Ode to Lobster Ramen

(Optional title: A Student’s Salvation)

My father bought me
for only seven cents a piece
stockpiles of Ramen noodles
of many flavours and aromas.
My sister and I, uncultured as we were
believed it to be God’s heaven-sent gift
to young girls who yet did not know
domestic manner or
how to prepare a proper meal.
Japanese culture had flooded our
books and television,
and these golden noodles seemed
only to heighten our understanding
of a character fighting for his life,
fighting for a bowl of these noodles
screaming, “Believe it!”
and believe it we did.
Seemingly authentic tastes of different
meats and fish,
chicken shrimp lobster
condensed to a silver packet;
magic spice,
carrying the oriental flavours
we sought.

Yet age brought understanding
that like so many things of our time
this ‘Ramen’ was little more than a
cheap knock-off.
Still, I resisted temptation to
thumb my nose at this
delicious store-bought concoction
and upon entering broke, starving
college life
I held them in ever the highest regard.
A treasure, a blessing,
a sodium-filled ticket to an
early grave
but nevertheless delicious,
This fake chicken, shrimp, lobster,
fill-in-the-blank
Ramen stocks my pantry as an
ever-present assurance of a full stomach,
though also a reminder of an equally
empty wallet.

For seven cents a piece,
I accept my addiction
and prepare another pot of
boiling water and spices
as a young girl who does not yet know
domestic manner
beginning to prepare for
final exam week.

© Rachel Finney, 2012

Equality

(It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve posted… Anyways~ Sorry I’m a few days late but I’ve been very involved in my college’s theater program, so I have no time to really write much. I did write this prose piece for an auidition (I got the part~) that I had the other day. Oh, and happy National Write A Novel Month. I have not done well with this so far, but good luck for those of you that do participate in this, and no matter how many words you write, just be proud you embraced your creativity and worked towards a goal.)

Equality

Who are we? We are beings of emotions. We are bodies full of love and passion; feelings that we reign in, too fearful of the world’s loathing eyes and contemptuous words that leave us in a state of self-loathing; because we are unable to free ourselves from society’s spies that only tell lies.

Who are we? We are humans; just like you and your family, we breathe air, eat and drink, sleep and wake; we are not monsters who have come to take away your values; we are not demons of the devil, come to bring down your religion. We are people, filled with our own thoughts and ideas, filled with our own desires and wants, filled with our own goals and drives. Only looking for the freedom that we were told we deserved as people.

Who are we? you ask again and again and I answer you every single time. Yes, we may seem odd, yes we may be queer in your eyes, yes we may not fit with your picture of a perfect society, but does that give you the right to stomp on us? To throw your boots at us like we are cats that you caught in your kitchen, feeding on your human food? To break our souls like bones and give no pity when all we do is cry that we just wanted the ability to bring love into our hearts, just like you.

Yes, I promise you, we are not Satan’s love children. Yes, I promise you, we are not here to bring down the law of God. You say we are sinners, worthy only of Hell, but listen to this, you are a sinner too. Torturing your fellow man, fighting against us our right to live as we desire, is that not a sin worthy of hell?

Now I ask you, beg you if I must, please calm your voice and listen to us. Listen to the our cries, our pleas, and appeals that society find the time to stop and take note. Notice our hearts, for they beat just the same as yours.

© Ashlea Gable, 2012

Astronomy

[ I have the worst case of poet’s block right now (haven’t been able to write a poem in about 2 months), so here’s a poem I tried (and failed) to write based off a piece of prose I wrote a few weeks ago. I gave up. – Shae ]

 

she sits on the edge between dreams and aspirations, fingers wrinkling before her time clamped around the handle of a magnifying glass and she says:

one day i’m going to catch the first star of the night, right when it sheds its cloak and bares its breasts to me

she says she wants it to swim in her fish tank along with the chocolate telescope and the red celestial. she wants more than the world, she wants to fit the universe between 90s dial-up and a too many quarters spent elephant, between teenage egos and an unopened bag of skittles, she wants to fit universe somewhere she can feel the burn on her palm and the cool on her face.

she’ll wait until she’s flashed with a luminance to rival sirius and pray she can pluck it from its hold before it dims with the knowledge her unholy is gazing upon it

itself is unholy but we clutch our pearls in the sky with the hope we’ll be closer to god’s grey goose bottle half empty under flashing gaseous lights and unlimited definitions of space

with the hope we’ll feel like pockets full of moonshine, like glow in the dark stickers, and scribble our astronomy into the ink-stained arm of a taxi driver because how can we be expected to breath in seventy five percent dark energy?

where would we find the energy?