On The Edge, Through The Void.

Where I'm At

Sat, 18 May 2013 07:54:37 -0700

I’m writing this from a hospital bed. I’ve been stuck here since Thursday. I have a perforated appendix which is being treated with antibiotics and pain meds. My appendix was too inflamed/”gross” (for better terms) to operate so they’ll send me home soon to take meds and figure out the best time to cut this traitor bit of flesh out of me. I’m not bitter though ;)

Miss you, lovelies.

I Have Written This: Let There Be Roses.

Wed, 15 May 2013 19:43:45 -0700

I Have Written This: Let There Be Roses. :

#Prose Feature Note:

You should read this. Really.

____________

Let me tell you what I know about life:

I know that no one gets equal amounts of awareness time and this is the crux of all things unfair in this cruel cruel place. I want to look into your eyes and know exactly how to fix all of your sorrows but instead, I see all the spectrums of color that make up your irises, so many flecks of pigments that make you unique from everyone else. Souls are just a collection of patterns of our actions and thought processes that have developed as we experience and nothing more, nothing less, and when we shut our eyes to die, if we are leaving behind our creative artifacts only then is there a chance that our soul will live beyond us.

The most tragic aspect of living is that nothing lasts forever and once it stops breathing, it’s deceased, and if it’s metaphysical it simply disappears into the planes of what is time and space, and if it’s something we can touch, it decomposes into the dirt, and even if we’ve convinced ourselves that we are “not afraid,” I think that there will always be that one tiny part of us that is! If you try to imagine what forever actually entails, how you can you not fear that moment to some degree? Forever is not love, it is nonexistence, it is everything I can never promise when I hold your hands.

And what is even more tragic is that the most beautiful things in life are often the most short lived! Once I loved and was loved, I will never be loved as I was again because nothing ever happens twice, especially all things truly and madly intimate. And those are the things that you must allow to let go and die, whether physically or allow them to wander off into the world without your company. All that remains of are memories and photographs, eyes staring at me in the still framed remnants of what was, I am back to the moment I knew my life was forever changed! We all visit these memories, I put flowers on their graves and watch the petals turn brown and that is how I know it is time to stop remembering, but when I revisit the headstones, oh, let there be roses!

When I walk around city at night, sometimes I think about the times I almost fell in love and the times that I almost died. We have so many moments when a simple flame was almost a full blown fire! A flame is still a fire and many flames can summon the ghost and they can haunt you like they’re haunting me!

Are you lighting candles? Will you light them for me?

Sometimes there are no graves for the almosts and maybes, simply blank spaces in the planes of time and space and we just walk around with flowers, roses, lilies, baby’s breath, carnations; the bouquets keep dying in our hands, we are unable to let them go! But we need to set them down, it’s hard when the flowers have such delicate, pretty petals, but they are rotting, decaying in your hands, in my hands, we need to lay them on the grass and and allow them to become dirt because it’s time now. It’s time for you, time for me, time for us to lie down next to you, next to me. Close your eyes, ask me three times. I hope you light me a candle, because I want to be remembered but if you forget I left you pages and pages of words, drawings and all my photographs. I made sure this life would never be forgotten; so many roses and I love watching them bloom!

Let me tell you what I know about life: I know that even when the days are long and aching, and it feels like the earth should stop turning because our hands our empty, you must hold your head up, even if your eyes are full of tears! Let the water make trails down your cheeks, they do not signal weakness, they show that you have loved in some capacity and you have tombstones in your mind that you are visiting and you are stuck at the grave, waiting for the flowers to wither… but when you visit my love, let there be roses! Don’t be afraid to stay and watch them change from red to brown, and when you are ready, just ever so slowly, interlock your fingers with the hands that reach out to you. Listen to their heart beat and their lungs inhale, exhale all that is life.

Don’t be afraid to let there be roses!

-E.

Why Not?: Could of Been Me - Short Sci-Fi Story by Elzaros

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:34:51 -0700

Why Not?: Could of Been Me - Short Sci-Fi Story by Elzaros:

#Prose Feature Note:

Fiction. I dig it. I wish I could offer more in-depth commentary, but I’m about to fall asleep. This kept me awake just long enough fully to enjoy it though.

__________

I woke to the sound of guns shooting blanks through my open window, withering away dreams of men in lab coats, laughing test tubes of smallpox, the finest coffee beans known this side of mars and images of you.

Sweat dripping down my already back-sticking t-shirt i reached for the glass of water on my nightstand.

