​​The Beginning of “The Filling of a Shallow Shell”

A poetry book by Eryn James

We Will Be

 

This was a boundary,

In which I had never intended on crossing,

Which may have been the biggest mistake in our relationship,

The stench of resentment and distrust in the air was telling me that i shouldn't be here,

But the loneliness and distress plastered on his face is begging me to stay,

Begging me to engrave my place beside king as queen,

Fill the shallow middle of his bed with my soul,

Resting it on bed sheets and confusion,

Tangle my fingers to his like roots,

So that our children can look back on solidarity,

And when we grow older,

He will have eyes like camera lenses,

And shutter eyelids,

Capturing memories by the blink,

His smile still holding me here,

Cradling me in the curl of his lip as if it never gained a day of age past 19

And I will have the sky on the lining of my womb from the galaxies created there before the birth of each of our children

We will live as if our bones never began to hollow,

He will still hug me as if to say there will forever be a home in the bends of my elbows for you,

As if today is all we have left

And we are not greeted with tomorrow’s sun,

I'll smile like moon light

Bright and surrounded by darkness

Hoping to be someone’s guide back home

And kiss you like the sun

Hot and excited

I will love like the meaning of tomorrow doesn’t matter anymore,

And hope there’s a time between death and evolution where bones can still be in love,

Maybe somehow our souls will find their way back home,

Even when our bones become playgrounds for insects and rodent,

We will still have passion,

Painting salvation over whole cities with sunshine,

There does exist a place where bone and marrow doesn’t matter.

 

 

Fiji

 

I’ve been trying for so long to learn you,

To discover what bliss you have hidden in you the caves of your eye sockets,

All the while I never judged you by the soil browns of your skin,

Or the tangles in your crown,

Alls I wanted to do was read you,

Open like a wound after battle,

You’ve been through battles,

I can tell,

And alls I want to do is heal your hurt,

Find the Fiji in your tears and catch them like dreams,

And figure out why you cry entire utopias,

I am destine to know you,

Eager to figure out why you cry paradise,

And why you hate anyone who tries to care,

I only want to be the Neosporin to you scars,

Make them disappear as easy as they were thrown there,

Make whoever hurt you vanish as easily as they appeared,

I want you to trust my hands for nothing more than caressing you,

I need you to trust me for nothing more than loving you,

But acknowledge that I’m human and we all make mistakes,

I promise that I wont make promises that I have no control over keeping,

I wont promise you that it’ll all be ok,

Or that you’ll be fine,

Because I don’t know and wont until all this ends,

But if all fails and falls,

I’ll be here to pick up the pieces,

I’m here to pick up the pieces,

We’ll try to build back as whole as possible, 

The lost pieces are only gone to show you that you’re human,

And to tell the world that you have a story,

 

 

Let Go

 

Does my name accidently slip off your lips when you kiss her,

Tell me you haven’t you been thinking about me,

Try to persuade me that you don’t stare when I walk past you,

Lie to me and say that you don’t have to pry your eyes open to awake because I am a permanent part of you limbo,

Tell her your sorry for calling her my name and mean it,

Apologize for comparing my past to her present so many times,

Kiss her without thinking of how much my lips meant to you,

Close your eyes and scratch her face over top of mine in your eyelids,

Let go,           

So I wont be stuck here,

Half present,

Half past,

Broken in two,

Let go,

So I can learn to be a whole,

So I can learn to love something new,

Don’t think of it as moving on,

Think of it as an accomplishment,

Go,

And achieve something greater than I am,

I promise I’m not going to stand in your way,

I can’t promise I wont cry but I will heal from the pain,

I’ll turn my back if you want me too,

Just let go love,

There’s nothing left to hold onto,

Just sweaty palms and a sack of regrets flung over my shoulder,

I’ve learned I wasn’t meant to be here with you,

So enjoy her presence,

Call her beautiful without having my face in mind,

Don’t listen for my voice her cries,

I promise I won’t be there,

Tell her she’s a queen,

And offer her your thrown and stop thinking I’ll be back,

I wont,

Love her personality without comparing it to mine,

You have something worth loving,

You had something worth letting go of,

Love her and let me go,

Because I’m leaving now,

And I’m taking everything that you have memory of,

My name,

My smile,

My face,

My past,

My lips,

My voice,

I’m taking me,

And I don’t want you to come find me,

Forget me,

Let go.

