This is a piece from my writing portfolio
Cause I'm tired of emailing this over and over. This is a piece from my portfolio for grad school. Hopefully it shows that I've evolved into something that looks like a writer =) The name of i is Spark, and hopefully you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Listen to some Brick by Ben Folds with it if you truly want an all around experience...
Spark
By Nikki Stinson
Your pained face is scrunched up with the anger of the night before, our violent passion that destroyed any hope of what’s left of us while also managing to destroy my favorite champagne flute that I grabbed from my sister’s house last Christmas when she wasn’t looking. You came back. The nice ones always come back. You were gonna yell. Scream. But you didn’t. You got here, and unlocked the door and pushed it open, flying in with a flurry of passionate searching to find me in the kitchen. Your eyes look into mine, and you do the one thing you told yourself not to. You falter. You tell me that you’re sorry for barging in and make up some stupid excuse; you forgot to tell me about the fact that you still have my key. I pointed at the counter, drop it there. You were still looking me in the eyes as you closed your sweaty hand around that key. This isn’t going like you planned. You should have been telling me what a mistake I’m making by now, instead you’re standing there by my front door waiting for me to come running at you to throw my arms around you.
I arc my eyebrow and I feel my eyes start to squint. My angry face is forming. You hold up the key, start waving it left to right, you tell me I’ll get it back when I hear you out. I pick up my cell phone and I look you right in the eyes, if you don’t leave I’m gonna call the cops and take what’s left of my sister’s good cups and break it over your head. Your about to say something, but something large stops you. A moment. A glancing moment. You remember. Oh god no, you remember. I know because your face just changed. You’re looking at my face. My whole face. You’re waiting for the ripple that starts with me crinkling up my nose, then my eyes close tightly, and my cheeks grow red with my fight with the feelings that have me. You’re looking at my whole face and you see the dimples, the lipstick color you’ve seen on your shirt collars and glass cups. You see my face and it hurts you. You try not to let me see you weaken but it’s too late. Think fast. Think of that time I lied to you again. Your coming back, but I wish you wouldn’t. I told you not to. This is why. Because of… Because of this. Always because of this moment this. Very. Moment. Your eyes look me over again and they see my: Sweet vanilla hair, my eyeliner and my worn spirit is all over my face. You see it again. That thing that brought you back. That thing that brought you here. With me. You remember. You remember me and it’s all hitting you at once. You remember the me that hates flies in the house loves the taste of flat soda and pizza after a bad day. Your lip is shaking. The words are falling, failing, flying out of your mouth, words like: Why-we-so-good-me-you-us-happy-turning-away. Flailing and finding something in the way you say us. You’re wondering if you and I could be “us” anytime soon. No, we can’t. We haven’t been ‘us’ for a while. But it gets us thinking, and it brings it all back. We remember together. It starts up in us fires in the brain, igniting memories of Us. The smoke started first, every bad thought we’ve ever had, and mean words spoken. That time you called me a “fat cow” when I accidentally hit your dog, and the time I called you spineless when I slept at my ex’s place after that huge fight we had. Our thoughts try to find fresh air from the ashes of forgotten anniversaries. They make it to the blaze though, that passion, the heat that drew us in and scorched us alive.
You laugh weakly and ask me if I remember fixing that bad pasta using a recipe using a recipe found on a less the credible cooking site. I nod. Wasn’t that fun? We used to have that ya’ know. We had it a lot… Wha-I mean-when did… I dunno… What went wrong? I shrug and look past you to notice that Dexter was coming on tv right then, you mistake it for me looking at you. You stand there looking at me again. But this time you have this annoyed look all over your face. I counter with my own annoyed look. I don’t get it. I did-we did everything right. I bought you things, and I got a great job, and everything was… fine. I was fine! You were being a bitch and- I squint my eyes in a intense glare- I mean… You and I were doing okay. You never gave me any warning that things… were a clusterfuck. I tell you that I tried, and that you just didn’t get it. You figured the answer was always something logical, something trivial. I remind you of that time I had a bad day with my boss’s new idiotic policies and you told me that I’m being melodramatic. I don’t care if I’m shitting bats while screaming lines form “300”! You never tried to just… Connect! Just stop thinking and just FEEL something between us, instead of THINKING of something between us. Now your really pissed.