It was one of those nights i guess. Where the sounds of war mixed with the sounds of mundane nightlife. A scream of terror mixing with shopping trolley wheels squeaking, as a homeless man searched for a place to spend the night. The ever-present gunfire in the distance being drowned out by the banging of someone having sex two floors above me. One of those nights where all i wanted to do was pick up a bottle of liquor and drown in empty thoughts until i fell asleep. But Wednesday is work day for me so i hooked my legs over the side of my bed and reached for my boots. No need to change, Wednesday work was usually pretty dirty anyway.

Strapping two pistols to my belt and a knife into my shin-strap I searched for my coat. Damn thing was always going missing when i needed it. I found it hiding in the corner behind a chair missing a leg. Flinging it over my shoulders I strode out the door. “Time go to searching for aspirations of grandeur” I muttered as I joined the night

I loved my coat. It was brown and made of leather, a rarity nowadays- especially on this god forsaken planet. It had patches and holes from when i couldn’t afford the materials to fix it and sometimes objects would disappear out of the pockets. It didn’t have extra straps for my guns, it didn’t keep the chill of late night lunar dust from creeping under my skin and it wasn’t very inconspicuous -which in my line of work was pretty damn important- but even with all these faults i loved it. I loved it because it was the last thing in this entire universe that reminded me of you and I’d wear it until the last breath of air left my body. I also look pretty good in leather, something that you had pointed out on the day you gave it to me.

None of these thoughts were new to me as i wandered down the broken stairs towards the ground floor of the apartment complex i was currently using as a Residence. Nothing new and exciting. Just a regular Wednesday night for the bloody business of cleaning up the streets and sewers filled with “riff-raff” and “life-leeches” as the Government liked to call them. I had my own nickname for them of course. Coulda Been You’s.

But hey I’m here and they’re there. All i can do is put one step ahead of another. That’s what i tell myself at least.

Getting to the front door i noticed a sack of clothes by the doorway. Not another one, i thought. It’s bad enough that i have to keep my assigned area clean but in my own home I really didn’t want to be working. Things like this made every moment of life feel like a perpetual killing field.

Sifting through the stack with my boot i noticed that among the pile there was a little doll. One of those trolls with crazy hair and stumpy legs you used to find back on Earth and the Early planets. This one in particular had lime-green hair with pink little ties pulling it into a ponytail in an attempt to make it look less like a homicidal creature from the Nether-Regions and more like a childrens toy.

It was one of those funny little coincidences The things we’d dreamed of out in the universe weren’t nearly as Alien-like as we pictured them to be. Most of the time they had turned out to be humanoids that looked a lot like messed up versions of kids toys. Somewhere out there God, or whatever, was having a chuckle along with me at this. I was sure of it. Probably not the people conscripted to fight those humanoids though, they were probably dead. Unless they were messed in the head like me and busy laughing their asses off as they shot bullets over blood soaked skylines praying to whatever God they believed in to let them see another day. If I got shot by a humanoid troll-looking motherfucker with lime-green hair and a pink tied ponytail I think I’d die from irony overdose.

Nothing i can do about this now though. Whoever owns this troll has probably gone in search of food or crank among the back alleys that litter this corner of hell. I’ll let whoever is in charge of this area deal with it.

I slipped out the door and into the streets. You forget about the dust and grime when cocooned in your own little private room but it all comes flooding back as soon as you take a step. You couldn’t walk five feet without a gust of wind layering a thick mess of what smelled like feces and dirt. Most of the street lamps were broken and the few that worked only sought to illuminate just how dirty everything really was. Everything looked brown and unforgiving on this particular Wednesday. A night that needed a drink to get started, i mused as I picked my way through the inch thick gunk along the street. A drink and a little bite to eat and then i’ll start my shift.

Crack! A gunshot sounded to my right and i felt a hot pain spread across my back. I collapsed to the ground and felt blood sliding down my back. Ruining my jacket, I thought as my eyesight started to blur. What a shitty way to die. Crap and dirt mixing with your own blood as you lay in the middle of hell with not a soul in the universe caring who you were.

Someone was standing above me now. The familiar smell of Government issued pistol rounds filled my nostrils as the world faded to black.

The last thing i heard was “Sorry man, i totally thought you were a leecher. Better luck in your next life.” I guess it really coulda been me.

I decided to end it a bit earlier than i thought i would. I wanted to keep going but i was struggling with it. Just easing myself back into writing again. I hope you like it.

-Elzaros

You are my Light: 25

Wed, 15 May 2013 15:27:16 -0700

You are my Light: 25:

#Prose Feature Note:

Made me hold my breath for a second. Lessons learned. This is sad, but beautiful.

