Ruminate
As soon as the bubble of dread bursts, and the bad news is shared, it sinks into my chest like a parasite with a ring of fangs for teeth. Whatever the tragedy, it belongs to anyone but me. And yet it consumes me, feeds from my energy as if the perpetrator grows stronger from affecting the world with their depravity. I beg myself to look away, shield my mind from the despair of a stranger. Something sinister then convinces me that to shut it out is to invalidate their pain. Somehow knowing and feeling their anguish may somehow relieve them from it for only a moment. Who would I be to deny the damned from a moment of peace? But of course they continue to suffer, and I continue to flood my own brain with images of what had occurred as if I were a first- hand witness. I wonder, I fear, I endure thoughts like a runaway train headed for my inner child tied to the tracks. Vulnerable and pure, the shock of a bad event alive elsewhere in the universe shatters me and violates my inner world. I ruminate on the facts, chewing and considering until I feel so worthless that I cannot help. I feel so weak and pathetic that it brings me panic to consider my feelings when it isn't about me. It has nothing to do with me. I try to change the topic of my inner monologue, to will control over my conscious existence. My subconscious always drawing me back into the abyss. The conflicting nature of blissful ignorance and being aware of the world. I don't wish to set my head in the sand, but I wish my thoughts would break from misery and focus on the hope.
My Love
I have given it to you
All that I can
To show you the way
Hand in my hand
I twisted myself
Around the start of you
It broke, I didn't break
You wholed me like glue
My strength and my weakness
You are my heart
The world I will give you
Even when we're apart
Watching you thrive
Wheels turning, eyes clear
It's all I could hope
The absence would be fear
When you grow old
I will grow older, too
You'll be what I hope for
Nothing else for me to do
Strength, wisdom, poise
Treasure in your chest
All the best things
I know you possess
From the day that I met you
You fit me like a glove
I am proud to have birthed you
You are my love
The Color Blue
The hue of calm
Peace within
A deliberate balm
A dancing whim
A cold hard truth
Slithering eel
Cold clamy smooth
Fascinating feel
Rough as frozen stone
And soft as mist twilight
Calm as the sweetest tone
Dancing into midnight
A best friend forever
Deep summer pool
Thinking something
Feeling deeply cool
A hug after a cry
A whisper and laugh
The favorite sweater you buy
Then have to bring back
Blue is the way of being
Fresh, loving, and breezy
There so more to it than seeing
Not what makes you uneasy
Unalive
Fear is an un-motivator
An unkind instigator
Of the moon
A dark circumvented crator
Anxiety is a burden
Sharp and unknown
It prevents you from the way
You should have grown
No FOMO within
Avoidant to all harm
Where some seek adventure
Others see harm
Believe in the worst
Watch it come true
Shield yourself from it
Shudder and bubble burst
Watch skin break out in hives
Hyperventilating - no breath
Stay away
Don't live your lives
Then and Now
I learned about life from my family. My father sucked the air from any room he walked into. His eyes pierced any morsel of joy and he consumed it with loud envy. My mother spun six plates on five sticks without the bandwidth to take on more. There was no teamwork between the two and no love lost when they were through. I zigged and zagged to find my place, never succeeding. And I cried alone with no one to call for.
And then I met a man. He was mature and hard to please. So I didn't try to please him, and I in fact didn't hide anything from him. I was 18, and he was 20, and now that seems very funny, but he seemed so much older and so much wiser. He wasn't afraid of my honesty or the truth of my broken parts. In fact, he fell in love with me and nearly scared me off with his acceptance.
We spend every day together. He fills the room he walks into with light and lots of noise. When I have five plates and five sticks, he will take the one I'm focusing on and try to spin it himself. Even though I did not need or want the help. And our child is the center of our world. He will be what and who he wants and we will sit with him wherever he needs his place to be.
