Creative Writing Portfolio
Project Arts – Orientation 2024
Contents:
Individual Pieces
“Places in between” by Hannon Stern 3
“May reticence reign” by Emerson Eickholt 4
“Dance Studio” by Yasmine Kwong 5
Audie Waller 6
Collection of pieces: “This Is Where It Ends”
Written and performed by all the Creative Writing Crew
Story # 1 7 Poem #1 8 Letter #1 9 Story #2 10
#2 11
“Places in between”
By Hannon Stern
Where am I
In between the lines?
Through cadence and rhyme, Moments in time, How can I leave
When I see what I see, And I want to believe that you’re mine?
Where do you go
When you’re longing to know What’s above and below Between comfort and cold?
When you’re stuck in between What has been and will be Do you stay, do you leave What you know?
Do I break
All that I take with me As I unwillingly travel through space? For a moment I’m infinite Oceans are shimmering Beckoning me with such grace
Where am I
In between the lines?
Through terrible crime, And little white lies I am somewhere and nowhere Am I there at all? When I am in between watching it fall? Only in a dream could I be On both sides of the call So I carefully stall for more time
“May reticence reign”
By Emerson Eickholt
Avalley of vanished voices
Where nooses wrap around the necks of noise
Asoundless solitude resides
Where all pockets of peace are poised.
I demand to hush all the hums
To resemble the place that censors speech Bow down to deadened sound
May an expiry of song be reached.
Bury me with the corpses of clamor
My loneliness a lullaby
An Elysium of echoes lost
In need of places now to cry.
May quietude mend what quaked its remains, I long for my place of silence, where reticence reigns.
“Dance
Studio”
By Yasmine Kwong
I've never imagined myself a dancer
Curving like a swan and sweeping the landscape with grace and poise. but in this space, I feel different
As if for once I am flexible and versatile
The grassy green walls and charcoal grey floors composing a part of the mystical forest I'd always dreamed of living in.
In this ruby, light streams from all directions
Mini refractions connecting each joint, however unpredictable and uncertain. In this space I am free In this space there are boundaries And in this space I can explore.
Audie Waller
Do you hear that? It might be the sound of your dishwasher running, pushing and pulling its rinse like the waves, like only yours does, like you're the last person in the kitchen on a quiet night. And that there might be your little dog clicking down the hallway, or the numberless clock ticking above the door, or the rain blowing against the skylight. Do you hear your sister whispering in her bedroom or the fig tree loosening its fruit, a car passing by your window or a flock of magpies alighting on the oak?And this silence, it might be one you know - that of your cat's yellow eyes in the grass, the light going gray, your mother looking down at her hands. Do you hear that? It might be what you think it is - your faucet, your father's footsteps, the fan on your bedroom ceiling. Or it might just be the wind.
“This is Where It Ends”
By Creative Writing Crew
Story #1
Read by: Cassidy and Aarsh
This is where it ends. You have known this for months - the chapel poster I hung on the wall, the circled date on the calendar. But now that I'm finally here, at this moment, I can't help but wonder if I made the right choice. Would I regret spending all my life savings to buy an old, abandoned chapel and turn it into a pastry shop for goats? While I was initially excited for the cute BAAAHHH noise of the greatest animal of all time, I can't help but wonder if I’ll get tired of feeding all of my customers. Their pudgy faces and beady little eyes stared angrily at my soul when the pastries ran out.
Our last server was brutally attacked and hospitalized by the goat fiends. But alas, a goat is a girl’s best friend. How could a girl ever leave her goats, even if they caused harm? They are cute and more importantly loyal to you, right? I want to tell a story to explain my love for them. I can teach them to destroy my enemies, to MAAHHH out the anthem of my sweet revenge. They are my soldiers. I slowly begin to form an evil grin as my plan is all coming together. This is where the world ends.
Poem #1
Read by:Aria and Jada
This is where it ends. Where we leave our hands. This is where it ends. Where rules seem to bend.
This is where it ends. Exactly how we planned. With no reason to pretend. This is where it ends. There is no time to make amends.
This is how I leave Crippled by the fall. This is how I leave I’m so tired, I barely crawl. This is how I leave With my belongings and my keys This is how I leave Destined to float away along the breeze.
Letter #1
Read by: Victoria and Yasmine
Dear friend,
This is where it ends. I am a feast for sorrow without you. Days go by. While at times I can distract myself with new introductions, the smallest things remind me of you. I miss old, unrestrained, and familiar laughter, jokes that made no sense and letting down an invisible shield.
You are part of who I am, like the street I was born on, the car my mother drove me to the first day of kindergarten in, the first words I ever spoke. I am incarcerated in my cell, and this might as well be the last time you hear from me. I’m missing you; I feel I miss a piece of myself, as if I am less than human without your existence.
I was at Shooters, and I was feeling awful without you. I got into a fight and landed here. Unfortunately, you were not there to protect me and… well, you can guess what happened. Now I wish to tell you that I wish I could go back. To the moment when everything changed. This prison where I sit is cold and lonely.
Sincerely,
Melancholy Duke Student
Story #2
Read by: Jack and Luc
This is where it ends. My heels click against the floor as I walk through the marbled halls one last time.Awave of melancholy fills my body as I say a final goodbye. It’s the end of an era.
I feel up the walls, my bare hands memorizing the frigid texture. The asbestos-laced popcorn ceiling mesmerizes me. I can’t wait for the day for when I can jump back into your arms I mean your walls.Ahard embrace, but an embrace nonetheless. I wish I were literally inside your walls. Like a mouse of sorts, scuttling between your drywall and insulation.
This place has been my haven for countless years. This place has been my home. I have aged with the city surrounding me and fell victim to the alarm clock of the city’s noise. But now, will I say my “good mornings” to deer, to trees, to birds in the middle of nowhere? Will rustic charm grow on me? How will the log cabins hold up in comparison to the multilayered bricks of my past? I walk through the door of this building and still feel lost. I want to take the openness of this land and hold it inside myself. I know that wherever I’m heading next, my life will never be the same. I long for the future and past simultaneously. Must I only choose one?
Poem #2
Read by:Audie and Hannon
This is where it ends
The place I lose my mind
The place with those that are kind
Aplace with chicken coops and hens
The place witness to late night musicals
The place to which my life’s intertwined
With those of different hearts and minds
This barn has seen snapshots of a thousand lives
With animals of all different kinds
All the noises craze my mind
I HATE THIS DAMN PLACE BRO
So it is time to begin anew
Leave the chickens and the coops
Say that I planted myself and grew
And became a tree in the pArts crew!
Bubble soccer, sky zone
Letter #2
Read by: Emerson and Deniz
Dear reader,
This is where it ends. Hours and hours of piling clothing, bags, and miscellaneous paraphernalia into the back of my trunk. Inside it feels the same memories leaning and threatening to topple over like stacks of old books, expectations heaped like dirty laundry.
I am leaving this letter on Earth to serve as a token of remembrance as I set to travel the galaxies. As a member of the classified Duke space force, I will be journaling my travels in search of a new hub world. Due to the limits of interstellar communication, I may be gone before you read this. Even though we will be light years away, I will continue to remember you (if I do not freeze to death here).
If you find this letter, then you have found the ancient tree, where I used to be wild and free. I will miss your warm embrace and familiarity. I miss everything about my home. Cherish it.
Sincerely,
Space man tree wanderer
