Return, History.
erase me from the scrolls, stretched
broad like a sail, painted black
from self-inflicted piracy.
I won't look down, at the surface
because, the water distorts my illusions
back to me as judgements.
the gavel stops my heart.
I can't get away from the voices
in my head, the jury,
always unanimous in my conviction.
I sharpened my feet by stalling
and every step bled the clock,
now identified in the morgue
by conscience, the old rat that
always betrays me for immunity.
Happy As A Twig
sometimes I giggle in my sleep.
maybe my subconscious is trying
to tell me to pull head from chest,
and become the tree
the twister splintered, waking wood
from its statuette nature to shred
walls built by the hands of men.
and reduced in the aftermath
as suitable firewood,
the flames dancing, teasing sky,
softly lighting faces against
the carpet of fallen sun.
lovers are born of the glow,
catching eyes against the will of nature.
there is honor in the ash
and I giggle in my sleep.
April and May
Miss May belonged to this town, or maybe it was more accurate to say that this town belonged to her. She was born here; back when here was barely enough to be called a town. Even now to call this place a town is still a bit generous. Small as it might be, it is ours, and Miss May is ours too.
When May was only twelve years old she lost her parents in a house fire. Her father managed to get her out, but died when he tried to rescue her mother. The fire took everything from May, even the land wasn’t worth much. This kind of tragedy was rare here. For the rest of her teenage years May was raised in the homes of several families that could make room for another mouth. She was welcomed wherever she went, watched over by everyone and became a daughter to the whole town. By the time she graduated at seventeen, the town had built a new home close to its center for her. The land had been donated, the labor given freely, collection plates and bake sales took care of everything else.
It has been decades since Miss May was given her home and anyone who was part of that has long since passed, but May and the town’s love of her continued. The children, grandchildren and even the great-grandchildren of her original saviors have continued to take care of May and her home. In return Miss May has always taken care of this town and everyone in it. She never married or had any children of her own, but she knew the names of each person who has lived here in her lifetime; including mine.
My mother died from cancer when I was only a few months old, but she named me in honor of the woman who helped me into this world when I wouldn’t wait for the Doc. The story is that I tried to come before May, so I was named April. Miss May was sixty-three years old the night I was born in 1953, and people say we have belonged to each other ever since. My father ran the grocery store and never remarried, so much of my childhood was guided by the watchful eyes and caring hearts here. Maybe it was this similarity that strengthened the bond May and I had. Unlike the rest of the town, she didn’t try to mother me, and I didn’t treat her like she was an addled grandmother.
I learned how to watch over the people here while planting in May’s garden. She would show to me how to keep the crabgrass away from the Camellias, making sure that I noticed that Randy the mailman spent an extra few minutes every day talking to the Peters single daughter. Mr. Peters thought his daughter could do better, but after Randy spent a hot summer day repairing Miss May’s fence, Mr. Peters rethought his opinion. Of course Miss May was careful to only damage the fence on the side that could be seen from the window in Mr. Peters den. Randy and his very happy wife have called me to babysit their three kids since I turned fifteen.
May had a reputation for being unfailingly honest, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t occasionally be a little creative if she thought it was for a greater good. I am the only one who ever knew she would do this. As far as everyone else was concerned Miss May was above such things. When the county judge couldn’t get to town, May would be called upon to rule on small disputes and what little petty crime our town ever had. She was beyond corruption and no one dared lie to May. She was always careful to balance truth with kindness. May’s honesty and the honesty it instilled in others were as much a part of the fabric of our town as the very streets we walked on. It was not unusual for a parent to bring a mischievous child to Miss May’s porch to be questioned in front of her.