Wind
When she was little, she tried to tame the wind. Admiring the way the trees bowed and waved in the breeze. Upon silent streets, cheers erupted as an invisible presence passed through. Transparent, but not unnoticed. It could be calm and gentle, or fierce and howling through the chimney. She wanted nothing more than to possess that power; to exist without being forgotten and heard when she needed to speak.
As she grew, she learned to feeling of wind on her skin as freedom. The dark night cloaking innocent mischief as she ran out in secret with friends. The wind kissing her cheeks and blowing by with passing cars as they hid. The parting of still air as she whipped through on roller skates, dancing along with the beating bass under the disco ball. Creating wind, at last, where there previously had been none.
Once grown, she breathed calmly as the wind rushed the shore. She admired the water obey each gust as it leapt into somersaults on the beach. The sails on far-out boats being given mighty pushes to their destination from the merciful and powerful force of nature. Her inner child delighted by kites in the hands of small children running up an down the wall of the ocean. She wondered if they, too, could see the wind the way she did.
Wild Oats
Youth is a drug only craved once the bar closes and all of your friends returned to their separate homes. The thrill you had walking from the car into the building proudly and in short shorts with a skin tight top is replaced with exhaustion and embarrassment for having the sweat chill your body to its core causing you to hunch over yourself to preserve warmth. There is something to be said about the rush of dancing, knowing all eyes were on you, and knowing that you were a spectacle to behold. Bodies of strangers pressed against each other in passing. Towards the middle of the room you stayed so the mesmerizing lights of the disco ball can blind you to the seedy elements cleaving to darkened outer edges. You could kiss a stranger, if you want to, and then move on to another dance partner.
Suddenly life pulls you away. There is no plan of action, no warning, no lack of desire for the old haunt. The monotony sets in and settles into your suffering joints. Finding a friend to re-liven the moment you truly felt powerful becomes as hard as finding the right shape wear to pull in your midsection to fit into your old skin. Once you return to the scene of your own historic envy, you realize that the crowd no longer parts to welcome you in. Your body is rigid and no longer fluid with the waves of music, and your companions insist on conversing instead of singing along. The feeling sinks in and you realize that you've outgrown a pass-time that once gave you a purpose. You've aged while the building has echoed without fading. The past is within reach but too slippery to fully grasp onto.
You've become pushed to the side of the room where the crowd is volitile and crude. The bartender ignores your waving hand and gesture of promise to pay. Instead they focus on the fresh meat to properly marinate with the proper amount of beer and salt. The memories taste like sweet and sour apple shooters and this new reality feels the floor sticking to the sole of your shoes as you squeak around to the other side of the bar. What's worse is a trip to the bathroom rings the bell in your head, raising all the alarms that you are old. Not ancient but unwilling to fight with a stall door which refuses to latch.
The party is over once two drinks send you spinning down the toilet for more than five minutes. The betrayal of time sits bitter on your tongue as you recount the last time that you felt whole and brave. Must life now be quiet and safe from the landmines you sashayed in lucky avoidance of before? You have no choice now but to call a cab, then taking the three showers necessary to wash the shame, the embarrassment, and the mourning out of your hair.
You didn't know. When the last time is the last time, how could you know? The memories play in your head like a home movie. The highlights, the pride dipped bravery-savory moments provided by the ignorance of youth. It all used to melt the ice of obligation from your veins. Letting go feels like tying a piece of your soul to a balloon and wondering if the balloon might pop and bring it back to you one day. This moment is a fork in the path of life. You can choose to jones for the drug you could no longer afford or you can lunge forward in an attempt to find a passion for breathing in the frosty air of morning, covered head to toe, and become the witness of your own greatness. Had you sewed your wild oats before, you can now eat up the oatmeal with little fear for having missed out.