____________

I held on too tightly. I can see that now as my toes kiss the graveled road and the pain shoots reality back into my brain. I clutched your wrist as you swung beneath me and the pulse of your heart beat in time to the ache of my fingertips as they gripped the edge of the roof. Me and you fluttering in the breeze. You told me to let go. To trust my wings. But I didn’t because I was afraid of the fall, of the sky, of the fragile bones. I didn’t let us fly.

The clouds mock me now, because I gave up and I realize I should have trusted you, at least then we could have both fallen and shattered into each other like raindrops on an autumn day or the tears I feel dripping onto my feet.

The Untapped Inkwell: Notice Me

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:17:46 -0700

The Untapped Inkwell: Notice Me:

#Prose Feature Note:

I noticed.

___________

“Notice Me!” I murmur as I scrawl my feelings into my diary, hands sore with the pain of telling my story.

“Notice me!” I say as my words express the love and emotions I have—the words forming stanzas from my heart.

“Notice me!” I plead as my newly created worlds showcase the talents of my mind.

“Notice me!” I cry as I click the post/update/publish buttons—putting my soul on display.

“Notice me!” I yell as the characters in my head start to grow.

“Notice them!” I scream from the top of my lungs, pointing to my fictional people—the emotion, soul, and thought put into them leaving me raw. It is their story I am telling now—and it’s so much more important than my own. “Notice them!” I repeat, trying to point out that theirs are stories worth learning.

“Notice them,” I whisper, hoping that the fictional people I love won’t be left in the dust.

RECORDS OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS: the idea of space —

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:09:13 -0700

RECORDS OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS: the idea of space —:

#Prose Feature Note:

Really dig the concept, language, imagery. Good stuff.

__________

the small lengths of unspoken (dis)affection between two people;
the rooms and places we decide to enter;
and the literary spaces between lines words and letters.
(the fridge’s breath causes the fingers around your heartstrings to slip.
it keeps you within your own cubicle, unwilling to rub at the walls with your bare hands because you have seen the rose pink of your flesh turn pins and needles inwards instead of out so)
when you are separated from your lover by half a flimsy fragile wall you want to avoid the space (s)he inhabits for fear that you will die or aggravate themselves to knock the walls down
and so. space
because when you enter into the parentheses belonging to one who holds enmity against
you cannot hold their gaze no matter how polite you wish to be.
i am becoming familiar with the cardinals of direction but no matter how intimately i know them i cannot escape spaces’ unfamiliar grasp
so i am walking with direction yet finding myself pinned from side to side.

there are thorns in my side from long ago.

Some Food for Thought, Some Food for Death: 'Something Congenial - 1'

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:51:46 -0700

Some Food for Thought, Some Food for Death: 'Something Congenial - 1':

#Prose Feature Note:

Transparency: I do follow this writer and I consider them a familiar face. That being said, I found this under the #All Prose tag, and I was able to really immerse myself in the story. I could see the story clearly through the words. Enjoyed reading this. Cheers.

_____________

She crouched in front of him and let her bag slide onto the concrete between them. He dragged his eyes up off of the ground to meet hers, brushing his hair aside with a single finger. His hands were gnarled dry like the roots of a thousand-year-old oak, the rags around him stripping away like bark in discoloured shades of brown, yellow, and grey. He studied her features: the cautious, laboured shifting of his eyeballs attempting to discern exactly what it was that this girl wanted from him on this particularly grey morning down Oxford Street.

She smiled.

She held her bag open with one hand and rummaged through her possessions with the other, eventually resurfacing with a white paper bag—warm, still greasy from the press at work. The man’s eyes shot to the meal then back up at hers, and as she started down into those vacant marbles sitting in his skull, all she could think of was the word ‘instinct’. Written behind those pupils, glazed over from the dirt of life and the strain of time, there lay some remnants of a childlike innocence, of forgotten wonder, and in that moment all she wanted was to read his story. What few belongings he did have were scattered around him in varying degrees of yesterday: a stained glass jar of some unknown substance sat to his side atop a shaggy square of black linen that was someone’s scarf in a previous life; a walking stick to his left, placed with seeming intent to rest parallel to the lines of the concrete tiling below; and directly in front of him, the curious item that won the attention of the girl, sat a Rubik’s cube. Solved in its own way, it was now long-robbed of its vibrantly puzzling sides of colour, leaving only a uniformly-off-white upon each face.

“Here.
It’s, um—… It’s still warm.”

