A feature journal for this month's

Community DD Projects!

This one is for Literature.  You can find more information about the project (and how to make your own!) in these two Lit CV journals:

<da:thumb id="497720858"/>  Community Feature Project: If I Could DDHave you ever wished that you could pick a Daily Deviation Feature? I'm sure we've all seen an amazing piece of art or stock that we wished could have a bit more exposure. Well, this is your chance! This December we are encouraging you to feature your fellow deviants with a journal of images that you would feature as a Daily Deviation if you could. So let's embrace the Holiday Season and spread some good cheer by joining in and featuring our community!
Here's your response!

Always remember, you can make a feature of your favorite works here on DeviantArt anytime you wish! Features are a wonderful way to show an author or artist how much you enjoy their work. Features give those pieces of art (visual or written) more exposure than they might normally have received. Please feel free to feature your fellow deviant's work!
The Game Plan
•Create and publish a journal feature of images that you would choose for a Daily Deviation Feature from your p

When the CVs started posting journals for this project, I became SO, SO excited.  I mean... For one day (or journal, OR several I guess if you're branching out and taking on multiple features) you get to "play" as a CV.  Sort of.  I mean, you know...you at least are given the chance to show what YOU would feature.  (obviously CVs do MORE than set DDs)

OF COURSE, this doesn't mean you CAN'T feature things ALL THE TIME.  You totally should!  Use your journal--it's a great place to host the artwork YOU love and work to promote others in their craft.  It's a good way to give back--and will help out your karma!

For this feature, I stuck to a theme of sorts.  See if you can figure out what it is.  With that said...

If I could DD Literature:

kids cut through the middlewhen you spend a summer somewhere
where people squirrel away their
ugly children, it's hard not to notice
the subtle strain of the truth
on certain smarter faces,
or the absolute oblivion
in certain spinning eyes
and stumbling legs.
--
i met a girl named K,
just K,
with ankles like a deer and a voice
loud like noise and swampy like a swamp.
she liked orange foods and big words and
her hands shook like the girls in jazz class.
K clicked her tongue between words sometimes
but nobody ever mentioned it. her socks
were alphabetized. she carried a comb in her back pocket
but only 'cause she needed it, she said.
her hair was turning to snow and falling out,
she said. 'cause she pulled at it too much, she said.
she said other things, too, but i promised
never to write them. i promised not to tell
the bad things she'd done, the boy who kept her in, in, in.
she made bracelets of awful words at night and kept them
under her bed. she did it maybe so that even worse things wouldn't go bad.
sometime

"Growing up with a disability is difficult  and often makes children feel like they're missing something.  In fact, according to MindlessThinker, it feels a little like being cut through the middle.  This is a must read."

Mature Content

"There's something almost breathy, something rushed and whispered into an only half-way listening ear, something...pained, perhaps, or just constrained to social norms...about the way this piece reads. As if this is supposed to be kept hush-hush."

ResolutionIf I were writing from the other side,
I would say
This road was not on my map.
No one goes there
on purpose.
And then tell you how
I escaped.
I asked for help, for change,
and grief was the answer:
Grief as old and hollow as snowfall,
grief as heavy
as snowfall,
grief that said, "You,
You are the spent ember,
You are the last angry voice
and when you pass
the dark
will have been waiting."
The grief was right. I burn,
I burn cold and heavy,
crouching in the ashes of greatness,
I burn,
and the fuel is low.
The dark is waiting.
But what angel comes
with words of despair? Even Job
had no angels to tell him, "Alas."
This road is not on my map.
No one comes here
on purpose.
Even the locals don't know
where I am.
My signal fire is tired.
Bleary-eyed, reading coals
in case I wrote an answer,
in case no one comes.
I would like to be writing
from the other side. To be saying,
What a funny place I have been. Let me tell you.
Now the map burns.
I will keep the dark
waiting.

"According to completeaccident, we sometimes need to travel an unknown path to find the answers we are most desperately seeking."

013. Running Away -- Without a DoorI stare through dogwood blossoms 
at the streetlight,
use a mayonnaise jar to pee
when I have to.
My father stops in,
says I can come down
for dinner.  After the meal,
I bolt.  
No bag, no belongings.
Hustle down the driveway,
hustle down the sidewalk,
hustle down the road.
Now and then, I check
behind me.  I have done this
before, and always
they've come after me.
This time, I get
where I'm going.
I ring my best friend's doorbell.
She is going out
with the boyfriend I am in secret
love with, and she does not change
her plans.  I sit in a taupe living
room with her dad and stepmom
eating second dinner, chicken and asparagus.
We watch a movie that scares me
a little.  My friend never does
come home before my mother
knocks.  My friend's dad just lets her
take me.
We ride home, through the same
streets I've been hurried over
since I was tiny.  They seem to mock me
now, saying I will never get away
for good.
I follow my mother
through the g  

"It's hard to get out of a bad situation, when it seems no doors are opening to help."

i don't have a dog1. i get up at ten.
this is an accomplishment.
by eleven, i’m awake enough to miss you.
to be honest, that part never goes away—
but eleven is when the typewriter grows fangs
and threatens to swallow everything i am
if i don’t put a name to the feeling. even the dog’s
tail does not wag. he keeps watching the door.
he will not even touch his food until the sun has
set as deep as possible. he is giving you every
chance to come back.
i try to tell him there’s no use,
that you will never come back.
but dogs don’t understand things like that,
don’t believe in the concept of ‘never come back’.
they believe in the sound of a key turning a lock
and the inevitable stomping of feet on the welcome mat
no matter how many times they’ve heard
the car engine start and the crunch of gravel as it pulls away.
2. this must be what missing you feels like.
i have lived lifetimes in the minutes i keep breathing.
i keep breathing. this is an accompl

"When you leave a beloved pet behind, they don't understand--you can't give them a reason.  All they know is, you're gone."

new perspective.i.
the dress hangs in the back of my closet,
ashamed, limp and dangling
like a hanged lady at the gallows.
it is a faded reminder
of years ago,
of the body I wore
in times gone.
ii.
I run my fingers over the pale fabric,
trying to recall that dark peach pit
rolling in my stomach,
that intrusive disgust,
that unclear thought running through
my mind that night.
I was younger, then,
softer,
when I decided
I'd never be worth
a frame on the wall.
I peeled myself apart
in front of the mirror,
shed the dress like snakeskin,
left it like abandoning a child
and sent myself to
shiver against the wall.
iii.
while they all laughed
at their faraway party,
I trembled over the lyrics
of the deafening silence
in my middle school bedroom,
trying to ignore
that sad pink pile of my image
laying fat and loose in the corner.
iv.
today I slipped on the dress again,
stepping my toes into its frigid waters
before letting it tumble down over me.
I stood at the mirror
and decided that the dress was lovely,
and

"We are all our own worst critics.  For just one minute today, try (hard as it is) to look beyond that mean voice whispering in the back of your head."

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"We were all made to be different...so why is that so hard to accept?  This piece will leave you thinking."

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"bruxing knows how to weave a story that packs a powerful punch.  This prose piece will open your eyes--to several things."