Entries 09/10

I wrote myself a letter,
a spell-binding cluster of impenetrable
syllables,
and tea-stains swathed across.
Watched as the day-old ink
disseminated throughout the waves of
crinkles,
washed away in a flash,
until the indication of any words
was nonexistent.

I let the ink drip down
like the blood weaving through my
skin,
closed my eyes and felt the pain
of being in the moment.
Followed the trail of
pain
and fear
and loss.

I didn’t even cry.

You held me
and all I did was dream.
You gave me a hug and
I could feel your warmth raise my body temperature
I could feel your smooth skin
touch the back of my neck.
Press up against my body,
I could feel you,
You, you and more you.
You were racing though my mind,
like you were and Olympic sprinter.
Your whats on my mind,
Even in all of the trouble that you have gone through
well get through this together
then I held you and you cried into my shoulder
all I could say is that nothing can come between you and me.

Watching the sun go down
Late at night
Sink low, low, lower in the sky
Until it seems like it's...gone
The sky is like a fire
Gold, red, pink, blue
A brilliant sunset
The moon comes on light feet
Slowly casting soft white light
The first star rises
That's my star
I would name it after my name if I could
More stars rise up
Casting more of a milky white on the earth
Shhhhh it's time to go to bed
Goodnight moon

After a small meal of left over jerky my dad made a startiling anoncment. “I am going hunting tonight” I was worried about him immediately because the sky promissed a storm that night. I begged for him to stay home even if it meant stavation for all of us, but he had made up his mind and me and my mom both knew he was as stubborn as a mule. I watched silently as he gathered his hunting gear from the shed with the last of our small supplie of food. My stomach aced at the sight of more food and it was temping to just run over and eat it all up, sooth my malnorish body. I watched as my dad left and silently wiped away a tear as I held back the urge to run after him and force him to stop going into the threatening woods.

The feral wind whipped at the window as I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. All I could do was worry about my dad who had gone out hunting, because of our low stock of food. Was he back yet? I rolled over and looked across the petite wooden room and saw my parents’ bed. The only person in the bed was my small, frail mother who hadn’t eaten in days; the same was true for my dad, which is why I was worried about him going hunting alone. I shivered as a gust of wind blew through the little flimsy windows.
Suddenly, I heard a gun shot. BANG! It shook the cozy cabins walls and made me tremble. I held my breath and knew what had happened. I slowly and heavily made my way to the door, my naked feet stung with the cold as they padded across the splintery wood floor. I breathed heavily as I pulled open the great big wooden door. I stepped out into the white, unforgiving world. My gown billowed out behind me and my feet began to numb as I hurriedly crept closer to the forest’s edge. I stumbled into the snow; it was wet and freezing cold. I trudged through the foot high embankment to my tree house, because my father stored his game newly shot game there.
Unexpectedly, I stepped on something warm to the touch. I looked down at the ground and with the moonlight I saw my dad: blood gushing from his shoulder. I tremored and fell to my knees. There he was, shot down. Had it been by accident or on purpose? I would never know. Blood swept over my gown and the surrounding snow as I lay over him to cry icy tears. I thought he was dead, when all of a sudden I felt Thump… Thump… Thump… against my chest; he was alive! I knew what to do; I jumped up and pulled him to the forest’s edge with a great deal of effort. I was afraid to go tell mother for fear he would freeze in that small amount of time. After I got to the edge of the forest I ripped a small, clean piece of cloth from the bottom of my gown and tied it to his shoulder as best I could. I looked up and my fear evaporated as I saw my house in the distance. My mother burst through the door to search for us. I waved her over to me and dad and she helped me half carry, half drag my father home. When we got inside, my mom, who used to be a nurse, bandaged dad’s shoulder and lit the fire. She set up a hot tub of water for my feet and I gladly wiggled my toes in the warmth. Then she hurried to the kitchen to make us both something warm to eat, using the snow shoe hare that dad had had attached to his belt.
As the days past we slowly grew thiner and thiner with only one small rabbit to tide us off. We had learned to eat vary little and even though we had barely a few bites a day the hare was slowly getting smaller and smaller as we nibled ever so lightly at it. I was growing weaker and weaker and prety soon my mom would give her daily meal to me so I wouldn’t starve. My dad also got some of my moms meal and soon my mom was the one who was in the sick bed. We had no food at all after about a week and my mom desperatly need norishment. As weak and tierd as I was decided to visit my tree house for what I reasoned was problemy going to be the last time. I inched up the tree and by the time I reached the top I was tierd out and could not move at all. I feared I would die right then and there without my parents for company, but as I looked up to see the trees for the final time I saw something that made a streak of adrenilin rush through me. It was the biggest deer I had seen in my life and I had been around hunting sence I was a baby. I pulled myself closer to the deer and called my dad with all my might. “DAD” he came rushing out of the house and stormed into the woods in a worried march, he climbed the ladder in a flash and when he saw me next to the buck he smiled with delight. I marveled at the wonderful smile on his face. As we pulled the deer from the tree and back to the house my dad immediately started to skin and cook the deer meat. I ran up to my mom and told her of our found and she just smiled in her sleep as if she though it a dream. I decided not to wake her and hurried to help my dad with his catch. When I had my first bite of deer the taste exploded in my mouth, it tasted delightful and I knew we had been saved.

