Dear Me with some faith and hope,
I know you want to believe that the people pulling the strings want to keep all the yo-yos spinning. It's not true. They want you to keep staring, they're keeping the tension up. Dude, those yo-yos could fall at any goddamn time. You need to accept that it's a sham. You're right, man. You're 100% right. Adults are assholes, politicians are criminals, Cops are degenerates, and no one really cares. Not really. Not the president. Not his wife.
The people with morals are obvious. You see 'em. Sometimes they're assholes or too passive or afraid of confrontation or too combative, but they give a shit about something. You're right about the people who appear too put together. The ones that never offend anyone and ooze through life. They're doing shit behind the scenes that you can't even imagine yet.
Brother, you are not a bad guy. You're not. You're mad, but there are good reasons to be mad. You don't like bullshit, but who likes bullshit? Why is being into bullshit desirable? You're not broken, man. You don't need to punish yourself so much.
Music is more important than almost anything else. Words, too. Books and birds and songs and fishing and friendship. Those are the things that matter. It's not on you, the fact that other people can't see it. It doesn't make you simple or strange.
Beware of the fucking Christians, man. I know you believe in some of the principles and you want to think all those Sunday mornings meant something. Some of them are OK. There are a lot of wolves in sheep clothes. A lot of pederasts in white robes. A lot of crooks and drunks talking pious bullshit. They're sick. Beyond help. Don't try, just watch your fucking back.
I'm sorry the world is such a pile of shit, but you can't fix it all. Fix the streets around you. Fix the relationships you have. Worry about making the lady at the bakery happy. She's lonely, and she cares when you crack jokes. It means a lot to her.
Email your Mom. She worries, and worry is poison. Hug your friends and tell them you love them. Don't drink so much. Stop trying to kill yourself. Take a deep breath, bud. Just breathe.
Sincerely,
Me whose heart was broken, healing
Hugs to you, and a brilliantly written reminder. We go through a lot of coal dust to find the few diamonds, and you, sir, are one of those diamonds.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Quietly giving a shit over here.
DeleteIt was a heavy summer evening, and fireflies twinkled their signals by the creek. The young man, a boy really, tried to decode their signals, first using Morse code, then numeric substitution. It was all gibberish.
ReplyDeleteExcept for the one that landed on his shirt.
“Hey,” whispered the boy, not wanting to scare the insect off.
Four short flashes. Another short flash. A long flash, a short flash, and two more long flashes. “Hey,” in Morse code.
“You’re the smart one?”
The flickers spelled Y E S.
“What’s your secret?”
L O V E.
“That’s it?”
K I N D N E S S.
“Thank you,” whispered the boy.
The firefly lifted off, flew toward his face, and glowed slowly one more time. Then he zipped into the sky.
It was a night, and a message, the boy never forgot.
After the firefly delivered his message, a frog extended its sticky tongue and ate the glowing messenger.
The lifespan of messiahs is not long. Such is the price of enlightenment.
Oh, I love this. Brilliant! Great last line. And life message.
DeleteHi, this is one I wrote today and posted on my blog, about domestic violence, after reading about the Phoenix Act. It's about my own experience. This is a subject I have rarely written about and I don't think I've published anything on it before. I preferred to bury it. But if people talk more about this subject and victims feel strong, rather than ashamed, maybe it wouldn't be so widespread. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteRotten apple
Did you even try to find out
The person she really is
Before landing the first punch?
The first bite of the rotten apple
You offered on a plate of fake love.
Charismatic and alive, supportive
At first, appearing more than you are.
You buried her alive in her devotion,
Made her beg for your attention,
Twisted things so she’d doubt her reality,
Interrogating her from the inside out.
You didn’t want her to seek shelter.
You didn’t want her to speak to anyone
Beyond the fence of your control.
Her failure to leave was weakness to you,
Intensifying your disgust of her.
You only wanted to lock her in this box
Where no one could ever find her,
And only you would hold the key.
You wanted her to be afraid
So you’d never be alone.
Thank you.
DeleteThank you for your courage in sharing it, and so beautifully. Light is a powerful disinfectant and you've shined the light brightly. This is very cheeky of me to make suggestions on such a personal poem, but one small thing, that makes this feel unfinished. I want to read one more verse or line, affirming that she got out, that she grew, and she thrived, for this poem is indeed a victory poem, a victory over an asshole. Thanks for sharing it.
DeleteThanks, Leland. After watching Evan Rachel Wood testifying, I haven't been able to think about anything else.
DeleteThat's a good idea. I'll see what I can come up with.
Thanks, Leland.
DeleteRotten apple
Did you even try to find out
The person she really is
Before landing the first punch?
The first bite of the rotten apple
You offered on a plate of fake love.
Charismatic and alive, supportive
At first, appearing more than you are.
You buried her alive in her devotion,
Made her beg for your attention,
Twisted things so she’d doubt her reality,
Interrogating her from the inside out.
You didn’t want her to seek shelter.
You didn’t want her to speak to anyone
Beyond the fence of your control.
Her failure to leave was weakness to you,
Intensifying your disgust of her.
You only wanted to lock her in this box
Where no one could ever find her,
And you alone would hold the key.
You wanted her to be afraid
So you’d never be alone.
She moved two times to escape you,
Still stalked by this rotten inside,
Burying this shame, this guilt, confusion
Down deep in a place she could not see.
Today you’re just a ghost from her past,
A passing figment, a blurred murmur.
She lives and breathes and recalls,
But you don’t shape her, not at all.
Brilliant! and now he's imprisoned in the past. Thank you.
DeleteThanks, Leland.
