Creative Writer I am NOT
I just had to write an imaginary autobiography about the principle speaker of a poem and I don't think I did very well. The poem is called "La Dolce Vita" and it is pretty sad. I will post the poem and then the paper, the poem is rather short but the paper is a little over 4 pages long. Read it if you like and leave your comments. But remember something, I am not a creative writer or a creative person for that matter. So don't be too harsh, it's my first try.
La Dolce Vita
The woman steps down from the bus
into a swarm of paparazzi,
a new dress under her arm,
not a cloud smearing the sky.
She has yet to learn
her children and husband are dead.
Murder. Suicide.
Story after story, the same
sun-bathed day,
muted guns at the border,
women berry-picking in a field near town.
I gave my love a willow sprig they sing.
A few kilometers away, the enemy
slips through the forest.
Say happiness is suspect,
reason enough to knock on wood
before the axe swings.
Barbed questions catch us
trying to escape.
Were the women left sprawled
across rows of blood?
Were the children asleep
when the father raised his gun?
Say we're incapable of certain acts.
Say it again.
Boxcars rattle through the countryside,
crammed with the fear
that this is not just a change of camps.
The pitch night swells with screams,
the ground between the trees
strewn with owl pellets,
those indigestible remains
of lives swallowed whole.
I will never forget that day. That day which lives with me now, in every morning that I wake up and every night that I dream. That burning memory still stings my heart, a heart that was once open and eager for everything to fill it. This heart was born in Italy in 1934 to a mother whose face was lined with unseen dreams and a father whose face was just unseen. I grew up in a small village with two telephones and electricity only in the train station. I spent my days with the other children of the village, playing fantastic games and living imaginary lives of adventure and glory. No one in this town had seen either adventure or glory, no one in this town had ever left. I grew up knowing that once you are born in il villaggio, you grow up, marry, breed, and die here. Though my friends all learned this mantra as I had, they didn’t see what I saw. In our games of adventure, I was planning a real life of incredible journeys and a heart filled with love and passion. I wanted the kind of life I saw in il cinema when we traveled to the next town on holidays. Women with desperate men willing to die for their honor, women who lived everyday with the vivacity and courage to fall in love, hate, and fall in love again.
This dream never died, it stayed with me until I was 17 and could no longer sit still. I left il villaggio that year and traveled to America. It was the land of the nuclear family, the perfect life, and the place for me to fill my heart. I came with only a little money, some clothes, and a song that mama used to sing; “I gave my love a willow sprig” sang in my heart and seemed to keep my dream alive. I was wide eyed and foreign, but the men were friendly and valiant. They were the men I had seen in the films, they charmed and smiled and made me believe that they loved me. One man, however, convinced me more than the rest. My husband was beautiful and vivacious. He wanted to travel and have adventures, he was my heart. His life, however, became an uncharted course. When I became pregnant, our dreams of travel were put on hold, though neither of us knew how permanent. He got an office job to pay the bills while I stayed at home like and American wife was supposed to. This life was not what I had envisioned. Where was the passion and romance? I was even struggling to find the love I thought I had found. My charming film husband, I found, was only charming when it was in his favor. Why, why, why couldn’t I see through him? If only I had noticed, if only I was not blinded by my own silly dreams and selfish ambitions. I wanted so badly to be that film star woman who had everything and lived for drama. I held on to a dying romance that was slowly drying up my heart.
My one solace was the beautiful faces of my children. They could live out my dream. They did not have to be trapped in this barbed wire life, this place that fed off misery and failed aspirations. I taught them that they could go anywhere and be anything, and that the most important thing in the world was a full heart. Fill your hearts with experiences and friendships and, most importantly, fill your hearts with love. Not a silly love that exists only in the dark on the screen, but one that is real and one that reminds you everyday why you are alive.
