A Dozen Wilted Roses: The Flashlight Theory

She gazed out confidently towards the horizon, that glittering lake she could almost see, and I could almost see it with her. Her violet eyes were calm, back a confident arrow. The men followed grudgingly, jealous that a young girl could know more than them all. Once the night fell, all hell broke loose. And I left her there to fend for herself amidst the chaos of the night, with one smitten, loyal watchman and buckets of confusion being poured futilely on the fire.
I shut my mind's eye to her world and found myself between so many concrete walls and lines of binder paper. This is where I should be, I told myself.

A Dozen Wilted Roses: Modern Beauty

Maybe it looks differently in low light,
hooka smoke swirling lazily:
cover-up and dark eye-shadow
her hair a weekly canvas
and it's worth it to "make pretty colors."

In the morning
pockmarked face
crocheted beanie hiding brittle, fried hair

"Once the damage is done,
there's not much we can do.
The marks will remain
...unless we scrape back to the dermis."

If we erase
how many years of scars
who will she be??

A Dozen Wilted Roses: I. Scientifically Proven

A pile of unfamiliar bound text sits unexplained on the table as I saunter into the kitchen, stretching off a good night's sleep. Skimming the spines, I find extensive studies of the properties of TiSO4 and other ceramics. Bubbie's singsong voice, from behind, clarifies: "These were Papa's dissertations." An image of the man materializes before me: thick glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose, oxygen tube strapped to his face, reading the newspaper in this chair, the one nearest the cereal cabinet. "Hey, sidekick!" he calls from the office, in a clear voice. My childish footsteps patter down the hall, and I hear the jingling of quarters that I am allowed to sort. Glancing up on the wall, I notice a family portrait, back when Papa's glasses have black frames and his tawny hair covers his head. I glance and wonder what it is like to grow old, collecting coins and crosswords.

Memory Palace

I walk down a hallway that curves slightly, each door identical. I know this place--I visit all the time, alone. I open each door and visit its inhabitants. Today I pause beside each frame and press my ear to the wall...screams, weeping, cackling. And that one, the one that rumbles... I slip quickly past onto the fire escape--the only escape into the real world from this dungeon. All the bustling people everywhere, swarming below like ants. None notice my frail figure--or none care. Whenever I come here, I end up tearing onto the fire escape, overwhelmed, and jumping. I somehow wind up walking among the crowd, which is as unperturbed as the sea when my pebble meets the waves.
I hear a nagging voice in the back of my head--you can't keep those doors closed forever. It is my internal Natasha Bedingfield: Release your inhibitions, she whispers. Let your barriers down... I know she wants me to open the doors, but can I? Without them it's a drowning deluge and with them it's a desert tomb.
The knobs rattle restlessly...

Inspired by Pendergast

For Joanne

The girl in the white dress found the old rickety wooden shack without recognizing it. The sun had bleached the bare planks, and the roof had half-fallen in. The door creaked and stuck, so she braced her shoulder against it, leaning with all she could muster, and fell through the crumbling wood panel onto the cool concrete floor. Her first view was rays of sunlight streaming through the ceiling like bits of revelation on a sunrisen mountain peak. Collecting herself, she stood, first noticing the barren, cracked concrete floor. Then she saw it: upon a simple three-legged stool, encased in a dusty glass sheath. Her almond eyes widened, and her fingers quivered as she lifted the cage and removed the scarlet rose. She knelt, eyes averted, remembering hesitant words painted on that shadowy hotel room ceiling in Germany. She gasped and ran her fingers over the cracks in the floor as if realizing them for the first time. She stood suddenly, spinning about, and noticed that there was one more thing in the room: a postcard, still glossy under all the dust, languishing in the far corner. She stooped to whisper away the film of neglect, and saw through the years a curtain of jade ivy. On the back, a note:

Inextinguishable, like the sea.

V.

All-Consuming

Kerosene to the family photos. A match. The father, mother, woken by the son, link hands and crawl through the flames, towards the door, son and father--mother stopping short--choking lack of air reaching reaching the doorknob it's locked deadbolt oh the deadbolt why is it so high turning choking falling so close the doorknob. Mother surges forward the doorknob out to fresh air turning the knob nothing happens nothing can't get out only hope suffocation the heat. Help she yells feebly, knocks on the door no one will come no air sliding down to her final resting place so close

But no, stomping boots and an oxygen tank a fireman come to save them thank God her eyes whisper the door just turn the knob the door but why are you standing there I know you why are you here just open the door our only hope no no no 