She stumbled over the moment, the last syllables of her offer dragging themselves out from the back of her throat. She felt exposed—in this moment of all moments—rushed, almost panicked by the presence of intrigued passers-by. Their eyes weighed down upon her back—their judgement, their imposing of a righteousness that she wanted nothing to do with.

His lips moved, attempted to, but produced little sound. His eyes remained locked with hers for what felt like an hour, before looking back to the sandwich, its contents now succumbing to the accumulated moisture within the paper bag. Her hand outstretched before her, as if offering feed to an animal, she was reminded of the last time she visited a zoo. It was Thailand, the air humid, stifling, but alive. She was 7 years old, her mother still beside her, her small hand clutching the hem of her mother’s favourite summer-dress. A monkey in a cage, loud announcements of obnoxiously broken English, the sweaty sting of a heat rash forming beneath her chin, the smell of shit.

The smell of shit. Why wouldn’t this old man take my fucking sandwich? “Just—eat it,” she said, the slight inflection snapping out from beneath her words failing to mask her growing impatience—actual frustration, towards a man who probably had nothing more to his name save the faint remnants of stale tobacco and expired memories. He looked back up at her, unsure as to how to respond to such a simple, brazen instruction. His eyes pierced deep into hers, as if searching for something that she long considered dead.

Eugh, I give up, she thought, setting the bag down beside his dirty boots. Her eyes remained glued upon his as she rose, gingerly at first, always prepared for the worst.

He just sat there.
She checked the time.

She looked down at him once more, then turned, and left, the cold clicking of her heels against the hard concrete below her only company, the cold streets of Sydney her only audience.

better to reign in hell: Sonia

Tue, 14 May 2013 19:43:19 -0700

better to reign in hell: Sonia:

#Prose Feature Note:

This touched me. I had an emotional reaction to it. The language (especially the “purple” descriptions) was lovely.

_______________

I’ve tried to tell her—cigarettes equal cancer—but I think she likes the drama of her lung cells going rogue. Father wouldn’t let her join the army. That’s always what my sister has been: a bird held back from flying that bats its wings in a different way.

It’s hard to imagine her flying anywhere. We sit together on her window ledge, watching the city bore itself below, its whispers and shouts and screams rising and fading and rising again. After all this time, how has its voice not faded? The apartment beyond us is gray with dust and 1940s old. The ghost of a World War II soldier on leave breathes down my neck. My sister lights a cigarette and holds it between her fingers, exhaling the smoke into the humid city air; her silk robe has holes burnt in the sleeves. She is as much a part of this place as the mafia prowling across the street, the prostitute twirling on the corner.

This is another of her backhanded sabotages. Mother drives herself crazy, worrying about her eldest daughter living here. They don’t speak to each other anymore. When I visit, Mother calls and frantically pushes me to get my sister on the phone, but Sonia just smiles and looks at the ceiling.

Tonight, she is purple. Her dark hair shines violet in the light; she smells of lilacs and lavender; and under her skin, plums grow. I touch one, round and juicy, on her cheekbone. She brushes me away with an “Oh, Syl, you’re so young. You don’t understand these things.” But I do. I see the way she cringes when she steps on her left leg and how she holds her breath when she bends. I see her eyes roaming the streets below us, searching for someone—whether to find or to avoid, I don’t know.

The hours pass quickly. We simply sit there as the sun takes its daily mortal wound and bleeds away, and then the night conquers. Sonia bathes in it: black hair and black eyes and black bruises all melting into the darkness. Only the small fire of her cigarette tells me where she is. Sometimes I think that little ember is the only light of her left.

As always, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom before I leave and sneak a few hundred dollars into a cabinet or a drawer. She’d sneak it back if doing so didn’t place her so close to our parents. We meet at her door, and I hold her close, and she laughs. I want to squeeze it out of her, but I’m afraid she’d just crumble.

“I love you, Sonia,” I murmur into her neck.

“Be braver,” she replies.

a light discography: Blinded by the neon lights of a new city, rubbing the film from my...

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:34:58 -0700

a light discography: Blinded by the neon lights of a new city, rubbing the film from my...:

#Prose Feature Note:

I’ll be honest, I featured this one piece off of my dashboard. I’m always captivated by this writer’s quirky (ugh, sorry I can’t find a better word right now) style. I’ve just never quite read anything like it. Surreal, but so full of solid emotion. This is gorgeous.

__________

theredsun:

Blinded by the neon lights of a new city, rubbing the film from my aperture eyes. I felt filthy, dusty, egg-headed in this place. Awkward and browned by a sun much closer to the equator than I’d ever been. A dessert of strangers dried out by the weeks.