It pained me to watch them live in a house where there was no such love. Why doesn’t daddy love mommy? Why doesn’t she seem alive? I could no longer watch their confusion and frustration. The divorce was the most powerful thing I had done since my journey to this heartless country. I needed my children to see me happy, they needed someone to show them, or I needed to be shown that my life was not wasted. I wanted to see that my heart was not gone, that it could be full. I moved us to a place far from the city, they city was only a place where people were cold and forbidding. But now we could see the sky and it was quiet. I could hear the owls at night and it was like they were singing to me. They were singing mama’s song; they were telling me that this was my second chance, my turn to be happy. But what do owls know?
That morning was the last day of my life. My babies were at his house for the weekend, because a judge thought he deserved it, but it seems judges know as much as owls. I was shopping in town which was only a bus ride away. When I returned home, it looked as though I had suddenly come into a spotlight that I didn’t understand. Why were these people here and why were they talking about someone else’s children? My children were not dead, it must be someone else. They have the wrong house. They have the wrong house! Why were they saying these lies? Why didn’t they understand that they had the story wrong?!
Why did I feel so numb when I realized that I had the story wrong? My babies, my angels were gone. They were taken from me. He sent them away and then followed them because he was selfish! He wanted them to himself, when I was the one who deserved them. He took the last piece of my heart so he could succeed in destroying it all. It was so simple; there is no crime when you’re dead. His failed life was too much for him, but he thought mine was not enough. I needed more, more things to be sad about, more things to cloud my dream. He thought I needed to be reminded everyday how much I missed my children, and I needed to feel everyday the emptiness of my chest.
My life became on never ending question. Everyday I would hear stories of tragedy and destruction; did those people have a shattered dream? Am I the only person who knows this pain? Who decides who gets to be happy? The story of five women stood out to me, they were from il villaggio. They were picking the summer strawberries in a field not far from where I was born, they lived by the mantra. When the political anarchists came through, they were not expecting to find witnesses to their most recent flee attempt and didn’t even blink before cutting their lives violently short. Their blood stained the ground and the hearts of that little town. I wonder about those women…had they ever dreamed of passion and love? Or had they been convinced of the walls of the village? Were they singing Mama’s song? Their tragic deaths were an outward cry of my inward struggle. My life had been taken from me; my enemy came from the forest and shot me down. My blood stained my whole life and I could see my attacker every night in my dreams. Did the women see their faces before they were gunned down? Did they see his face? Did my children see his face in the moonlight when he took aim at their little hearts?
Was it my fault? I had tricked myself into thinking I could be happy once in my life; I was so sure of it. But fate had other plans, plans that it kept hidden from me. I should have seen his jealousy and selfishness. He wanted my misery and deep down I knew it. If only if only. My life is filled with if only and I am consumed by it. I hear the owls at night; they taunt me with their lies. They only want a meal, they want to feed off of my sorrow, they want to swallow me whole and leave me an empty shell on the ground. They have me here, let them feast.
I have given up, I am defeated. Even now back in Italy, il villaggio is different to my tired eyes. There is no more dreaming of adventure, no more wishing for my film romance. Now there is only regret, pain, and longing. I long for the day that I do not think of their faces. I long for the night of dreamless sleep. I see the young girls with their Hollywood fantasies and I am bitter. They do not know the lie; they do not know the pain that awaits them. Being born in this town is a trap. You live here, grow old here, you die here. When I die it will be for the second time, but now I do not fear it. It will be sweet release from the endless well where my soul once was. Will it be heaven? Will it be Hell? If it is Heaven will there be love and happiness, or simply nothing? I would rather feel nothing than this. I would rather stop existing than endure this torture.
The saying in il villaggio is “la dolce vita e qui”, “the sweet life is here”. I find it hard to believe that anything could be sweet after what I’ve endured. Day after day I wait for it, I am here, where is “la dolce vita”? Is it with Mama in Heaven? Is it hidden somewhere, somewhere that only few get to see it? Questions, questions, questions. I am trapped by them, caught in them trying to escape. I will find my way out through them; I will find an answer that will set me free. I need to feel that sweet life, I need to taste in once so I can say it exists. Because if I die in this despair, then it does not. It is a dream, a fantasy, which will be swallowed whole.
