Things That I Complain About When I Wake Up In The Middle Of The Night:

it's too hot
it's too cold
it's too dark in here
it's too bright out there
it's too quiet
the neighbors are yelling
my back hurts
my feet are sore
my neck hurts
my hands hurt
my pillow is too fat
my pillow is too flat
my hair is too long
my bangs are too short
I left my watch on
I left my earrings on
I left my socks on
I left my bra on
I left the closet light on
I left the hall light on
I have to pee
I have to be up in an hour
this is the fourth time I've woken up tonight
this is the seventh time I've woken up tonight
my good dream is over
Harry Potter is over
The L Word is over
The Real L Word is stupid
girls are stupid
boys are stupid
going to work at 9am is stupid
my job is stupid
I hate opening the store
I hate closing
I hate my life
I hate my hair
I hate that I can't sleep
fuck sleep
fuck this
fuck me
fuck everything
...
I'm sorry for cursing, God
I'm just so fucking tired
please, let me fall asleep in the next five minutes
and help me to be a better person in the morning.
Amen.

Updates!

For those of you who have actually been reading this from the beginning, thank you!  For the newbies, welcome!  Let me explain a few things:

1) Almost everything on this blog is at least partially fictional.  So take everything with a grain of salt, as my mom says.  One of my good friends texted me after reading "Work" and "Camp" that the first few sentences of each had him extremely confused.  Sorry, Ben!  Since then, I have tried to tag all of my posts appropriately so that nobody else will mistake a short fictional story about a young girl during the Holocaust for a lighthearted blog entry about my real experience at a summer camp.

2) I don't really have any particular time frame for when I'll post new stuff.  Rest assured, I am always working on something, whether you see it right away or not.  Any comments or suggestions regarding how often you'd like to see something new from me would be greatly appreciated!

3) Consider yourself lucky, because this is the first time I've ever let anyone but an English teacher or classmate read any of my literary work.  Please keep that in mind, be kind, rewind, etc..

I guess that's that.  A hundred thanks to my avid readers ;]
-- Sienna

"A Poem About The Issues" - English Comp. 4/1/2011

I'm tired of waiting for
it to get better.
I'm tired of hiding my real life
so I can have a life.
I'm tired of praying
to a god
who loves me
but hates
everything
that I've "chosen" to be.
I'm tired of parents who
beg for grandchildren.
I'm tired of a society who
would take my children away
if they knew that they had
a mother like me.
Me.
Unfit Mother.
Because I like apples
instead of oranges.
Or should I say
bananas?
People don't like what they don't understand.
They don't understand me
or the deviant I've "chosen" to be.

"February 4, 2011"

I feel like

I was just on

another planet. 

The suburban streets of

my Texas town,

covered in snow look

completely different

 than normal.

 This early in the morning,

when there are no cars

on the road

and you

and your best friend

are the only ones

outside,

the only ones awake…

that’s magical. 

I truly hope

everyone

has a chance

to experience

what I have just experienced. 

The beautiful things

that God

has created

for us

often go unnoticed,

BUT

not by me,

at least not

today. 

I noticed,

and

I am thankful. 

I feel loved.

"Camp" - English Comp. 1/30/2011

            When the train finally stops, I can hardly breathe.  For once, it is not from the stench of the train car, the smell of death and human excrement that has filled my lungs for the past few days, but from something else.  Some indescribable feeling has caused my lungs to deflate and my heart to stop beating.  For a moment, I wonder if I am dying…another moment and I wonder if I care.  But when the door suddenly opens and a tall man starts barking German at everyone, I realize it was not death that took my breath away.  It was fear.  The sheer terror of not knowing where I am or what is about to happen has a grip on my heart like a vise.  As I am shoved from all directions out of the train car, the terror keeps its hold on me and pulls me forward into the cold.

            The sun seems ungodly bright and I squint to see a large metal sign up ahead.  It isn’t Polish, so I don’t know what it says, but the letters seem to spell out “fear.”  I inhale deeply, thinking that fresh air will be good after being in that hellish train.  Immediately, I cough and choke so hard that I collapse to the ground.  The air is thick with the most foul-smelling smoke.  I hear sounds from far away that almost sound like screaming.  I am about to get up from my hands and knees when the tall German man yells and kicks me hard in in the side and I go sprawling onto the hard ground, yet again.  He yells more curses that I can’t understand as I scramble to my feet.  I don’t bother brushing the dirt off, because I am already filthy.  The German man laughs at my haste in a voice that is as chilling as the air around me.  Both make me shiver violently.

