Three-Minute Fiction Round 9: Tell Me

NPR All Things Considered Flash Fiction Contest

This time the rules are simple: 600 words or less and it has to be about an American President, real or imagined. The judge of this round is author, Brad Meltzer.

TELL ME

“Tell me.”

“Sir, we can wait…”

“No. Now.”

“Yes, Sir. There have been three more explosions reported since… well… Paris.”

“Good God.” He sighed heavily.

“Details are spotty, as yet, but it appears there was one at a train station in Barcelona, another at an apartment block in Riga and a third in Venice. Combined with the hotel in Paris and Trafalgar Square, that’s five separate explosions. In each case an international political figure or diplomat appears to have been the target.“

“Where is the Secretary of Defense?”

“In the air over the Atlantic. He will land in less than an hour.”

“Call the Cabinet together. We’ll meet in one hour.”

“Sir, under the circumstances...”

“Call the Cabinet. And we will not talk about Alice except as a casualty.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Benjamin Daniels turned and walked slowly, purposefully, toward the bedroom he had shared for three years with his wife, Alice.  

Why?

This time is passing me by
But not fast enough
I want what's next
I need to move on
But I'm not moving
I'm sitting
Still
All
Day
Typing

And I'm losing my days
And I'm dreamlessly sleeping my nights
As I falter through the daydream
Of too much to do and too little to care about

The truth is I don't give a damn
I don't even know why...
I
Do
What
I
Do

Benefits, salary, PTO, 401(k)
oh yeah, that's why...

so beautiful are
the colors of your hidden
possibility

Snuggle

That and you leaving

Sometimes I think,
I think I understand
The fear in the boy,
The fire in the man.

Sometimes I watch
The wonder in your eyes.
That and you leaving
I have memorized.

from Roosterspur Bridge by Tori Amos

Sometimes

Sometimes I love him
Sometimes I like him
Sometimes I want to kiss his mouth
Sometimes I want to punch his face
Sometimes I feel he takes care of me
Sometimes I feel I am babysitting him
Sometimes he's so like me it feels like home
Sometimes he's so like me it pisses me off
Sometimes he's so different it's refreshing
Sometimes he's so different I can't understand him
Sometimes I want his loving affection
Sometimes I want just friendship
Sometimes I want his rapt attention
Sometimes I want him to leave me alone
Sometimes I think I could be with him forever
Sometimes I think I can't even be with him right now

Hold it Together

Realism, Pessimism or Optimism?

I've been much happier
Since I gave up on the idea
That I was meant for
Something greater.

Joy...so simple

Come and Go

If you wait long enough
It will all come and go.
Sometimes only time
Can move the needle.
Sometimes
No effort
No willpower
No conviction
Can release you
From the present moment.
You just have to wait
Until is it past.

The Love of Words

The love of words is a true love.

Three-Minute Fiction Round 8: Unfinished Business

NPR All Things Considered Flash Fiction Contest
This time the rules are simple: 600 words or less and the first line, written by author Luis Alberto Urrea (The Devil's Highway, The Hummingbird's Daughter and Queen of America) must begin the piece. Here's what I did with "She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door."


UNFINISHED BUSINESS
She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. After 74 years, she finally believed she could do it because she held a book, actually held it in her hands. After months of effort, today she had grasped the spine, opened the cover and moved the pages. Now she would grasp the front door knob, open the door and walk through.

She floated to the knob and reached out her pale fingers. The first three times they passed through the metal, the fourth time they touched. Slowly, concentrating, she closed her hand around the knob. “Turn!” She willed, focusing like she had on the book. “Turn… Turn….” But the knob wouldn’t move.

Naturally, she could pass through the door anytime she wanted. Since her murder, she could pass through anything: walls, furniture, people. She wanted to roam free of the house, out in the wide world. But, every time she left its walls, she felt a longing to be back again. She watched her family move away three weeks after her death. Six other families had been in and out of the house since then. She liked the boy who lived in the house now. But he would go too. Everyone left; everyone but her.

Unfinished business, the stories always said. She’d read them as a child, never thinking she would one day be a ghost with unfinished business. But what was unfinished? She’d never find her killer and she didn’t care to. Her spirit hadn’t followed her family. She was tied to the house. Sometimes she felt that if only she could open the front door and walk out, she could stay out.

