SnowStars's blog

There is nothing defiant in the resounding slap of my battered notebook against that honey-wood floor. Nothing. It embodies all the confusion within me, the echo ringing mockingly in my ears, sneering-

This is what you have become. Don't you see how disgustingly pathetic you are? You don't even know what you're saying... Empty. Everything you say is empty.

I cringe at my own weakness as I begin to read.

I am good at dodging.
Specifically, dodging important questions.

A highly dubious talent.

i. I relish the darkness, for it allows me hide from myself.

ii. After that steamy bath, my wrinkled palm was a mottled rainbow of blotchy colors.
The swirls conveyed my thoughts better than the murky words did, anyway.

Jagged fingers of rusty iron caress the clammy skin, stretched taut across her splinter-like bones.

That craggy witch hat is all that saves me from normalcy.

i. The rain throws me into a panic, hasty scrawls taking the place of manicured penmanship, before I twist, tossing my crinkled page into the breeze, before it floats away like a fragile bit of ash caught in the swirling smoke.

ii. The forest was tense, waiting breathlessly for the impending implosion.

Aspens flushed burgundy while lilies died in droves.

"What a marvelous way to die," she murmured, the maniacal revelry of the flames reflected in her amber eyes.

The events of a Friday in July

i. A sonnet was written in my honor:
My burning love of a thunderstorm
Beautifully chronicled by a friend
I delighted in fire, and laughed

* * *

ii. Today was a simple day
The clock shuffled past noon
I remained pajama-clad
A wandering vagrant haunting the halls
Absently perusing the pages of a book
While my family congregated haphazardly
Chatting near a bedroom window
In the whirl of a storm

iii. I don't really remember what happened
Because terror flooded the moment
But there was a chaos of light and noise
Then our own turbulence, the agony of shock
As a pungent stench of smoke overwhelmed our senses
The alarm shrieked piercingly, a canned voice placidly announced:
Fire, fire

iv. In a flurry, we were down the stairs
Frantically snatching coats
My fingers fumbled as my mind screamed blank
Agonized by panic
In my whirring mind, I calculated the distance between the fire station and me-

i. how can i be honest
when i don't know what is true?

ii. i close my door and i'm
lying awake
morning comes and i'm walking in a dream
but it doesn't matter-
i'm in my own world anyway
she lives in her own world always

iii. endless questions pound my mind
circles and cycles of one thought
rewind, rotate, repeat, repeat.
i'm trapped on this carousel
waves of nausea splash over me

iv. steely bars lock my mind
a totalitarian fortress built by my own hand
i grit my sore teeth tighter as i sever my freedom
because it is far too dargerous to let myself think
yet with each brick, more treacherous thoughts creep into my brain
i stifle them as they flow
they're trifles until they grow
and with each suffocated truth i become more tangled
in a cobweb of my own self-deception

v. It doesn't matter if I don't know myself
i insist
Rationalization will get you nowhere but it does, because I'm cut off.

"That's my notebook!"

She has opened it, laid it bare, and now turns her eyes to me. I rush over, staring into that face that is slowly processing my exclamation.

She's not fast enough for me. I snatch it back, clutch it protectively, stroke its scars from the recent trauma.

Who says only little children have security objects? But mine holds my thoughts; spells them out for the world, in fact. I scold mself as she turns, painfully slow, and blunders bumblingly on.

"My memory is pretty good for 85," my grandmother announces cheerily

I clench my teeth, because

She's 83

And she has a terminal brain disease.

i. I'm sick of being an afterthought, and

ii. If you knew how jealous I can be, you would despise me.

Relinquishing a garden hose to an energetic brother without a tranquilizer team nearby is a demonstration of trust.

The sun:
milky through bland-pale
Clouds
Her anemic light sifts between jag-edged leaves
Wind buffets laughingly
tossing leaves silhouetted by ivory sun:
a rippling mosaic