Someday

Idle dreams. Of camping and hiking, the Amazon and the Antarctic. Dipping toes in sleepy streams. Hammocks and sultry breezes. Noon-day suns and coyote moons. Company. Story-telling.
Adventures.
Sleeping in the shade of old, old red-wood trees. Fireflies and lady-bugs. Stillness.
And more, of course. Much more.
Sand castles. Finger painting. Strawberries in cream. Anklets. But first....
All of this, someday.

Cage

You're teasing me, Life.
You shouldn't. I'm dangerous right now.
I sit outwardly calm, still. Feeling all the physical impact of having run into a (metaphorical) brick wall. I have just been taught a lesson in irony.
My nails are digging into my palms. Another's words echo in my head, beautiful as prayer.
If I let them look, what will my face give away, I wonder.
The Art of Losing?
Though....can one lose possibilities?
If a star died at the same time as a butterfly fluttered its wings, would I see a rainbow in my backyard?
Possibilities.
Surrounded...no..serenaded by talk of angles and stereoscopic lenses, and words speaking of loneliness that are only half-meant, I find my mind drifting. How easily it comes, this talk of sex.
Words or Art? Is it right to be impressed?
I struggle against it.
Maybe if I tried my own, made some art......
Like in kindergarten. My blue crayon is better than your yellow one. Is not. Is too.
My backyard had rainbows in it then. But magical ones, not metaphorical. The difference is, I suspect, one of age.
I realize my attention has been wandering for several minutes now. So rude, when there is still much to say about depth perception. I turn back to the conversation, to talk of impersonal hotels in far-away lands and polarized filters and not one in the crowd guesses that I'm dangerous right now.

Old Flames

We're friends now. Now that we are no longer together. Now that the fire has burnt itself out. Friends who take long walks and go out for coffee, stay on the phone for hours saying nothing. That kind of friends.
"Remember when I told your mom I'd marry you?" Brown eyes crinkling at the corners, full of laughter at the memory.
I do. We were 6. I also remember when he changed his mind. Sometimes there's no stopping life.
"Remember that dinner we missed entirely because we were busy talking?"
Hours and hours of plans. Do I always want the things I can't get? I shiver.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," I reply, "something walked over my grave."
Shaking his head at me. "You're so morbid."
Do you remember when I wasn't, I want to ask.
There are other memories. The first time he tousled my hair affectionately, a non-verbal 'hey buddy' and me blinking, wondering at the change. When had we become buddies? The first time I looked into his eyes and saw the complete absence of all the old excitement. Where had it gone? The moment of acceptance, it would never be the same again. Somewhere along the way I had been left, irrevocably, behind. And that silent moment in your living room, so innocuous and mundane, when you first spoke her name softly to yourself, as if your thoughts were far away, while I stared at the TV and held my breath so you wouldn't hear it changing.
"Give me your hand."

I stiffen, abruptly called back to the present by the demand. "Why?"

"Give it to me." Laughing at me, like its all a big surprise.

I extend it reluctantly.

He picks it up, makes a fist and turns it over. Then he picks a fallen eye-lash off my cheek and places it on the back of my hand, where it quivers helplessly in the wind.

"You always wished on them. Remember?"

And suddenly I hate him. A tidal wave of hot burning anger that has me almost shaking. I remember, I want to say, but why do you?
I say nothing however.
Instead I close my eyes and pretend to be giving my wish some thought.

When I open my eyes, he's looking at me intently. "Well?"

"I can't tell you or it won't come true."

He rolls his eyes, half-amused, half-annoyed.

"Well, I hope it was good."
He takes my arm.

"It was." I gently disengage myself and smile vaguely. "Feel like coffee?"
Thinking we have to be the strangest friends in the world, one so heedless, the other so yielding. One whose eyes look to the future, the other constantly trapped in the past. Life is not as simple and easily planned as it is at six. Life is not only light, but sometimes a blinding dark. And very often it is many shades of grey.

Damages

Sometimes I feel sorry for myself. Not in the way that most people would think. Not from grievance or resentment. Nothing passionate there. No flashes of feeling, burning red-hot. But coolly, calmly. Even remote. Like it's all happening to someone else.
And now there are two sides to me. The one with the flayed skin, the flesh wounds, struggling hard to hold on to some modicum of control. The other, the spectator. So rational in the midst of a personal storm.
It'll be fine, I can hear me telling myself. It'll pass, it always does. In a hour or two, the tears will stop and then you need to think of tomorrow, cold compress to help with the puffiness round the eyes and a strategy, to look and sound normal. How about reading that book now, a little distraction? You'll forget then. Oblivion, while there are still pages to turn.
Horrifying, that little voice. A clean split. I'm no longer who I used to be last year or the year before, the good years. Instead I'm six again. A terrified six. Or thirteen. Fifteen and lying in bed, feeling all the horrors of a forgotten dream, deliberating on the damages.
Now the headaches are starting again. Once more, my body is turning against itself. It must suffer because in my head is a clean split. And the calm me? It is not concerned with scars, nor with splits. Even the self-damage, even that, remains remote. And for that, I'm sorry.

Between pages

Life is strange like that. The long journey in which many things are forgotten. Then a half-turn and suddenly it's just as if you walked back in time. Like picking up a book you haven't read in years and finding a faded picture inside you'd forgotten was there. Or a pressed daisy, crumbled leaf and all.

This is my crumbled leaf and all.