She remembered the day she died in front of that door. The young burglar thought the house was empty. He went crazy when he saw her, hitting her repeatedly with terror in his eyes. He left her bleeding in the front hallway. She didn’t know how long she lay there. She heard the doorbell and then a knock. She tried to cry out, but the sound died in her throat. She tried to move, but she had no strength. She could not open the door. There was a UPS package on the doorstep when they found her.

She turned her attention back to the door to try again. She touched it and sensed its smooth hard surface beneath her fingers. She closed her hand. “Turn.” She repeated the word over and over in her mind, concentrating on the weight of the matter beneath her fingers. “Turn.” The knob moved the smallest bit. “Turn.” It moved again, a bit farther. Much later she finally heard the latch release. Hope rushed within her and moved the air around her. With laser-like concentration she willed, “Pull.” White light shone through the sliver of the opening, blindingly beautiful. She continued to pull. Warmth and calm surrounded and filled her as the light pored over.

Hours later a small boy rolled his train into the entry. “Daddy!! The front door is open.”

Prism

Open wide the walls of your mind
Choose not perceptions small
As a single shaft of light
Step in front of the source
Be a prism shining the light
In all colors, in all directions
Only then can you begin to see
The boundless possibilities
One shaft of light will
Keep out the darkness
But you will miss such beauty

What Price Beauty

If you don't find your love
Before your beauty is gone
Is the love you find after
Truer than the love that
Comes to the beautiful?

Sail to the Moon

I will fly away

I will sail into the moon

Will you come with me?

Alone

Again...

Abandoning Madness

Sometimes I drive the madness
And sometimes the madness drives me.

Today, napping in the passenger seat,
I wake to find we've stopped.
Madness is in the restroom
And I'm all alone.

I climb over the shift and turn the key
As I back up, he comes out of the bathroom
Eyes wide. As I drive off, he runs behind
Arms waving.

But I'm gone.
Windows down.

the reason

and I hope to spend
many more hours
making you laugh.
your smile
makes me glad.
I want to be
the reason.

The Practice of Goodbye

Goodbye. The sharp heat of the word
Stings my waiting lips.
The loud silence of the turned back
Rings in my searching mind.
The dreadful still in the space once occupied.
This empty heart. These empty arms.

Ridiculous I may be but
I am surprised to discover
Goodbye, excruiating and cruel,
Is so common as to be mundane.
Like speech or step, well-practiced,
Universally enacted.

Again and again we say
Goodbye to one another.
Again and again we
Part from one another
In body or in spirit,
Deserters and abandoners, all.

How did I not know this?
How am I so unprepared?
So long I have practiced my hello.
So long I have widened
The space in my heart, the breadth of my arms.
I have no talent for goodbye.

Though I am not anxious to learn
This painful art of goodbye
We, none of us, escape
So, I will learn my lesson well
In the hope that there will be
No need for further practice.

Teddy

No Bad News

Don't bring me bad news,
No bad news,
I don't need none of your bad news today.
You're a sad little boy,
Anyone can see
You're just a sad little boy
That's why you're carrying on that way.
Why don't you burn it all down,
Burn your own house down,
Burn your own house down,
Try to kill your own disease.
And leave the rest of us,
There's a lot of us,
Leave the rest of us,
Who wanna live in peace to live in peace.

I'm gonna find me a man,
Love him so well,
Love him so strong,
Love him so slow,
We're gonna go way beyond the walls of this fortress.
And we won't be afraid,
We won't be afraid,
And though the darkness may come our way,
We won't be afraid to be alive anymore.
And we'll grow kindness in our hearts
For all the strangers among us
Till there are no strangers anymore.

Don't bring me bad news,
No bad news,
I don't need none of your bad news today.
You can have my fear,
I've got nothing to lose,
Can have my fear,
I'm not getting out of here alive anyway.
And I don't need none of these things,
I don't need none of these things
I've been handed.
And the bird of peace is flying over,
She's flying over and
Coming in for a landing.

By: Patty Griffin

How Much

I'm doing fine
I'm a very lucky girl
And I'm grateful for everything I have
But every once in a while,
In a quiet moment, I remember
Just how much I loved you.

Hero

The Thing with Feathers

In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And the another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again.