La Dolce Vita
The woman steps down from the bus
into a swarm of paparazzi,
a new dress under her arm,
not a cloud smearing the sky.
She has yet to learn
her children and husband are dead.
Murder. Suicide.
Story after story, the same
sun-bathed day,
muted guns at the border,
women berry-picking in a field near town.
I gave my love a willow sprig they sing.
A few kilometers away, the enemy
slips through the forest.
Say happiness is suspect,
reason enough to knock on wood
before the axe swings.
Barbed questions catch us
trying to escape.
Were the women left sprawled
across rows of blood?
Were the children asleep
when the father raised his gun?
Say we're incapable of certain acts.
Say it again.
Boxcars rattle through the countryside,
crammed with the fear
that this is not just a change of camps.
The pitch night swells with screams,
the ground between the trees
strewn with owl pellets,
those indigestible remains
of lives swallowed whole.
I will never forget that day. That day which lives with me now, in every morning that I wake up and every night that I dream. That burning memory still stings my heart, a heart that was once open and eager for everything to fill it. This heart was born in Italy in 1934 to a mother whose face was lined with unseen dreams and a father whose face was just unseen. I grew up in a small village with two telephones and electricity only in the train station. I spent my days with the other children of the village, playing fantastic games and living imaginary lives of adventure and glory. No one in this town had seen either adventure or glory, no one in this town had ever left. I grew up knowing that once you are born in il villaggio, you grow up, marry, breed, and die here. Though my friends all learned this mantra as I had, they didn’t see what I saw. In our games of adventure, I was planning a real life of incredible journeys and a heart filled with love and passion. I wanted the kind of life I saw in il cinema when we traveled to the next town on holidays. Women with desperate men willing to die for their honor, women who lived everyday with the vivacity and courage to fall in love, hate, and fall in love again.
This dream never died, it stayed with me until I was 17 and could no longer sit still. I left il villaggio that year and traveled to America. It was the land of the nuclear family, the perfect life, and the place for me to fill my heart. I came with only a little money, some clothes, and a song that mama used to sing; “I gave my love a willow sprig” sang in my heart and seemed to keep my dream alive. I was wide eyed and foreign, but the men were friendly and valiant. They were the men I had seen in the films, they charmed and smiled and made me believe that they loved me. One man, however, convinced me more than the rest. My husband was beautiful and vivacious. He wanted to travel and have adventures, he was my heart. His life, however, became an uncharted course. When I became pregnant, our dreams of travel were put on hold, though neither of us knew how permanent. He got an office job to pay the bills while I stayed at home like and American wife was supposed to. This life was not what I had envisioned. Where was the passion and romance? I was even struggling to find the love I thought I had found. My charming film husband, I found, was only charming when it was in his favor. Why, why, why couldn’t I see through him? If only I had noticed, if only I was not blinded by my own silly dreams and selfish ambitions. I wanted so badly to be that film star woman who had everything and lived for drama. I held on to a dying romance that was slowly drying up my heart.
My one solace was the beautiful faces of my children. They could live out my dream. They did not have to be trapped in this barbed wire life, this place that fed off misery and failed aspirations. I taught them that they could go anywhere and be anything, and that the most important thing in the world was a full heart. Fill your hearts with experiences and friendships and, most importantly, fill your hearts with love. Not a silly love that exists only in the dark on the screen, but one that is real and one that reminds you everyday why you are alive.
It pained me to watch them live in a house where there was no such love. Why doesn’t daddy love mommy? Why doesn’t she seem alive? I could no longer watch their confusion and frustration. The divorce was the most powerful thing I had done since my journey to this heartless country. I needed my children to see me happy, they needed someone to show them, or I needed to be shown that my life was not wasted. I wanted to see that my heart was not gone, that it could be full. I moved us to a place far from the city, they city was only a place where people were cold and forbidding. But now we could see the sky and it was quiet. I could hear the owls at night and it was like they were singing to me. They were singing mama’s song; they were telling me that this was my second chance, my turn to be happy. But what do owls know?
