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Hailey Ngo Jul 2015
The notes fall like pins to the floor, pointed and sharp
They’re falling, falling onto the black hardwood floor.

The audience sweeps up these fallen pieces
and strings them back together in their heads.
They take these notes, and breathe them in.
They breathe the life out of these notes
and discard the rest.

They are frantic, they call out for more.
They beg with their hands wide open, ready to catch these fallen notes.
This is the only time they can truly be alive,
when they **** the dreams and imagination from these notes.

The orchestra, they are generous.
Like a machine, they crank out more and more music.
More notes fall to the ground.
More notes inhaled by the desperate people.
More notes supply oxygen to the deprived.

The orchestra doesn’t mind.
For this is the only time they can live as well,
when they can blow out these notes,
watch them fly away,
and soar away with them.
Hailey Ngo Jul 2015
If music was sad, I’d paint it blue.
I’d sit it right down,
on that easel I used much too long ago,
and I’d paint it ocean blue, with yellow sand and rocky waves and white seashells.

If music was happy, I’d paint it yellow.
So that it could stretch across the sky
from cloud to cloud,
and replace the sun.

If music was loving, I’d paint it red.
Fold it up and put a stamp on it.
And send it sealed up in an envelope
on Valentine’s day.

If music was peaceful, I’d paint it green.
I’d let it grow, let the seeds sprout new life.
I’d let the music float down the river, let it get carried away in the wind.
I’d bring it outside, and let it become one with nature.

If music was a good storyteller, I’d paint it black.
I’d listen to it, coax the story out of it.
I’d open up an empty book, and paste the music inside,
so that the music can become black words on paper,
so that everyone can hear its tale.

If people were all listening,
if people cared to hear,
they can catch the music I put everywhere.

All you have to do is listen
and be still.
So that you can hear the music
in the wet, dripping paint of art,
in the puffy, bouncing clouds of the sky,
in the meaningful letters delivered to loved ones,
in the nature surrounding you everywhere you go,
in the books just waiting to be read,
and most of all,
in yourself.
Hailey Ngo Jul 2015
Wild waves scattered with dancing bubbles of sea foam crash onto the shore.
The morning dew hangs in the air like a balloon.
Feelings surface. This feels like home. It’s like you’ve been here before.
When night slides in, the magnificent light beam shines from the moon.

The salty breeze stirs up the waft of kernel popcorn jumping for joy.
Slathered, smooth sunscreen replaces the smell of the cramped air of indoors.
The fishy smell seems to come from fish hung by string, flopping just like puppets on a child’s toy.
Smoke from barbecues float through the air; it hangs around just a while before away it soars.

The ocean breeze tickles the sweat dripping down tan backs.
Freedom has never felt so free.
Toes dig their way into the cool sand. They’re probably glad they can now relax.
Happy has finally arrived. Don’t move, though, or else you’ll scare it away. Don’t look back, just let it be.

Bursts of laughter rings out, threatening to make more victims smile.
The seagulls circle the air, squawking their complaints of little food.
Life is complete it seems; reality flies out the window, worry and stress jumbled into a pile.
The barking dogs strain against leashes, whining for freedom. But when needed, their cute, slobbering faces wait to lighten the mood.

The gritty sand finds their way into mouths, their bitter taste no match for the sweet sugar of melting ice cream or the salty oil of potato chips.
Funnel cakes and French fries, snow cones and sodas, cotton candy and corn-on-the-cob; they all blend to create the flavor of happiness.
The ocean water tastes so salty, but you can’t smile less, so you endure the sneaky water sliding in through your open lips.
Escape the world, escape the restricting walls of indoors. Live here and be free, come here and taste the bliss.
Hailey Ngo Jul 2015
I am from quiet struggle.
I am from piles of books,
from good education and quiet personality.
I am from a big yard of grass,
but no one to play with.

I am from three older siblings,
all grown up with no time for me.
I am from hot fudge brownies,
from rare evenings of cookies on trays.