Clomping boots, away through the flames to the back door, leaving the woman with her eyes following his figure desperately, motionless next to her husband for the last time.

~~~in the style of William Faulkner~~~

I've Been Working on the Railroad

If you knew me, you could imagine me, swinging my lunch bucket and trudging steadily along the downwards-sloping gravel trail near daybreak. You could wave from the doorway of our imagined house until I was almost out of sight. Teetering on the brink of unreality, I would stop, turn, and blow you a kiss. You might close your eyes momentarily...but by the time you look again I would be gone--my nailed boots would clop on the trail, faster now, 'cause down the decline waited my dream. One of these days the steam engine will come, and I can finally witness the shining future in flesh before me. Maybe today will be the day--Boss keeps saying so.
I stumbled into a somersault--my laces betrayed me--and tumbled, rolled, until I finally planted both feet on the substantial path again. I was right around the bend...in a flash I spotted the wooden picket, number seventy-five. That was me. I stooped and gripped my hammer and a gold, shiny nail. They say it ain't gold except to fools, but it was gold to me.
Anyone would've noticed how carefully I handled the spikes, how unrelenting I drove them home: after all, we were paving the way to tomorrow. You could observe me, done with lunch, inspecting the ties, realizing that the last tie was hit here and it was time to move on. I would hesitate, and stretching across the newly completed project; eyes would drift shut. The others would, after a minute or two of quiet, hop up all at once, startled jackrabbits, and bound away. My eyes would flutter open, then squint shut as I cocked my ear down...a smile would crawl across my face, certainty dawning. I would stand slowly, misted eyes turned to face the east. I would glance up the hillock, as if our imaginary house were just visible, and salute once. Then I would turn expectantly to meet it. The hunk of metal would appear, glinting brilliantly so that all who saw winced. You might shout at me--RUN if you know what's good for you--but I certainly would not hear you. The train, unmovable in its relentless loping, devouring the past and present. You would gape as my body flew onward and promptly disappeared under gleaming iron wheels.
If you knew me you would not agree to this being a suicide...If you really knew me you would hop on the next train west and search for me somewhere in the Rockies. But if you knew me better than I did, you would quit your searching and tell your children that all dreams are nightmares in the end.

Angels--Iron-Jawed and Otherwise

Future without a past,
         Cause devoid of promise

Not a word, not a word, my friend.
Not because I hate you, but because I love you more
and I want you to learn...
You do not understand the meaning of love--

Not a bite, not a bite for my retching stomach.
I will not fall for self-indulgence when my cause is at stake
Let me go in the name of democracy.

Not a wink--not a wink of sleep tonight.
The night is too untrustworthy...
I must stand vigil, so no one else is hurt
        and so I know it all wasn't a bad dream

Not another note of that haunting melody
It tells of those lost and forbidden
Whom I let go, for the sake of her soul
        but should I have kept her here?

Past without a future,
        Promise devoid of cause

White Darkness

My, is it dark. There is nothing but a dizzy swaying that sloshes this sticky watery something where I reside. The sides are slick yet chalky and I can't quite latch on. I close my eyes and listen, trying to see a pattern to it all. There is nothing but that darned swishing...until an earthquake hits. At first, the shaking is barely perceptible....more audible as a soft thump than anything...then it picks up intensity, each wave coming with a greater intensity, until the water all jumps at the ceiling, swirling in deadly currents and up and down and up and--

Gravity has ceased. Me and the water--we're all stuck at the top of this dark dome. But  here, our earthly tendencies return, and the top is pulling us in--is this an alien test lab intent on sucking me through this wall?!--with increasing intensity--my legs--until the whistling from outside is a scream--can't breathe--and my head is about to burst--

A SPLAT  resounds dully with the chamber, turning the world right-side up in a sickening jolt. Everything slowly returns to a standstill...and a world is discovered outside. That is, water sloshes and crashes in distant booms, and higher-pitched squeals, grunts, and thuds--is it those two-legs again?--echo from all over.

But, once more, the world is sloshing all over--thuds and rushed air--but abruptly stops. 

A low-pitched grunt echoes from somewhere above. Grab my hammer, it says. (Whatever that means. It's not like two-legs understand much anyways.)

The world lurches down and lands with a crack. Just as the tide starts to calm, ear-splitting, echoing bangs--each the force of the earthquake in one stroke--shudder the walls of this dark, watery dungeon. One, two, three, four...

