fairy skeletons.: Weekend Wordfest [17]: #MoreHappyThanNot

Happy fourth of July to those of you celebrating in America!

Before we jump into this post, a reminder:

I'm turning fifteen! To celebrate, I'm hosting an #amwriting Pinterest contest with some pretty snazzy prizes. http://t.co/j55CEBB0jI

— christina im (@_christinaim) July 1, 2015

Let's get to it! My phenomenal friend Alyssa @ The Devil Orders Takeout linked me ages ago to do the #MoreHappyThanNot tag. This was a very cool thing created by Shelumiel of the blog Bookish and Awesome. (Check out the original post here, and read Alyssa's tag post here.) Essentially, I'm supposed to answer the following question:

What makes you more happy than not?

photo by shelumiel @ bookish and awesome, who created the tag // also eeek look it's simon vs.

The reason this also doubles as a Weekend Wordfest post? Other than all of the wonderful family and friends and other assorted people who make my life brighter, the biggest thing that makes me more happy than not is words. Specifically, writing my own words.

So I've decided to turn this tag post into a positive celebration of my latest growth in writing. (I swear I'm not as conceited as this post is making me seem. Really.) Some things that make me more happy than not, in the form of some of my favorite lines/quote-worthy things I've written in the past year or so:

From my Freshman Fifteens COMMON ROOM story "Destinata":

Adrenaline, hope, the clawing desire to live live live—these are all singing through my veins. But most of all I'm aglow with love, love for life and people and the shattered being that is me. [...] I feel as fierce and lovely as daybreak.

From my short story "Transmutation":

"I'm immune to capitalism."

From the tenth chapter of my novel-in-progress On the Midnight Streets:

This is about when I recollect that I am standing here, far from home, between two obviously dangerous criminals who are probably about to slice each other to ribbons, and that I should have started running… well, a while ago.

From the eleventh chapter of On the Midnight Streets:

[...] I’m not a fighter, not a real one whose entire body melts into motion at the tip of a hat, whose blood has run onto the street as much as in her own veins, whose bruises are worn like a coat of arms.

From my poem "some things i know to be true":

tomorrow there will be clouds and in a city / far away, a girl will open her windows / and sleepwalk the friday sky. we will have / the same name. no matter what language / i say it in, it will always sound like want.

From my experimental prose/poem "Princess and Dragon in Convers(at)ion":

We are nineteen and we are soldiers—all fight and no heart—and our lips are too far forward, like spears; when they meet head-on, I think I taste either blood or glory. Purity counts for nothing here, where no one will ever hear my screams. My back hits the wall of a building, the first casualty. For a split second, I forget that you are a girl and I am a girl and I am still not used to this picture. For a split second, I even forget how to breathe.

From PaDiC:

There’s a trick to enduring: pretend everyone is a surgeon’s knife, immerse yourself in anesthesia, tell yourself that you’ll breathe easier once they’re finished with you.

From PaDiC:

who spears a monster / for sport, darling? is it you? / is it me? do i hold your heart / in my hands / and should i let it fall? will anyone know / what treasons we have laid down / in the dark?

And that's a wrap! (This was essentially meant as a boost for my self-esteem because I'm trying to write poems for my mentorship and it's all word vomit.) What do you think of my writing? I promise I'm not fishing for compliments.