It's not such a wide gulf to cross, then, from survival to poetry...To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another---that is surely the basic instinct. Baser even than hate, the thing with teeth, which can be stilled with a tone of voice or stunned by beauty. If the whole world of the living has to turn on a single point of remaining alive, that pointed endurance is the poetry of hope. The thing with feathers.

---Barbara Kingsolver---
Hide Tide in Tucson, 1995

Trust me...

This will only hurt
For a second. I promise.
Boy, you look tasty.

Oh, stop! You're too kind.
It's just my lil' ol' pilgrim
Costume...and my gun.

I'm gonna cut down
My Christmas tree...(after I
Eat dinner, that is...)

(It's no wonder men don't trust us.)

Memory Bites Quick

memory bites quick.
a sharp, cruel pang that lingers
and pales to ache, then...
your hand on my back. your kiss...
burns. I am helpless
to fend off my attacker.
"Something is missing."
your last words ring in my heart.
I try to forget
but then...your back as you left
stabs, pales, stabs again.

Possession

That which we had we still possess,
Though leaves may drop and stars may fall;
No circumstance can make it less
Or take it from us, all in all.

That which is lost we did not own;
We only held it for a day--
A leaf by careless breezes blown:
No fate could take our own away.

I hold it as a changeless law
From which no soul can ever sway or swerve,
We have that in us which will draw
Whate'er we need or most deserve.

Even as the magnet to the steel
Our souls are to the best desires;
The Fates have hearts and they can feel--
They know what each true heart requires.

We think we lose when most we gain;
We call joys ended ere begun;
When stars fade out do skies complain,
Or glory in the rising sun?

No fate could rob us of our own--
No circumstance can make it less;
What time removes was but a loan,
For what was ours we still possess.

By: Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Nothing

Where have you gone?
I look for you and see nothing.
I reach for you and find nothing.
I miss you and feel emptiness
That I wish could feel like
The nothing that is left of you.

Building on Serenity

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Though they may threaten to tear me in two. Make me know, in the end, everything will be okay.

God, grant me the courage to change the things I can. Though I feel weak, I have the power to direct the course of my life. Make me know, I am powerful and worthy.

And the wisdom to know the difference. Though it is so hard to tell when the pain is acute. Make me know, sometimes the best course of action is to "let it be."

Words Fail Me...

...so, I'll use others'...

________________________________

Goodbye

Today my heart is big and sore
it's tryin' to push right through my skin
I won't see you anymore
I guess that's finally sinkin' in

By: Patty Griffin
_______________________________

Say What You Need to Say

Walking like a one man army
Fighting with the shadows in your head
Living out the same old moment
Knowing you'd be better off instead,
If you could only . . .

Say what you need to say

By: John Mayer
___________________________________

What Can I Say

Oh, Lord, what can I say...
I'm so sad since you went away.
Time, time ticking on me.
Alone is the last place I wanted to be.
Lord, what can I say.

By: Brandi Carlisle

Those Camp Boys - Three Minute Fiction Round Seven

The train carried the usual cargo, pine from the East Texas woods. The engineer blew the whistle and progressed at the normal pace, so no one would suspect. They timed it perfectly. The train would arrive at 2:00 am while the town slept. Just a regular stop on a regular route.

No chains clanked, no shouts were heard. The men were far too far from home to bother protesting or attempt escape. They walked off the train quietly, in perfect Nazi file onto the East Texas soil and into incarceration.

Otto rubbed his head. He couldn’t make sense of the impossible path his life had taken. His safe, happy, simple life; playing along the Rhine; warring with his brothers among the ruins of Fürstenberg castle. When they all became soldiers, it made sense. Now, suddenly, his brothers were dead and he, after endless motionless days aboard ship and hidden in trains, was in Texas.

He did what he had been raised to do. He threw himself into the work. Each day at dawn he shoveled eggs into his mouth, climbed on the convoy and rode to the forest. He didn’t think. He chopped and hauled. At night, he slept like the dead.