And with a final BANG, sunlight streams through a jagged hole in the top, and I see that everything is white--the sticky water, the walls...I scramble up the walls, now that everything has stopped shaking, and out to a bristling, brown exterior, hoping the sun will dry my wings before the grab my hammer starts up again. The two-legs seem to be elsewhere, as a high-pitched one answers the low grunting want some coconut?

They're coming again...I guess I just spent the last few hours inside a coconut.

Missing You/Call Me Vain

I told you to stay there
Quietly
Until it was safe to come out.
Where have you gone, my love?

It's been too long, I must admit
Empty hollow
Friendless
At least, company just doesn't count
When You aren't here

Come, come back to me--
We can be one again
No one has to know
Just so you're mine again
please.

Yes, I know you're shy
I promise--
It won't happen again.
We'll be more careful, won't we?
I can't lose you again.

I can't believe I left you
Neglected for so long
When I said
I'd never
leave you
forlorn.

No wonder you eluded me
I don't deserve you
But really, you know
We can't live without each other
separation is death.

Return, dear heart
I swear on you
you're all I need...

And--if ever
Adventure strikes
Even with the death of me
You will survive.

Telltale beating
I know you're here
Welcome home...
You're all I am.

Through Memory or Dreams

I can't do this. There's so much locked inside, but nothing worth saying. I can't tell the truth and I can't lie, but most of all I can't have anyone know that I'm lost and empty--that half the laughs are hollow and most the smiles are fake. Can anyone tell? I watch them all, try to check that no one has cracked my mask, but I cannot see myself the way they do--my reflection looks so flat and lifeless, blurry and dissolving...It's snowing outside and I'm trapped. The hot cocoa that burns away my sorrow has suddenly turned bitterly sweet, just like memory...I am falling, over and over, and the chair I toppled from disappeared, and there is a canyon wall, and a river, and the sky, and my sister calling my name, and the bushes too close, and--CRASH--I would sit there in the attic for hours and listen to the snow drip--off and off the roof, crunching as it hit the snow--because there was nothing else to hear. I was ten and curled up with a book and a blanket wrapped around my mind, a numbing, blissful agony. Time crawled so slowly...there was nothing to see,  nothing to think and nothing inside but old broken dreams, a dumping ground for everyone's problems which lay rotting in my heart. This is why I can't tell--my secrets aren't even mine--but can't not tell...and let truth decay. My own truths are hidden among everyone else's, but there is no one to open the lid on this summer soda can. (They're all afraid of the spray.) So I sit and wait in the attic, falling and spinning...This must be what it's like to be guardian of Hell.

Note to reader: Confused? Think of Inception.

Singing in the Rain

And that's how the world remembered him: defiant. Down to the last moment, the last note--oh yes, there was indeed an end--he never accepted defeat. Never once in that bitter rainstorm; never among the hungry crows; never, as the man without a soul extinguished his own, did he flinch.
He stood proudly on the plank, the rope necklace he didn't quite deserve hanging conspicuously on his spindly neck. He smiled crookedly, as if his girl were approaching from afar in a breezy sundress on a windblown beach.
The figure was not his girl, but his downfall. The man was a black ghost: eerily silent, garbed in silky black cloth that did not budge in the roaring gale and did not dampen in the deluge. Although the defiant man could not hear, the figure was muttering a prayer under his hood, the one he always whispered before the board came down: "They succumb for their sins, let them fall; for in their weakness You are strong. Let regret welcome them in Hell."
But those worry lines were erased from this brave man's face. No regret would welcome him, for it seemed he had never experienced regret. He smiled his crooked smile and waved jauntily at the shadowy figure, then broke into song--a song of his own creation, about the power of truth--the tune harmonized charming innocence with subtle wisdom. Had he been able, he would have skipped. Had anyone been there, they would have wept at the irony.
The dark cloak halted directly in front of the man's shoes, and glanced up, just enough so his mouth leered up at the singing carcass. His lips were cracked and bleeding, but pulled back in a leering grin. He removed the board.
At this point, he would usually stalk away with the same unsettling quietness, mutely thanking the Lord that one more criminal met justice, and never think on the man left swinging there for weeks. This time, he paused. For just one minute, the rain became tears and regret that streaked down his upturned face. Finally, slowly, he turned heel and sauntered back to town, his mouth reshaping the words of the song he silenced, the song that offered such promise.
~

Idea credits to Bearamaneramagarrett

naked

I roll sideways off the swing, closing the book as its last words are disclosed. Time for an unwinding, a creation--shucking the shriveling corn ear to bear delicious fruit.
I grab gloves, chemicals, a paintbrush. Then she's handed to me. She lies, beautiful and broken and waiting.
~

