Nearing final draft of her first chapter. 07/02/2018

You came into my world like high beams on some two lane highway in the middle of a desert night; just as I lost the fight between thirty more miles and pulling over for a nap until sunrise. Fracturing my momentary dream into a million pieces of panic and surprise your light burned through the lids of my eyes and your horn’s noise grabbed at nerves that shook my insides alive.

I remember the giant halo of your glow and light coming head on, the fog in my brain was overwhelming as muscle memory spurred both hands and they registered on the wheel. My grasp was wrapped tight and pulled sharply, sending me into a wrenching swerve: a sudden desperate attempt to avoid our impending collision, as you careened head long my way. In the moments that came, I couldn’t tell if you were slowing or attempting to avoid the obstruction of my vehicle that had wondered into your lane. I only knew the fear as my life flashed before my frozen, bulging eyes. I felt my knuckles strain, threatening to rip flesh, as they pulled against the tension of my grasp on the wheel.

I remember feeling my knee slam under the dash as terror took me and I over compensated. With pang in knee, I stabbed my foot back down at the break. I remember the feeling of gravity shift as my vehicle began to swerve. My body flattened into the door panel and I began the fight to regain control of my vehicle, twisting down that lonely highway.

I remember my body recognized and felt something I couldn’t have truly experienced. At least something internalized differently, this specific time, than any other before or after. Both the fear of loosing control and this new feeling are forever linked somehow. It was something I felt as my shoulder pressed into the drivers side door panel: the feel of the gravel beneath my tires, not in the normal sense of peeling out, or hot rodding around a turn, or when you are navigating a gravel incline and a tire slips, spinning a bit. But, I remember feeling every, single, piece, of gravel, as my tires slid over them, like they were brail desperately attempting to be read by someone with an untrained hand.

And suddenly, I remember, I was fighting gravity to avoid being thrown into the empty passenger seat next to me; with the dutiful assistance of my safety belt I remained behind the wheel. By this point my perspiration was beading at my brow and my palms were slick and damp. The smell filling my nose was terrible: rubber skidding across tar and the metal chemical burn of clutch mixed with burning metallic fumes of locked, red hot breaks. The noxious smoke produced from the instant tread wear of tires attempting to grapple with the texture of pavement at sixty miles per hour and the dust thrown up from the narrow desert road was thick in the air as my vehicle began to spin violently. This must have been one of my wildest dreams.

Your tail lights passed by my view out the front windshield a few times before I came to a slow, lazy roll backwards, eventually coming to a halt on the pavement; vision now dizzy and disoriented. My motion had not stopped however. The spinning had turned my head into one of those twirling carnival rides and transformed my extremities into shaking nerve noodles, who’s vibration emanated from my core.

Regaining my composure, I found myself immediately worried about who I had almost collided with and what state they were in; my concern seemingly met with reply as your hazard lights lit up from the rear of your vehicle ahead. I remember blood pumping in my temples as I raced toward your vehicle, grateful to be alive, and grateful you were still on the road and in one piece as well. 

Closing the distance to your flashing hazards, just hoping you were okay. I felt embarrassed and foolish for putting myself, and you, at risk not stopping a few miles back. I prayed you were not scared or upset with me. Not knowing what to expect as I slowed to a jog nearing your vehicle, I took in the details of the multiple spins my vehicle completed as it whipped round and round directly down the center of the highway. I took in the sight of fresh tread on the pavement left by my tires, scrawled like a signature of some artist signing their work of near miss.

I remember as I looked up again to where your vehicle had come to a stop, that you too where now running my direction. As we approached each other I could tell we both did a quick visual assessment of each other, our vehicles, the tire tread scrawl on the road. We asked each other if the other was okay and learned no harm had come to the other other than shaken nerves and a bit of embarrassment on my part.

I remember hearing your laugh for the first time as we sat on the side of that highway in the middle of the night and lost track of time. We talked about everything, and nothing, as we watched the stars and smiled at each other honestly. Morning came faster than either of us expected, announcing it’s arrival gloriously. The sunrise was exceptionally beautiful that morning. As we peacefully watched, finally pausing in conversation for the first time since we met, we took in it’s orange, blue, yellow, and pink shifting colors sharing glances at each other now and then, trading smiles and blushing cheeks as we did.

