It's been said that one man's - woman's! - trash is another person's treasure, so I thank all of you, my followers, for treasuring those works which I often think of as trash. Even when I've called my stuff "ca-ca" (*cough*) shortly after posting something, you guys - gals! - come out of the wordwork to applaud me and pass my words on, thereby warming the cockles of my heart. When I think I'm just a hopeless wreck who should never again dare to pick up a keyboard, pen, pencil, crayon, you go out of your way to assure me that I should, in fact, pick up a crayon - or even a keyboard, on my really good days! - again, and I am so thankful for that.

So thank you, one and all, my reliable quicker picker-uppers for lifting me when I need it most, for not pointing out my nakedness when I have bared myself to you, for not telling me to get a life. Because writing IS my life, and I am so grateful to you all for breathing along with me.

I'll also grudgingly add that I'm "thankful" for when you've called me on it when I've put my less than best foot forward on something. I wouldn't be getting better without you.

P.S. I know I haven't been as present as I have been in the past, but rest assured, I am around, and I do still care and love you all.

Would you like me to tell you you look like the sun?

Though hotter, and of a less blinding sort. 

It gets windy 'round here in the springtime, hon, 

And though days are longer, the summer is short. 

And old Sol in the sky burns too hot for my skin

But when it is cloudy, I miss him the more.

And all natural beauty will die in the wind

Since humans pollute, or the weather gets bored.

But your golden touch, I think that it will last

You'll never pay forward what nature demands

You won't let Death win; baby, you'll kick his ass

Even age won't adhere to your beautiful hands.  

As long as someone is still reading this scrawl

It gives you my love, and that gives you your all. 

Want me to tell you what you want to hear?

Pretty and witty and shitty and stuff;

Hot air makes me want to puncture my ear.

Sorry I'm honest; life's not short enough: 

Little red dresses you wear turn me on;

Sweatpants and baggy shirts--yeah, not so much.

Its hard to miss you when you're never gone,

Droning on always 'bout nonsense and such:

Don't think that I don't want you by my side,

You're good enough to keep me up at night;

Better than just my hand to be my guide;

Etched in my memory--turn out the light:

Long as you're silent you'll always be here,

Here in my fantasy you'll live, my dear.

#ProseChallenge  #getlit  #itslit

You sort of remind me of a guy I met at the club,

He was sweet and wouldn't leave without buying me a drink;

The wind blew and my hair rustled as we walked through the November weather,

And the next morning he left without saying goodbye.

I feel sort of guilty sometimes, if I think about it too long,

And I often wonder if I'd be better off alone,

But I always end up back at the bar and back to my apartment,

Whether I'm sipping coffee or laying in bed after he's left.

But I don't have to feel guilty about being with you;

I don't have to worry about being lonely,

Or being caught up with the wrong guy late at night,

Now that I have you. 

     As long as I'm with you, and you're with me

     I don't have to go around worrying anymore. 

We were an ocean apart, yet in our hears we weren't

You said I was everything you were looking for

You said I was amazing

Yet none of this was enough to make you stay

Here I am now bleeding on the floor

All of your words hit me hard

I thought you were saving me but turns out you aren't

I can feel the wind

Rage against my body

As I stand on the

Edge of the world.

The angry hail

Claims me as its own

As it beats against

My swirling thoughts.

Who am I?

Lightning strikes nearby

And throws earth into my hair

And electricity into my heart.

How did I come to be

The waif on the cliff

Waiting for the storm

To take her away?

I back away from the precipice,

But the wind grabs my hand

And leads me gently over the edge

To the uncertainty of the mist.

Frigid air rushes past,

But I can't hear the roar

Through the promises whispered

By the sky as I fall.

"You are a product of the stars

And the moon.

A culmination of the sun's love

And the rain's sorrow.

You are the sparks in your heart

And the lights in your mind.

You are the essence of a future

Filled with hope."

I awake in my bed.

Crisp sheets and still air.

Where is the storm?

Where is the wind?

Hail rattles the windows

And I close my eyes, smile,

And sink back into myself

In unabashed peace.

Back and forth. Overanalyzing every action, thought, and word until she was sick with self-doubt. She would slowly talk herself down to something almost resembling peace. Until the devil would pull that one little thread, bring to mind that one thought that was enough to send her to the edge of her sanity. And the overanalyzing would begin again. This was the way it went. Over and over and over.

When she was working. When she was reading. When she was playing. When she was talking. When she was loving. When she was praying.

But at the end of the day, when she knelt beside her bed, she felt relief. Not because the thoughts stopped racing and twisting and darting through her consciousness, but because she had made it.

My life isn't hard, she thought, but this is my battle and today I won.

Anna Maria knew it was the day that she would day. 

It was strange, she had to admit, waking up and knowing that today was the day that her heart would stop beating. In just a few hours time, she would walk her last steps. Say her last words, then breathe her last breath and that would be it. No longer would she exist upon the earth. She would be dead and buried once and for all. 

When she had dressed herself and prepared, she thought to pray. But as she knelt beside the bed, she found that she did not have the words. 

She didn't regret what she did. She would never do that. But she had to admit that she was scared. 

Outside her room, she could hear the flurry of voices. This man barked at that man while someone else scurried off in a desperate hurry. It was absolute chaos, out there in the world beyond, the one that was about to swallow her up once and for all. But, beside the little plainly dressed bed, it was stillness personified. 

Realizing that her prayers would not come, Anna Maria climbed back onto the bed. 

Try as she might, she could not escape memories of that night. She struggled desperately to picture anything else, the face of her mother, her laughing little son playing in the sunlight, but she could not see them. Instead, all she could see was the bullet piercing his heart over and over again. 

"So even now you win, Johnathan. Even now. Can your ghost give me no peace at all?" 

The only sound that answered her was the continuing scuffle of the men in the rooms beyond. 

"Very well, John," she said to the stillness. "Very well. We have both had our laughs." 

At some time, the woman with the gentle smile came in and brought her some broth. 

"I tried to get you something nicer. Considering..." she trailed off. "But I couldn't get it. They don't care. Say it won't be long now." 

Once the woman left, Anna Maria did not touch the food. Instead, she stared at it and tried to remember the last meal that she had eaten. Before the world had changed once and for all. She could not. Instead, she could only see him smiling, hear him laughing. Hear him screaming as the blood came pouring out of him. Anna Maria began to cry. 

Finally, the man in the wide-brimmed hat came for her. His face was cracked and dry and his eyes were blank. Her's wasn't the first neck he had broken and it wouldn't be the last. 

"You ready?" he asked her gruffly. They both knew the only answer there could be, so Anna Maria just stared at him blankly before making her way through the door and into the bright light of the corridor beyond. There were men everywhere, the men making all the scuffling. But they were quiet now, they were still as she moved. She cut through them like hot butter. They fell away from every side, afraid to cross her but unable to take their eyes off of her. A woman in a tight spot, that's what she was to them. That's what she had been to herself once, but freedom loomed at hand. 

When she stood on the scaffold, looking down at all the tired and weather faces of the townspeople, she smiled. Though the rope rubbed roughly against her neck and death loomed just beneath her feet, she smiled. 

You have gotten your revenge, Johnathan, she thought to herself as the executioner made his way to the lever, I may have killed you in cold blood and you may have taken your revenge on me for it, but I am the one redeemed.

As the floorboards gave way underneath her, her smile held. 

I am the one freed at long last.   

Come, step out my friend,

And feel the sunlight,

The warmth you cherish,

Will help you through a cold night,

Go ahead, take the risk,

Or place on yourself a bet,

It is better than living,

The end of life in regret.