What the hell? How does that even make fucking sense?
It just… does. Your just so fucking distant all the time! You just fucked it up by just being fucking YOU!
You can’t put this all on me! I’m only human!
I‘m so pissed I’m practically breathing fire. I’m blindingly mad that you would accuse me as if I’m the one who’s wrong here. As if every girl dreams of cold hugs and flat gentle kisses.
Only human?! Sometimes, that’s the one thing I NEEDED YOU TO BE.
Silence.
You’re looking at me with eyes that can’t stop searching my face. It’s gone. That reminder of the very moment you fell for me in the dining room of Patty Herring’s house during her 16th birthday party. She told us that we looked cute together, and that we should get to know each other, because it would be great to be able to take me on double dates. She just wanted to see her best friend happy. And for a while I was. We were. You’re shaking your head, I can’t. I can’t do this. You head for the door and yank it open. You look at me, as I’m standing there in a large t-shirt I got at a concert I went to with my neighbor Oscar. You pause, thinking of what to do next. You take the papers out of your back pocket, and toss them at me lazily. They plop to the floor with a light wafting sound so powerful it broke the silence into a million brilliant shards. Signed. That was the last thing you said as you do that stupid melodramatic exit of yours where you slam the door too hard and break my painting on the wall again. The door closes gently and all I hear before the theme song of some annoying commercial and the gentle click of the door closing fully. I look down at the papers only about a foot away from the door, and my cheeks and eyes burn. I decide to get me some cookies and milk and to sit and watch Dexter, while I contemplate the fact that now I am truly alone. I’ll pick the papers up tomorrow, for now though, they stay on the floor with all those failed words you dropped out of your mouth, fluttering around with the draft from the ceiling fan.
Spark
By Nikki Stinson
Your pained face is scrunched up with the anger of the night before, our violent passion that destroyed any hope of what’s left of us while also managing to destroy my favorite champagne flute that I grabbed from my sister’s house last Christmas when she wasn’t looking. You came back. The nice ones always come back. You were gonna yell. Scream. But you didn’t. You got here, and unlocked the door and pushed it open, flying in with a flurry of passionate searching to find me in the kitchen. Your eyes look into mine, and you do the one thing you told yourself not to. You falter. You tell me that you’re sorry for barging in and make up some stupid excuse; you forgot to tell me about the fact that you still have my key. I pointed at the counter, drop it there. You were still looking me in the eyes as you closed your sweaty hand around that key. This isn’t going like you planned. You should have been telling me what a mistake I’m making by now, instead you’re standing there by my front door waiting for me to come running at you to throw my arms around you.