As the morning sun’s heat set upon our skin and the brightness of the desert view began to become overwhelming you turned to me with a smile. I remember taking your business card and the electricity fire through my fingertips as our hands touched for the first time.

Your touch felt so exotic then, like some distant land I had read a million books about and knew every detail of but had only experienced through reading the texts written in those pages. I imagine I looked like an adventurer, captivated and in awe, as if I had just stepped off an old steam engine train onto a new landscape. Amusing the locals as they sat on weathered street side benches watching a new traveler, standing bent backwards at the waist; starstruck seeing, smelling, and feeling the foreign environment they had read so much about but were only just experiencing it’s wonders first hand.

As I put your business card into my wallet, so many unknown feelings and pressing questions that I wanted to ask you were coming to my head, fighting each other for place in line and internally pleading for one more second of your time. They were interrupted by one major new question I hadn’t considered so distracted by my internal conflict.

When would I see you again? This question was followed by an even larger: Would I see you again? I was so caught off guard at their staggering weight I remember feeling intimidated by how much they meant to me. 

I chickened out. I didn’t ask and in that moment didn’t know what to do with myself, or my shaken emotions, as we said our good byes.

Before you turned to depart I managed to make sure you too had my number and awkwardly, shuffled back, half facing you, half trying to walk away. I could tell you noticed in the words your smile and laugh always seemed to hold.

I remember watching you drive away as I sat in my vehicle feeling the growth of the stress ball in my stomach escalate. I realized we were going in opposite directions for the first time since we had met and something immediately felt missing in my world. I remember kicking myself not wanting to end up just some guy who you met and that had tried calling you down the road or became just a story of a time you almost got hit head on by some guy in the middle of the desert one starry night. 

A bit late, but just in time, I buckled my seat belt and decided not to become that guy. After pulling my vehicle’s door shut and turning the ignition, I shifted into gear and sent gravel flying behind me, accelerating toward you. Headed in your direction, chasing after you for the first time.

My heart raced as I drove fast to catch up to your vehicle once again and as I pulled up behind you, I obnoxiously got your attention with my horn and the flashing of my lights. I couldn’t believe I had chased after you like a crazy! What would you think of this? Was I crazy?

As you stepped out of your vehicle, I took in your staggering beauty and I confidently acknowledged, almost applauded myself; I had made the right decision. I jogged up to you on the pavement of that two lane highway and blurted out “When will I see you again?!”. Your radiant smile and captivating laugh again told me everything as it often did; I would learn.

I cancelled all of my plans. My new job would have to wait, or I’d find a new one when I got to my destination. I suddenly had you placed at the center of my life’s main screen and didn’t for one second consider what else was going on outside in my periphery. Everything seemed like it mattered just a little bit less than the focus my mind found when trained on you. I spent the day with you, headed in your direction. We played, both lost in the world together, on a new adventure, and loving every moment of it.

By that evening I was already in love and knew it, as I, for the first time, watched the sunset reflect forever in your eyes. I will never in my wildest dreams forget your smile when I admitted my love to you as we watched those stars again, together, that second night.

I also remember how we really met, and this isn’t it! Not even close! But it sure could have been. I mean, some things are similar to how we truly met all those years ago and how our story really went as we fell in love.   

The first night we met, I remember we were hurling in each other’s direction at a million miles per hour and barely missed colliding. That near miss put us into a permanent dance as we orbited each other - dancing in and out of each other’s life, always friends, lovers, strangers, family; whatever we needed to be for the other at that specific moment in time. 

The night we first met I knew, without a doubt, I had met the most amazing woman and I couldn’t believe that I had finally found you; never in my wildest dreams did I think you were really out there. 

That night, I found my best friend as we watched the stars and talked until the sun came up about everything, and nothing. We also spent the next day playing together and I really did watch the sunset reflect forever in your eyes. I did fall in love with you, only almost immediately, almost at first sight. We were a lot younger in those days.

My love switch flipped the very moment you said “Hiiii” that way you did. Your mysterious brown eyes - strands coloring them wonderful, as your cheeks smiled for days. They reached into me latching onto my heart and I did not resist the comfort of your grasp. There was just something so familiar in the way you drew me in and made a place for me in your world. I felt like I had seen this smile of yours before somewhere and it belonged right after that “Hiiii” and right in front of me. There was also something so familiar in the way you said my name, always smiling, you giggled a lot more back then.