 

Lost Each Other

 

It’s weird that we lost each other here,

In this fallacy of fantasies

But I’m ok with the fact that you're moving on,

I know,

She gave you more than I ever had to offer,

I still love you but I want you to recognize that there is more left for me in this pool of happiness,

I’ll try to find someone else willing to love the brokenness out of me,

Because here love lasts longer than lonesome anyhow,

Time flies when loving someone wrong and hurtful,

Quick and careless,

I don’t want to stay where I know I don’t belong,

You’ll see my face and realize that I am something worth wanting,

I’ll walk away from this whole and content but you should know,

That sometimes love is hurtful and we cant find solace in broken

I’ve tried.

I’ve tried to blanket a bed on top of fragmented fallacies of the perfect fantasy.

But we know lies hurt and they wont always heal,

So next time,

I wont try to run a race bare foot,

 

How We Left

 

Have you ever seen your ex love hugging someone the same way they used to hug you,

Kiss as if they had love notes chanting samba on their lips,

 

It makes my soul cringe,

Puts freezer burn on my heart,

And forces me to remember all the vacuous reasons I decided to end a such shameless love so expeditiously,

 

1. I was jealous of the way stars chose your eyes for bedrooms at night.

It made looking at you a lot harder knowing your perfection.

 

2. We used to watch the sunrise and you'd kiss me like the sunshine. You broke my guard down with you lips.

 

3. You screamed forever’s into my heart. You loved me too hard.

 

I hate that you’re gone now,

And I've been searching for someone to get you off my heart,

Trying to find someone who could out do you in loving me,

But I've found myself lonely,

My bedroom has been made hotel rooms for unsuccessful one night stands since you left,

Foreign bodies cannot make me feel as whole as you did,

Even when they're on top of me,

Ever since you left there's been this emptiness on the right side of my bed where you'd lay when you were here,

But I guess your content with her sleeping on my side of your bed,

Meeting you in the middle where our souls once met,

Where our unconditional love once lived,

What happen to us?

I know the ending was my fault,

But it takes two to tango,

So I hope your owning up to stepping on my feet,

I should've listened when you told me you couldn't dance,

But sometimes I’m glad I didn't,

Sometimes I'm glad I decided to gamble with my emotions,

Memories where made here,

I remember Sunday football games,

You'd lay your head in my lap and I’d rub your back,

I never liked football much but,

I'd still cheer for your favorite team,

'Cause you were my baby,

And I remember when I’d come over after a long day of school and you'd cuddle with me,

And make me laugh at everything,

I was yours,

I hope you remember, 

I hope your not letting her create space in our memories for herself,

Because far before her there was me,

Remember when you used to call me your everything?

I never wanted to be much of anything,

But you insisted that I was the reason your world spun,

But now I guess I was just a model for the fitting of her crown,

I regret all of our mishaps,

But I cant put this all on you,

I know I used to yell,

And tell you I hated you,

But I'm a woman,

Most things I say when I yell aren’t true,

I promise when I said those things I was still loving you,

I just wanted a reason to get you mad,

So you’d have a reason to chase me,

But I guess you were tired of running

 

 

Islam

 

I will shatter myself in Islam,

Rebuild my temple in la il ilaha illa allah,

And own my character as a daughter of Prophet Muhammad S.A.W

I will never be ashamed of my garb,

Recite the Qur’an like Arabic was the very first star perched on the corners of my galaxy, 

Bismil-laahi rrahmaani rrahiim,

Qul huwa Allahu ahad

Allahu assamad

Lam yalid walam yoolad

Walam yakun lahu kufuwan ahad

He was bore

Was not born,

Equal to no man

And I will praise him,

Sacrifice my self like lamb,

I serve no other purpose, 

Learn the prayer buried in the moist palm of half Saudi half African Girl,

I will be worthy Insha-allah,

Islam saved me,

Saved me from myself,

From who I thought I wouldn’t be able to be,

From dishonesty

Helped me regain my self-respect and integrity,

I often find myself having to choose between my religion and something that I know I will be forgiven for,