            As I fall back in line with the train people, I really start to wonder where these awful people have brought us.  Before, I was too afraid to think too much about it, but as we march on through the giant gate, the curiosity consumes my mind.  It does not replace the fear, but mixes with it so they are one overwhelming emotion.  What will they do with us here in this great place that reeks of burning, rotting something and sounds like a slaughterhouse?  I can’t even begin to imagine.  Now I start to cry.  No tears leave my eyes, but a lump blocks my throat and I take tiny sobbing breaths.  We march on.

            I look to my left.  A skeleton in a prison uniform walks by with a wheelbarrow.  That can’t be right.   I look closer.  The skinniest man in the world walks by with a wheelbarrow full of…  That can’t be right.  I look again.  It is right.  I don’t want to look anymore, so I stare at my feet and try not to think about what I just saw.  I try not to think about what it means.  I try not to think about where I am or what I’m doing there.  I try not to think about how I want my mother and father.  I try not to think about where they are.  I try not to think.  I try not to feel.  I try not to cry.  Just keep marching and breathing in the sick smoke.

            Before I know it, we’ve stopped.  The wind is less harsh here, but I can hear the inhuman screaming much louder coming from the other side of this wall.  The smoke is thicker here too; I know its source is nearby.  For several minutes, my world is only the sound of screaming and the smell of burning death.  I don’t notice that the line is moving until a large man with a scarf over his face walks up close to me.  He leans in close to my face and yells.  More German.  I just look at him, wishing I had a scarf like that to block the cold and this God-awful smell.  I cough.  He reels back and hits me hard in the jaw.  I fall back against someone who quickly pushes me back up.  My head spins and I blink back tears.  I cough again, but this time I spit some blood.  The angry man grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me.  “English?”  I nod.  I know just a little, and I pray to God it is enough.  “How old are you?”  I tell him I’m fourteen.  He looks me up and down.  For half a second, something flashes in his eyes, but then the anger is back.  He shoves me to the left and says “Get in.”  That’s when I notice the door.  Another man with a scarf is inside.  He shuts the door after me and I walk on.

            I come to a room.  Some of the train people are inside, but only women and a few kids.  I think of my brother and I start to cry.  The tears cloud my vision, but I can make out the gun in my face when I hear one word: Strip.  I’m too afraid to be embarrassed.  Horrible thoughts of what’s to come fill my mind and my heart pounds louder than ever.  We walk into the next room.  A few men come in and sit us on wooden stools.  They shave off all of our hair, and now we are truly naked.  A little girl beside me whimpers when all her long pretty hair is on the floor.  Her mother shushes her and squeezes her hand.  I wish my own mother was with me to squeeze my hand.  We move into the next room.  There is only enough room for the handful of train people and me to stand up and I am reminded of the train.  A guard shuts the door hard and locks it.  The little girl starts to cry.  She calls to her mamma who is now crying too, as they embrace each other.  The others seem to be weeping with them; one old woman prays quietly to herself.

            I hear a loud hissing sound and look for the source: from the ceiling comes a waterfall of strange looking beads, which begin to emit a thick, awful smelling gas.  We all know now that this is the end for us.  I shut my eyes and take a deep breath, holding it for as long as I can.  For the first time since I lost my family, I think of them.  I think of my brother, who just could not stop crying after the Nazis took us from our home.  He didn’t even see when the guard raised his gun up to the little boy’s head.  I can hear my mother, screaming out in anguish, after my little brother was shot to death.  I think of how my father tried to control the both of them; he tried to keep them at least looking strong so that we could all be together, wherever they wanted to take us.  When they shot my brother, he held my mother so tightly to him that I thought they would both fall apart on the spot.  But my father could not control my poor mother from flinging herself onto my brother’s still bleeding body and weeping.  The look on Father’s face when they shot her told me it was the end for us.  He stood up straight and strong, but still he looked so helpless and broken.  I wish he and I had at least been taken to the same camp.  By this point, I have breathed in too much of the awful gas.  I sink to the ground.  My lights go out and all I hear is the screaming and clawing of the other train people in here with me, still trying in vain to escape.  I writhe on the ground in agony, and my entire world is screaming.  I wait for it to end.

