Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Tag: creative writing

  • prompt 41

    What is one thing you would change about yourself?

    Beauty may be skin-deep, but it makes people know more about the person, especially a woman. I wish I could find a fairy – specifically a pixie who knows glamor spells – who can make me beautiful so people will stop ignoring and mistreating my existence. 🧚‍♀️

    Jane Eyre knew she wanted beauty like her spiteful cousins because she learned that beauty could purchase an indemnity for a doer’s wrongdoings. Thankfully, Jane was endowed with a fortitude that would withstand any form of injustice, so a lack of external beauty would be compensated with her scintillating intelligence as a saving grace. Honestly, I believe and feel that although the degree of treatment of women according to their physical attractiveness in the eyes of the beholders has been civilly lessened with the advent of Feminism and growing political correctness, appearance does play a significant role in how others shape your personality in society. It’s called the Looking-Glassed Self, a shaping of self-image by how others see you, whether you agree or not.

    The standard of beauty is all the more appreciated by the faculty of the mind affected by the works of imagination. It is universal in all humans regarding principles of judgment and sentiment common to all humankind. Beauty transcends race and class for women. Not every woman is endowed with angelical goodness, dazzling intelligence, and admiring wit. Beauty will complement it all, and I want it. ✨

  • On the Nancy’s Steps

    Photo Credit: Londonist
    Source: https://londonist.com/london/history/where-are-nancy-s-steps-and-why-do-they-lie-to-us

    There are stairs called “Nancy’s Steps”
    at the London Bridge on the Thames
    where Nancy used to walk up and down
    from her den to the world, back to the den
    to live a life God cared less with neglect
    with nothing more than her untainted heart
    flowing milk of kindness and compassion
    into the neverending faith of humanity alone
    Even if it betrayed her and bullied her in tatters;
    She pitied an orphaned boy named Oliver
    And protected himself from the world under
    Until the blindfolded Goddess Fortuna span
    The Wheel of Fortune to the fateful turn
    To which all her wishes were forefeited
    As her already wretched body was battered
    With the compass of the wheel bludgeoned
    Her life with the heart cherished with love;
    With the blows upon her still young head
    all her hopes for the beauty of life shattered
    and her tears rolling down her cold cheeks
    turned into liquid drops of pearls and crystals,
    and then, with a cry of the heart, she departed.
    or thought she, for she knew not what happened
    from dusk till dawn, wandering and waiting
    on the fateful steps, asking if you’d seen the boy.

  • prompt 35

    If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?

    A deprivation of sleep would be a nightmare to me. Sleep is the most natural and safest palliative to forget worries, however temporarily it is. But if there should be any other props for this natural medication, I could keep my promises.

    I want to read and write as much as I should after returning home from work and generally at home. I used to work in an office where I could write during the lull, but for this year, the cognitive processing activities have been reduced to about 10 percent of my daily life because I have been feeling mentally exhausted. It has become psychosomatic by preventing me from sitting at the desk when I am home. My best regular place has become a sofa bed, watching YouTube continuously. I don’t even play with my cats as much as I should because of this sense of powerlessness combined with the weight of existential despair. When writing – which I am doing now during my one-hour lunch at my workplace – I feel so much better with the fogginess of the mind cleared and the heaviness of the spirit relieved.

    Therefore, engaging in activities that use the body and the mind would be the best thing I should do during the extra time because, as the ancient Greeks called it, Mans Sana in coporore Sano. (“Sound Mind, Healthy Body”)

  • Prompt 33 – why cats are women’s best friends

    What are your favorite animals?

    One and a half years old Camille

    Rudyard Kipling described the nature of a cat as a creature that walked alone. The graceful pose, the noble demeanor, and the aristocratic solitude make the feline kind all the more mysterious and charming. Cats are so loving and, at the same time, so selfish, which makes them exuberantly human. It is no wonder the ancient Egyptians turned them into goddesses Bastet for womenkind. To make the long story short, the association of cats with women is natural and inseparable as if the two kinds are supra-natural companions.

    Three years old Toro

    The feline imagery has been complimentary and cautionary depending on the purpose of its application to societal conventions. For example, black cats are typically associated with devious single women practicing witchcraft (or, for God’s sake, cantankerous spinsters) because of their formidable ambiance of darkness, which significantly contrasts with their wonderfully fierce eyes and quiet solitude. While feminists would disagree with the application of such feline imagery to femininity (“How could you use such a demeaning word?!”), one can’t eradicate the visible traits that are so unlike their counterparts, including the canine. The coquettishness of feline characters and the capriciousness of behavior conjures the images of Cleopatra charming Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony, and the like. And what about Michelle Pilfer’s Cattleman? Then there were Charlotte Bronte and Lucy Maud Montgomery, whose feminine sensibilities were replete with fiercely independent creative spirits, and the fascinating power of words still mesmerized the readers of her times and ours. They were lovers of cats, and their best friends were cats who could share secrets because cats were the only true secret keepers.

    Tori and Camille

    Some people seem to take pride in publicly announcing their dislike of cats as if there were some virtue in doing it. They say cats are treacherous and capricious. But that is precisely why I like cats because, like us, when they are good, they are very, very good. Yet when they are bad, they are horrid. I never get bored with my two cats, Toro and Camille, because they are very responsive to my talking by vocalizing their needs when they want to play, go out to the living room, and eat. But you know what? They are also my best friends who always stay with me, even when I am blue and gray under dark spells.

  • Tabby Toro

    Of all the cats that alone walked
    There’s none like Tabby Toro;
    He is the sweet of my heart
    And he likes to sleep at my feet.
    There’s no cat in the world
    is half so sweet as Tabby Toro;
    He is the sweet of my heart
    And he likes to sleep at my feet.

    The soft furs are like a great fluffy pillow
    his little heart pounding at my feet
    with the brilliant eyes riveting billow
    bright sparkles of emerald secret
    he keeps from the faraway star
    where he was once a little prince;
    He is the sweet of my heart
    And he likes to sleep at my feet.

    My mother tells me all the time
    that I love Tabby Toro too much,
    And, but for him, silent I am
    Smiling at the taunts and sighs such;
    But pity not, for I am fine as long as
    I feel the little heart at my feet,
    And I know there’s Tabby Toro
    He is the sweet of my heart

  • the broken vase

    The Broekn Vase by 1929, Dunedin, by Alfred O’Keeffe

    Why do they always do it

    knowing it will be hurting

    regretting it happened then

    And doing it all over again?

    It could’ve been all better,

    if you should’ve been kinder

    It would’ve been untouched

    The vase already cracked;

    You may not see the cracks

    Insignificant it may seem

    But you will see the drops

    of water smear from within,

    And the flowers will soon

    be gone in despair forever.