Numb
As the time flew by, the plastic never ceased to feel broken. Shards scattered across the floor of memories and dictated a false sense of reality. A hope, a promise, and a wish fulfilled with such rare ease as splitting a knife through butter. Yet, there was no satisfaction. No nauseating burst of thrill or clarity of mind for the future. There was only duty and a fog that lifted one foot after the other and tap danced forward in time. Friends reached out with gentle pats and family eagerly tried on their new wares. The only shred of life that heaved through the wall of smoke was a queer panicked feeling of free falling that was purposely displaced with ignorant bliss.
The numbness persisted passed the point of no return. With each beat of a fresh heart came a radiant slash of pain that shook each atom to it's core. Again, again, again. The agony sewed shut the lip's scream for silence. Each pulse a reminder that there was no option of flight, only fight. Hours upon hours elapsed where the months of hope, betrayal, ecstacy, doom, and boredom, which had all been withheld, finally exploded in a moment. The twisting, churning presence of the future emerged, followed by a sudden release. Relief. A burden lifted. The numbness, the absence of life, it all disapated.
Cries; tears of joy shrieked out. The freshness of breath drawn deeply into the lungs felt sweet again. The taste of warm meals superseded the fulfillment for energy once more. Sleep, such precious sleep, could be found in the most precarious of places. The isolation among a million faces faded into one being whose smile created a home. The numbness, the lack of direction or hope or danger evaporated in the sweat of labor. All multiverses intertwined and the birth of the Sun became the center of my universe.
Silence
Silence is a superpower for those who are truly brave
Immediately defending ones-self or jumping to conclusions happens too often
Learning when to speak and when to listen has become a lost art
Everyone has their own story and own mind and are quick to jump in
Never really stopping the flow to consider that others have more to say
Calling the shots instead of following the lead of a friend
Engaging in conversation should not be such a competition
Sometimes we are so caught up in ourselves, we forget our supporters
Anybody worth keeping around requires some relationship maintenance
Veering off topic can prevent those closest to you from asking for help
Even if they don't need saving, they might need to feel heard
So silence, though difficult, is a superpower for friends in need
Aguilar
A smooth and soft skinned pale old man worked behind the counter dressed oddly formal for his role., He had greeted the children as if he had waited all day to see them. “Good to see you all this afternoon! I suppose you might want to go down that back isle and pick yourselves out one of our locally made brownies or imported saltwater taffy!” He laughed and then winked. With that, the children shuffled to the back isle, passing the bread and pasta, and finding the shelves with the sweet stuff. The back of the store had chained off the staircase with strangely spaced steps. Each plank looked as if it had just barely been thrown down with gaps destined to swallow loose change. The tile just at the very back underfoot was brown and scuffed from the rubber of wheeled carts and cheap sneakers. The shelves were wooden instead of the usual metal the children were accustomed to at their home stores. After each child made their selections, they shuffled to the counter to pay and then one by one went back out into the daylight with an angelic ring of the door.
Instead of going back down the road passed the pub and around the corner back to their lodgings, they decided to go around in a big loop straight down away from the store. There were small, old buildings lining this road which stood parallel to Aunt Minnie’s. The buildings were bars, barbers, or repair shops instead of houses. Many of the buildings that once were a business appeared to have shut down and been abandoned. The boarded windows covered in graffiti and the signs were destroyed or half ripped. At the far corner, there was an old bank that had met this cursed fate of failure. The two steps up to the door in chains were crumbling and exposed. Half the cement had cracked off and sunk along with a hole just big enough to look through. Curiosity caught Axel’s attention and he shoved his face down into the hole to try to get a good look. “Whoa!” he cried out. The hole was a portal exposing a deep drop into the basement of the building, faintly illuminated by the natural lighting. Each child took their turn to look in, gasping at the sight.
“When we are grown up, we should come back here and look for gold. I bet you everyone has been too afraid to go into this haunted bank and get the treasures waiting in the vault.” Baxter whispered. He was the eldest of the group and the bravest, obviously. He had dark hair and a pale, freckled complexion. His eyes grew intense as he spoke, and near obsessively he could not stop sneaking peaks down into the abyss.