See that girl?
That girl in the corner?
She looks happy right?
Wrong, far from it.
Inside she’s broken
She has friends
but no one to talk to
no one’s there
She has a house
but no home
She’s loved by many
but feels so alone
There’s no cure
for her sadness
No one knows whats wrong with her
When she breaks down
She cries at night
And falsely smiles at day
She wishes for a better life
But only gets hurt in the end
Her parents don’t see her fall
They just go on with their lives
And she breaks even more
when no one sees her pain
She doesn’t ask for help
Because she doesn’t want to be a burden
So she stays quiet
In her corner
I have a special message to all of the student readers, either in high school, middle school, or university. As you may have read, I am the founder of a charity that does work in Africa. A Spring of Hope is a non-profit that constructs wells in rural African schools. We are currently combatting the world water crisis, the mass lack of water in impoverished areas around the world. We are actively encouraging education and leadership by improving schools through the addition of water in schools. We have found that students will more likely attend school if the school can provide a healthy and happy environment… and how can that be attained without the most essential compound, water?
A Spring of Hope is looking for students, such as yourselves, who are tired of this generation of inactivity. It is time to take a stand and believe that even individuals can change the world! We need students of all kinds to visit our website, www.aspringofhope.org, and go to the Get Involved page. There, you can find out all you need to know to adopt a school in Africa and directly raise money for it through your school. A Spring of Hope is a wonderful opportunity to develop as a caring human being, learn about another culture, and even save lives. So please, if you are looking to make an impact, visit the website. Now on with my fiction review…
A Thousand Splendid Suns, by The Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini, is an exceptional example of the contemporary novel focusing a unique culture. Though I believe that Hosseini accomplished little stylistically, I felt that he expertly captured the lives of so many women trapped in abusive marriages through his two protagonists, Mariam and Laila. The setting is Afghanistan in recent history. The women live through pivotal moments in middle eastern history while enduring heartache, depression, and despondency. The history is told from an intimate, human perspective through Hoesseini’s novel and its impacts on humanity are fully realized. The novel provides hope when there needs to be while still maintaining the very real overcast of gloom that comes with being held captive by a chauvinist husband. I was entertained and learned much about Afghanistan culture and I encourage you all to read the novel, or at the very least, read his more popular novel The Kite Runner.
I sit and wait for you
You walk in and
look passed me
you ask
where I’m at
I say right here
you jump out your skin
and say you didn’t see me there
I shrug and say
its ok
no big deal
while inside I cry
it’s not ok
it is a big deal
won’t you look at me
don’t you look passed me
please just look at me
i’m so sick of being forgotten
don’t you see me
I’m right here
can’t you hear me scraming
can’t you hear me pleading
please look at me
I’m so sick of being forgotten
so sick of being alone
I lay awake in my bed at night
thinking about the day we had together
and I think about how you smiled
before you said goodbye
and I wonder
why can’t you be forgotten
if only till your next visit
I feel as if something needs to be confessed
I’ve done so many things wrong
I’ve made a big mess
I’m ready now to let everything go
I’m ready now to let my happy side show
I don’t want any more pity
I don’t want any more pain
All of these things that I have done
leave me feeling so ashamed
So God please forgive me
for I believe that I have sinned
I need to apologize
but I don’t know where to begin
Lately I’ve felt useless
Lately I’ve felt pain
I need to change who I am
I no longer want to be this way
I’m not the person that I originally set out to be
I’d like to be my old self again
whoever my old self was, it was me
Authors I have recently discovered for older teens:
David Sedaris- is a comedian, author, and American humorist. He has published five essay collections including Naked (1997), best seller, and Holidays on Ice (1997). I read his short story i like guys from Naked last week and I was captured by his satiric language and tongue-in-cheek humor. He is an author worth noting for his beautiful non-fiction in which he recounts instances in humorous ways while still emphasizing poignant moments. He was named “Humorist of the Year” by Time magazine in 2001 and currently resides in France with his life partner, Hugh.
Kathyrn Harrison- is a renowned author with a sordid past. Born while both of her parents were eighteen in 1961, Harrison grew up under the care of her grandparents. She says “college was a period of upheaval for me; I experiment with drugs; I lived with far less self-discipline and academic focus than I had before.” (website, kathyrnharrison.com) A disturbing incestuous relationship with her formerly estranged father developed during her junior year of college. She now lives in New York City with her husband Colin, two children, and several pets. Her non-fiction piece Renewal drew me in to her vivid and almost colloquial writing style. Her twelfth novel, While They Slept, was published in March 2008.
Mona Simpson- The long-lost sister of Apple-guru CEO Steve Jobs, Simpson is both a novelist and essayist. Speaking of disturbing sexual relationships with fathers, Mona Simpson’s Lawns, a short story (fiction) published in the Iowa Review, tells the story from the point of view of a wayward college student who has been taken advantage of by her father since her childhood. Simpson’s piece was remarkably convincing for an essay and she has been lauded for her exceptional writing abilities. Her novel, Anywhere But Here, was adopted onto the silver screen in 1999. Interestingly enough, her husband Richard Appel is a writer for The Simpsons and used Simpson’s name for Homer Simpson’s mother.
