you people who love happy endings you could make it so.  Or, it could end they way I mention in the conclusion... 


You have to remember that as Amy kills the shapeshifter, it's still pretending to be her sister.  The image of her sister being eaten added to the image of the shapeshifter sister getting a sword thrusted through its heart is enough to give a grown man nightmares.  But this is just a young girl that had to grow up too fast.  A mother is never mentioned in the story and the girls seemed surprised to see their father back, so who knows when he originally left, or for what purpose.  We don't even know if they were good parents.  Amy could have been taking care of Sabrina for years.  Then Sabrina gets killed.  Everyone Amy has ever known is dead.  No other family members are mentioned, so we can assume that she's alone.  An orphan,alone, in the middle of the woods with a dead demon.  If anyone finds her, there are going to be a whole lot of questions asked.


Here are the two verses from "Demons" that I will be comparing to "Conference Piece."

I want to hide the truth

I want to shelter you

Here is a huge similarity.  These two lines describe exactly what Amy was trying to do for Sabrina, hide the harsh truth from her and shelter her from the world.

But with the beast inside

There’s nowhere we can hide

This is a little different.  While this man's beast is internal, Amy and Sabrina had to deal with a real, live monster.  However, they chose to run from it instead of hide.  Their decision doesn't matter, though, because the demon would have probably have found them anyway.

Don’t want to let you down

But I am hell bound

Though this is all for you

Don’t want to hide the truth

Amy practically lived to protect her sister.  Everything she did was for Sabrina.  Amy probably felt as if she let everyone down when her sister died; her parents, herself, her sister.  

Burning Faith

Author's Note: Entirely fictional.  I believe in God and I would never do anything like this.  I came up with this idea in church.  I love writing about arsonists and I noticed how thin the pages were in the book and so I was like hmm, a new arsonist piece? And then the idea "burning faith" came to me and I had to write about it.  It's a little different than what I originally intended it to be and it's pretty dark but, still a good piece.  Enjoy!

Thin and frail, the pages are consumed.  The fire rampages through the church like a demon from Hell.  Let them pray to their God, their "savior".  Let them see that nothing happens.  Let them realize that it was all false.  Their Bibles nothing but story books and their crucifix nothing but two sticks and a statue.

Here I am, the ultimate sinner.  But they do nothing but stare. And without resistance they fall to there knees in front of their new God, me. They watched me burn down everything they knew and now they are broken.  Broken, I can work with.  For broken things beg for repair.  And I just happen to be handy with fixing things. I can heal and mend them and shape and mold them.  When I am done, they will be soldiers, obedient and ready for battle.  And they will worship me double the amount they worshiped before. For I am their Almighty.  

Auld Anxiety

Author's Note: Christmas songs are going to be on the radio soon, I thought I might as well have fun with it.

Should I be called old because I have memories forgot,
And that are never brought back to mind?
Should I be called old because I have memories forgot,
And the same old anxiety!

For I am old and have anxiety, my dear,
For I am old and have anxiety
I'll take a couple prescriptions yet
For I am old and have anxiety

This Is A Really Wierd Piece, I Don't Know Why I Wrote This

Author's Note: This piece is entirely fictional.

One morning, one of the neighbor ladies was walking her dog in front of my house.  Her dog sniffed around my yard and it decided to poop.  It was gross, but it was okay as long as the lady picked it up.  But she didn't.  No, she just kept walking as if nothing happened although she clearly saw what her dog did.  So the little pile of nastiness sat there on my lawn.  I mean, it wasn't like I was going to pick it up. 

The seasons changed and the first snowfall came.  I had always loved snow when I was a child, so out of habit I went out and let the snow fall on my face.  Then, looking down at the ground, I realized that the snowfall was quite heavy, there being at least three inches of snow already.  Again, out of habit, I reached down and made a snowball.  Letting the child inside me take over, I bit into the snowball and was prepared to taste the delicious icy nothingness of the snow, but instead I got a very different taste.  Spitting out the snow, I looked at the snowball in my hand.  Horrified, I saw that the snowball had a brown center.  I ate it.  I. Ate. The. Dog's. Turd.