With a widowed father and an old lady for a best friend my life might have looked empty to others. Miss May made sure that I never felt a moment of loneliness. Like her, this whole town became my home, everyone in it became my family. I even knew my mother as if she had been here with me thanks to May’s stories about her. I knew what she was like as a child, how my parents met, even her favorite song and what she smelled like. Listening to everything May ever said meant that I knew these things about everyone who lived here, even those who aren’t here anymore. More importantly I knew May in a way that no one else ever really could. Memories fade and other people forget details, not May. They all know how she came to live in her home near the center of town. I know how the daisies in her front yard came from the wife of the Mayor who had planted them there for her. At seventeen I thought I knew everything there was to know about this town and Miss May. Until I found out about the one lie May had told.
In the early summer of 1970, the outside world finally touched our town. While the rest of the country struggled with wars, a depression, social unrest and painful progress, we only watched from a distance. We had never divided ourselves because of race, money or religion; we were all family here. Even the Civil War had bypassed our little insignificant patch of earth. Vietnam reached in where nothing else ever had.
Other young sons from our town had gone off to war before, but usually it was after they had already long since moved away to pursue better opportunities. There had never been war widows or orphans left behind here. If there was a tragedy like that it was always very far removed from everyday life here, a passing thought for a family that once lived here a few generations ago maybe. Miss May knew these stories too, but she was the only one to ever feel it personally. May and I were the only real examples of this town being directly touched by sudden death. We had managed to hold on to this protected peace longer than we ever really had a right to. Daniel changed that.
Daniel and I had been together since we were young and planned to stay that way. He was the only other person who meant as much to me as May and my father did. Then Randy brought a piece of paper to Daniel one day and it ended that protected peace. I don’t know what Daniel expected me to say when he told me, all I heard was the word “drafted” before I turned away and ran. I ran down streets I played on, through yards I had helped plant and past children I babysat, I kept running until I got to May’s gate. There she was, kneeling on the ground with dirty gloves and her worn out sunhat just like she had been a thousand times before and reality took hold of me in force. I am not sure how long I laid on the ground next to her screaming while she held me and shaded my face from the sun. I do know that I never managed to explain to her why I was like this, but I didn’t need to. She knew. She always knew.
May picked me up off the ground when I had exhausted myself and brought me into her house, her home built out of love for her, the very place where love seemed to live. This is when I learned her truth, the worst day of my life is when May decided to tell me about hers and the lie she told. I had been wrong, our town had been touched by war before, and it was May that it wounded the most.
When May was twenty-six years old and already relegated to the role of spinster teacher in our town she fell in love with a man who had come to help build the new town hall. She told me about their time together, the way she had told me everyone else’s stories. Anyone else may have had a hard time imagining the now eighty year old May as a young woman in love, but I knew she had always had a wild spirit. They spent almost a year together by the time America entered WWI in 1917. Joseph told her that he was going to go serve, asked her to marry him and move near a base to wait for his return. May told him no, she could not leave this town, she belonged to it. It was not something he could really understand having not been a part of this town himself. They fought, they cried, and a few days later it was time for him to go. When she stood waiting with him for the bus to carry him away he said that if she would just say she loved him he’d stay. May did what May has always done, she took care of him the way she cared for this town. She set him free with a lie, the only one she has ever told.
For the first time in my life I was angry with May, yelling at her that she should have declared her love and kept him here. Very calmly she told me that she had to let him go because he did not belong here, and she was meant to remain here. It sounded like an excuse, but as I looked at May, and her home and out the window to this town, I knew in my soul she was right. This town and May were an inseparable part of each other. I understood this in a way no one else ever could.
May did not regret staying here, or letting her love go, but she did tell me she regretted the lie. From the top of a bookshelf she brought down a box that somehow I had never noticed. In it there was an old photo of a handsome soldier and a stack of letters tied with a pretty yellow ribbon, all of them unopened. She explained before I could ask that she knew if she ever read a single word of them that her resolve would have failed and she would have left this town to find him. Joseph never came back from that war and May wished she had been strong enough to send him away with the truth about her love.
