The Many Works of GJFH

[Jo March]

This is very good, GJFH!!! I really like it!

[GJFH]

Thank you Kate.

[Ameraka]

I like it too! Very good poem. I'm looking forward to more!

[Jo March]

I posted one of mine(if i were to be asked if I had any deep dark secrets, i would answer that i have only written one, maybe two poems in my entire life.) on my QnA, if you would like to look at it.

[hipster_]

This. Is. A. Beautiful. Poem.
You are very, extremely talented with your writing (and your drawings are awesome too!)
I actually also write poems, and this is just an inspiration to me!

[GJFH]

Thank you Ameraka and hipster, you are so sweet .
This is a sketch of Jason I decided to ink. It isn't the best though I'd consider it to be one of my best.

I apologise that its such a massive size.

[hipster_]

Wow! Amazing! I like the color of Jason's eyes and his shirt really makes the whole picture stand out! Great job!

[Ameraka]

COol! Yay, Jason! I do like his eyes.
I think there's a way to resize the picture but I'm not sure how to do it...

[GJFH]

Thank you Ameraka and hipster. Receiving feedback is very encouraging

[GJFH]

Well, this is the product of listening to Florence and the Machine after midnight. I'd really appreciate criticism since I know it isn't the best and I'm a horrible editor, though it is a little difficult to post writing on this site. Please let me know what you think could be changed and tell me if you actually enjoyed reading this. Thank you .

The door clatters behind her, she meant to slam it though she was shaking too hard. She takes off in a hurry, nearly stumbling over her untied shoelaces. Down the cracked sidewalk running, she could still hear their yelling in the house and the brief realisation people would notice it flew into her mind.
The girl cut across a neighbour's yard and a dozen more houses to a back alley, only thinking to keep moving. Her backpack hitting against her back. Hot tears stung her eyes, leaving her cheeks sticky. Her surroundings stank of garbage rotting under the sun. The business of the city muted by an airplane flying overhead. For a moment she stopped. Alone in the alley, breath hitching, heart thudding. It was everything she had, being ripped apart. A perfect canvas stained with angry words and bitterness as dark and dry as the browning grass.
Why her? Why them? What was she or what did she do it deserve this?
Connie buried her face in her hands, swinging around to press her weight into the dirty street wall.

Crying left her weak, so she stayed there for a few hours, pitying herself until the sky glowed an orange colour. When she worked up the strength to trudge home she lingered outside the house. Her father's car was gone. Connie's stomach knotted. Finally, she took a deep breath and opened the door slightly, stepping in to a warm house that smelled of baking.

"Connie? Oh thank goodness." June Kendall appeared around the corner and wrapped her daughter into a hug. "Bill-er dad, just went looking for you." Connie stared at her mother, seeing the crease between her brows. There was something June wanted to say.

"I wasn't gone that long."

"No, we were just...worried." Connie shrugged her backpack off onto the floor. They both looked at each other and for some reason Connie felt her throat tighten up again. Her mother led her into the kitchen and sat her down.
Within a few minutes, June handed her daughter a mug full of Peppermint Tea and a cherry muffin, which tasted salty. She ate silently, perking up at the sudden sound of a car in the driveway. Her father pushed the door open and lumbered in, June tensed, then stepped away from the kitchen, into the foray and out of Connie's sight though not her range of hearing.

"Bill I told you -"

"I was out getting milk." Connie heard him interrupt.

"We have milk and - have you been drinking?" June hissed, disappointment colouring her voice. Connie raked a hand through her hair, battling off the urge to step into the argument.

"I didn't want this." Bill Kendall said. Connie's mother let out an exasperated sigh.

"Then you shouldn't have signed up for it." She said. "Connie! Go upstairs please."
Connie obeyed, slowly setting her dishes in the sink, and cringing as they clanked together. She stepped past her father on the way to her bedroom, noticing the sour stench of alcohol on him.

The next morning the house seemed to be silent. June was downstairs again with a pensive expression, stirring her coffee as she stood.
"Your father and I, you know we haven't been happy in a while. I'm sorry, we want to be happy, we want you to be okay. That can't happen if we stay..." She paused. "It isn't working, and won't again. Your family and I are getting a divorce, I'm sorry -I "
Connie's took a breath, they weren't happy?
What was with their family dinners at Luigi's? Or the White Elephant exchange her dad started? They couldn't just give up.

