Darkness (2)

This was another class write. It surprised me and choked me up as I read it. It is what it is.


Incredible (Darkness, Part 2)

I stepped into the cold, wet sleet, the ground silvery, slushy gray, pulling my scarf tighter as I followed first a pair of footprints, followed by another and another, as a crowd of a hundred mixed and mingled, until I lost my first friend. That cement and steel structure brewed, breathing and beckoning me, asking me to face the reality, the verdict, of what lay dormant, for now, in that vanilla envelope at my appointed time, the first appointment of the day. Nine a.m. – the first damned appointment of the day. There was a disconnect, an incredible floating sensation, where you view your body from above, much like an astronaut looking down upon the Earth (poor souls), as you observe your breathing, the pounding heart as it thump, thump, thumped against your ribcage, the bully bruising internal organs recklessly. I didn't feel it so much as understood and watched.

As I opened the door, I walked from the frigid ice into Hansel and Gretel's oven, the witch at reception, cold, unblinking, dismissive, not even acknowledging me except for this:

"Your name please?"

The anxiety began in the pit of my stomach, the acid forming, flowing into my veins, seizing my heart and eclipsing my shallow breath as I opened my mouth, no words forming. Finally I swallowed and told her that I had an appointment. She averted her gaze.

"Incredible," I thought. "That little brat."

My seething was a way to avoid the daunting task of sitting and waiting, my skin fleeing my body like a mouse scurrying from a cat, but immediately she motioned me with her index finger into an empty board room, that suddenly felt deathly cool compared to the waiting room just outside. There was a long table with a telephone in the center, one used for conference calls I thought, and about twenty chairs surrounding it, the ghosts about to conduct a group interview. I wondered who the applicant was. I tried to breathe, but couldn't find any air, the dichotomy between cold, hot and cold damaging my fragile lungs.

Then she came in, the middle aged woman, hair permed, dyed red, with a squeegee holding somewhat in place. She smiled, but it was a weak attempt at being approachable. I remember her telling me her name, but it went in one ear and out the other, the roadrunner outrunning the coyote. In my mine I called her Tess the mess, but it was me who felt messed up. She briefed me on her experience – she returned school at the age of forty-one to pursue her MSW after her some went to college, and she immediately was hired by the County's Health Department.

Tess then abruptly stopped talking, paused, and produced the envelope with the test results, test results that would alter my immediate and future plans. She handed the me the index card which displayed a confidential identification number that was meant to be me. Underneath this code were two words in all caps, red, the same word stamped twice on top of the other, a benign ledger that was only used to display data.

POSITIVE
POSITIVE

The repetition of the word confirmed what I already knew, that the second lab had verified the fist test for accuracy.

I no longer felt cold, nor warmth, or anything else that produced a sensation. I'd expected this. I had expected it, especially when my ex-boyfriend had received his news over the telephone. I had expected it, but still felt shock. "Incredible," I thought.

She began to cry as I stared dumbly at the card. She cried, and then I looked over at her, my face pale. I thought I might puke if I thought I could move from that chair to the bathroom.

"I'm new," she said, 'and I have never had to deliver news like this before." She paused before beginning again. "You look just like my son."

And then incredibly, I stood up and walked over to her as she wept, and hugged her, telling her that I was sorry.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

It was the only thing I knew to do, and inside a door slammed shut, locked itself. No dreams. No future. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I hugged her and in my head, I felt and saw nothing. Incredible. It was 1987. I would die within the year, and that was that. There was no prognosis, no treatment, and people were dying, those sweet men who had no idea of what had hit them. Incredible, just incredible. I hugged her as she cried until I finally sighed, allowing myself to emit a tight breath of air, trying to ignore the panic as it washed over me like the tide robbing sand from the shore.

Darkness (1)

I wrote ,the first three installments in 2007-09, but have since written two more installments, so I wanted to start over. Hope you like them:

Darkness, Part One:

As I walk down blackened corridors, each door in succession is locked, bolted, no way out of this thick, damp fog. My steps are small, my eyes as wide open as I can muster, trying to force light in so that I can see where the path leads, but it is still too dark, and I am afraid I will stumble, fall, scrape my knees and shins. I keep my arms straight out from my sides, feeling the walls I cannot see in deafening blindness, inching forward, passing door after door after door. Locked, locked, locked, locked, locked, and finally opening, finally, as daylight drifts towards me, enveloping me. But the cement floor turns to icy ground, and the light deceives, because I am still trapped by the slippery soil below, trying, trying, not to fall and split my head open.

