In blink of an eye he saw it

A dream, Followed, not forgotten

A smile, natural, not forced

A life with her, Real, not imagined

Moments enjoyed, not hardly passed

He saw it all

Before he blinked again

And then it was all gone

"Sir...Sir? I would like to order."

He was back again

Was that a dream?

Or a life in another universe?

Or was that a possibility

He blinked again

But couldn't see it

The dream

The smile

The life

The moment.

I find myself walking the streets more and more lately. It doesn't really matter which ones. A moment in Shanghai, another in New York, the next in Old York. Does anyone call it that? I don't know.

The point is, after so much time stuck walking the cosmic corridor you tend to find appreciation in the strangest things. I remember a time, not that long ago really, that I rejected those that littered my creation.

Their chaos. Their ever present need for attention.

Now they're the only thing keeping me from succumbing to the deadliest condition someone like me can suffer from.

Boredom.

But here...? In my world? The slightest permutations are all it takes to change what could have been a moment of weakness into a moment of hope. A moment of despair becomes a moment of strength. I marvel at these miracles, beyond even my ability to make. I covet them more than I'd like to admit.

I reach out my hand and strum the threads I weaved together an age ago, and off I go to the next.

You know the question that I get the most? "Why did you do it? All of it. Any of it." I never get the opportunity to answer because then it's off to the next. Always off to the next.

But if I did get to, answer that is, I think I know what I would say.

"What makes you think I thought any of it through."

I bet that would throw them all for a loop.

Don't get me wrong, I admire them in a way. If only they knew just how strong they are. They don't need me or my "answers" anymore. They haven't in a long time.

I need theirs. So it's off to the next. For as long as it takes to understand.

The day before our trip to Disneyland, I woke up with blood in my underwear. I should have been surprised, but I wasn’t. I’d known this was coming, sooner or later, the same way it was always looming for prepubescent girls, but I’ll admit, the timing wasn’t stellar. Still, I wasn’t surprised. Life had always had a way of taking good things away from me. Why should I have hoped to be a child at the most magical place on earth, if even only for a day? I shook my mother awake in the darkness of Grandma’s guest bedroom. “I started my period,” I stated bluntly.

“Oh honey,” Mom moved to cup my face, to give sympathy, but I pulled out of her touch and tucked twitching hands behind my back.

“It’s not a big deal. I just need…stuff.”

Mom sighed, resigned, and threw off her blankets. She shouldn’t be surprised this was how I’d chosen to handle the situation. First blood or not, I’d been an adult for years. It didn’t matter that I was only twelve. I’d stopped being a child the first time I’d offered myself up for a beating to spare my little brother. Dad didn’t particularly care who he hit, so long as he hit someone. I’d been six then and already well on my way to understanding some things about the world I really shouldn’t have. With the first smack of Dad’s beating stick on my back, the last dregs of innocence had left my small body. I should probably feel something about that, too, but I didn’t. It’s just the way things were.

My mother shuffled past, beckoning me to follow her into the bathroom across the hall. She held up a bulky panty liner, “Here. This is all Grams has. We’ll stop and get you something better on the way. Let me show you how to use it.”

I nodded, and let her show me, though I already knew. My best friend had gotten her period six months ago. Sara wasn’t one to leave out any detail and had shared the ins and outs of bleeding and tampons and pads with brutal efficiency to anyone who would listen in our little friend group. Yes, I already knew, but I let Mom show me. It was more important for her to feel needed than it was for me to be comfortable. And so, I shuffled out of the bathroom and packed up my bag, adding a fistful of the low-quality incontinence liners to my purse.