Though, we wouldn’t admit it the first night we met, we both knew immediately we would fall deeply in love. I remember the night in that lonely desert town bar on the side of that dusty two lane highway where we finally admitted those first feelings to each other; all those years later. We were lost in smiles and laughs, taking turns loading the jukebox, and ordering rounds of shots, as we traded our independent recounts of fighting hard to find the time and place for those feelings as we journeyed down life’s highway, waiting patiently, to end up in that desert bar’s corner booth we were sitting in: giving in, no longer resisting our feelings of love - one song at a time, after dancing the night away on the bar’s patio dance floor, under the stars.

I remember the exact moment we fell in love, together, fully, deeply, for the first time, in that desert bar.

I chased after you and your smile, following the echoes of your giggle, from that moment on without any regret and loved every moment you chased me back, laughing as we played. I remember how grateful I was getting to know you and how grateful I always will be to have spent all the moments we shared through the years, building our story. The rest of that story of how we really first met, all the songs we shared leading up to the corner booth of that desert bar we found ourselves finally embracing our love in, and what happened after that night are all stories to be remembered another time I think.

I remember the many other things that are similar in the fictional near-miss collision on the desert highway story I started this letter with, but happened completely differently, to a completely different moment, in a very real part of our story.

This part of our story is why I’m writing this letter. I think it is supposed to help...telling you these things. We always shared our deepest feelings with each other and It’s hard holding them all by myself. I’m working on it, love, I promised. Writing these letters to you and the chapters of our time together contained within.

In this part of our story and part of our chapters is a moment where I remember a collision that happened head on and it all started with a phone call.

I remember we were both asleep at the wheel and wholly unprepared as I raced down the highway to you. I remember how sudden the impact came after I reached your side. I remember the pain and jarring as your light in my world, that light that engulfed my vision completely, was in a moment no longer present. I remember my confusion as my momentum came to a complete, and immediate, halt. I remember that I didn’t even have time to scream or brace myself as everything in my world shattered in a devastating explosion and all it’s shiny pieces showered into the air around me. I remember that I didn’t even have both hands on the wheel as my life turned upside down. I remember that there was no seat belt to fasten me in as my breath choked in my throat, stalled, as if suspended mid air.

I remember the look, taste, sound, smell, touch, and feeling of every, single, thing, in that hospital room. I remember the smell of my tears in your hair. I remember how soft your skin was and that your fingernails were not painted like they normally were as I held your hand. I remember the feeling of my nerves as they achieved complete pandaemonium within me. I remember I was trembling as I struggled to breath between crying, then breathing, then crying; tasting the snot running from my nose mixed with the salt that clung to my face as I sat at your side. I remember hearing the sobs in the room as your heart rate monitor stopped blinking. I remember that exact moment you left me. I remember all of the feelings I felt at that moment as my emotions burned deep within and imprinted them as if by brand, permanently emblazoned on my soul. I remember not having the words for them then and I still do not have words for them now. I remember every single detail, reflected in the pieces of my world, as they crashed to the polished surface of that tiny emergency room’s grey and white checkered tile floor. 

I remember that for the first time in a long time we were no longer running toward each other, or in the same direction together, and you weren’t there to make sure I was okay. I remember praying that you would be okay but my heart didn’t hear the echo of yours anymore to be sure. I remember hoping you were not lonely just minutes after you left and began crying: differently, because I didn’t know how to be there for you like I promised I always would be. I remember wanting so badly to chase after you, especially in the months that followed your funeral to keep that promise I made. I remember wanting to make sure you weren’t alone and be by your side as you took off on this new adventure to make sure you got under way okay. There was no catching up to you minutes down that adventure’s road, just to see your smile again and hear you laugh at me for being silly for chasing you as you called me a crazy. I remember trying to lighten my mood and joke to myself about you making a new friend jealous, telling them about a guy that loved you unconditionally in another life. But, I remembered I could not chase you this time; I couldn’t be there to hold you if you happened to fall in love with him and he broke your heart. There was no way to pick you up off the ground and piece your heart back together with pieces of mine if it was broken this time.