DeletePaula stands on the back deck, one foot on the bottom rung of the railing like a cowboy at a bar, and swirls the melting ice at the bottom of her third rum and Coke. Wishing for another. Weighing the relative pain of doing without versus going back into that house. As she downs the dregs, the slider behind her opens, letting out a gasp of indoor air and forced conversation before it closes again.
ReplyDeleteHer baby sister’s delicate hands—stronger than they look—curl around the railing beside her. For a few moments they stand in silence. Fireflies blink in the treeline, not as many as there used to be when they were children, coming to this house for weekends, a blessed escape from their overprotective parents. Here, they could play video games and have pancakes for breakfast and ice cream for dessert. Here, no one practically called 911 if they got some scrapes and bruises trying to climb a tree or chase a bullfrog. Here. Paula tries to remember when it used to be fun to come here, tries to wallpaper over what it had become with what it used to be. Maybe it never really was fun. Just different, but her mind wants to make it something else.
“It’s fucking weird in there,” Rachel says.
“No kidding,” Paula says. “Why do you think I’m out here?”
“Has she asked you about selling the house?”
“Not yet.” Paula wrinklea her nose. “I don’t know why she’d hang onto it, though. It needs so much work. Too much for one person.”
“This deck, though. I always loved this deck.”
Sunsets. Paula recalls one Saturday evening, after they’d grilled hamburgers and corn on the cob, sitting out here while Aunt Lisa told them stories, Rachel on her lap, while Uncle Teddy pointed out the constellations. Wish upon a falling star. How old was she then? Seven, eight? Who knows anything about the world of adults at that age, other than what you want to see?
A deep sigh comes from her left. “Okay,” Rachel says. “I just have to put this out there. Do you really think it was natural causes?”
That’s one of the things Paula is trying not to think about. Leave it to her sister, the lawyer in training. “Not a clue.”
“You could see it, sometimes. You could see it in her eyes. She was fucking miserable.”
Paula turns to Rachel, taking a quiet examination of her face. The fine bones, a gift from their mother. Paula remembers surfacing from the fog of video games or cartoons and asking Uncle Teddy where her aunt had gone.
“Oh. Just one of her headaches. She’ll be fine.” Bright smile, a treat offered, another game introduced. Classic misdirection. Nothing to see here. Keep away from the closed bedroom door.
“Jesus,” Paula mutters. “Maybe I will get that drink now.”
“I wouldn’t blame her,” Rachel says. “If she did something.”
Paula freezes. “Seriously. This is our uncle we’re talking about. You really think…”
“If it was self-defense. Tragic. But I’d get it.”
She can’t take her eyes from her sister. Paula is the oldest. The one that knew the world and translated for Rachel. It always caught her by surprise to be reminded that Rachel already understood. She remembers more of those weekends. So very often Aunt Lisa having Rachel on her lap. Sometimes holding on a little tightly. As a shield, maybe? A life preserver?
“Maybe.” Paula gestures toward the house with her chin. Not as fine-boned. A dubious gift from their father. “Should we say anything?”
Rachel raises both palms. “I am not touching that. The ME ruled it natural causes, and that’s good enough for me.”
Perfect... I feel like a voyeur, eavesdropping on a real life conversation. If I haven't told you lately, I love your characters, and your skill in revealing so much of them in so few words.
Delete"You shouldn't keep me waiting." Death rolled his eyes, his lipless smile growing thinner. "You've had all the time you need. Any more, and it's just self-indulgence."
ReplyDelete"You've never been a woman." Paula snapped back. "You've no idea how difficult it is. You've no sense of occasion. What shoes should I wear? How warm will it be? How well-dressed is everybody else? These are only a few of the questions I'll need to ask. And you're saying I've run out of time? What kind of arrangement is this? Surely, you've a manager I can speak to. Someone with more authority."
Death sighed, his breath dark and smelling of cinnamon. "I am the ultimate authority. There is no other. I am the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. All of time is my domain. I am..."
"You are overreaching your role. There is no way I'm standing here taking orders from a talking skull. You come into here, stamping your dust into my twenty-two thousand dollar rugs and you expect me to kowtow to you. I understand that it's a cliché, but Mister, do you know who I am?"
Death brought his hands together, interlacing the bones. If he'd had sinews, he would have flexed them. As it was, he clicked his knuckles all together and then singly, his grin growing ever wider.
"Are you saying I need an appointment? Is that what it is?"
Oh, I like this! And what a cheeky character you've given us! Well done!
DeleteLove it! Great descriptions. Digging the character.
DeleteThe bridge
ReplyDeleteThese days we try to reinvent ourselves,
Make mirrors reflect our repetitive days
When the minutes tick like hours stretched
And the clock on the wall says nothing at all.
It’s all jammed. No one makes any sense.
I think they speak in Latin stilted words.
I see you agree in your inability to magnify.
They’re opening a bridge between two islands.
They say the password will be hard to come by
And the birds are climbing higher today.
There’s a march of grey where it felt blue.
Below, a lost voice wails in the centre street.
Glass cuts loose in dough fresh from the oven.
He thinks he’ll use a hammer to smash her.
I hear the bridge will open up some day.
We feel the silent summer sinking out of tune.
Friday's poem...
ReplyDeleteVegas
Tree heads tower on stalks,
Stick-like trunks a-glitter
With glowing hula hoops.
This caterpillar of cars
Crawls almost immobile,
Seeking to eel its way
Deep into the valley.
Horns pierce the still air
With their own language,
Monosyllabic and flat.
All else sits still beneath
The jellied knowing stars,
Except for these neon winks
Of the showtime lights.
A morse code for walkers
Taking a nighttime stroll.