May and I belonged to each other and we both belong to this town, and I understood it all by the time May finished her story. Two days ago we buried Miss May Corbett, alongside her parents on the property that once held their home. I placed her letters in with her, still unopened. Soon the house that this town built for her will become my home to reside in as caretaker of her legacy. Today I begin to truly live this legacy as I stand next to Daniel waiting for a bus to carry him away. He stands tall and proud as the whole town turns out to say their goodbyes. When they begin to back away, giving us a few minutes alone together, I see him start to waver. Miss May has taught me well, and I am strong enough to care for him now just as I will care for this town.
“Daniel, it’s alright. You can go, I will be here and I will always love you.”
The Three Time Tragedy
Heat waves rose from the pavement as the old station wagon rumbled its way down the road. It was only 5:21 in the morning but the temperature was already above seventy. The occupants of the car looked weary and exhausted. They had been driving since the day before and had only stopped the car to relieve themselves at a small gas station.
The youngest of those in the car was a small boy about the age of nine who was clutching a stuffed teddy bear as though his life depended on it. The boy had gotten the bear when he was barely a year old from his parents. His parents. Late last night there had been a call. It had been from the police to inform the family of Eddie and Lana Ellis that they had been in a car accident. They would be taken to a Catholic hospital in the city about six hours away to receive the best treatment possible. After that there had been a hurried frenzy to get in the car and go to the hospital.
Besides the boy there was an elderly couple, the boy's grandparents, the man had a white-knuckled grip on the wheel and the woman held a cell phone in her hand staring at it expectedly. Than the phone rang and everyone in the car jumped at the sudden sound. The woman raised it slowly to her ear. "Hello? Yes I'm Mrs. Ellis," a pause, "Is Eddie and Lana all right?" another pause longer this time, than the woman gave a slow nod. "Alright, we will be there within the hour," Click. The call ended.
Mrs. Ellis sat there silently for a moment before slowly turning to the boy. "That was the hospital, they called to say your mom is..." Her voice trailed off and she seemed to have a heard time saying the next words. "Joseph, your mom is...gone." The boy, Joseph, looked down and hugged his bear tighter. He was old enough to understand her words but didn't want to think about what they meant.
Time seemed to pass quickly after that and within no time they were climbing out of the car and walking into the hospital. A nurse greeted them and led them to a room that seemed to reek of pain and death. There were two beds in the room but one was empty. The other bed held a man with unruly hair matted with blood. A long gash ran down the side of his face, narrowly missing his left eye. Joseph's father had been resting with his eyes closed as they walked in but when he heard the door open he had opened his eyes and looked over. Happiness and relief spread over his face when he saw his son.
"Come here." He rasped and patted the bed softly. Joseph silently walked over still in shock over his father's horrible appearance. "I don't know if I'm going to make it." His father began voice trembling, "They're taking me in for surgery soon. If I don't make it, I-I need to be reassured you know something." Every word seemed to inflict even more pain onto the man but he kept going. "I love you, and your mother...she did too, but there was something we kept from you. Your mom she couldn't have children but she wanted one so bad. Joseph you need to know that you're adopted." The statement replayed itself over in Joseph's head before he understood it.
"So you're not my real dad?" He asked his voice shaking, "And mommy wasn't my real mom?" His father only nodded slowly. Than he reached out and took Joseph's hand. "Remember, I have always loved you and I always will. You knowing this changes nothing, I will always be your father."
A few minutes later nurses came and wheeled him away. That was the last time Joseph saw his father. The time of death was 8:45 a.m. on July 12, 2014. Edward Ellis had died from a spinal cord injury inflicted upon him by a drunken driver. Lana Ellis had died three hours earlier from extensive bleeding. All within the space of a few hours Joseph Ellis had lost both his parents and yet gained the knowledge of another set he never knew he had.
Throwback Thursday Week 12 - The Proser Edition
This week, we bring you a change of voice. We approached our Proser pairing, @LillyZ and @DaveK late last week to ask them to contribute towards our Throwback Thursday features. We felt like what the community needed is a voice from within the community to host a couple of these features per month, giving you all a break from our voice, hurrah! So without further ado, I bring you, Lilly and Dave.