I can only hope your resting heart is at peace on your adventure. I hope you found your way a long it’s path home to receive all the letters like this one and that you are able to answer my call when I get there. I hope we can meet in the middle of some two lane highway in the clouds and talk about life down below, or everything, or nothing, as I watch the sunset reflect forever in your eyes like I used to. I hope we can laugh trading jokes about the concept of time; or take turns playing songs to each other as we dance under the stars, waiting to see sunrise on the horizon, and make a game of trying to guess what colors it will surprise us with.

Until then, I count my moments, using my time here the best way I know how, as I deposit all of this love I carry for you into the art I create and words I share. I promised I would write your chapters and will continue to do so with every single moment as I try to see those smiles for you, like those you created and loved to see when you shared your smile and laugh with everyone you met. I will try my best, to paint and write those chapters containing all of my love into the smiles of every single person I meet before it is my time see you again.

When it’s finally our time to sit in those clouds on a not so lonely highway, remembering all the years since that night we first met and remind each other how it’s story really went - I’ll know sitting there, with your hand once again in mine, your fingernails painted that bright red you loved - I’m sure - that I did my best to make you proud; as I tell you how proud I am of you, the life of adventures and wonder you lived, the lives you impacted with your story, the world you left more beautiful remembering your smile, and the better man your presence in my life made me for that world and the lives within it.

I remember you every single day and wrote this letter to tell you: that more than anything, I patiently wait to learn how we finish our story, because never in my wildest dreams, could these stars be as beautiful as I remember, all those moments, I spent watching them with you.

Second chapter of The Chapters of a Unicorn by mhmarie.

2800 words, 10 minute read, Write is in editing as of 07/26/2018.

Chosen for challenge as this unicorn could bring a smile to any face.

First chapter: Never In My Wildest Dreams

https://theprose.com/book/1643/The%20Chapters%20Of%20A%20Unicorn

Image: Drache by sandara on DeviantArt

So, we didn’t meet driving through the desert on some lonely dusty highway in the middle of the night.  I thought long and hard how to possibly start telling your story and honestly had no intention of it starting the way it did. I was as surprised as I hope you were when my fingers found themselves taking a different direction to the fictional short story I was working on.  

Everything that flowed forth, the words, memories, tears, and absolute dance of emotions all were an absolute surprise and complete shock to me as I poured those words and emotions out in that letter to you. I wonder how many people still think this is a story based in fiction?

Sitting there, editing that write--immediately following the first draft; I again felt the riptide of emotions.  I was caught somewhere between radiating smiles like moonbeams full of little giggles at our good times and sobbing; as I relived that hailstorm of vivid details in that tiny hospital room the morning your dance ended. 

As I staggered between the chunks of frozen pain hurling through my memory’s recount of that morning and taking the blows that physically jarred my soul--I remembered something beautiful.

That memory is why I’m writing this letter to you.  I remembered you absolutely loved surprises.  I immediately realized I was on the right track, love. That impossible task you had left me with of writing your chapters. Telling that great story you lived and always hoped to write yourself one day; all the sudden had a first step. A path forward out of the depths of my soul hole and into some form of communication that was sensible; shareable, and somehow remained beautiful; untouched by the darkness of my grief and the clumsiness of my lonely dance.

I knew a surprise was the only way to start your story.  It reminded me of that empathy game you would play when anyone was sad, hurt, or unable to smile for whatever reason.  

Your little voice, sweet and caring sent out like a true Texas cowgirl’s lasso would ride on waves of beautiful concern.

“Do you want to hear a joke?”  You would ask head cocked slightly left or right.  Your monster playfully staring out of the viewports of your soul.  Her playful and adorable monster smile mirrored upon your own. Pearls of teeth showing between the curls of a anticipating smile; eyes glimmering with hope and raeching out with tendrils of a promise.

If that didn’t work; just a first step to your game. More of a distraction and staging point than anything else, upon which to build a platform structure to support the recoils of an empathy loaded cannonade barrage.

“No.”  I’m not sure how it couldn’t have worked and someone denied you, especially your antics.  Who wouldn’t want to hear a joke a bout a cat?!  They must have been kitten.  

Gosh for someone so flighty and always on the move, when it came to others, when it came to saving someone else, you always had the patience and time like that of a perfect sunset’s glow, enfolding upon the horizon of your presence and engulfing the attention of this troubled empathy game contender.