I am from music,
from being forced to play long hours of piano,
at only six years old.
I am from fun outside traded in for legs swinging alone on that black, shiny piano bench.

I am from “do it yourself, you’re old enough” to “I can, but you’re too young.”
I am from strict expectations of the “best” grades from school, not “do your best” grades.
I am from long nights and early mornings,
eyes strained from reading textbooks too long, from studying too hard.

I am from a life path already carved out for me,
by my parents and their “I know better than you.”
I am from a long, difficult path awaiting – full of top colleges, and medical school, and then becoming a doctor.
I am from a rigid family, of paranoid, of safety, of no sleepovers, of little fun with friends, of many hours of study.

I am from loving, but strict parents.
I am from caring, but distant siblings.
I am from a family who knows how to love, but not how to show it.
I am from childhood memories I’d rather not remember and a future I’d rather not have.
I am from struggling to be grateful and remembering to live in the moment.
I am from pieces of these moments, strung together to create me, stamped on the mark I hope to leave on this world.
Hailey Ngo Jul 2015
Home is where all wishes are born and dreams are dreamt.
Home is where heaping plates of food make stomachs contempt.

Home is where I can ignore the social pressure the world seems so desperate to follow, the different versions of myself I made just to fit in to every little trend and appear normal.
Home is where I can finally remember that there really is only one me, one without pretend or being formal.

Home is of laughing voices and dancing feet.
Home is of floating music that never strays from the beat.

Home is peeling back the well-guarded onion, layer by layer, feeling no worries about how to fit in.
Home is not caring of social pressures, be it short or tall, ugly or cute, fat or thin.

Home is of the melting sun and the drip drip drip of sweating popsicles.
Home is of frozen breaths and snowy driveways lined with shiny icicles.

Home is of comfort, of peace, of familiar, of free.
Home is of siblings, of pets, of parents, of truly me.

Home is of miles and miles of imagination no eye can see.
Home is of tears that carry no embarrassment, of kindness that brings no fee.

Home is just a plain, old house – no castles or mansions or princes await.
Home is but instead filled with more riches; not in money, not in gold, but in love flooding past every metaphorical gate.

Home is of breaking rules and discovering there really weren’t any.
Home is of knowing you’ll always come back, even if the years become many.
Hailey Ngo Jul 2015
The world melts around him,
bleeding into swirls of hot, dripping colors.
He opens his mouth
into a silent scream.

His hands squeeze his head,
as he tries to block out the apocalypse.
He is standing on a bridge
as the world collapses around him.
He is holding his head
to keep the world he knows upright.

But it is futile.
The sky is falling, his world swallows him.
He is struggling to hold on
as he screams his silent scream,
as two figures in black behind him look on calmly.

They are ready for this.
They are prepared.
They just stand there waiting.
As the sky explodes.
As the man is screaming.
As the colors melt
into sticky goo.
They just stand there waiting.
Ekphrastic Poem based off of the painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch
Hailey Ngo Jul 2015
She closes herself off,
to the world,
to the people who love her,
to herself.

She reaches inside herself,
with one small, trembling hand,
to grasp what’s left of her soul
and discovers nothing left.

So she retreats inside herself,
with the darkness for company.
She retreats inside herself,
with no one to help her.
She retreats inside herself,
and blocks everything else away.
She retreats inside herself,
and blames herself
for all the mistakes in the world.
Her world becomes black and white.

She’s wasting away, little by little.
She’s crumbling into pieces,
little bits of her floating
every which way.

She can no longer hear the world anymore.
She can’t even hear herself.
She can no longer see the spiraling colors of the world anymore.
She can no longer see herself.
Her world becomes black and white.

She disappears inside herself,
with no mind to come back out.
She waves one last goodbye to the world,
and slams the door,
and locks herself in,
and throws away the key,
not bothering to see
where it landed.
Her world becomes black and white.

She cries invisible tears
and shouts silent screams,
to the injustice in the world.
To the cruelness she knows all too well.
To the ugliness of people she once trusted.
To the fading beauty she once loved to see,
but cannot see anymore.

— The End —