"Work" - English Comp. 1/23/2011

          Work.  My entire life is work.  I remember nothing before the camp, and I'm sure there will be nothing to know after...if I even get an "after".  All day I come out here and dig.  I wake up, go outside, dig.  I go in for a few moments, eat a crust of bread or some cold soup, come back out, dig.  At night, I sleep.  If I dream, I dream that I am back outside digging.  We dig in the heat, in the cold, sometimes in the rain.  Some days, we are even forced to fill the holes.  Those days are the worst.  When it's just the digging, I can pretend that I'm a kid, trying to dig all the way to the other side of the world.  I can pretend that I'm a pirate searching for lost treasure. Sometimes that one isn't so hard to imagine; the feeling of digging and digging, never finding what you are digging for, never feeling that satisfaction or relief.  I can relate.  Some days, I don't think about anything; I just dig.
          The way we dig, you would think this place would run out of bodies, or at least land, for the holes.  But that never happens.  The nazis are never satisfied, and they never stop killing.  I wish that for one day - just for one day - we could trade places.  I could stand and laugh icily while they dig these crude "graves".  Let them fill the holes with charred remains of bodies that used to be people.  I wish they could understand what it is to be forced to do manual labor for the people who want you dead.
          Mostly, I just wish it would stop.  I wish someone could come to take me back home with my family and my bed and no more digging.  I could finally sleep peacefully, not having to worry about blistered hands, sunburnt necks, and worn out backs...I don't remember what any of that feels like.  The only way I can fall asleep is to cry myself out every night.
          There is a girl my age who's sleeping with one of the guards.  He sneaks her good food, and she never has to work.  If I wasn't so exhausted, I would kill her.

"Preventing Another Holocaust" - English Comp. 1/23/2011

            The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah in Hebrew, was one of the most notorious periods in recorded history.  Today, some people still believe that it never happened;  that humans are incapable of inflicting such terrible acts upon one another.  However, the fact remains that if we let the personal prejudice of individuals effect an entire nation, we as humans are capable of a wide variety of evils.  Rather than bury our heads in the sand and pretend it was not real, people should be doing everything they can to be sure that another mass genocide never happens.

            History does not always have to repeat itself.  The first step in ensuring this is educating the next generation.  Many students know what the Holocaust was by the time they arrive in high school, but unfortunately, this is not true for everyone.  Some people have never even encountered the word.  Many schools do not teach it, or even try to cover it up and make it seem like it was not “that bad”.  This is a huge problem.  True, telling kindergarteners the details of how those 6 million Jewish people were killed in the span of 12 years is extreme.  But at some point, the Holocaust should be introduced to them when their school board decides they are mature enough to comprehend it.  Even if it is a step-by-step process, where the students learn only a few new details each year they are in school, they should not graduate high school not knowing about the Holocaust.  They should not begin their lives in the “real world” without prior knowledge of the horrors that bigotry and hate can bring to the world.  That kind of ignorance is exactly where plans for another Holocaust will come from.

            Where would we begin teaching students about the Holocaust if we did not begin with Adolf Hitler?  Adolf Hitler was a sad, angry man whose twisted mind was so filled with hate that he had to take it out on the entire world.  Germany not only let this man run the country, but they let him rule it with an iron fist.  They let him present himself as a hero, even a god, and so everyone gave him whatever he wanted.  Sadly, what he wanted was the head of every non-Aryan in existence, and he almost achieved that.  Personally, I am thankful that I live in the United States, where this kind of thing is impossible.  Our government lets the people of our nation vote on our nation’s leader, and even that person does not have total control.  Our system of checks and balances ensures that no part of our government gets out of control, and that our President does not become a dictator.  Hitler took over Germany and forced everyone to adopt his irrational hatred of Jewish, black, homosexual, and handicapped people.  If Germany had the same kind of government and legal code as the United States had, even with all of its flaws at that time, Hitler would not have been able to lead to the containment, enslavement, and mass killing of millions of innocents.

            The Holocaust was an event born of evil.  The hatred of one man encapsulated an entire nation, and then some.  Because of Hitler’s sick “logic”, countless people suffered through so much pain and torment, before most of them finally died.  Yes, Hitler suffered through much pain in his life as well, but none of it comes close to what he put so many people through during the Holocaust.  If he had not been so hateful towards humanity, perhaps none of it would have happened;  or at least it would have happened at the hands of someone else.  That is why it is important for people not to hate.  It is important for people to realize that there is not one race, religion, or culture that makes some people any better or worse than others.  If there was not so much hate in the world at that time, perhaps the Holocaust could have been stopped sooner.  If there was not so much hate in the world now, perhaps I would have more hope that something like the Holocaust would not happen again.