Creative Writing Samples

Presented here are samples of my creative writing, starting from my undergraduate career. Follow the section's accompanying instructions to view the pieces

Spring 2018

Poetry

The poetry seen here was written in the second semester of my freshman year in college while I was still a Biology major as assignments for a poetry workshop course.

Moonbeam

A ray of light

in the brightest of nights

the moon imitates the sun.

I stand, staring

at the pure light,

and reach out to grasp it.

My hand moves through the lustrous vapor,

but the beam carries on, unfazed.

It remains there, dazzling,

standing like a fair maiden,

Goddess of the Hunt,

untouchable.

A Line From Stanzas

First:

a mathematical

figure that can bend

and curve, but may

never end.

Second:

the shortest distance

between two points.

Always straight,

never turning.

Third.

Burst

Do you ever feel this way?

Do you ever want to just

burst into a thousand particles,

scattered for no one to find?

It could be tears

or sunshine

or even a fiery rage.

It could be anything.

I’m sure you’ve

felt this before:

a burning inside.

I for one,

I am filled with

desire I cannot contain,

compelling me to act.

I for one

feel like I may…

Justice is an Orange Cat

Many say She is blind,

portraying Her as a woman

whose eyes are shrouded,

but She sees all.

She is an orange cat that observes you calmly:

She sits and waits for her time to act,

but is never fully out of sight.

She’s always vibrant, always seen,

always there so that

when things unfair creep,

She can leap to strike them down,

expressing the power She knows all too well.

They who deny this only do so

because they believe

if only She could see,

She would not hurt them,

but

Justice is an orange cat;

She does not care for you:

She only cares for Herself.

I am a Glass

Although many things fill me,

my most frequent occupant is Fear.

He commands my actions,

making me scream and cry;

I cannot fight His will.

I run from Him,

but there is seldom escape:

the only thing that can pour Him

out is the Music

whenever She comes by.

Her sweet sounds pick me up

by my smooth surface

and replace Him with varying stories.

I am flooded with pictures:

two lovers against the orange sky,

a mother holding her rosy child,

the dead laid peacefully into their graves.

Still many others fill my mind,

many of them worse than Fear,

but I’ll gladly take them over Him.

However, this is only temporary.

When he knocks me down

again I almost shatter.

The Music flows out,

Her graces spilled like blood,

and I am left empty again

until I am picked up

and He is poured back in,

into a glass to be filled.

Spring 2019

Fiction

The fiction pieces seen here were written in the second semester of my sophomore year in college after I became an English major as assignments for a fiction workshop course.

Stories

The Orange Dancer

She’s a dancer, but her dances are something beyond the simple characterization of words. She dances atop a wax spire, her movements fluid, twisting and turning with every breath. Her dance is one of light and beauty; it fosters the imagination of the late-night intellectual, being his Sun when he needs to read or write within the darkness of the night. For otherwise he could only dream. These men often have her dance for them as if the dull Moon’s musing is enough to justify this labor, but her life is short; she can only exist in this world for mere hours before her light turns to destruction. Her very essence is that of gluttony, her voraciousness too much to sustain for long. From this point her meaning shifts. When she is in this frenzied state brought on by her dying breaths he is no longer a small, frail dancer, but instead a disaster for if she herself dies, those who bask in her light are left in the cold darkness, but if she lives, she feeds on those men who relied on her for their own lives, burning everything.

Interior Description

I didn’t think there could be so much nature inside a single room. The walls are brick, but the slight patches of their burnt red hue are only visible in the upper reaches as the purple-flowered vines thinned out. The walls are only broken by the door to the kitchen and the large windows that let the sunlight bathe the room in a soft white glow. There are no curtains. I walk up to the wall to touch the vines, doubting they are real . . . they have the cool touch of green life. The deep emerald leaves are smooth and long, reminding me of the basil my mother used to make pesto when we were young. The flowers on the other hand are soft, sprouting five interconnected lavender petals from the dandelion pistils. I move away from the wall, turning to the other peculiarities of the room. In each corner of the wooden floor there is a potted ficus with each pot made of brown clay seemingly hand-sculpted by people close to the apartment owner. I look to the center of the room, resting my eyes on the seating arrangement. It is a set of two brown leather single-seat couches with a short, circular table between the two of them, set for a dialogue to occur over coffee.

“Are you enjoying the room?” I hear Sarah say from the hallway I entered through.

“Oh, yes. It’s lovely.”

“Glad you like. Would you like to take a seat?” She gestures to the left couch.

“Thank you.”

“Then let’s begin.”

Exterior Description

The snow hasn’t produced a wonderland in years. This year is no different. The white of the layered snow is a calcified tomb instead of the blanket of winter dreams. The ice is slick, hard. Hard to find enough traction to reliably move even an inch. The slope of the street makes every move precarious. The gleaming smooth surface provides such little friction, a single slip has the power to move one a mile. However, the danger isn’t the only thing unattractive about the winter. The sky is particularly gray today. The clouds hang heavy, drooping down like the udders of Zeus’s cow. But they never rain. They just hang there to absorb sunlight, casting the already gray cityscape with an even more gray light. The life being drained from everyone who steps outside.

Exercises

Spring 2020

Memoir

The memoir pieces seen here were written in the second semester of my junior year in college, when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit as assignments for a memoir workshop course.

Stay Tuned!

Stay tuned!