When memories crept in — his mother singing over the stove, his brothers smiling as they waved goodbye — he imagined he had been taken to another planet. The townspeople who gathered at the edge of the barbed wire enclosure to catch a glimpse of a real-life Nazi helped keep him in this frame of mind. Emotion, and certainly hope, was purposeless. There was no escape from this planet — no reason for anything other than breath and work, until her.
_________ ... _________ ... _________

After a few months, the townspeople weren’t afraid anymore. Their sons were in Germany. The Germans were in Texas. There was a strange symmetry about it. Anyway, “Those Camp Boys” were hard workers and kept the paper mill running. They were so polite and obedient; they couldn’t be the monsters in the newsreels. So, in November 1944, “Those Camp Boys” were “invited” to the Thanksgiving celebration.

Otto looked forward to a break from the monotony. He used the comb they passed around the barracks and wiped the dirt from his shoes. When they arrived in the square, they were told to stay to one side, seated and quiet. But the guards were also badly in need of recreation. Soon the guns in their hands were replaced by beers and dancing partners.

She was standing as near to the prisoner table as any girl in the crowd. Her face showed uncertain resilience, as though she were in the middle of a dare. She blazed into Otto’s consciousness like a gunshot and without hesitation he moved to her. She stood her ground, terror firing her eyes. He didn’t speak, just held out his hand. She searched his gaze for a moment and then put her hand in his.

Business Casual

Dark ink on my shirt.
Dark circles under my eyes.
Dark night working late.

Aaaaahhhh!!

Overloud

Noise and violence.
How are we immune?
Innoculated in the womb?
Born to loath silence.

Let it Be

When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. let it be.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me,
shine until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

- The Beatles

The Right Places

Duluth

If he doesn't come
Back this time, I'm going to
Duluth with Harold.

Live Free

We must breathe
We must struggle
It is inescapable
Time carries us
Unconcerned
As a wave carrying
One or one billion
Grains of sand

We all know pain
We all know sorrow
Our insignificance
Masked in emotions
Deeply moving
Consuming
But we need not suffer
I choose not to suffer

I have been given love
I have been given joy
I will not stomp my foot
Petulant, affronted
I will open my arms
Gratefully
Grieve when I must
And live free

Motionless

Motionless I wait.
Buffeted from within by
my heart's hurricane.

With or Without

I stand with you
At a cross-roads.
There are two paths.
You have chosen yours.
I must choose to
Go with you or
Go alone.

I lean into you
Unwilling to surrender
The joy and comfort
I've found with you.
You hold me.
You want me to join you.
But you won't ask.

Your path is bright.
Inviting.
Everything I want
Lies on your path
Save one.
One life. One little life.
Can I live without it?

The other path is dark.
Obscured.
I can't know what
Lies on that path.
A little life?
Maybe not.
Can I live with it?

Water Fall

Come Autumn Come! Please.
Bring cool nights, breezy days and
Rain! We thirst for rain.

Okay!

The Hardest Lie

The hardest lie I tell myself
Is that there is only one path to joy
And I am not on it

I create my life, a labyrinth
And stand paralyzed, afraid to choose a direction
Fearing monsters

Meanwhile, joy stands behind me
Patiently waiting for me to allow it
To walk beside me

How long will I make it wait?
How long will I ignore the truth that joy will
Gladly go with me down any path?

Positive Logic

The Truth

Re-post from October 2010...but it bears repeating.

Adeline was 78 years old before she understood. And, boy, was she mad.

Jesus, I know you're not accustomed to being spoken to this way, but you're about to get an earful. And you can't run like Billy used to, cause you're everywhere. So sit down and take your medicine.

You are in trouble, Mister. Would you like to tell me why you made me wait until my knees won't bend, my eyes won't see and my body is a roadmap of wrinkles to figure this out? This little nugget, I could have used when I was 24 with three babes under three, thank you very much. This smidgeon of information that would have come in handy when I caught Andy rolling in the barn with that Schmidts girl. Might you have whispered in my ear when my Alan got colon cancer and we lost the farm?

I've spent my whole entire life worrying. Worrying myself awake at night. Worrying so that my breath came too fast and my fingers tingled. Worrying and fretting out loud until my husband was ready for his early grave.
And now...now, you show me the truth. A truth that might have made all the difference.

No matter what, everything is going to be okay.

Unreliable Narrator

I am not in danger
But I can't convince myself.
I can't quiet the fear,
The voice inside that says,
Nothing's right.
Nothing's good enough.
Nothing's safe.

She's an unreliable narrator
Building a story of woe
That hasn't happened yet
And very likely won't.
Still she speaks
And I listen
And tremble.