We drove for twelve hours that day. I shifted uncomfortably in the back seat of my grandparent’s minivan, but I wouldn’t dare complain. They were footing the bill for this trip to Disney. God knew my mom, who was in the throes of raising six kids solo, couldn’t afford it. Mom bought me tampons at a truck stop. Every hotel we’d be staying at during our week-long trip would have a pool, and I loved to swim. Mom tried to convince me that I wouldn’t even bleed much, but I knew she was wrong. My body had been hovering on the precipice of this thing for too long. I was more developed than any of the other girls I knew, with heavy breasts and curving hips and standing at 5’8” already. Men had been screaming vulgar things out the windows of their trucks at me for two years as I made my trek to school in the mornings. I couldn’t really blame them for mistaking me for a woman or something close to one. I looked like it. I relished the vile words the men spewed out their windows at me. I knew I shouldn’t, but my father had told me I was an ugly thing for so long, it was nice to know that someone, anyone, thought differently. I pondered all of these things during the twelve-hour drive, and arrived at the conclusion that while the whole period thing was miserable, it wasn’t a bad thing. It was just another step toward becoming the adult I so desperately wanted to be. When I was an adult, I could be free. I wanted so badly to be free. I wanted so badly to be wanted.

By the time we arrived at the theme park the next night, I was an old hat at the whole tampons and pads thing. I had fully leaned into the idea that no matter what anyone tried to tell me, I was a woman now. I’d demand the respect of one. And I did. Grams and Mom were the first to notice the shift. They just met my gaze with a knowing glint and subtle nods. I’d not be treated like a child anymore. Mercifully, they didn’t try to. They stopped giving me orders and started deferring to me for opinions and on the fourth evening of the trip, Grandma handed me a tattered copy of her favorite romance novel and informed me, “You’re old enough to read this now.”

During our breaks from the sticky, sweaty excitement of the park, I devoured the book. It confirmed some things that’d been pondered over pillows at many a slumber party. The book gave vital information on how to fully wield the power that’d been bequeathed upon me in the form of generous hips and cat eyes. On the last night of the trip, my bleeding had stopped and I clutched a towel around my breasts and left the hotel room with a mumbled, “I’m going to the pool.”

Surprisingly, no one challenged me. They let me slip from the room, twelve years old, clad in nothing but an orange bikini and a towel.

I smiled with wicked delight as I made my way to the pool yard. I’d been watching, these days past, hoping for an opportunity to test my hypothesis, but in order to do that, I needed to get away from my family… and they’d just… let me leave. My heart pounded as I exited the building. The thick, warm night air of a Los Angeles summer blasted me, and I gulped down lungfuls and told myself to be brave. I stepped into the poolyard and let my towel drop. It pooled around my feet, and when I looked up, six pairs of eyes were running up and down the length of me. I met a pair of glittering blue and grinned. I let a little bit of that heat I’d been kindling flare in my eyes, too, “Can I join you?” I purred in a voice foreign to my ears. The minor league baseball player across from me smiled lazily and trailed his fingers through the steaming water next to him.

“Sure,” he said, taking another sweeping look down to my toes and then slowly back up before he met my eyes again. Something stirred in his gaze and I bit my lip before climbing into the hot tub beside him.

I’d been watching the baseball team for a few days. They had rooms down the hall from ours. I’d overheard them talking about their spur-of-the-moment decision to stay a few nights and explore the theme park before continuing on their way. All of them were young, in their early twenties, and all of them were outrageously good-looking in the way only aspiring male athletes can be. They were all also, mercifully, on good behavior. I took for granted the danger I was putting myself in, not having learned the other truths about the way men might behave when confronted with an almost-naked young woman. And that’s what they thought I was: a young woman. My body, my face, the way I held myself told them. They didn’t ask, and I didn’t bother to correct them. I spent hours in the pool that night, riding on their shoulders, swimming beside them, running my hands all over them, their hands all over me. I reveled in it. I laughed and they echoed, and when the one with striking blue eyes invited me up to his room, I thought for a long minute about going, but this man was a gentleman and he saw the hesitation in my eyes and tipped his head.

“I get it,” he said, “you’ve got other attachments.”

I smirked and nodded, allowing him to believe whatever conclusion he’d come to.

“Either way, this was,” he smiled, “...fun. Thanks.”

I twined my fingers in his and looked up under my lashes, “Sorry.”

He ran a tentative hand down my cheek. “There’s nothing to apologize for. Let me know if you change your mind. You can find me in room 402.”

I nodded again and gave him the sultry smile I’d spent an hour cultivating in the mirror earlier. He grinned and turned away, exiting the pool yard with his friends elbowing and gently ribbing along the way.