But I always choose you,

Allah is my savior,

Allahu Akbar is my plea,

 

 

Love You Right

 

1 I don’t want to love you broken,

2 Don’t want to kiss you cold and lonely,

3 I cant bring myself to hug you loose and heartless,     

4 Don’t lie to me,

 

2 Don’t want to kiss you cold and lonely,

4 Don’t lie to me,

5 Keep truthful even if honesty sounds crazy,

6 Don’t break my trust into stolen happiness,

 

5 Keep truthful even if honesty sounds crazy,

7 I want this to work,

6 Don’t break my trust into stolen happiness,

8 You have to help me keep together to love you,

 

7 I want this to work,

9 We all know that lies hurt but they always heal, 

8 You have to help me keep together to love you,

10 I want to change and be able to love you properly,

 

9 We all know that lies hurt but they always heal,

3 I cant bring myself to hug you loose and heartless,

10 I want to change and be able to love you properly,

1 I don’t want to love you broken.

 

 

Savior

 

 

Some girls try to construct kings out of unhealed wounds claimed to be caused by shootings stars,

They try to believe that they have enough space in their luggage for other peoples souls,

My bones aren't designed to carry anyone else's burdens but my own,

I have picked up broken glass before,

Cradled it in the palms of my hands like disintegrating philosophy,

Decided that it was worth the splintered fingers and bandages,

You,

More than the “ratchet 52^nd and market nigga” that you try to persuade yourself that you are,

This is an attempt to make sure that you know where you come from,

Snatched from the galaxy under your mothers bosom,

Crying stars and music,

You where born symphony,

But live Bach,

Loud and angry,

You apoplectic angel,

Born beautiful and g cleft,

Live like danger and catastrophe,

There are mornings when I wake up wishing that you'd just listen to me love,

I'd click my tongue against the oxygen surrounding your eardrums

Create something worth listening too,

Because it seems as if you only respond to hollow promises and nonsense,

But I wasn’t born music,

I was born poet, 

No instrumental,

No base line,

Just words and ink,

For now,

I’ll try my best to sing for you,

Be sincere in my song, 

I’m sure that I’ve heard a few girls sample you,

Music,

It sounds rather cacophonous to me,

And I know you want to believe in saviors,

But I can't save you,

I'm not here to pry out whatever monster buried itself in your chest,

I only want to pray for you,

Whisper help,

Under my salat,

And I hope that Allah will hear me and afford you salvation,

Because I can’t offer my soul as shelter love,

I’m not strong enough,

I’m just as in danger of losing myself as you are,

Too hollow,

Too many missing bricks to keep this house from crashing down with you in it,

I’m just hoping that you can gather enough of yourself in this poem,

To be whole enough for tomorrow.

 

 

For this quarter in art class, we focused a lot on different colors and shading, also a bit of detail. Out of this quarter I did the small self-portrait, and had to look at myself for quite a while. Then I had to work with my pencil and look at myself and the paper at the same time. I decided go draw lightly first. For the color wheel, I wanted to be careful. First I separated each color into a section each. Then I carefully mixed the colors in between so they could all blend. I got some cool colors yellow and green. Green yellow as such. Textures were interesting because I had to change styles quickly. I switched the position my hand and did other adjustments just to adjust to the style of drawing required the texture.

The shading practicing turned out to be helpful, other than swiping my pencil left and right, I never really focused on shading. I figure I need more help with that. For my 3rd quarter, I practiced different techniques. I had to step out of my comfort zone once again.

Qaswa Malik 

For this quarter, i did not really worked as much as i was supposed to. I improved my drwaing and done following projects.
-Copy Master
-Internet Sculpture
-Large Clear object drawing
-Photos editing in Adobe Photoshop

Here is the COPY MASTER project.

  Original Photo
 



 Re mastered version
   

 

 For INTERNET SCULPTURE, i made a card, that can be a Valentines Day card. I got its idea while i was searching online. I just got idea but all the creation on it is mine. For this i took 2 pink cards and fix them together by glue in such a way that it gets the shape of the card. Then i took a pink sheet and cut it into small and large circles. For more designing, i searched online for flower sheets. I found two to be the best and then i print them out. I cut flowers from one sheet and pasted on the circles. and from other sheet, i cut the big circle like flower and pasted it in the middle and pasted some pearls on it for creation. Then i made ribbon like by combining 3 different coloured ribbons and pasted it on the corner and the card is ready.