What is she afraid of?
That I will suffer?
I suffer now in fear.
That I will lose?
I lose because of fear.
That I will hurt another?
I hurt others through my fear.

And suddenly I find that
Because of fear
All that I fear is realized.

There You Are

Across the table
I see you differently
A bigger picture
Of what we are together
Greater than the sum

Indian Giver

When I could not fight
And I could not fly
I pleased to survive.
I gave myself up.
Collapsing around the center.
Limp like prey, powerless.

But now I can fight
And I can fly.
I can choose when to please
And when to follow my pleasure.
I may have given me willingly
but I am taking me back.

Don't try to stop me.
I'm not feeling generous.

Who's Gonna Stop Me?

Peace

Don't despair.
Believe in the innocent you once were.
She is not lost but wizened by pain.
Shed hard won wisdom and be wild
When you feel your heavy heart overtake you.
You were happy once. You were simpler.
Remember. Feel it. Let it grow again.
She will come back to you like an old friend.
And joy can then be the sense
That soothes you as you fall to sleep.
Silence no longer frightening.
Action no longer exhaustion.
Peace.

On Egg Shells

I'm sorry before
I begin. No chance of praise.
Always wrong/dumb/wrong.

What Happened Here?

What happened here... back

When these walls were as young as

the hands that built them.

Unknown

When I thought
I had arrived,
I had barely begun.
Now I'm shy to
Believe I know
Anything at all.

How do you know when
You have learned
All there is to learn.
You can't know
What you haven't yet
Come to know.

How do you prepare
For the inevitable
Pain of finding
You were not only
Ignorant but
Sorely mistaken.

How do you
Ever breathe relief
Knowing your next
Surprise may be the
One that hurts
The worst.

Home

Time has all but stopped, all still.
Everyday the same, I wait the
Groundhog in this "home" that isn't.
Time moves only slowly as my blood flows
And in my muscles fibers that will
No longer spring to action upon command.

Ever since I came here I have
Been trying to leave. Each time
They catch me three slow steps
Out the back door. 'Now, Mr. Arnold,
Where do you think you're going?'

Home. Obviously. I'm going home.
______________________________________
Life seems to have stopped, all still.
The bluster and the battery
Thankfully and still sadly missing.
It was the reason for my maddness
Never a moment to breath, no peace.
Now I have breathe but no reason.

Ever since I came here I have
Been trying to leave. Each time
They find me before the last beat
Of my heart. "Code Red. Alice!
Come back to us! Where are you going?"

Home. Obviously. I'm going home.
______________________________________
Peace comes and cravings slow to a still.
The pain and the opportunity no longer
A constant surrounding presence.
But I feel the time coming
With joy and gut-wrenching terror
When I will again be mine to destroy.

Ever since I came here I have
Been trying to leave. Each time
They help me back from the ledge.
Remind me. "Paul, the steps, the book.
Learn and heal so you can safely go."

Home. Obviously. I'm going home.

There is Still Time

Turn that ship around.

A Fundamental Want

Just one more drink.
Only a little bit more.
I want it like
I wanted Sarah
In the 7th grade.
A want that feels like
A fundamental need.
I couldn't focus.
I failed my tests.
I ate in a trance,
Walked like a zombie,
Planned all my movements
To be near her.
All energy directed at
Touching her just once.
That is the way I want
One more drink
Every single time.

Cool Quiet

Dreams of fall in the
Summertime, wishing for cool
Evenings and quiet.

Love at a Distance

Still surprised to find
Goodbye doesn't have to hurt.
I thought pain meant the
Love was real but I was wrong.

Inconstancy and
Fear does not signal true love.
Apart and at a
Distance does not mean broken.

I do miss you but
I am not destroyed by the
Sensation. Turns out
This is how it ought to be.

Imposter

A monster they say?
Humans are so gullible.
Eeek! Here comes Nessie!

Dorks in Love

I may be a dork
But I am loved by a dork
Happy dorks in love.

Deep, the Desert Darkness

Deep, the desert darkness
Lays soft along my shoulders.
Gently it seeps into my breath
And stills my blood and mind.
Like an old friend it comforts me
And bids me unburden my heart.

Moonless, I see by starlight
After the fire has died.
The outlines of my canyon walls
Could be stripes behind my eyelids.
In this place, so thick and still is the black,
I could sleep with eyes open.