Stripped bare--down to the last shadow of what once was. But--with love, care, and a little shellac--the lingering shadows melt away to reveal her true light. She seizes her victory stick and sings at the top of her lungs. She is simple--strong. She is brave--fearless. She is pure, pure delight. Some shrink at her name, but all my hours have no shame. She is thankful for that--for the new home within my heart--and does her best to sing ever clearer, ever stronger, in gratitude. Her hollow heart welcomes the hands that caress her neck, back, ribs; those hands that brought her from shamble and ruin, healed all her fissures and impurities; my hands that cured her.

Pride and Prejudice

The earthquake, it shatters their expectations. They can't believe we found our voice, and are singing our praises to the Lord. For every day is a celebration, and we embrace our very identities. We climb from the dregs of misfortune down yonder, to the great machines and skyscrapers and the prosperity that lines every street. Our very souls cry out in exultation, and the music, our own creation, spells deviance from the social standard. Everyone alive, truly alive, that is, dances along.
Yet we cannot forget who we are. They will not ever let us forget. The claw, green with envy, strikes with brutal force, claiming we have no right to set ourselves free from that quagmire. Innocents, just like our Lord Jesus, are struck down by crosses of steel, as the wood ones smolder in the darkness; the price of "liberty" forcefully paid.
Inspired by "Song of the Towers," pictured above, by Aaron Douglas. 

Alone

There she sits, across the way.

There, surrounded by nothing.

Her eyes, downcast, flicker
    Following the shadow of a person
She knows will never glance up.

She is stillness
   And the only one to notice doesn't care
   Glances with unsympathetic eyes
And a self-satisfied smile.

Footsteps
   approaching
But no, they couldn't be.
    Not for her, anyways.

Ever nearer
   My feet slapping concrete
Because I'm nobody as well.
    A nobody with a curiosity, that is.

Why?
   Why the frown?
   Why the silence?
For souls do not cease their singing without reason
    Especially those as beautiful as hers
        At least, how I remember it being.
It's been so long.

Maybe she's not the same?
   Time changes people, after all.
Still I must find out
   Why?

Here I stand.
   What to say?
Her eyes study my shoes.

"April. Are  you all right?"
   The obvious
     And if I'd thought twice,
   A certain negative.

But her eyes glance up
Catch mine

And away I turn.
   Anywhere but there and those haunting eyes.

I cannot think exactly why I ran. Maybe the raw emotion caught me off guard. Maybe the fear, the vulnerability, the pleading. Maybe the anger and hatred. Maybe the pity. Her eyes were a broken bottle: the glass shards scattered hopelessly, forgotten in the empty parking lot.

I may have been curious, but she didn't want my concern.

Her hollow laugh trailed my guilty conscience back home.

Her eyes shift down again
   A tiny sigh escapes her lips
And there she resides
                               broken.

Ojala' (Only If)

The pavement is slick with memories. I trudge towards my car, wanting in a way only to rev the engine and speed away into the slippery night--to forget that twinge to pause my life and go back three months, back before my perspective changed. But I turn away, returning the keys to my pocket, and walk uphill into the soft patch of  light from the streetlamp. I take in the scene, so alike yet so different.
~
There we were, taking in the gentle crickets' song, the sky spattered with stars, and the long-lost comfort of the other's presence--a familiar presence that I had definitely missed. Out in the great wide world beyond I had seen and experienced, but now, here, I was living. The August evening brushed up against us, soft and balmy, clear and reflective. Despite the months apart, we were one now. That welcome home was the best I've ever had. There and then, he was my savior--from insecurity, from wanderlust...I found my home in that moment.

And it is true, that moments can last a lifetime. That words can paint a picture that the eyes cannot see. That some of the greatest music is silence. But such moments have to end. Such words can settle heavy on the conscience, and consume it until only guilt remains. Guilt not for what I am, but what I should be. The silence from within is deafening. This intermezzo must end.
~
The November breeze worms its way into my jacket, reminding me of my solitude. It seems to be pulling something out of me--the memories relived. Yet, their warmth is chilled by reality. By how things turned out. The stars that comforted are obscured, and raindrops threaten to spill out of the thick gray lid on the earth.

That seems to be the only thing left: a frigid world dipped in solid ambiguity.

As It Should Be

As I gaze out the window, I am home. Everything is as it should be, the sun setting behind the little blue house across the street, the hill sloping leisurely down to meet the two as afternoon slides to twilight.
The light is on in their kitchen window, a caregiver watching over the two timeworn souls inside. The kindly light behind the blinds is a beacon, upon which my comfort is tethered.

Now there are cars across the street. Not just the exchange of nannies. There are relatives. Too many. Too frantic. The whispers: she's gone. He doesn't want to leave. He'll die without her. What to do?

Then nothing.
He's gone too.
Not forever, just away.