"Whe-where's dad?" She asked, too numb to break down again.

"He...I'm not sure, at the courthouse." There was doubt in her mother's voice that made Connie think, and before she knew it, the word "Coward" slipped from her lips. June's eyes flashed.

"I don't think there's a better word for it." Then she looked remorseful. "Connie...you shouldn't speak that way about your father." And Connie didn't even want to.
____________________________
After the divorce, she barely saw him, since June had packed her collection of mugs and dishes, dragging Connie with her to the outskirts of the city. Her mother tried to single handily pay for Connie's summer camp, though Bill came in and an argument arose. She wasn't sure how it was provided for then decided she didn't care.

It was the weirdest experience she had yet at a summer camp. The most open she had been about her parent's divorce was with a boy she barely knew.

When she returned home she was surprised to see they were moving again, angry and confused with the sudden turn of events. This was different than simple living within an hour from her friends...she was leaving all of it behind.
June purchased a beaten down station wagon and attached a hitch to the end. They spent two weekends going through the remnants of the family's possessions. Seeing as Bill wanted nothing to do with them. Her mother threw away the drawings she had drawn as a toddler and Connie cried. Down came the picture of the family at Christmas though Connie was able to stash the quilt her grandmother made her below her seat in the station wagon.
They left early one morning, scrambling to get things together for no reason. Connie was given a warm goodbye from her collection of friends on the front lawn.
"Connie! I'm going to miss you so bad! Promise you'll call." Pamela said, passing off a box that had been gift wrapped, an intricate bow sitting on top.

"Of course! Assuming Odyssey has electricity!" Connie exclaimed through tears, and they hugged.

"Drive safety!"

"Call when you get there!" They yelled as June started the car, unsuccessfully, then finally she was able to get it running.
Connie had plans to stay sullen the whole ride, however it was harder to do on their particular drive. It took them three days of travel to reach Odyssey, through the dust of the desert and through a sudden and intense rainstorm.
One night the car broke down in the middle of nowhere and Connie sat in her seat, knees drawn up to chest. Torn from her life, perfect as it was or seemed to her, then dragged across the country to a town she had never heard of. It was too much to think of, and she couldn't even look at her mother. June yelled at her to get out, seeing as they needed a mechanic and Connie couldn't be by herself.

"You don't trust me?"

"Of course I do sweetheart, I just don't feel comfortable leaving you alone out here."

"Why did we even come this way? Why not take the train?" Connie asked, ignoring that conscious warned her she was making things difficult.

"This. This is cheaper, and maybe..." Mrs. Kendall drew up her shoulders and shivered in the open air. "I'm sorry." There was quite a few arguments her daughter could have used but she didn't. Not with the way her motherdropped her head, as if she was exhausted. The highlights of her face illuminated by the moon's glow.

"Mom I'm sorry, are you...crying?"

"I can't stay honey." June took a breath. "I can't, I don't have a life there, it's killing me. I don't know what happened...I know where I need to be." Connie took a moment of silence, they both were breathing heavily. And all Connie still wanted to do was complain, was to move back, this seemed like they both were dying. They had suffered enough though, the threat of violence always at their doorstep. Bill leaving for days business, arriving randomly, not sober enough, and running on anger. Accusations were made, when these was found lipstick on his collar.
When they went out as a family, her father would dress in a blue suit and stick a daisy above Connie's ear. He'd lead the two of them and order only the finest cuisine at restaurants.
Sometimes Connie didn't like the taste of the food, and then she'd look up to the way her mother latched on to her father, and how he gazed at her. Though could never seem to clasp hands in his jittery fingers.
It wasn't alright, the tension in the air and the sobbing in the bathroom...Connie just wanted it to be.

In the car June blew her nose on a tissue before grabbing her daughter's arm.
"C'mon." She said.

Within an hour, they were waiting for the mechanic, as he lay on the tarmac underneath the vehicle, his dirty overalls the only thing visible. June paced the car, sniffling into another tissue as she watched the mechanic.
"Aha..."

"What! What is it?" Started the woman, Connie jumped.