The moon rises, a herald, just before the sun
Its white a sweet and silent warning.
Soon the orb illuminating the horizon
Will once again sear these ancient stones.
Fundamental. Water and shelter, my only need.
Discovery, my only reason for being.

Poorman's House

You know you've done enough
When every bone is sore.
You know you prayed enough
When you don't ask anymore.

You know you're coming to
Some kind of understanding
When every dream you dreamed
Is past and you're still standing.

From Poorman's House by Patty Griffin

Song of the Cicada

The high machine sound
Screaming cicadas announce
Summer; hot and loud

Mercy

I'm at your mercy.
Now. But don't get used to it.
I'm not a pleaser.

Self-Scuttled

Fear covers us and
To save ourselves from drowning,
We sink our own ships.

Practiced Pain

Fickle pins prick
Smooth white linen
Drawing tiny red dots
Ignored and well-hidden
Two...four...six...then eight
How long can she wait
To whom can she cry
When the  blood  is
Too much to deny

Sweet, sweet smile

You're a slow ride down a country mile.
You're the smell of apple pie to the blind.
You're the last light on a July western sky.
You're the center of the watermelon,
You're a sweet, sweet smile.
-- Martha Scanlan

hear me

hear the words rising
from the breathe in my body
i am not afraid

it's true...i do.

Tectonics

We fit so easily,
So effortlessly.
We were naive to think
The world would move to
Fit around us.

Smiley

Plain 'ol mean people
Who think they're being funny
As they insult you,
Need a forced smiley bagging.
Schwap! I'm just saying.

Con-Fused

"Dearest, when you go,
You take me with you."
The notion, so sweetly cliche.
In practice, so shockingly raw.
My love turned to fear.

I didn't feel it happen.
Was there a moment,
While I was sleeping,
When my senses abandoned
My body for yours?

Without you I waver and bend.
Confused. Unfused.
Like my magnet has lost true north.
Or could it be that I now point
To a truer north.

Happier than...

Apart

The pain of missing
Softened by this, though apart
Together in heart.

Our History

Pieces of who we are, who we were, only hours ago.
Moments I want to keep but surely will forget.
How can I hold to the ether of this feeling?
Stop and preserve each sensation?

I dive back into the history of us
The waters are shallow,
Spilling over with an influx of the new.

How can I expand the holding place
Not simply watch our history overflow and fall away?

Heat
Those first days when we conversed in a fever like we were on fire and our breathy words might blow it out.
Sweet
The taste of the yellowjacket cocktail on your lips when we kissed like teenagers in front of the Friday night bar goers.
Wave
The shock then anger then confusion then relief of hitting the wall and being okay.
Ever
Your hand on my back in the crowd and the noise.
Your eyes on my face so focused, so honest.

Our history boiled down to a word, a twinge.
I can't trap the escaping steam.
Put a lid on it!
Build the tank higher!
It is no use
These memories will be made and lost.

Still, there is comfort.
It is what remains of our history, my love.
It is this love, our love.

Haunted

Ghosts live in this place.
Secrets clinging to the moss
Pollenate the breeze.
Bringing to my cheek the chill
Of lonely long lost.

Complete

Complete.
A sweet river burns
The back of my throat.
It fills the pit
But painfully.

Painfully full,
This feels like home.
Far better than
The lonely hell of
Fearfully empty.

More Than You Knew to Ask For

Humility is not one to command.
Power, control, impatience
are patriarchs of our small universe.
Prized, practiced, perfected.
But with a little humility,
timid and small though it may be,
the greater universe --
the one we feel but do not know --
will provide with grace
more than you ever knew to ask for.
It is a law of nature,
like gravity, relativity, mortality.
An open mind and an open heart
beg to be filled.
Closed, controlled, corrupted,
they beg to be opened, forcefully.

Trying to fit in

Belonging

an affinity
so simple
and still
so strange

wanting so long
to belong

never belonging
with anyone

now here is one
with whom to belong

belonging
so simple
and still
so strange

i belong to me
with you
i belong with you

Toothpick My Eyelids

Too happy to sleep
Time is at a premium
Caffeine required

Cycle of Red

Red of a blood sun
So short a time remaining
Brown, dead, again green