And that is how some memories are, aren't they? Some you anticipate, but are now dislodged, and though your mind etches forward to retrieve them, that moment in time is still a prize unearned. And, then the ones you do remember, the ones that are solidified as an artifact, can steal your breath in their crushing beauty and pain. Behind that door, I was twenty-four.

And, it is strange what you can see so clearly in that claret pool of water. That morning in the warmth of my car, while the outside blew flurries of snow, I waited sipping my coffee, cream, no sugar. And, like the gray of the outdoors, inside I sat on the silvery tinged vinyl seat, finally having warmed as I reached my destination and pulled into the parking lot. The heartless, cold, cement building pulsated, beckoned, as I waited for my appointed time. I took a look in the mirror – I stared at the eyes that betray, a fragile vulnerability disguised as quiet confidence.

In this moment, this dream, my reality, I can even see what I am wearing, feel the textures – the white cotton t-shirt under the scratchy wool red cardigan with the missing bottom button, something I pulled out of someone else's closet, borrowed, and the steel toed boots, black baggy pants, and the herring-boned wool top coat. I can see it as if I am wearing it now, but that was then.

In that moment, I already know what the test results will reveal, can even see the index card with the poisonous stigma attached to it. I can see it, and it's just a memory, but in that reality, in that moment I could not know that this present would be both my past and my future. I sit numb, unblinking, staring at those steely eyes that speak back to me, and rattle me from head to toe.

"You're a phony," they seared. "Everyone knows how weak you really are." And, I knew it too without words spoken. I knew it, so I thought, knew it was soon to be my end, dreams shattered, bones and flesh lying mangled in a shallow grave. And it dawns on me in this moment, that this memory is not just something you witness, something you refuse to tear your eyes from, like some hideous YouTube experiment gone horribly wrong, but it is something you feel deeply, feel so intensely that I gasp out loud, take a deep breath, and remind myself that that's how it was then. And, that's what it looked like and that's how it felt. And, it's in the past where it can still haunt, injure, draw blood, feed off my anxieties like a parasite.

I pull the door shut, close my eyes, and open them again.

I wrote ,the first three installments in 2007-09, but have since written two more installments, so I wanted to start over. Hope you like them:

Warning: Rated PG-13 - R!

Darkness, Part One:

As I walk down blackened corridors, each door in succession is locked, bolted, no way out of this thick, damp fog. My steps are small, my eyes as wide open as I can muster, trying to force light in so that I can see where the path leads, but it is still too dark, and I am afraid I will stumble, fall, scrape my knees and shins. I keep my arms straight out from my sides, feeling the walls I cannot see in deafening blindness, inching forward, passing door after door after door. Locked, locked, locked, locked, locked, and finally opening, finally, as daylight drifts towards me, enveloping me. But the cement floor turns to icy ground, and the light deceives, because I am still trapped by the slippery soil below, trying, trying, not to fall and split my head open.

And that is how some memories are, aren't they? Some you anticipate, but are now dislodged, and though your mind etches forward to retrieve them, that moment in time is still a prize unearned. And, then the ones you do remember, the ones that are solidified as an artifact, can steal your breath in their crushing beauty and pain. Behind that door, I was twenty-four.

And, it is strange what you can see so clearly in that claret pool of water. That morning in the warmth of my car, while the outside blew flurries of snow, I waited sipping my coffee, cream, no sugar. And, like the gray of the outdoors, inside I sat on the silvery tinged vinyl seat, finally having warmed as I reached my destination and pulled into the parking lot. The heartless, cold, cement building pulsated, beckoned, as I waited for my appointed time. I took a look in the mirror – I stared at the eyes that betray, a fragile vulnerability disguised as quiet confidence.

In this moment, this dream, my reality, I can even see what I am wearing, feel the textures – the white cotton t-shirt under the scratchy wool red cardigan with the missing bottom button, something I pulled out of someone else's closet, borrowed, and the steel toed boots, black baggy pants, and the herring-boned wool top coat. I can see it as if I am wearing it now, but that was then.

