Lonely Eyes - Street Adventures Pt.1

*this is my first post, so thank you for reading and for your time & input.

You have lonely eyes. The kind that say you need love but haven't received it in so long, you could snap at any moment, becoming perilous.You came stumbling up to me smelling faintly of stale beer and Newports. Your name was Enrique. You had piercing blue eyes telling a story of their own. A story of despair and grief. anger and hatred, and reminiscent memories of a once happy past. You had some lonely eyes, Enrique. Lonely eyes.

My bus was taking too long to come and chariot me away. I just wanted to be out of that unbearable concrete jungle heat. And to be protected from the harsh realities of the city ghetto. I was tired of being whistled and honked at. Was tired of being bribed to get into strangers' cars.

But I am not unused to your kind, Enrique. Assuming you have a kind, that is. Slurring, babbling to no one other than yourself and God, and maybe even your grubby hands reaching out in attempts to touch me, someone, anyone, love. I am used to your kind because something about me attracts you to me. And I am convinced that there is more to the attraction than my young pretty face. I think it is because I listen and I feel your pains and joys with you. I think it is because of your unknown ability to feel that you have acquired throughout your hardships on the streets. Although, often times you suppress it with booze and whatever else you think might help you forget. The truth is, these things no longer help you to cope. Now they only serve as reminders to your history. None the less, your kind are the real concrete jungle prophets. The ones that can't escape the harsh realities. That wouldn't know how to if given the chance. Your kind are the ones always observing, wishing, waiting, watching. You see what others choose to close their eyes to. You feel what they repress and may never let surface. Not to say that you know how to heal yourself of your traumatic wounds inflicted and left untreated, from decades ago. But at least you let yourself feel them. You feel. From the depths of your soul, you feel.

Enrique, it was a blessing for me to have gotten on the wrong bus and then miss the right one I was supposed to catch… because of you. Something in the universe conspired to get me to stay and listen to your story. And I am glad it did. You taught me about love. You spoke of your one true love and how she would not have you. You spoke of how people do not know how to show their love with simple gestures, soft touches, and sweet embraces. You explained how people think that love only happens with intercourse, and how they are wrong. You cried to the universe with big crocodile tears of sadness and reminiscence. You told me that you would wait for your one true love, until the day that you die if need be.

Thank you Enrique. Thank you.

Re: Lonely Eyes - Street Adventures Pt.1

This took me back to the Beat.  The _I_ sees with such a youthful passion. 
Thanks Enrique!
blessings-

Re: Lonely Eyes - Street Adventures Pt.1

This was interesting. I was immediately drawn into it and wanting more.

These lines:

I was tired of being whistled and honked at. Was tired of being bribed to get into strangers' cars.

These lines made me wanting to know more about the -I- caracter. Who is s/he? It felt really like a she, but one never knows. These lines aroused so many questions in me about the -I- caracter.

So, what to say? More please!

Re: Lonely Eyes - Street Adventures Pt.1

Oh sorry, I am really rosty with my commenting.

I was wondering also howcome the -I- caracter “knows” so much about Enrique? I really would need to peek inside the -I- caracter more to understand that s/he can immediately read this Enrique caracter so well.

And (as to come back into my crappy commenting) the guestions about the -I- caracter are: Does s/he live in ghetto of just visiting, what is his/her background, what does s/he do for a living & during a normal day, why is s/he so 'deep' allthough s/he is really young and even pretty (that doen't go well along in my mind). It is the -I- caracter that makes me wonder.

So indeed, more please!

Re: Lonely Eyes - Street Adventures Pt.1

I'm not sure I completely understand the confusion about the -I- being young/pretty yet still deep. Please, I invite you to share more with me as to why this does not seem to go well with you within the writing. :)

Re: Lonely Eyes - Street Adventures Pt.1

Oh, and thanks for the feedback.

Re: Lonely Eyes - Street Adventures Pt.1

This answer is just about common thoughts about pretty/beautiful people combined with youth. I am not saying this because I don't belive your -I- caracter couldn't be deep enough. Sometimes a year can be a lifetime.

But perhaps if I put it in this light: what I, as an occasional reader, get from this story is that there are not much clues about the pretty young person, all focus is on Enrique. For me this shifts, Enrique becomes the -I- caracter. It almost feels like the -I- caracter is projecting herself in him. In the inner dialogue she talks about herself and not about him. All what I know is that Enrique could just be a drunken blue eyed yaoung man. I don't have the evidence in form of dialogue or otherwise to proof that it is indeed Enrique who has all these qualities she gives him. He is supposed to be a prophet. So a piece of dialogue or Enriques monologue might add a lot to your excellent piece.
And remember, you ar a good writer! No guestion about that.