Us

You wrapped your arms
around me,
and I wanted to stay there forever,
I felt so safe.
I felt so wanted.
As everything melted away,
it was just us.
There was you.
And then there was us.
With my head pressed to your chest,
and your steady heart beat
in my ear.
All I wanted was to forget.
Forget everything except you,
and me.
Because no matter how hard
I tried.
I could never forget,
Us.
SNAP I am back to reality.

The elderly hand
knotty and distressed
lingered on
the slope of her
transclucent face.
He missed the
twinkle that
flickered so
sweetly in her eyes.
His rough voice
crackled as
softly sang her
favorite tune.

Others approached
but he payed no mind
he promised her forever
and the guilt
stabbed him.
His promise was flawed
as he felt his
love was too.
Apologetically
he lifted her hand
and held it in his
"I'm sorry"
he whispered.

Physical Abuse

In my beliefs
Abuse is wrong
No one should have to
Go through any kind of
Physical abuse
Think about how would
You feel if you were the victim
You’re the one being abused
It really gets to you
You start to change dramatically
Signs of physical abuse
Slapping, punching,
kicking and shoving
There’s also pinching
And throwing bodily
There are so many ways
Of physical abuse
Happening today
If you see or hear about it
Try and help the ones
Who are going through it
Some don’t want people to know
But when they
Let it all out
you start to notice a change
In there behaviors
I know because
I went through this
And I finally let it out
My life has just started over again
I feel free
I feel as if I can
Do things without
Being hit or shoved
I took a stand
To get where I am at
Today

—Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet.

In the mirror
There is a girl
She’s smarter than I am
Prettier
More confident
I find her in windows
And water
She whispers words of encouragement
Or scorn
Depending on what mood she’s in
And what state I’m in.
 
My logic is
There’s always a right way things could go
There’s always the possibility
That things will go according to
Plan
And most often it’s disrupted—
But the judgement when deciding on a
Course of action
Is always there.
 
Mirror girl
Sits before a dark window
Typing
She looks thoughtful
A little bit rumpled
There’s one strand of hair that
Keeps falling out of place
She sighs
And tells me, Keep writing.
 
Maybe we are just going in circles
Maybe this is just a road that doesn’t end
But I keep hoping
We have to keep hoping
For a destination
A place to land
And rest
And think
And sort through this mess of our minds that we’re all responsible for
No matter how much we try to displace the blame.
 
The girl’s hair is really starting to annoy her now
She flicks it, angrily, away from her face
But winces as it catches on a fingernail
Pulling hard
She untangles the little knot of finger and hair
With a critical eye
She tells me
Better cut those nails
And that hair, while you’re at it.
And trim everything else in your life
Down to the quick,
I know she will say next.
It’s too long
Too wild
Too uncontrolable
I’m trying
I want to protest
Really, I am
Just give me a chance
She turns her head slightly
And says,
Keep writing.

Friends are the ones that will do anything for you. They look out for you. Being a good friend is more than that. Its about two or more people that love each other like siblings. its about all the memories that you make. they are the ones that are there for you through the hard times and the good times. they make you laugh and they drop what they are donig to make sure you'r ok. that is what a friend truly is...

They had it all;
The walks and the talks,
Everything they ever wanted
was right in their hands.
A future so bright.

They had it all
Until he decided that
Everything was not enough.
He stood there just to watch her fall,
She did all she could.

But there's more to life
Than just love and broken promises.
Just take one more step;
Take a stand and show the world
There's more to life;
Show them courage.

He had it all;
The heart and the smarts,
Everything he ever wanted
was right in his hands.
A future so bright.

He had it all
Until the war rang
A shot that broke everything.
Once a head held high,
Now his life hanging by a thread.

But there's more to life
Than just war and broken bones.
Just take one more step;
Take a stand and show the world
There's more to life;
Show them courage.

No matter what life throws you
Just take one more step
and you'll make it through;
Take that stand.

Cause there's more to life
Than love and broken promises
Just take one more step;
Take a stand and show the world
There's more to life;
Show them courage.