In March, I wrote myself a love letter while my skin cried all over New Jersey pillows. The fertility drugs I took wrapped their hands around my throat and stuffed me in a duffle bag. Left at the hospital to die. I had breathing treatments for twelve hours.

May and I’ve reconnected with her over galaxies of black night specked with heavy cream. I’m so much more awake, immersed in her tattoos and fem theory like I’ve been starved for six years.

Like a life with no limits. Snorkeling through the sky.

michaelfaudet: She Said by Michael Faudet #Prose Feature...

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:26:17 -0700

michaelfaudet:

She Said by Michael Faudet

#Prose Feature Note:

One of those moods…

Butane Skyline: A note for you

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:17:30 -0700

Butane Skyline: A note for you:

#Prose Feature Note:

Some lovely language going on here. Questions I’ve pondered before. I felt this. It punched me in the gut.

___________

I’ve got some things to say to you.

I know I shouldn’t, the conversation has been dead for ages. But still, I find myself looking for the answers to unasked questions, waiting for something that was never said, was meant to have been said, is still lingering on the tips of our tongues, the edges of our lips.

Lips that crash against one another in a supernova explosion of the desire we keep locked away—
Or was that just me?
Was I making it up in my head?
When you hugged me like that, squeezing like there was something… something you wanted me to know but it was something you couldn’t say.
I might be lying to myself, but I want to believe I know you better than that.
I want to think that when you said that we’re too stubborn it was a lie to yourself as much as it was to me. A feeble attempt to set us free.
Free from this nightmare blend of whispers in the night that never reach the other’s ears.
And that’s assumming that while I’m whispering, somewhere you are too. That while your laugh and drink your wine, someplace in your head, you’re thinking of:

Sitting on a couch with my head in your lap as we read our favorite passages of books out loud to one another while music plays in the background.

Walking in the sunshine with smiles so big our faces hurt and it only gets worse when we look at eachother and ask, “what?” Like we’ve been caught doing something wrong. Like just looking at the other should have been forbidden.

And maybe it should be.

Because it’s late.
And I’m late.
My words are late and I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I have to be sorry.
And I’m sorry that I still love you.
I love you, and sorry doesn’t cut it.
I love you can’t change a thing.

But I need to say it because I feel the weight of it crushing my chest and holding me by the throat in every waking moment. And when I finally go to sleep, all I see is what could have, should have and it taunts me.

So I love you.
Even though it doesn’t mean a thing to you.

Or maybe that’s a lie I tell myself because I’m scared that you weren’t lying.

Anytown, USA: Men Don't Leave | 70

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:09:16 -0700

Anytown, USA: Men Don't Leave | 70:

#Prose Feature Note:

My heart. Ugh. You’ve shot me in the heart.

__________

July, 1999

You are standing by the window in your bra and panties and he is late.

Mia yells at you through the cordless phone, beeping, the battery about to die. She tells you to put some clothes on.

“Don’t make it easy for him!”, but you don’t care.
You stayed up late last night watching a documentary about monkeys, the animals most similar to human beings. Researchers spent months observing them, watching through lenses, taking notes, getting within range to see their bellies fill as they inhaled but never got near enough to be noticed.
“Just like you, Dummy, off chasing some ape who scratches himself, then runs when you try to get close.”

You look at the flashing red light on the phone, wait for it to go black.

“I have to charge the phone, Mia”
“Alright. But you’re better off letting it die. Better the phone die than you, waiting for him.”
An hour passes, then another. You go to the window, watch the sunset. You wanted to do that with him. He told you he never saw an actual sun set before, never noticed the sky turn pink before. Never noticed the landscape turn into a silhouette before. Never made a wish on a new moon before. So you asked him to walk with you along the river, the one between the two famous bridges, the one that overlooked those old factories whose lights blinked like stars over the projects at night.

Another hour passes and you light the candles you had reserved for another occasion. You open the bottle of wine, the first you would start and finish all by yourself. The river ripples have gone from brown to black, blotched with reflections from the industrial florescence. At 10 you put the meal you made away, clear off the counter, wash all the dishes. You put on the pair of small shorts you study and sleep in, turned off the sin vergüenza AC, open a window, let the river breeze tease the curtains, fluttering like your long hair. You put on a Dallas Cowboys tshirt, that gift from an uncle who said you were too pretty for tears in a letter he wrote you from jail.