            

 



For LARGE CLEAR OBJECT DRAWING, i made tried to make a big glass jar and tried to label the white portions.

                            



Original Picture for ADOBE PHOTOSHOP EDITING

                     



    Edited Photo
                                                                                          

Here is my work for this quarter. Some of these may go into my portfolio. Not all are posted, just the ones that best represent each project.

​In Q2 advanced art I have seen many improvements in the art creations that I have made. Many of these art pieces were made from past skills that I have learned from recent art projects that I received in Q1 of advanced art class.


Q2-  Clear glass object drawn of a VOSS water bottle with charcoal pencils.

Q2- 1 of the 200 pictures, edited in PhotoShop.

For my clear object, I drew a flask. I don't really use color, but I've been experimenting with random color in a few places, in this one I used color for the labeling. 
For my internet sculpture I made Cookies&Cream cupcakes. I really love baking, but I've never really tried to make anything pretty; I just focused on the taste. When I made these, however, I also tried to do a little food photography. It isn't made of chemicals and inedible things like the pros do; all my cupcakes looked like this (but without the cookie on top) and I just wanted to focus on one.
Recipe is here.
For my edited photos I tried to focus a lot on lighting and color. I basically took pictures of random things that probably wouldn't be looked at twice and added cool effects to them. In one picture, I took a photo of a ring of mine and tried to try something new (for me) by making a type of fantasy scenery using it.
For my copy a master picture, I copied a print by Yoshitaka Amano, who did a lot of art for Final Fantasy and a few different anime series.
I didn't get to the bike, but I did a few other pictures in my own time. Two are from the anime "Black Butler" and the other two are free styles I had done when I was experimenting with the human figure, but these are more cartoony.

​
In the picture above a created a clear vase that is half full, or half empty depending upon your observation, and was created using charcoal. I tried to create highlights in the vase using the eraser and i think it was partially successful. I am still rather proud of this for my ability to produce the shadows and show the liquids clarity in some portions of the picture where shadows made it darker in other parts. 



In the picture above i created a mask out of a special paint, some fabric that i cut, and some other house hold items i found. You can wear the mask using the fabric i attached on the sides. This was something i made from scratch and i am fairly proud of this. You could use it as a halloween mask. 


Original picture: 



Remastered version: 


I redrew this 2-D picture of ichigo, and i really tried to capture the detail in the body. He was covered in bandages on the face. I really like this piece of work. I really worked hard on this, which might be why i like it so much. 


Tie dye shirt: 


I learned how to make this and really wanted to make something creative. On the front if you look closely there is a face that you can see.I wanted to make the colors compliment each other. I also wanted the white on the one side and red on the other. 

Some pictures:


These are some examples of some photos that i took, i didn't edit them because i find that editing them takes away from the meaning of the picture. Photographs speak and have a language of their own and editing them takes away from that language. So these are some of the pictures that i took. 

During the Second Quarter of my Junior year, I was asked to create a list of things for my art class and accompany each of them with an artist statement. Below is exactly that. The first picture is a charcoal drawing of a large clear object. 

The pictures above are the next part of my art project. The task was to take a picture of an official artist and try to copy their work. Originally I chose to draw a picture made by Hijame Ueda who is the artist of one of my favorite animes called "Fooly Cooly". After thinking about it though, I decided that I needed to draw something that I wasn't used to drawing. I needed to draw something of different style. So I took a picture from a manga called "Me and the Devil's Blues". It was still in the category of the art i was used to drawing but it was more detailed and realistic. The artist of this manga is Akira Hiramoto. As you can see from the pictures above, I found it very difficult to do this picture because I could not get all the lines and angles completely right along with doing the shading right. There are a lot of similarities between the two pictures as you can see but their not exactly identical because of the fact that Akira has a different, more detailed drawing style than mine that I'm not familiar of comfortable with.

The fact that I'm not good with copying images and doing realistic drawings also became a problem on the last part of this project where I had to draw a bike.