We don’t Know.
That is the most honest thing to say.
I made a pact with someone passed, that whichever of us should go first, we would show a sign, if there were some means of communicating from the other side. When the fatal moment arrived, I thought surely, I would be haunted to the end of my life.
Contrawise. Though, I had this strange sensation of absorbing the passing spirit that night--waking in a baptismal kind of sweat through every pore of my body.
The cut, since then, has been as if final. God knows I am all too adept at making shit up. What do we call it? --"self-gaslighting"---?!
No such thing. Perhaps I have failed to see. Maybe the timing is not right, for a sign. Maybe that Individual consciousness is still alive and knows that it would harm more than comfort, if sighted.
Or maybe, the door is barred. Or there really is, Nothing at all...
We just don't know.
If you got ’em
There's an awkwardness that my parents used to fill with smoking. Not sure what to do with your hands? Light up. Finished a good meal? Burn one. Need a break? Step outside, shake out a menthol (mom) or a Basic-light (dad).
I say an awkwardness, but I'm not sure. Maybe they weren't awkward at all. Maybe they just didn't know what to say. We never really discussed politics, religion, or anything important. I'd get asked about school, but I never had much to share.
My grandfather smoked a pipe, but sometimes he liked a Tampa Nugget. That was rare. Mostly, he was packing the bowl with Carter Hall. I don't ever remember him smoking it in a restaurant, though.
I tried it, but the habit didn't take. I found the pipe too rough and the cigarettes unfulfilling. All they did was leave me tasting ashtrays and wondering where my money went.
I used to always carry a Zippo in college, though. Some of the jobs I worked, I'd hang out with the smokers. They were an overall affable bunch, friendly, chatty. They appreciated that I always had a light. A girl asked me once where my smokes were, and I just grinned. "I save them for bed," I cracked wise.
She was disappointed to learn that was a lie, when she came over later.
I'd be lying if I said that was her only disappointment, but we can't win 'em all.
I have no idea where that Zippo is now. Maybe I found it not long ago when I did some cleanup of my storage building, but I likely tossed it right back into the box with all her old loveletters.
All of them.
I smelled her perfume in that cheap plastic tub as soon as I lifted the lid.
She flirted with smoking for a short while, but gave it up pretty quickly.
She flirted with marrying me for a while, but gave up that idea pretty quickly, too.
My parents don't smoke anymore. My dad, because he's dead. My mom, because I told her one of the reasons I didn't visit was because I had to wear dirty clothes to her house and wash them while I took a shower just as soon as I got home. That was a long time ago, when we lived in the same town.
I remember that conversation when I look over at the dry erase calendar on my wall and realize I don't have a visit scheduled in the foreseeable.
I should change that, but there's an awkwardness that my parents used to fill with smoking, and I don't know how to fill it anymore.
Brushing Sand
Answer number one: it was beautiful, and then it was dust, and then it was both.
I remember seeing the rover for the first time. I almost didn’t want to touch it, like it was holy, a bone from a saint. Then I stepped back and saw my bootprint next to it, and I knew, fully, where we were.
The four of us had studied Mars exhaustively for years and viewed every image, still or moving, dozens or hundreds of times. We had felt the sand that first sample-return drone recovered: a box of precious nothingness, 10 centimeters square, every grain analyzed and formulated by celebrated scientists. They learned so little from it. But what we felt, we chosen four who immersed tentative fingers within it, let it rest in the grooves of our fingerprints...
Full story newly published by NewMyths here: https://sites.google.com/newmyths.com/newmyths-com-issue-66/issue-66-stories/brushing-sand
Years ago, the early draft of this story appeared for a brief time on Prose. The response was favorable, and also included some criticism that helped me realize the story could be better. After a great deal of reworking, I am very proud to share the final, published version with my Prose friends. Thanks to all who commented on that early draft, but especially to TheWolfeDen, whose challenge inspired the story, and JD4, whose criticism was sharpest and therefore the most helpful.
i not I
Its been a few years, some days i wish i never met you, or loved you...
Truth is i’m hurt.
You loved me until you didn't, then used me because i was the only one there after all the bs.
i just wish you didn't act like i don't exist anymore.
How do you get over it so easy?
The way you looked at me when we ran into each other, so much nothingness in your eyes, so different from when you used to look at me with sparkles in them.
i truly think our love was the once in a lifetime love, a love meant to last.