I arc my eyebrow and I feel my eyes start to squint. My angry face is forming. You hold up the key, start waving it left to right, you tell me I’ll get it back when I hear you out. I pick up my cell phone and I look you right in the eyes, if you don’t leave I’m gonna call the cops and take what’s left of my sister’s good cups and break it over your head. Your about to say something, but something large stops you. A moment. A glancing moment. You remember. Oh god no, you remember. I know because your face just changed. You’re looking at my face. My whole face. You’re waiting for the ripple that starts with me crinkling up my nose, then my eyes close tightly, and my cheeks grow red with my fight with the feelings that have me. You’re looking at my whole face and you see the dimples, the lipstick color you’ve seen on your shirt collars and glass cups. You see my face and it hurts you. You try not to let me see you weaken but it’s too late. Think fast. Think of that time I lied to you again. Your coming back, but I wish you wouldn’t. I told you not to. This is why. Because of… Because of this. Always because of this moment this. Very. Moment. Your eyes look me over again and they see my: Sweet vanilla hair, my eyeliner and my worn spirit is all over my face. You see it again. That thing that brought you back. That thing that brought you here. With me. You remember. You remember me and it’s all hitting you at once. You remember the me that hates flies in the house loves the taste of flat soda and pizza after a bad day. Your lip is shaking. The words are falling, failing, flying out of your mouth, words like: Why-we-so-good-me-you-us-happy-turning-away. Flailing and finding something in the way you say us. You’re wondering if you and I could be “us” anytime soon. No, we can’t. We haven’t been ‘us’ for a while. But it gets us thinking, and it brings it all back. We remember together. It starts up in us fires in the brain, igniting memories of Us. The smoke started first, every bad thought we’ve ever had, and mean words spoken. That time you called me a “fat cow” when I accidentally hit your dog, and the time I called you spineless when I slept at my ex’s place after that huge fight we had. Our thoughts try to find fresh air from the ashes of forgotten anniversaries. They make it to the blaze though, that passion, the heat that drew us in and scorched us alive.
You laugh weakly and ask me if I remember fixing that bad pasta using a recipe using a recipe found on a less the credible cooking site. I nod. Wasn’t that fun? We used to have that ya’ know. We had it a lot… Wha-I mean-when did… I dunno… What went wrong? I shrug and look past you to notice that Dexter was coming on tv right then, you mistake it for me looking at you. You stand there looking at me again. But this time you have this annoyed look all over your face. I counter with my own annoyed look. I don’t get it. I did-we did everything right. I bought you things, and I got a great job, and everything was… fine. I was fine! You were being a bitch and- I squint my eyes in a intense glare- I mean… You and I were doing okay. You never gave me any warning that things… were a clusterfuck. I tell you that I tried, and that you just didn’t get it. You figured the answer was always something logical, something trivial. I remind you of that time I had a bad day with my boss’s new idiotic policies and you told me that I’m being melodramatic. I don’t care if I’m shitting bats while screaming lines form “300”! You never tried to just… Connect! Just stop thinking and just FEEL something between us, instead of THINKING of something between us. Now your really pissed.
What the hell? How does that even make fucking sense?
It just… does. Your just so fucking distant all the time! You just fucked it up by just being fucking YOU!
You can’t put this all on me! I’m only human!
I‘m so pissed I’m practically breathing fire. I’m blindingly mad that you would accuse me as if I’m the one who’s wrong here. As if every girl dreams of cold hugs and flat gentle kisses.
Only human?! Sometimes, that’s the one thing I NEEDED YOU TO BE.
Silence.
You’re looking at me with eyes that can’t stop searching my face. It’s gone. That reminder of the very moment you fell for me in the dining room of Patty Herring’s house during her 16th birthday party. She told us that we looked cute together, and that we should get to know each other, because it would be great to be able to take me on double dates. She just wanted to see her best friend happy. And for a while I was. We were. You’re shaking your head, I can’t. I can’t do this. You head for the door and yank it open. You look at me, as I’m standing there in a large t-shirt I got at a concert I went to with my neighbor Oscar. You pause, thinking of what to do next. You take the papers out of your back pocket, and toss them at me lazily. They plop to the floor with a light wafting sound so powerful it broke the silence into a million brilliant shards. Signed. That was the last thing you said as you do that stupid melodramatic exit of yours where you slam the door too hard and break my painting on the wall again. The door closes gently and all I hear before the theme song of some annoying commercial and the gentle click of the door closing fully. I look down at the papers only about a foot away from the door, and my cheeks and eyes burn. I decide to get me some cookies and milk and to sit and watch Dexter, while I contemplate the fact that now I am truly alone. I’ll pick the papers up tomorrow, for now though, they stay on the floor with all those failed words you dropped out of your mouth, fluttering around with the draft from the ceiling fan.