Then you try to sleep. Still awake at midnight, you hear the phone ring. It’s him, who coyly asks how’s it going. What have you been up to?
And you want to scream, but you are too tired. Want to tell him off, but you are too hurt.
“Nothing much,” you say instead, and press your ear closer to the phone, hoping to hear him breathe.

breakdowns for breakfast: Daily Driving Ruminations

Mon, 13 May 2013 21:51:54 -0700

breakdowns for breakfast: Daily Driving Ruminations:

#Prose Feature Note:

Love the ideas. Written in a clear, interesting way. Good stuff!

_________

We talk and write of pain and love, usually in the same sentence - often in the same breath. They’re inextricable to us. Two edges of the same knife.

You sometimes hear people spout platitudes, poetic and otherwise, like, “Love is pain” or “If this is love, why does it have to hurt so bad?” They’re not being trite. It’s a real thing. But today I finally know (important to note the difference here between “know” and “understand”) why it happens.

Pain is the litmus test for love.

Anyone can make you happy - if you let them. You can spend time and watch music and go for walks in the park and fuck with anyone. You can even establish a “friends-with-benefits” sort of situation where you enjoy each other’s company and sex so much that you don’t even date. You can do all of those things, purely devoid of love. You can do them with acquaintances.

But the pain of losing someone is the signature of love. If even just the thought of their walking or running away makes that tight, fist-like feeling in your chest, that’s how you know you love them. Without that pain of loss, you’re not really in love. You’re just attracted or infatuated.

If you only allow someone to get under your skin deep enough to make you feel good, if you only allow them into the parts of you that make you smile or cum or laugh, if you only stick around for the good times, that is not love. That’s a hobby. If you love someone - and not the memory or the idea or the thought of them - you have to break your fucking ribs and open your heart to weather the parts of them that you don’t like. The little annoyances and idiosyncrasies. Their insecurities. Their distance. You have to let them so deep into your mind and your life that they could utterly destroy the very foundation of what makes you you. And more importantly than that, you have to trust them not to. You have to hand them the key to your pain and blindly trust that they won’t use it. Then if they do, you have to suture the parts of you they opened, and learn to trust someone else all over again. To let it all scar over and keep it locked up is smart, and calm, and logical, and calculated - but it is not strong. To let that muscle atrophy to numbness is the most cowardly thing you can do.

People might say that’s extreme. Even I think it’s a little insane. But to love any other way is a waste of time. And none of us have that time to waste.

A lot of people - myself included - have looked down their noses and scoffed and made fun of people who devote their lives to love. We call it weak. We call it overly sentimental and sappy. We say, “don’t be emo” and other embarrassingly ignorant things like that. But today, I think that falling in love might be the bravest thing you could ever do.

The Chapbook: A Smoker's Triptych - Pilgrim

Mon, 13 May 2013 19:43:27 -0700

The Chapbook: A Smoker's Triptych - Pilgrim:

#Prose Feature Note:

Really enjoyed reading this. Nice concept. Dig the language. Great piece.

___________

He finally reached the destination of his pilgrimage, and prepared to take the sacrament. He took out the luckless pouch of tobacco, papers and filters and began to roll them to a cigarette. There was no body or blood in this little ritual; the body was the stale toast for breakfast, the blood was his own, coughed into the sink every morning. When he had finished, the wind, the breath of God or a vent from Hell, swept across the street with such urgency that it seemed that it had only come into existence to extinguish his lighter. But he overcame these hardships. The cigarette was the incense burner of his contemplative, cloistered Catholicism. While he sucked at the roll-up, he thought of why he was there, what had led to this. Something greater than addiction, some stronger urge habitually led him here, day after day. The years burned away to a friend of his, a medical student at University, telling him that smokers only feel normal when they’re smoking – the rest of the time they’re missing something, incomplete. Maybe that was why he smoked? To make up for the self inflicted hole inside him.

The tree had died some time ago, but still stood in the middle of the street. It was an emaciated hand reaching from the earth, grey gnarled skin clinging tightly to the bones. He looked at his hands. Once he had been as green full of life as a tree in spring, but now, as with the tree, there was something dead about him. Now, as much as it hurt him to look at it, the tree still drew him in. It was one of the only things he had left of her, and even it was dying.

Inhaling, smoke went into his lungs. On exhalation, precious seconds of his life fled his body with it. He flicked the ash from the end of the cigarette. He wondered if other smokers often mistook the physical effects of their addiction for love – a tightness in the chest, a shortness of breath, a lightness in the head. Maybe his case was the opposite. Maybe that was the normal feeling he was chasing? Maybe he was using the addiction as a replacement for love… He was thinking maudlin thoughts now, but these thoughts had an express purpose, to mask the great dark thought at the back of his mind.