"Oil clogged in here, dry, and probably near to the dinosaur days." He said, tapping the belly of the car for emphasis. "I'll have it up and running in no time."
__________________________________
They pulled in front of a small brick house at the end of the street. Connie, nearly asleep immediately sat up.

"We lost?"

"Nope. This is it." Her mother turned the engine off and gazed upwards at the estate.

"It's...old looking." Connie remarked.

"Yes, charming." June said with a smile, opening the door of the car and stepping out. It creaked loudly. Connie looked around to see if anyone had heard. They were in an older neighbourhood with sagging houses and mature oak trees. Leaves of different colours decorating the cracked pavement. A melodic noise sounded as the wind blew through the tress, Connie realised it was someone's wind chimes.

"Well...now we fit in somewhere." Said Connie, gesturing to the station wagon's sad looking exterior. Her mother didn't look offended.

"I like it." She spoke briskly, stepping lightly up to the faded yellow door. "Oh I love this colour."

"Um, sure." Connie hung behind as the door opened, revealing a spacious room flooded in natural light. Mrs. Kendall let out a sigh of delight, and Connie let her bag fall to the floor.

"It's empty."

"Only right now, oh wow...it looks like I remember it." She said circling the kitchen. "Connie, do you want to go check out the rooms upstairs? There's three of them." This stirred up excitement in Connie, who nodded and turned the corner, up the polished staircase. Stopping at a tall window where she had a spectacular view of the town below. Colonial style houses wrapped in greenery, as if nature had rebelled against the people's efforts to build a town. A grand peach coloured building to the left, sitting atop a clearing of grass.

"So this is Odyssey."

[Connie G.]

Wow, Joe, this is great! I love how you fill in so much detail from Connie's perspective over the whole divorce thing, I really like it .

[GJFH]

Aww thank you Miss Connie G.

[Didi]

Ahhhh this is amazing Joe! Write more!

[Jo March]

This is REALLY good! I am glad you did a story on Connie's early life, and I like it!

[Ameraka]

You're good at writing close POV, with visceral reactions and sensory details and imagery. It seems realistic and authentic to how Connie would feel and act. It's an interesting time period to write about which I haven't thought much about but you recreated it vividly.
There are some grammatical errors but they aren't the kind that detract much from the story and can be easily fixed.

[GJFH]

Ahhhh this is amazing Joe! Write more!

I will try to, thank you Didi .

This is REALLY good! I am glad you did a story on Connie's early life, and I like it!

*is touched* I'm glad I was able to write about her early life, I hope most of fits into canon though I had to be creative.

You're good at writing close POV, with visceral reactions and sensory details and imagery. It seems realistic and authentic to how Connie would feel and act. It's an interesting time period to write about which I haven't thought much about but you recreated it vividly.
There are some grammatical errors but they aren't the kind that detract much from the story and can be easily fixed.

Thank you Ameraka...I do write a little from my personal experiences or from my point of view. I'm not sure what it is, perhaps an attention deficit, I've always been more sensitive to the sights and sounds around me.

And yes, I could certainly improve the quality of my writing. I went back and edited the story a bit, noticing my horrid spelling and a few errors I hadn't intended for. Let me know if you notice anything more . Thank you again!

[AuntSarah]

these are great!!!

[GJFH]

Thank you AuntSarah Here's another poem, more messy of course.

We spend our time
Lost in reflection
Searching for flaws
Imperfections
Wanting perfection
So desperately
Though not changing at all
In reality
Into our faces we gaze
Envisioning a fantasy
Where the throne is our safety
And we rule as they kneel
Proudly concerned with we
Who would know
How to ignore the feel
The weight of the pressure
It's suicidal
And exhilarating
We spend our time
On consumption
Craving for more
Well dressed perfection
Empty on the inside
Skin turning to dust

[AuntSarah]

wow!
have you every tried writing songs? i like doing that better then writing poems! just a suggestions though I really like your poems!

[GJFH]

wow!
have you every tried writing songs? i like doing that better then writing poems! just a suggestions though I really like your poems!

Well...I have tried before, I found that particular poem in an old notebook of mine and think it was intended as a song...that was three years ago at least. And perhaps I'll take up song writing again, I might even post a video of me singing.
Thank you for the suggestion AuntSarah .