The light is still on and I don’t have the energy to lift myself and reach for the switch. It’s been this way since we bought our dog, Bummer, who brought it’s bed up on the night stand table and only left it when he relieved himself or needed nourishment. It would sleep until early afternoon and just sit under the glow of the lamp until my brother and I had long fallen asleep. Norton believes the dogs trying to prove something, but I refuse to believe Bummer’s more than a simple dog. The doctors say my brother's brain is slowing disintegrating, which is why we’re sharing a room now.
Every night, I’ll roll over and close my eyes, wish I were younger again. Wish I had the motivation I used to have, able to crawl out windows and had people to meet and go out with on the ground. There comes a time in everyone’s life where your important people die and the people who aren’t dead leave you to blunt the pain of your ever-nearing death.
Death always reminds me of Anita, who believed she could predict the future and that she turned into an animal whenever she fell asleep. As a result of this, she tried not to sleep, taking up assorted hobbies throughout the years to keep her busy at night. Her lack of sleep seemed to open her imagination wider and she was making more and more predictions. When Norton and I met her, she was an aspiring painter, and I ate up everything she said.
Even though I was the one blinded by her and Norton seemed appalled by her lightness, he was still persuaded go along with her painting predictions of our future selves. In the end, it was his idea to hang the paintings over our beds and keep them all of these years.
She had sat us down at a corner café, hair unbrushed and clothes buttoned half heartedly to the wrong holes, and told us that she was being flooded with images of ourselves in the future, and it was driving her mad. Butterflies had crept up my throat at the thought of me invading her mind but my brother had just scoffed and told her to go to the hospital. Anita had ignored him then got so excited in asking if she could paint the people she saw that we’d become that she knocked her coffee mug off the table.
Norton had said afterwards that it was just to make her shush up that he’d agreed to it. Even later, he told me that he had hoped that after the paintings were complete that she’d leave us both alone, but he wouldn’t have changed how it worked out in the end anyway.
He told me that life was all about making mistakes and changing your mind, and he was supposed to be the more level headed brother and I was trained to listen and believe him.
The portraits came out as hilarious to me, but Norton looked at them carefully and mumbled that he could see us looking like that. We were both in our late twenties, both of us just trying to find patterns in the world around us so we could survive. Anita seemed to have a life force surrounding her that was so strong that I had thought that the universe had whispered all its secrets to her. She didn’t just live, but thrived and embraced society. She never hated a soul and she danced around problems. She glowed and almost seemed realistic at times, so when the paintings were unveiled to us Norton started to see that and fell for her aswell.
Anita had a thing for all things stable and small minded, much like my brother, so it makes sense that she took him under her wings instead of me.
I became so green, with sickness and jealousy, that I talked harshly about her to Norton hoping that he would leave her. I reminded him how batty she was when every time she left the room, how her hair went out sideways more than it went down like it was defeating gravity, how she never buttoned her shirts right, and how she almost always forgot to wear shoes when she left the house. I’d scoff when he’d come down for breakfast in the morning, asking if she really did turn into an animal when her human body was unconscious.
Later in life, he told me that he never found out, because he’d fall asleep before her and she was always gone in the mornings.
It was about a month into their relationship and my cruel remarks that they both up and left. Where they went was one of the only things Norton never ended up revealing to me.
Thirty some odd years later, my brother comes back knocking on my door, wearing clothes obviously crafted by Anita, hair lopsided and disarray. His face was dirty and leaves were sticking to his pants.
“She’s gone,” he had said simply, stepping past me into the house, to my living room where the portraits were hanging. My own heart breaking, thinking she was dead, I turned to follow him, looking at the paintings. All except for us feeling as if we should somehow be dead too, we both looked exactly as the paintings showed.
Norton relayed to me that he had woken up one morning, and just felt that her presence wasn’t there anymore. He had still never woken up next to her, after thirty some odd years, but that morning seemed different. He scurried around the house, making sure all her belongings were still there, all her hobby stuff still not put away. There was nothing missing, except her and her overwhelming feeling of life. My brother waited on their front porch, just staring out onto the road, waiting for the brightness to re-enter his heart. He said he didn’t sleep for a week, just watched the world turn, before he stood up and walked back here.
It was then that I noticed he wasn’t wearing shoes.
Life became mundane for me, nothing amazed me, I started refusing to see more than black and white.
Then twenty years after that, there was scratching at our front door. All the lights were off, it was the last day of that beautifully low electricity bill, and Norton barges into my room, holding an old dog, crying that it’s Anita.
“Bummer,” I said, rolling over, blocking him out. My brother is old and broken, trying to go back to when he felt more alive. But the dog, it jumped from Norton’s arms and up to my night table. Norton says it’s because Anita always liked heights, always wanted to fly.