Of course, she was the real reason that he was here. This was his penitence, his solitude, his increasingly often pilgrimage to the dead tree, this slow death by smoke and fire. The best and most effective state endorsed suicide. The more he smoked, the closer he would get to her. And when he met her, he would tell her what he’d done for her, to atone. The time for public declarations of sin, the self-flagellation with birch and starvation, had passed. Now the Enlightened focus on the self had forced him into the cold to commune with God, to find his own little expression of penitence. With that thought in mind, he threw the butt on the floor and he reached for the papers and filters in his pocket. There was a lump in his throat. It was almost as if he could cry.

The Briar Diary: Knocking

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:35:04 -0700

The Briar Diary: Knocking:

#Prose Feature Note:

Unexpected and lovely. Thank you for sharing.

__________

I’ve stopped ringing doorbells.

My problem is not so much with the doorbell itself but more with the connotation of it. Anyone can and usually does ring the doorbell, Girl Scouts to tax collectors.

Knocking, now that takes more effort, the sound, the action, it’s a very powerful process. It’s like using a person’s first name, it implies a certain level of familiarity and intimacy.

The feeling of the cold hard wood against my knuckle and a twinge of pain. Each door sounds and feels different, this is real, something unique and individual.

Do I knock once, twice, three times?

Do I dare create a rhythm or hint at a “Shave and a Haircut”?

While it may seem fun and playful, even appropriate in some instances it seems these actions smack of immaturity. Three swift strikes to the front door, as I feel the wood give and dent ever so slightly below my fist.

I remember going to work with my Grandfather when I was young. He was a real-estate appraiser so we often found ourselves in homes not our own. I can see in my mind as we leave the car, he steps ahead of me, walking briskly through the late October afternoon. Someone is burning leaves down the road, a smoky smell settled on us, like a layer of glaze over a pastry, light and barely noticeable. At the front door my Grandfather’s thick paw bats at the wood frame with a dull thud that resonates throughout this space. It is strong, powerful, he is a grown up and I am a child.

In later years when we would be here again, I notice that my Grandfather’s hand is not as quick to fold in on itself. There is pain now in his face even in this simple action. He’s a problem solver though, age and Arthritis will not be the end of communication.

Digging deep into his pocket he produces an oversized coin, a token of some memory never shared with the likes of me. The side of the coin strikes the house with the sharp crack, it breaks through the stillness with an almost violent intensity. Now I am embarrassed, something has changed, this is not how it’s supposed to go down. The coin leaves a small scratch in the aluminum siding barely noticeable but still there.

I want to be the type of man who knows you well enough to call out your first name and knock. One day when my hands don’t work like they’re supposed to, perhaps I will resort to something crude like a coin strike. In spite of this I will be there ready to meet your door with whatever means I have available to me.

Knock knock… who’s there?

RE-VIEW: Self-Help

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:26:17 -0700

RE-VIEW: Self-Help:

#Prose Feature Note:

Something about this. Can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it just appeals to me on a personal level because the sentiments feel familiar?

___________

We aren’t suppose to mince words and my age allows me to be direct so let it be known

remember that once upon a time your shoes were mine but mine were worn under circumstance,

well time is not forgiving me for my past, presently my actions seem blunt, but there’s a time for the conspicuous. In offense no offense must be taken with being direct- my order of events has come and gone.

Returning to how things happen how things happened there was no sense of confidence that comes from just being and negotiating with how things should be and how things will be slows the process down- it protects nothing and fears everything.

Happily ever after-

On the way to school it was hard to pretend hard to forget of the truth of how things were, shallow waters allowed me to see the bottom and the reflection wasn’t clear but getting closer made me see things.

Seeing things for what their parts were for what they were injected with, the essence of so many other things, failure to concentrate allows you to forget the things you see when last we forgot the drugs were bad and the last time she forgot was in the arms of another day with another person,

robbing all of my possibilities all my actions seemed to force me to act in only one way- the war with reality was constant and it seems that unknown forces push us in the direction we least wish to see us go. Choose sides between evils of different kinds.

She was kind and he didn’t know why…

Involved in her own ways and inverted thoughts he was no part of her she was him and reflecting her self off others gave them the satisfaction of empty beauty.

| breathe in love exhale poetry |: Where do you find courage? Do you plant it in your lungs and let it...

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:17:46 -0700

| breathe in love exhale poetry |: Where do you find courage? Do you plant it in your lungs and let it...:

#Prose Feature Note:

Thoughtful. Made me pause. Shared fears.