So the house sits empty for a time, a lonely relic of what once was. Of the poisoned blessing, time.

Then a sign: FOR SALE.

On Saturday morning, an estate sale. The house is gutted and the delectable organs are displayed for all to see. Curious vultures come to prey on the remains of the deceased, haggling over the price of memories.

Real estate can be something of a blessing. The cars, one at a time, were reminiscent of the nannies, of the time before.

The sign went down all too soon, on a gloomy, dripping day. The garage door across the street opened, a rarity. A man and a teenager maneuvered a shiny sedan in reverse to rest. The garage door closed.

Mom met him the other day, the man. Nice enough, she said. I was glad to have a good excuse to leave.

There was a van in the driveway this morning. Tile Remodeling, it said. Kitchen Resurfacing. blah blah. Not even the hollow interior is saved, it seems.

The sun has set for good tonight, a hint of purple on the horizon the only memory of today. There is nothing more than silhouettes, the hill and the little blue house across the street. The light in the kitchen is not on, and it seems will never be. At least, not like it was before. The only trace of those souls is in my memory. The house that was theirs is foreign to me.

Observers

The crumbling wallpaper, or at least what is left of it, is mostly singed in the spacious room. Various scribblers left their marks on the walls in multicolored spray-paint and the occasional Sharpie. The textured effect of defeated age meeting teenage art holds a certain charm. Light filters through the two empty door frames on either side of the house, as well as a single window, as dust motes dance idly through. Darkness collects in the corners along with a single flip-flop and a few whole peanuts. Those who left clues behind were now gone, but left permission to explore the answers they left to questions unasked.
From the outside, the stark emptiness that surrounds the place draws the eye from the rusted tin roof down into the fading shack place that someone, at some point, called home. And for a little while, it may be mine as well. The shady cavern inside shelters quiet minds that can't quite focus on the absoluteness of math, that can't quite focus on anything absolute at all. The wind sweeps away the worries and the regrets and the mundane, leaving only a sense of peace and understanding. From this quiet place, the building reconstructs itself; redefining everything that occurred within, open to the interpretations of the imagination.
And as the shed stands alone again, these dwellers left only smudges in the floor where the layers of accumulated dirt were disturbed.

At the Train Station

We had been waiting. Not for long, but long enough that I was about to get vaguely worried. The concern that gives your eyes the freedom to zip about in a nervous-type way, even if someone else is talking to you intently. I resisted, and stared at the ground, trying to concentrate on the words he was saying. In fact, I had forgotten what we were talking about; it became less and less important as we arrived in the train station. Provoking thought once dominated my attention, now replaced by distracted anticipation; I wasn't completely sure who or what we were waiting for.

Then he said the words: "Well, where is he? We might be late."

At that moment I saw the guitar case appear among the huddle of pea coats to the left, and I knew it was him before I looked up. The figure brought with his presence an idea also of what I was doing here, where we all were going. Realization and discovery hit me simultaneously--a strange phenomenon. How can you discover who you're looking for and realize that you've known who it is all along?

"Just in time," I catch myself saying. Within minutes, a train arrived. We hop aboard, the three of us, entering the old-fashioned rail car that is almost completely empty, its doors clanging shut behind us.

The train pulled away from the station, leaving a small absence in the crowd, a void worth the space of three people and a unified cause. No one noticed but us, dragging along our various hopes and a guitar.

Our mission had begun.

Vulnerable

Huddled in the corner
hiding
from Them
but They keep coming
ever coming

Sick of Their words
that pierce through
this corkboard heart
can't handle so many thumbtacks

If only everything didn't remind
of the past
back sometime
beyond the worries of the present
much less the future.
Those things locked in the past
are oh-so comforting
because they will never change

If only time would stand still
if no one ever changed
then it would be safe
to stand and explore this place
that we experience a lifetime
thankfully no more

Here he is
another one of Them
surely...

Questioning eyes
offered hand
could this be a trick?

I take the hand
I don't know why
knowing it would collapse on me
I gave it a tug
it holds firm

I rise with knees shaky
yet he holds me firm
and when They laughed
it didn't hurt as much

The words "I understand"
something unexpected
for how could someone so unshakable
know weakness?

but no
could the fearless
simply hide their terrors within?

His eyes tell me everything
we are not alone
and our insecurities pit Them against each other
against us
but we don't strike back:
our fatal flaw
yet greatest strength

and for that moment
time stood still.