Oh well, everything does have an expiration date...
Our last hug.
The hug I thought would deluge back all those memories,
Was the one that made me feel it was actually extinct.
That futile hug,
The hug that meant nothing to you.
The hug I thought would solve every complication,
That hug, the one that ended my biggest one.
That hospitable detached hug,
The hug I thought would be warm and heartfelt.
The tiresome worn out hug,
That hug I longed for.
That hug you didn’t want to participate in,
The hug I endured wasn’t the old one.
That hug that I contemplated would make you come to your senses,
The hug did nothing to you,
that it did to me.
Foreknowledge
I knew how this would conclude
yet I had expectation
I knew why I never truly granted one to love me
yet I decided you’d be the one
I knew I wasn’t deserving
yet neither were you
I knew I’d grieve you when I rouse up
yet you profess I didn’t exist
I knew we would terminate as strangers
yet I couldn't ever accept it
I knew I’d perpetually love you
yet you‘d turn away
I knew I was incapable of having someone to myself
yet you never wanted me anyway
I knew some would call me doolally
yet no one knew the things I’d do to have you back
I know I love you
Maybe someday you'll come back.
You
I permitted YOU engrave roots into my palms,
As if YOU ever showed any deservingness,
Though that never seemed to signify anything to me.
I’d sheltered YOU from frigid temperatures,
Only to leave myself congealed,
All for him I told myself, All for YOU.
I fed YOU as YOU forever devoured it all,
While I dealt with inanition alone, Yet you'd make a foul sound at anything,
All for YOU I repeated, All for him.
I started questioning the statement "all for him",
Your smile as beautiful as apricity,
Yet your lies deeper than a black hole,
All for you though…
No longer for YOU, All for me,
At least that’s what I try to tell myself.
The reality is, it’ll always be YOU.
Testament of Love: the white wine is our witness.
Yesterday, I poured the pale essence of white wine from my mouth to yours, compelled by the unwavering gaze you cast upon me as I indulged. White wine, divine elixir, doth pour, from lip to lip, amour's sweet rapport. Your eyes, fixated upon mine, betrayed a gentle flush upon your cheeks, a silent testament to the stirring emotions within. In that moment, as your gaze widened and your form subtly shifted, I felt the palpable connection between us intensify, a silent dance of longing and desire.
Our bond, forged over four years of shared moments and whispered confidences, remains steadfast amidst the ebb and flow of life's currents. Amidst the ceaseless change, there exists an immutable thread that binds us, an unspoken understanding that transcends words.
In the quiet intimacy of our shared moments, I find solace in the familiarity of your surrender, and marvel at the effortless harmony that defines our union. Your willingness to yield to my touch, to entrust me with your vulnerabilities, is a testament to the depth of our connection. And in turn, I am enraptured by the fervor with which you embrace my affection, reveling in the unspoken language of desire that flows between us.
Each whispered endearment, each lingering glance, serves as a testament to the profound intimacy we share, a tapestry woven from the threads of trust and understanding. In the sanctuary of our shared love, there exists a sacred space where every word, every gesture, is imbued with meaning. And in that sacred space, I find myself endlessly enamored, endlessly grateful, for the privilege of loving you.
I WAS BOOOORN
Premature, a whole month prior to my expected due date.
This is the story, as I know it by the scant details, of my Mother. Because I'd dare say, she deserves all the credit from hereon in. Of this passage and for some after considering, I was completely to the mercy of two adults. Who spoke an altogether foreign tongue, who in some ways, were still ill-adapted. To this country and this language, this form that I use to communicate.
I was an active child, utterly empassioned and utterly blind to a world that was not myself. Which is why it didn't matter how or which way I kicked. I simply wanted more room.
It was late, dusk would barely crest over the horizon and in a tiny little house with two bedrooms, a kitchen, all on a flat singular floor my Mother was in likely the worst manner of pain.
There was probably fear too, she knew enough I'm sure to realize, had been told, her precious girl, the princess of the family should not be born, not so early not so small.
My parents absconded, without my brother and the brother who was confused and concussed in her own identity. But that is a whole other novel and a much more outlandish title.
They had a babysitter don't worry.
And they were not jealous.
They were not surly.
They welcomed a little sister. They would adore her.
My Mom spent hours in labor as is normal.
Here is, a measure of speculation, my Mother beautiful and warm as she is was in the range of risk. Where the strain of a child may yield complication and risk. And she was four weeks early.