That morning was the last day of my life. My babies were at his house for the weekend, because a judge thought he deserved it, but it seems judges know as much as owls. I was shopping in town which was only a bus ride away. When I returned home, it looked as though I had suddenly come into a spotlight that I didn’t understand. Why were these people here and why were they talking about someone else’s children? My children were not dead, it must be someone else. They have the wrong house. They have the wrong house! Why were they saying these lies? Why didn’t they understand that they had the story wrong?!
Why did I feel so numb when I realized that I had the story wrong? My babies, my angels were gone. They were taken from me. He sent them away and then followed them because he was selfish! He wanted them to himself, when I was the one who deserved them. He took the last piece of my heart so he could succeed in destroying it all. It was so simple; there is no crime when you’re dead. His failed life was too much for him, but he thought mine was not enough. I needed more, more things to be sad about, more things to cloud my dream. He thought I needed to be reminded everyday how much I missed my children, and I needed to feel everyday the emptiness of my chest.
My life became on never ending question. Everyday I would hear stories of tragedy and destruction; did those people have a shattered dream? Am I the only person who knows this pain? Who decides who gets to be happy? The story of five women stood out to me, they were from il villaggio. They were picking the summer strawberries in a field not far from where I was born, they lived by the mantra. When the political anarchists came through, they were not expecting to find witnesses to their most recent flee attempt and didn’t even blink before cutting their lives violently short. Their blood stained the ground and the hearts of that little town. I wonder about those women…had they ever dreamed of passion and love? Or had they been convinced of the walls of the village? Were they singing Mama’s song? Their tragic deaths were an outward cry of my inward struggle. My life had been taken from me; my enemy came from the forest and shot me down. My blood stained my whole life and I could see my attacker every night in my dreams. Did the women see their faces before they were gunned down? Did they see his face? Did my children see his face in the moonlight when he took aim at their little hearts?
Was it my fault? I had tricked myself into thinking I could be happy once in my life; I was so sure of it. But fate had other plans, plans that it kept hidden from me. I should have seen his jealousy and selfishness. He wanted my misery and deep down I knew it. If only if only. My life is filled with if only and I am consumed by it. I hear the owls at night; they taunt me with their lies. They only want a meal, they want to feed off of my sorrow, they want to swallow me whole and leave me an empty shell on the ground. They have me here, let them feast.
I have given up, I am defeated. Even now back in Italy, il villaggio is different to my tired eyes. There is no more dreaming of adventure, no more wishing for my film romance. Now there is only regret, pain, and longing. I long for the day that I do not think of their faces. I long for the night of dreamless sleep. I see the young girls with their Hollywood fantasies and I am bitter. They do not know the lie; they do not know the pain that awaits them. Being born in this town is a trap. You live here, grow old here, you die here. When I die it will be for the second time, but now I do not fear it. It will be sweet release from the endless well where my soul once was. Will it be heaven? Will it be Hell? If it is Heaven will there be love and happiness, or simply nothing? I would rather feel nothing than this. I would rather stop existing than endure this torture.
The saying in il villaggio is “la dolce vita e qui”, “the sweet life is here”. I find it hard to believe that anything could be sweet after what I’ve endured. Day after day I wait for it, I am here, where is “la dolce vita”? Is it with Mama in Heaven? Is it hidden somewhere, somewhere that only few get to see it? Questions, questions, questions. I am trapped by them, caught in them trying to escape. I will find my way out through them; I will find an answer that will set me free. I need to feel that sweet life, I need to taste in once so I can say it exists. Because if I die in this despair, then it does not. It is a dream, a fantasy, which will be swallowed whole.