From One Proser to Another,
Looking back, I remember the first time my finger hovered over the publish button, anxiety snaking its way from gut to skin and spilling out in the form of sweat and fidgeting fingers. I remember the agonizing wait, a flood of questions, doubt and fear circling like a halo above my own shattered self image. Rejection was coming, I knew it was. It had always been like this. Part of me is out there for this little corner of imaginary space to reject. I'm on display, and it hurts. I read my post again, tearing it apart, hating it, despising every word and comma and ambiguous thought. But, this is Prose, and someone bookmarked it, then a comment. I read the words like they're a cure, and they are. A well of acceptance springs up telling me someone out there understood and appreciated these words I'd never had the courage to share. Someone out there is trading precious moments of their life to read and comment about my exposed heart. Another bookmark, another comment, and I am moved to tenderness. I am shattered with hope, driven and compelled to return this precious gesture. I read and comment and bookmark and bare the deepest parts of me to strangers, hoping in some small way to give what I have received.
I have never experienced such kindness, not from family or friends, as I have experienced on Prose. I believe it comes from all of us being cut of the same cloth, being broken in the same way and exposed together in a sea of vulnerability. You all are my remedy for writer's block. If I have no words or inspiration, I take a stroll through the art gallery of your souls, breathing it all in, taking each piece as its own brilliant display. This community, the Prosers together, create in me emotions from scratch, giving the gift of pain and hope I couldn't touch on my own. Somehow in all of this, I was lifted from obscurity to spotlight. With all my heart, I thank you all. I hope every Proser here knows how much they are appreciated, and I hope this write and these tips can in some way, in any way, make your experience here more fulfilling.
Tips: Getting The Most Out of Prose
Read, Read, Read. - There is enough talent on Prose that you are not God's gift to writers. You are one voice of many. Show gratitude and respect by reading the work of other authors. Let them know you were there with a comment or a bookmark or a repost. It means more than you know that you took time to see them and feel their words. Let them know you looked into their depths. Don't be just another view, be part of something more.
Follow – The best leaders follow. Do likewise.
Listen – Feedback is not an insult. It's a nod to your talent. You are good enough to improve. You are not a lost cause. Feedback means you're worth the effort.
Contribute – If you have ideas on how to make Prose a better, more welcoming, or more efficient experience, share your mind
Challenges – Challenges are a great way to grow as a writer and to push yourself to write about topics and styles and depths you didn't know were there..
Write Without Chains – We all write things that fall flat. Lose that fear. Don't ever be afraid to write badly. We all do it. Join us in the muck and have fun!
Get Personal – Prosers are not random, lifeless avatars. These are real people with real lives, real problems, real hopes, and real words coming from real places. Treat each other as people, and you will also be lifted up. And you will lift others up. Every heart and every opinion matters. This is not an app; it's a community.
*Lilly's Heart in Dave's Voice
Blue
You’re absolutely right. It was childish. Irresponsible, too. However, you must understand that I am, after all, only human. Superman, Spiderman, and Wonder Woman at the end of the day are only Clark Kent, Peter Parker, and Diana Prince. How can you expect more from me? What’s that? Their powers are more potent than mine? Hardly. Can you change people’s hair with nothing more than willpower and the blink of an eye? I didn’t think so. To be fair, I have made some errors. Donald Trump’s comb-over, for one. And Miley Cyrus’ porcupine ’do was not my most triumphant moment, either. For the most part, though, I’ve done a lot of good. I could be credited with generating at least half of Patrick Dempsey’s fanbase. And don’t even get me started on Whoopi Goldberg. You didn’t know the dreds were my work? Girl, please. NO ONE knows hair like I do. Still, I admit I went too far with you. Yes, I should have gotten your permission first. Yes, I should have anticipated that blue bangs would neither complement your complexion nor please your employer. Yes, it was wrong of me to make your eyebrows match your hair. No, I won’t change your appearance back for you.