When they were gone, I sank back into the hot tub and laughed. Though they didn’t know it, those men had just given me the keys to the kingdom. My hypothesis was confirmed. There was power in this woman’s body. I’d just had no less than ten men dancing for me like puppets on strings. I palmed my round breast and grinned at the sky. Yes, there was power in this body, power in the truth I now beheld. And I would use it from that moment forward to get everything I ever wanted.

When we left the most magical place on Earth the next day, my metamorphosis was complete. I was a woman, and the world wasn’t ready for the terrors I was poised to unleash upon it.

Isn’t it interesting the superstitions we believe in… the full moon brings out the crazy, death or bad news comes in threes… don’t say things are going well at work ESPECIALLY in the medical field either human or veterinary medicine. We can discount the superstitions and say they aren’t true but in my experience, full moons mean late night filled with tears, and every time I receive bad news I try to guess which other two things could go terrible wrong. It’s interesting and a large part of me believes it all to be true. Because at night when I’m driving home from a day filled with euthanasias and I’ve told my family they have to say goodbye to their loved one and I check my phone to discover my own baby has been long gone for 48 hours it hurts… it hurts terribly bad and I look up at the sky to pray to God and there is the moon. Full and bright… shining as bright as the sun sometimes almost as if to mock me. The sun is warm and inviting and the moon is filled with mystery and sadness. The moon follows me home and tucks me into bed and tells me to have a good nights rest but at 3 am I toss and turn and the light is shining so bright through my window it must be morning but it’s not. It’s the Moon… mocking me again.

It's early February

Yet Persephone returned to earth Long ago in Cilicia

With every bloom, a tale untold,

In valleys green and fields of gold.

Oh, let us sing!

For here, where land and sea unite,

We find our strength, our pure delight.

Let joy bloom like flowers in early spring

For here, in this land of boundless happiness,

The sun shining upon us will remind

We're young, we're free, forever to be.

most bones rest in peace

I want my bones to rest with you

in sunlight, in warmth

fingers sinking into deep grass

hair tangled up in vibrant petals

of daisies and forget-me-nots

most bones rest in peace

but my bones want to rest with you

between the mangled sheets of our bed

between the beating heartbeats

of the home

that was always sewn

within the fibers of our souls

most bones rest in peace

but my bones only truly

rest with you

From the thistle and vine

From the thicket of thorn

Into the light of the morning

Out from the briar patch, gone

In a flicker of light

Into the glimmer of dawn

Slipping out at the daybreak

With the rise of the sun

In the ticking of time

From the clock on the wall

Ring the bells of a new day

Sing the words of this song

As the cripple creek winds

Along the bend in the road

Through the cut of the canyon

Into the wake of what’s gone

In the literal mind

Of the words as they're known

Comes the turn of a new phrase

Twisted off an old one

Down from the rain in the sky

Onto the earth where it falls

Through the Rock of the Ages

Through the Roll of the Souls

In the blink of an eye

In the wink of one more

Slipping back in the nightfall

By the light of the stars

Bring the whistle and rhyme

Into the twisted knot hole

Another day in a lifetime

Back to the briar patch, gone

Too busy to stop and too busy to see,

too busy giving sweetly packaged pieces of me.

I looked up be it brief what I saw destroyed me.

The brass ring jingled painfully the sounds made unearthly.

The reflection, who is she?

Nobody mentioned.

Has she always been there?

I had a vague recollection.

Then I was falling fast out of my mind.

Where were the hands I held all my life?

Nobody there, those mortals I trusted.

Not just backed away but becoming the culprits.

The reflection reached out, glittering light.

Through the terror and anguish I could still see her shine.

Again I was falling down impossible depths.

There is nothing lower, not in life, not in death.

Like Alice through the looking glass,

how could I say goodbye?

It all mattered so much,

so I tried and I tried.

Watching it all spinning away and away,

seeing parts of me in all I had given away.

My mind stilled and I knew,

I had nothing left in me to help me through.

I held nothing back and got nothing returned.

The last of me was tattered and burned.

The last of me was gone long ago,

feeding the needs of those who needed me so.