I can imagine there was some scant hour or so of fear. I hope less, it's painful to think, so unbelievably selfish to wonder if she cried. When the doctors had to take her tiny little baby, only just out of her belly and likely screaming already spoiled for her mother's company. Because she was too small.
She was so small that even after pushing ten days worth of formula this tiny little prayer answered and given life, fit in the palm of the calloused, burnt hand. From her Father.
She lived.
She lived and she grew. Grew quiet. For a baby.
Dare it be said she would grow to be contemplative, a little too aware and forthwith for her age.
That said she made wondrous little noises as if casting a spell over those around her.
Her young brothers her knights and vassals often at her beck and call never far from her side.
Coddling with her, entertaining her why she must be special! Just must be!
And her parents well if anything, were weaker to her charms.
What those were I couldn't completely fathom a clue. Especially as her Mother, among eight total siblings herself, soon held another baby in her arms. A boy and the youngest then of one of her sisters.
This boy and this girl, learned in walking and in the enumerated fact that they could, played together quite mischievously and chaotically.
The girl, whose name meant moon, who as a daughter was held in high esteem as if royal, laughed and burbled. She spoke and tended to baby dolls, watched friendly little monsters with a smile on her face.
\\Seven years old//
Some teachers begin noticing.
The small things and the not so small. That though she talked it was... tilted. Somewhat turned in a wholly different direction. Not exactly. okay or right.
Her talk few and far between and never a word for those her own age.
She simply drew and read. Desks placed into four, massive truly for such little children.
And providing quite an excellent amount of room for the girl all her lonesome. Who hardly seemed bothered by that in fact. In fact, as these teachers didn't seem to understand she in some ways liked it this way.
Because she was drawing and she liked drawing.
Could she then-- get back to what she was doing?
These questions, these sudden addresses and attention paid to her, were not normal and so she'd like to not deal with the thought if so acceptable. She'd rather not be treated like she was perhaps in trouble or had done something wrong.
She was about certain she knew the rules.
And she knew it was appreciated to be quiet. She herself didn't mind being quiet all that much either.
So, this entire speech pathologist and three hour test time for easy, already burned to paper material had no basis.
Learning disability? Autism?
"Special" needs.
Well yes, I am quite special.
Yet in this way, well, it doesn't make sense. It really, really doesn't make sense.
Looking at love through a window
I sat alone in my room, my phone the only light present. As I scrolled through old messages errie shadows danced across my face. Ashley the girl I had loved before all of this , the start of my own hell. Our first date. My nerves got the better of me that day. All my attemps at akward conversation fell flat. All my insecurites screamed at me that day. After that date I crashed like drowning waves of an ocean. As I attempted to make up for the aweful first date I hung out with her at school still and as I tried to understand her and myself I was ripped away from her. As I tried to understand it she just got more and more angry at me. I was confused and depressed and even trying to ask for outside help blew up in my face since she had apparently spread rumors about me. After Ashley I was in a bottemless pit of despair. I was only accompanied by self doubt and regret. As I tried to put on a brave face Id always let something slip and it would make my days worse when people asked about the pain. Because this was real pain. Emotions of sorrow that had no names yet. A year later I met cheyenne a nice girl I met in theater. This time I said will be diffrent just gaurd your heart, distance yourself I said. I Was Wrong. At first I kept my feelings in check but slowly but surley as she laughed with me and played videogames against me I fell for her. I had all odds against me, rumors and some people cyberstalked my instagram notes feeding into a lie of who I really was they made connections that were not there. Even with all of this I presisted. But fate had other ideas. Once again I was looking at love from the outside in. Cheyenne had been dating another the whole time. Which made me a spector of my own love life. Rejection cutting like a knife more real than ever. I was lost and alone. In my senior year I met a girl and as prom was on the horizon I felt changed like I was anew. I knew I could brake the chains of love that binded me so. Her name was sydney. She was amazing. An artist who had many talents and she was so intreaging. As I tried to persue this exhilarating feeling I felt the chains of heartbreak tugging at me wanting to drag me back down. Despite that I fought back. The anguish feelings the couragious feelings. They have meaning because we the peopele who love refuse to forget them. So I held on to hope. I still do. Hold onto a hope where love in not a distant dream but a reality I could prosper in. A hope that was so tangible it would be like the girl I love.