“Can I play you a song?”  Your smile radiating.  I can hear some of your go to on the spot songs right now - they did that jumble thing; song, playing on song, playing on song.  Jumper, Firework, 22, Tubthumping, Boys In The Hood--the Dynamite Hack version of coarse.  

You had a so many songs in your library, that beautiful place within our souls we built to lock away everything grand and keep hidden, safe from the world outside.

But, that is a story for another time I think. Our libraries, how they were built, and the wild fantastical places, artifacts, secrets, that they contained. Their custodian staff, playful monster inhabitants, and the demons that raged within, guarding the knowledge, treasures, captured moments, imprisoned eons and hidden truth’s secured within the pages, chapters, tomes, shelves, levels, and vaults of our libraries’ complex design.

“No.”  Again a no.  I can remember how hard it was though I managed to make it this far more than a few times playing the “No card” in your game; its soundtrack roaring in my head: “I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend.” “As you shoot across the skyyy” “I don’t know about you but I’m feeling, twenty-twoooo.” “I get knocked down, but I get up again.” “I reached back like a pimp and I slapped…” Well…you will have to look that one up.

“I could sing you a song..?” Never loosing your smile.  Eyes full of sparkle and shine.  Honest.  True.  Encouraging.

“No.”  I’m not sure who truly aside from the most stubborn of individuals made it to this point without caving to that sweet voice of yours and its tangle of Texas southern, pig-tailed adorable, smokey vixen drawl melody played while the needle arm indicator of your empathy register was bouncing far into the red-zone.  

”…do you need a hug?”  Your head cocking slightly again to the side, eyes wide--not with concern but projecting pure portals of empathetic love storms.  The light in the strands of your eyes dancing like lightning attempting to ground themselves on pain receivers of whoever was weathering the brunt of this incoming torrent of care and empathetic solidarity.

“No…I’m okay really”  That was always my line anyway and we both know it always meant my chest was caving under the weight of whatever was perched upon it eating at my peace.

“I know you will be because you are awesome, and strong…” as you would give a hidden truth; something only you knew. A truth wrapped in a uniquely decorated package and gifted as I imagine a kitten would share its favorite toy with a much larger new feline that had suddenly appeared in their fluffy world. Gently, slowly slid by fresh furred tiny paw, awkwardly; as if not to push it too close but not leave your gift falling short and somehow offending this new presence that you were trying to appease.

This true gift of yours was always given freely as you pointed out the quality or strength you saw and loved most about that person. You wrapped it in the beautiful, caring, empathetic essence of an emotion that you uniquely felt for that person and slowly slid it, with nurturing confidence directly in front of their shaken soul; never breaking your raging love storm gaze that emanated from your caressing smile stare.

“We don’t have to talk about it, let’s not talk about it; if you don’t wanna talk about it!  Then, I don’t wanna talk about it!” you would follow immideately after your gift was received. The carefully packaged emotion hidden withen springing out like Poo’s Tigger in a box wrapping its loving care around the weight hanging from the distressed soul’s neck. Like a bouey it would immediately, dutifully begain tugging the darkness that had settled there back to the surface of the hole they had found themselves in, tugging them right into your outstreatched embrace yearning hands.

“Thank you, I’ll be okay--shit happens yah know.”  Again, my go to response.  I must have looked like an easy opponent in your empathy game at first.  I apologize for being so stubborn.  I couldn’t let you carry everything, love.  I know you would have if I let you.

You would pause then, after confirming there would be no talking about it.  Now full of vigor as you were presented with a challenge in your game.  A boss match on your last life against whatever foul creature created level 136 that has kept you a prisoner with Princess Peach all week.  I mean who would arrange all those bubbles this way to make you memorize that combo and perform whatever seemingly impossible task to complete the match.  

I assume situations like these are why you played your games every day in the challenges you faced.  I don’t remember you ever playing games, really.  Maybe a lot of Just Dance, or Guitar Hero…those were the days.

Accepting this “last life” boss match challenge to turn that “frown upside down” you would dive into your magic world that existed inside your library attached phone rolodex and memorize a new joke because, why not, right?  A new trick in your bag of wonderful antics.  Once satisfied in your search with a good one line zinger like a zoo that only had one animal being a Shit-zoo and that giggle of yours stifled--probably after texting the joke to someone because you just couldn’t help but share a good joke; the next phase of your quest began.  