They left when they realized what they had done.

Nothing left in me useful, time to move on.

Landing in this upside-down place terrified and confused.

Creatures knew my name, none of them I knew.

I couldn’t trust anything in this world without shape.

I curled up in a pitiful void, my sorrow my cape.

I cried silver butterflies and orange dragons with ropes.

My tears fell into seeds growing owls and wolves.

They grew loud and hungry in the void of my pain.

Terror and weakness grew as they raged.

I lay there for lifetimes of seconds and breaths.

Years into minutes I wept and I wept.

My mind raced and spun searching for the cure.

The moments she stood there my mind was empty and pure.

I would think of that nobody of light not worth mention.

The dragons stood guard with butterflies on there noses.

The owls crying tears big as mirrors to mask me.

Those tears with reflections materializing her with me.

I’d see her there shimmering in fantastic form.

Hiding in the void now wrapped in her arms.

I'd look to the dragons realizing anew,

how lost I was now in this world beyond truth.

I'd forget beautiful nobody again and again.

Sliding fast to delirium, falling back out of my head.

Emerging she’d creep between claw and buzzing wing.

First random, then often, then an everyday thing.

Years had gone by still she came everyday.

One day I bravely didn't push her away.

I held out my hand her face showed delight.

She took me by the hand we emerged into bright.

She held me steady while I looked around.

Eyes adjusting to the new reality I found.

I looked back again to my magical friend.

Laughing at my expression, awareness set in.

Reaching out I touched the cool glass I stared in.

Twirling around she glittered so free.

I felt the air around me as I twirled,

keeping pace…with me?

My laugh grew louder,

myself time to be.

She was me; I was her, the magical nobody.

Staying hidden behind the masks I would go by.

This time with no hiding she was visible and bright.

I realized with horror, I was hiding from my own light!

I wasn’t protecting myself from the monsters!

I was only protecting the pain that I fostered!

No, she laughed again, you gave you away without any care.

You’d have given them me too, you were so unaware.

Instead your pain saved me, kept me hidden and safe.

Now you understand and it’s a glorious day.

Now I am safe with you, full of trust and full of love.

I'd never give you away, you are a gift from above!

Myself, I remarked,

quickly grasping the point.

Your quiet genius you know that?

Her curtsy making me laugh.

You knew they would never let me be free,

if the light of you, sill flickered through me.

Safe then, in our dark despair. Who wants that?

We weren’t worth their care!

The light not put out, but carefully tended,

allowed only to burn as a tiny hot ember.

For staying hidden back then was the only way through.

Hiding my light is what led me to you.

***An author on instagram posted a poem that began with the first two lines. This is my unique take on the idea.***

I'd let you read

the things I wrote

about you,

except that I already have.

I wrote about you

when I wrote about the stars

hiding in the eyes of children.

I wrote about you

when I wrote about the statues

that captured the love of dreamers.

I wrote about you

when I wrote about the shadows

the artists crawled to to survive.

When you read what I wrote

about the man in the moon,

my dear you were only

ever reading about you.

When you read what I wrote

about the long talks at night,

it was only about you,

I'd decided to write.

When you read what I wrote

about oxygen and jazz,

you will see the real influence

thattrue love has.

When you read about fear,

about narcissism and shame,

in between the cursed lines,

you'd also read your name.

I'd let you read the things

I wrote about you,

except you already did-

but please, keep on believing

I just dreamt up

all of this

Our shadows in the moonlight, two lovers walk hand in hand.

I rest my head on your shoulders, our love, like whispers, grow, against the compassionate night breeze of the coconut palms.

Beneath the gentle moon's soft glow, our shadows dance in tender embrace as we wander through this remote space. With every step our hearts entwine and we experience a love so beautifully kind.

Like a smooth operator you gaze into my eyes then get on one knee, to my surprise. In this moment, it feels like time is standing still and I surrender to love's call. Surely, you are the one to complement me, the one God sent at my door.

The night sky, a canvas of dreams, a symphony of peace washes over you and me. Hand in hand together, the start of forever, we navigate the night though we depart to our separate abodes. With empathy we'll understand each other's pain and weather life's rainy storms.