When it comes to youth and being beautiful… oh, there is a lot of prejudice inside us for sure. But it is more likely that a pretty face gets more benefits in life than the more average ones. Doors open more easily for the pretty person. If one got the looks things tend to fall on their laps, or at least it looks like they do.
For instance, I am really average looking person and I used to have really beautiful girlfriends. I was, without exeption, always the wingman, as a mere appendage to them. They always got the attention of guys, they got helped in school, they got the interesting jobs already as young. I had to fight for it, get another angle, become “interesting” other ways, had to “sell” myself more while my friends just walked right through.

Don't get me wrong, they were good people and I love them. I have thought many times that a really beautiful person has more obstacles than we average looking, because it is so difficult to see behind the shiny surface. Even for the pretty one her/himself. Therefore the prejudice of pretty not been able to be deep.

A young person, also a pretty one, can of course live through very dramatic and traumatized happenings. I have gone through such things. And what I can say about myself and the things that I went through - insights of life take time to sink in and become evolved inside us to for example compassion. I can only say, now that I can look back from my vunerable 45 years, ehhum, that I thought I was so deep and full of insight during my twenties, I wasn't. I was heading there, yes, but I wasn't there. This I know now. And I still have a long path ahead me, because I realize, I don't know much yet, either.
When I seem my early poems for example, poems I thought were so unbelievable deep and insightfull back then… when I read them now I tend to suck and think “This is sentimental and pompous crap” I used to be full of ideal, still am in certain way, but it changes its shape.

I hope this was a good answer to your guestion dear Sundari. And also realize, my answer tells a lot about ME and nothing about you dear fellow writer.

I hope you could post the redone piece again.

xo

Re: Lonely Eyes - Street Adventures Pt.1

Sundari - was this in response to an assignment? If so let me know which one, I'm curious! (otherwise if it wasn't I'll move it to the prose board).

I too was completely taken in by this voice. Something so familiar and intimate about it, as if I was reading myself somehow. I'm not sure how this was done, but I think because of the underlying passion and feeling and care in and behind the words.

I liked the intelligence of the voice - shown in simple ways, use of an interesting word, for example..“you could snap at any moment, becoming perilous” - I loved that word here, perilous. It's the kind of thing I wish I could have written.

I agree with Nono about wanting to know more about what's actually going on. I think some more specific details would do it, not too many, but just enough to 'situate' this story in time and place.

We get it here, a bit:

Enrique, it was a blessing for me to have gotten on the wrong bus and then miss the right one I was supposed to catch… because of you. Something in the universe conspired to get me to stay and listen to your story.

I'd like to have one or two words that Enrique actually said, (dialogue, being what we 'hear' is 'sensuous detail' just as much as what we see/smell etc).

It would be good to have a few 'details' that might show who this I character is - why are they taking that particular bus? where have they just come from? (work, home, a lover, school) where is it going to? No explanations, that would detract from the power of this lovely voice, but simple details eg “the 54 bus home from my night shift at Cedar's Sinai hospital”.

And yes, there is something curious about the deep/pretty thing, but I suspect that is just our programming, that someone young and pretty cannot be deep.

and yes, more please! very engaging.

Sandra

Re: Lonely Eyes - Street Adventures Pt.1

Oh sorry Sandra. It was not in particular a response to an assignment. It would fit appropriately in the prose board.

So how, might I ask, do I go about editing this post. Should I go ahead and re-post it with my changes? Or…? I guess I'm asking what you suggest the next step I take should be?

Thanks Sandra

Re: Lonely Eyes - Street Adventures Pt.1

No problem Sundari! It takes a while to figure out the landscape here on DD, and it's easy to move threads to other boards (not individual comments, unfortunately). So, I've just moved this to the Prose board.

As for editing - my teacher of Freefall, Barbara Turner always says, and I truly feel / experience this as 'right' - do not edit a piece for some time after the first draft is written. Maybe, and it's a big maybe, if you have a lot of experience writing and editing, you can do it a day or so after writing. Personally I find the best editing I do is months after I wrote the piece. Sometimes years. If that's too long for you, or you want to play a bit, then I'd suggest wait at least a week or two, and keep the original draft, and have another look at it and your edited version in a month or so.

BUT - you could see what it feels like just to 'open up' areas rather than edit – and by opening up this could mean add some dialogue, or diving into a new paragraph, feeling into the world again, going 'fearward', giving all the sensuous details – ie feeling the world with all your senses…to see if something comes about who /where this I character is, what is happening in this particular scene, or.. perhaps the scene/story/ people moves somewhere else.. important to let what wants to be written written. “Opening out” to me is a bit different to editing, and can be done anytime, and for me is actually better to do it when I feel close to the work. Editing is more of a clinical process, and I do this best when I'm not so close to the work.


I hope this helps - if not let me know and I'll see if I can explain it better.

And yes, you can either re-post as a new thread (maybe put a link to the original) or just add it here to this original thread as a new comment.

Sandra