A song, a perfect song, Youtube, iPod, iTunes--no, maybe, no, no, maybe.  Your mind whirling through its music library attempting to pin down that perfect jam that would bring a smile.  A smile token roll in queue on your empathy turn playlist just incase that person changed their mind and opened their momentarily shattered heart by deciding maybe a song would help.

Once a perfect classic was queued up and on standby: the next phase of your beautiful game began. This phase began with a little bounce, a shuffle spree--type of motion that found rhythm as your lips began to slightly follow the motions of a song. I always knew it was reflex. You just had to be sure your performance was ready and on point if your offer to sing them a song was debated and later accepted.

“You are my sunshinnnneeee, myyy onlyyy sunnshine…..” was on full blast in your rainbow world.  Blasting over your internal PA system like a full on dressed rehearsal of a pop singer like Katy Perry singing Roar to an empty stadium the night before a sold out show. 

By this point in your attempt to inject that sullen soul that you were internally serenading, dancing with, telling jokes to, and hugging with your empathetic eyes and radiant presence, I always knew you were shaking inside, your monster ready to play and run off all the empathy you were absorbing. You were simply unable to let it go naturally and its weight at time’s was a strain as you couldn’t help but try and rid everyone of their darkness.

“Well what do you want to do?  Because this is not okay!  You better cheer up butter-cup!”  Taking charge after all this planning you just wouldn’t be able to take it any longer.  Something had to be done.

“Let’s get a beer - it looks like you need one.  Don’t you worry!  I’ve got the first round.  Let’s go find today and you will forget all about it!”  I loved this moment.  Your tender grasp around the heart would change.  It would shift so suddenly from nurture to play I doubt anyone that hadn’t undergone this enchanting berate of your play many times before would even know what had just reached inside and grasped them. 

Spurred to their feet, maybe smiling, maybe not yet, soon their hand in yours, or somehow at least feeling completely trapped in your grasp they would manage, one foot after another, to follow your energized bouncing gait.  

They would follow because it was no longer their choice. I mean, they had a choice obviously but most were ill-equipped to pull against the vacuum of your presence - now in motion pulling at everything in your wake. Something inside them, that positive vibe we all carry, had latched onto your positivity and courageous nature, fully wrapped in your adventure’s path.  

Your nature which by now had undoubtedly--completely captivated their mind, heart, and soul. This captivation held heart in tow was compelled to follow your bouncing playful boot steps, the dancing sway of your hips as you jammed that song previously set into queue, and became ambushed by the joke previously declined.

In short order that entrancing spell of yours would deliver this new devout follower of your enchanting tune into a habitat of your choosing. Typically, an establishment with plenty of alcohol, a jukebox, and all hoping, a compliant and understanding bartender as they too were now a unwitting participant of your game; trapped behind their bar and under your playful smile stare.

“Hiiii!  How is your day going?  Are you almost off?  What is your favorite part about working here?  Do you have any stories, you know, something crazy that has happened?  My friend here needs some cheering up - can you help me with that? I need two shots and two beers pweaseee! Thank you!”  Hook line and sinker the game had shifted opening up a new front of bartender flair, and your smile stare, against the thing sapping the smile within the contender you were playing against. Three against one if you counted alcohol as a neutral contender its self…I will be sure to ask next time I see you.

“Now that you have some booze in your tummy, don’t you feel betters?!”  As your counter offensive to this question was being packaged, activated, loaded, and locked into your response tube like a torpedo awaiting to be sent from a stealthy submarine. No matter what the response hurling your direction was going to be, you would be ready to again counter.

“Well!  Keep drinking, and remember!  No tears in your beer.  We are big kids at play here.”  By now a smile surely had cracked somewhere a long this line of play.  And, you would be holding it hostage, somehow suspended in mid air between you and this person as a promise. A promise you made from that first empathetic wide eyed glistening smile that said you were playing a game and the goal was to keep that smile a float--a promise that you wouldn’t let it drop on your end; and you did not loose.

I appreciate all the times you played this empathy game and held that smile for me. I appreciate every time you launched into this game with all of our friends, strangers; anyone who needed to be reminded how to play. A game designed to remind the contender that big kids too can still play and our smiles are often being held by great friends when we have lost them.