"Sometimes it is possible to feel such grief that you think you cannot go on. And yet know you must. It is possible to see what's coming and then tell yourself I am prepared, I am prepared, I am....
Sometimes it is possible to build walls around yourself and think it is strong, it is strong, it is.
Sometimes it is possible to deal with a secret sorrow by reminding yourself that I've had practice, I've known worse, I've known worse.
And yet....how easy it is for the voices of your heart to drown out all the things your head is saying.
While trying not to think of the one thing you should be telling yourself...I have been a fool. Such a fool."

Someone once said that to be taken for granted is the highest form of compliment. That what it really means is that you have become such an integral part of their lives that they cannot imagine one without you, they expect you are always around, just like one expects the sun to rise at the start of each day and darkness at the end of each one.

What this really means, among other things, is that people tend to get accustomed to anything. What a good thing it is, and how convenient, that our hearts get used to things. People and places, love and loss, joy and sadness.

I stare at my handwriting, heavily smudged and sloppy, my turbulent feelings apparent even without the words. I try to remember when this was written. And why.

I know what it means, can even guess at the circumstances. But when I try searching for the particulars, I find I draw a blank. I'm more unsettled by this than by the finding of the note. For it means something. Of that I'm sure. But what?

Am I stronger? Or merely reconciled?
Is this self-delusion? Or was it wising up?
Are these walls? Or am I free?

The answers however, whatever they might be, will never change what someone once said. That our hearts will get used to things....

Such a very good thing.

Screaming

I read a story a while ago. While reading it, my over-riding feeling was one of horror, like someone watching an accident happen in slow motion. Awful to witness but you can't look away. You're thinking oh my god, someone do something because the sense of helplessness is paralysing. And once I was done reading, I found I couldn't put it out of my mind. It's nothing concrete that you can effectively pin down, just this swirl of feelings in your head that doesn't let up and gives no peace. Phantasmic impressions that delight in eluding you. It was clear the author understood the power of words very well. And once I was done I thought I wish I could write like that.

The thought itself is not new, or even unique. It happens every time I am faced with a blank page. The need to tell a story, and tell it well. Sometimes it drives me crazy, this need. I stare at the words in front of me and it's my handwriting I see, and yet strangely enough they aren't my words at all. They don't feel mine. The thought behind it is mine but the words itself are those of a child just beginning to communicate. So I have to polish and sand, chipping away a word here, a word there. Throwing out everything that is superfluous. Worrying about saying too much, not saying enough. Trusting that ultimately what I feel will interact with the pen I wield and it will be as I ask. That ultimately I can use words not just to a sastisfying conclusion but to paint a picture in the mind that never quite fades.

Just lately my concerns have gotten more basic. Lately I stare at that blank page and find I have nothing to say. Nothing at all. Something that was as easy as breathing has now suddenly become impossible. There's a lack of emotion and a lack of inventiveness that scares me because I don't know the reason behind it. It's like trying to scream when you have no voice. In desperation I turned to my other long-forgotten creative outlet and sketched yesterday, for what just may be the first time in four years and it was awfully mundane. I sat there staring at the end result and trying not to panic. I make no claims of superior skill. My writing, just like my art is mainly for me. Other people may shake their heads at it but it satisfies me, it keeps me sane. I don't want it to go away. I don't want to think about what will be left if it does. A vacuum? A giant black-hole? And while my eyes absently moved over the grey, neatly pencilled wine glass and table, I wondered why. I wondered what happened to screams when you hold them in for too long.

Kay Sera Sera

There's a moment of silence when she stops talking. I can sense her nervousness, her need for my approval. Best of friends, even with ten years between us. Her hands are toying with the napkin on the table, as are mine. Except that, on my part, it's a delaying tactic. Playing her words over again in my head. "He's a very nice guy. Good to me. We both know it's not going anywhere but....for once, I find myself removed from all the other drama happening in my life. When it's time, we'll deal with it."
Finally I look up. Because I can't not say something. "It's not as easy as you think."
"I know," she says, as only the young can. Pushing a strand behind her ear, relief that my reaction is so low-key.
No, I think sadly, you don't. Suddenly feeling old, so old. You can't know. Until you're there. It's never easy to walk away. Or be walked away from. You think you can 'deal with it' but only with an awful lot of bruising.
I've been there. Not that long ago either. The need to experience the stuff of poems and songs. The desire for flight. The thrill of excitement, of anticipation. Taking that first step off firm ground onto thin ice. Or a deep chasm. Nothing is as blinding as the illusion of control.
I can handle it.
Breathless with a new kind of excitement. Slipping and sliding, always gaining momentum. An almost fall. Heart pounding as you catch yourself, pressing a hand against your stomach, laughing nervously because wow, that was close. But then....
If I slow my pace a bit, I can handle it.
The fall comes too fast for comprehension. A blur of motion, till you hit bottom. Struggling for breath, feeling your bruises in bewilderment. How it all hurts.
I didn't know it hurt so much.
"What?" she says sharply, breaking into my thoughts . She's getting wired up again.
"I.." I stop. How do you tell her? I have half-formed ideas of locking her in a room until she's older, keep her safe from all hurts.
"Don't invite complications. There's no sense in that." I can tell though that she's not listening. She hears what I'm saying, but she's not listening. I fall silent.
"I know what I'm doing," she says, re-assuringly.
No, I think, you don't.
But there's nothing I can do. Her wings are eager for flight.
"Well, I'm here if you ever want to talk."
A glowing smile. "I know." Flicking her hair back again, in a smooth confident move.
What will be will be.