_____________

Where do you find courage? Do you plant it in your lungs and let it grow with every inhalation? Do you ever speak about it to your imaginary companion— taking time to reveal its beauty? Is it in the eyes of your shivering bones? Blinking with every bending joint; cringing whenever you flex your muscles. Where is courage when you need it? How much is enough and how much is too much?

Do you grab it because you’re hurt? Because your skin burns but it wouldn’t bleed? Do you pop the bottle like it’s the only cure that can heal you? Does it give you the feeling that you’re invincible? That you can never be destroyed and no one can ever make you feel miserable and hopeless. If you could, would you try to drink in strength in your most vulnerable state? And is that even enough?

Are you really sure all you need is courage— to face all the monsters haunting your dreams and run from all the uncertainties that’s dragging your heavy feet? If you’re using courage to say goodbye to someone, will there be enough left to help you face your fears?

of being alone;

and him being gone;

of no future;

and only the present;

of wasted courage;

and brittle bones.

#Prose Feature Note: Sometimes… it’s nice to read...

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:08:56 -0700

#Prose Feature Note:

Sometimes… it’s nice to read something positive, but realistic about love. Right?

My Ink-Stained Soul: The Strongest People [Prose]

Sun, 12 May 2013 21:51:43 -0700

My Ink-Stained Soul: The Strongest People [Prose]:

#Prose Feature Note:

Just should be said… and heard.

_______________

The strongest people are the ones nobody realizes are fighting.

They wear masks to shield their pain from other eyes, stretching lips into convincing Cheshire cat grins and eyes wide with wonder. These are the people who step in to comfort you, though no one notices the scars they wear on skin, hearts, and soul. They make up a race of survivors, of spirits too often put down and trampled on. Yet they stand back up, never allowing another pair of eyes to see the stampede’s footprints on their backs.

The strongest people are the ones nobody realizes are fighting, bleeding, screaming silently, and yet still living.

They suffer in silence, instead of shouting to the cosmos of all the ways they’re scared and scarred. When other’s expect society to run towards them with open arms, to heal their wounds and scatter their tears, this unseen population of Strong and Silent remain zip-lipped. They believe that backbone and tough skin will get them by, help them survive, and they’re unaware that it’s a lie.

The strongest people in the world have scratched up souls, but they don’t allow anyone to see.

Its a population of you, them, and me.

And we’re convinced we need to suffer alone, in the shadows. We’re not hiding, we just don’t want to be a burden. We sit in silence while others suffocate us with their woes, though they don’t listen to ours.

They don’t ask.

So here is to every member of the Strong and Silent. Here is to the boys and girls who think they are alone, unknowing we are a full society of secret keepers. Here is to those of backbone and tough skin, too often reminded of the painful world we’re in.

I’m here. I’ll listen. I’ll see your scars and try to heal them with my own.

Just know…you’re not alone.

(un)joy: A Portrait of Rachael

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:43:45 -0700

(un)joy: A Portrait of Rachael:

#Prose Feature Note:

This is an interesting character sketch. Some of the wording is just golden. Well done.

_________

‘A’ can stand for ‘anything’.

When her teacher spelled her name wrong on the first day of kindergarten, Rachael was taken back. When her teacher spelled her name wrong on the first day of middle school, she started to wonder why her parents decided to add extra weight to her name. The more she looked at the ‘a’, the more she felt it was odd, unnecessary, and most importantly, heavy.

Even if she were forced to select a single pivotal moment in which her life changed, in which God grabbed hold of her psychological and mental health and twisted it to distraught proportions, she wouldn’t have been able to. Her past felt like a hot, wet towel; it was too heavy to handle and scalded her every time she turned to pick it up.

‘A’ is for ‘anarchy’.

She severed herself from care for authority the moment she learned to hold scissors, but rebelling required an effort that she did not have the energy for. Sometimes, when she concentrated hard enough, she was able to fall into the comfortable, secure habit of obeying, of doing work, of being on time, of working hard. It felt good, a pure kind of good, a good she once held in her hands when she lived on the West coast under the hot Californian sun, a good she left at the bottom of her swimming pool when her parents wrestled her out of the water.

‘A’ is for ‘affinity’.

She loved her dog, whose last days in her home were marked with a bittersweet flurry of spending time together, rushed by the anticipation of her departure to another family in Florida. She put a giant bird cage where her companion once slept and focused on birds — chatterbox grey ones, majestic blue ones, chubby yellow ones. She found her innocence on the wings of her young birds; yet she could not bear to take it back, to deprive them of flight.

But she is a-okay, she is a-okay, she is a-okay.