That look of surprise at the end of the game when that person realizes their smile was hanging there, right in front of them the whole time like some magic trick. Just floating there, suspended in mid air by your smile stare is the prize and all players win. This game is now something I know how to play because of you. Thank you for making me your partner in this game over the years. This will forever be one of my favorite games and it has already painted some of those smiles for you in this world like I promised.

Hopefully this second chapter did it’s thing like you would and played the empathy game as it was read, bringing a smile to the tears that stain the pages of the first chapter for those who were surprised by your last dance. It sure wiped some of mine off my cheeks, love. Thank you - I needed a quick empathy game myself.

That memory, I suppose is the best way to approach this second letter to you. The second chapter of what I hope is a very playfully clumsy, bouncing, and all over the place recount of your chapters. Only under these conditions could it be told while capturing that part of your curious nature. Forever clumsy, but in a graceful somehow natural and not awkwardly stumbling, yet always bouncing back to its feet never missing a beet like you managed in your dance of silly quirks and beautiful natures.

So, I started with a surprise and at the end because never in my wildest dreams could I imagine leaving all of these beautiful people that will read your chapters with the heaviest part. It was not meant to be carried and the goal is to set its weight here and out of me at the start of your story to be left there. To be left there and ensure the sadness of your passing does not loom as your great story is being told. 

It is not meant to be picked up or carried and only by starting at the end could I be absolutely confident the hardest part of your story was over for all of your new fans who will soon be doting over your antics.

I played in the rain for you yesterday. I wrote under a great oak tree as the rain gently came in waves; juicy summer raindrops - she spoke differently than ours though.

I stumbled upon a park with a random yellow bicycle standing a lone in it. As I stopped to admire the awkward but beautiful sight the sky opened up!

Sister once told me a quote of yours that I narrated in your little voice as the rain poured….

“I love it when it rains!  It’s like the sky is crying for me when I can’t.”

I cried.

Your momma is beautiful and we drank to that beautiful red hair for you. I know you both are now playing together. I’m glad you have a friend there to keep you company. I know he had to have been lonely.  

I also finished another chapter, love.  It is positive and all smiles this time - the hardest part went first. Everyone misses you.

PS. I met someone.  Well…I saw someone and she sang little mermaid.  She is beautiful, girlfriend.  Smiles for days.  Her monster does that thing. I can tell she is sweet and kind. There is a wild one hiding in there.  Sunday check in on us - I’m trying so hard.

I know you would be telling me to play.  Always encouraging.

I challenged her to adventure games for you.  All of your antics...

I hope she too knows how to play.

I’ll visit you soon. Promises. Loves.

Ohh!  Lappy is fixed - I’m wearing out that keyboard with these fiesty naked fingers. Grrrowwlll!

I look for you in rainbows

and search for you in the stars.

These memories of you

I feel like I’m chasing cars.

My heart breaks daily

remembering your smile.

I imagine your laugh

as we sit and joke for a while.

Adventures seem so lonely

without your monster in play.

Those fields of right and wrong

we lost them along the way.

I’ll try and keep my nods up

and my heart on the mend.

Until we meet again

my dearest friend. 

I’m so proud of the beautiful disaster we painted back then.

I sure had a lot of empty space on my canvas in those days.

I think we started a masterpiece, love.


I’ll continue putting on the shows holding close my memories of when we both starred in those plays as I finish perfecting your story knowing you are watching from above.

Original Painting

Spray paint on poster board.

Theprose.com/mhmarie

Facebook.com/mhmrie

https://www.instagram.com/p/BlmYsU8AFce/?taken-by=m.h.marie

She danced to the beat as he danced in the streets.

Their story inked on parchment and painted into canvas.

A beautiful song all of their own sang by treble muse and bass blues.

His two left feet paired with her’s—never quite right, they danced all night.

When the wind blows in I see your hair flowing in the breeze.

I hear the pitter patter of your little feet as I listen to the drops.

I see all of your curves in the soft folds of the clouds.

I see your edges in the lightning’s dance remembering how you moved.

I hear your laughter in the thunder as it rolls over me.

When the puddles dance, to every drop of rain, I see you playing in them.