Blue Spring Sky

(Our) Blue Spring Sky (Died 10 Years Ago)

X-mas came again this year,

the December chill bitter,

lonelier (without you).

The night sky has lost

its moon, now an infinite void

(without you here).

I wore my heart on my sleeve,

(put it in your cold hands,)

but I’ve lost it (to you, you alone).

Winter (claimed you today, but)

has forgotten me, like the sky

forgot its blue spring

(—the one that should’ve lasted forever

but never could).

I miss that blue spring sky.

(I miss you, the one that holds my heart

underground.)

Writing Reflection

After a long while of coming up with potential ideas for my drafty-draft poem, I ultimately decided to look at my interests for inspiration, specifically books and television shows. Having recently watched a show with a lot of symbolism and a relationship between two characters that stood out to me, I found myself inspired to write a poem about this relationship, as it is similar to a dynamic I’ve been trying to work on in one of my personal projects, and I love the tragic arc that parallels the positive one of the main characters. At first, I tried to focus on the (supposed) ending of this relationship, which takes place on Christmas Eve and results in the death of one of the two characters. I contrasted the emotions and setting of their ending with that of the beginning of their storyline— Christmas Eve and a warm spring day. I also mentioned the night sky in one of the stanzas, as the two characters are associated with dark and light respectively. As I wrote my first draft, I felt something was missing, as I hadn’t added a title, and the poem was initially very short. Two days later, I decided to add parentheses around the phrases addressing the dead person in the relationship, as I felt it showcased the hidden vulnerability of the speaker. Overall, I didn’t struggle with crafting the poem, save for length, as I have a habit of writing more narratively.

Bookmaking Reflection

When decorating my book, I wanted to primarily focus on the symbolism in the dynamic of light and dark. In the show, there’s a scene in one of the end credits involving two betta fish. I looked this up out of curiosity. If you put two male betta fish together, they will fight until they destroy each other, and possibly themselves in the possible. I thought this image and the context of the betta fish exemplified the tragic nature of their dynamic, so I chose to draw two betta fish on the cover, one white and healthy, the other black and damaged. Inside the book, I included a yin-yang drawing, as it again displays the light-dark dynamic, but also the necessity for the opposing forces. My poem makes mention of Christmas, so I included a drawing of a Christmas tree but left it without ornaments in hopes of illustrating the numbness that now surrounds the holiday for the speaker. I also drew polaroids with various dates to illustrate the passing of time and the memories contained within it. On the back cover, I used sticky notes to make a separation between the drawing of a grave and the coffin beneath it. The grave symbolizes the death of the speaker’s lost love, while the coffin has a heart on it, as in the poem’s final draft, there is the line “I miss you, the one who holds my heart.”