By: Reese Walker
Posted on: May 9, 2022
Cover Image: God of Sunlight and Music
Cover Image Artwork by: Ashley Choi
Medium: watercolor, pencil
Classification: Painting
As they say,
“once upon a time,”
there was a girl,
or rather,
a writer.
In her dreams,
words danced
creating constellations
in the night sky.
She brought to life
the fallen fantasies
of the world around her:
A war,
between kingdoms.
A curse,
amongst the nation.
Only the fated hero
can save them all.
An untamed power,
hidden for far too long,
soon comes to light
in the shadows.
Can the pen set to paper
fill the void,
with more than
empty echoes of ink?
The pencil is her sword
to wage into battle.
She rides upon her horse,
fiercer than any soldier
who may deem her unworthy.
Imagination is her armor,
deflecting the onslaught
of arrows from foes.
As the pages flip,
the chapter is over
as is the battle.
The book never finished,
and peace not yet found.
The girl,
the writer,
longs for more
than words on paper.
She wishes for her stories
to spring to life;
to feel the surge of battle
with her pen at her side.
If dragons
and fairies,
heroes
and enemies
do not exist in her world,
she must forge her own.
Her pencil draws
a portal to the tales
of her daydreams.
She lives through
her characters,
giving them everything,
that she may never have.
Day and night,
the writer spends her time
before a blank page,
while reality fades away.
When the moon is risen
and the stars
fill the cosmos;
her ideas pour
through her,
as water flows
from the mountain
to the sea.
Her story
is a home
for her mind,
when her thoughts
become restless
and when her
eyes are shut.
She is the artist,
her brush upon
the white canvas,
words adding colour
with every stroke.
Her story
is her muse,
and she is Apollo,
plucking the strings
on her lyre.
She weaves words
through her fingers,
the lines intertwining
to form a tapestry.
If I am the girl,
if I am the writer.
And you are the reader,
the one behind this page.
I have but one question:
When is the story now over?
Description: This poem represents how it feels to write, but feel secluded from the world of magic that one creates with words. Every story starts with a “once upon a time”, but when does a story truly end? Is it with the last line? Or when the story is forgotten from the face of the Earth? We all carry the stories we read with us. Once we write, we take inspiration from the fairy tales we love, and bring them to life. Stanza 2-3, is about a book she wishes to write, a story of a world torn from power, yet filled with fantasy. The third stanza talks of filling your heart, the “void” we all carry, with words that have a true meaning to us, and others. In the second last stanza, the Greek god Apollo is referenced, he is the god of poetry but also music, his symbol is an instrument, the lyre. The act of writing is often compared to a battle, taking up your weapon to attack the enemy, or rather to use your pencil to write. The girl talks of living her fantasies through characters, she writes the stories she loves and those she wants to live in real life.