In that moment, I already know what the test results will reveal, can even see the index card with the poisonous stigma attached to it. I can see it, and it's just a memory, but in that reality, in that moment I could not know that this present would be both my past and my future. I sit numb, unblinking, staring at those steely eyes that speak back to me, and rattle me from head to toe.

"You're a phony," they seared. "Everyone knows how weak you really are." And, I knew it too without words spoken. I knew it, so I thought, knew it was soon to be my end, dreams shattered, bones and flesh lying mangled in a shallow grave. And it dawns on me in this moment, that this memory is not just something you witness, something you refuse to tear your eyes from, like some hideous YouTube experiment gone horribly wrong, but it is something you feel deeply, feel so intensely that I gasp out loud, take a deep breath, and remind myself that that's how it was then. And, that's what it looked like and that's how it felt. And, it's in the past where it can still haunt, injure, draw blood, feed off my anxieties like a parasite.

I pull the door shut, close my eyes, and open them again.

Follow

Follow

The sons of Mothers do not comprehend,
and so they stray into pale fleshy lips
that pout, preen and argue, while white veneers
climb pious soapboxes, spewing filth,
asking the masses to
follow,
follow,
follow,
where scorpions lurk, and cobwebs bind, antennae
waving, eight legs clapping as one. After all,
what's wrong with wise mature men preaching
the gospel, singing sanctified songs, seducing
young lads, claiming consent?

Sixteen year olds, hormones raging, no taller
than five foot eight, a first opportunity
to uncover forbidden glances in nodding dusky
shadows. Repulsive grins whisper and coo, beckoning:

“Trust me. Trust me. And, we'll fly to Italy in a bat's eye. Board
my personal jet with worn treasure, and copper stains” –
even if there is no truth to speak of.

And the boys craving for attention, love, and contact,
respond naturally to their call. They answer and
follow,
follow,
follow,
into depth's misery, forgetting to anticipate
the enemy. Instead those boys welcome abhorrent villains,
absorbing spiteful venom senselessly. Only those boys
can’t discern a merciless monster from a devoted comrade,
so they seek the sanctity of shore and
follow
follow,
follow,
the wicked pied piper who guides these callow boy-scouts
to that nefarious point just past the tide where
the indifferent undertow pulls fiercely, and folly criticizes
and obliterates naiveté. They
follow,
follow,
follow,
never questioning, just trusting blindly, propelled into futures unknown,
where terror screams, and the cold night scurries
across bewitched skin, astonished that no one heeded them,
warned them to lock their doors fiercely, question
what is not permitted to be discussed.

And so they
follow, once again,
into dusty silhouettes
and ghost worlds gray.

Ebbs and Flows

Ebbs and Flows




Baby’s Girls thoughts turned cobalt, then translucent. As she sits admiring sassafras sand and the cranberry ocean watching balmy waves, something inside shifts, left becomes more center, noises lift and separate like silver apparitions, until she only hears crashing sea tides and her purring heart. Baker Beach was a refuge, no an oasis, a place, a moment where she feels safe, and yet, twenty minutes East, and she was in the thick of concrete jungles merging with a cacophony of others. She called them others in that those people, those aliens, did not inhabit her world and universe. What had happened the night previous? The Tuxedo had delivered her, the rose, to her door, had scotched lips against the nape of her neck, had begged earnestly, like some silly school boy who had pulled her hair, to come up to her quarters, to sweep her to her bed, make love to her harmoniously, tilting the crescent moon on its ear. She acquiesced. The truth – she had wanted his custard love to fill her, like helium in a balloon, to make her walk on air unafraid and unashamed. So “yes” she had said, her rose lipstick caressing his mouth, his cheeks, wherever, he would allow her to roam. And inside, inside where it was hot and sticky, creamy and floating, inside was where he was granted permission, his passion merciless, she gave in, allowing someone else to steer. And so it had been, and so he had slipped out, after cerulean promises and insincere affectations, slipped away while her silken auburn hair enveloped her in her sleep, slipped away into a shadow, into a parallel world, one where she had not been invited, not been included, where she had simply been shut out. The tide ebbs and flows, stealing the sand as it leaves, returning to tumble abandoned sand castles, and depositing fragmented shells, battered and bruised, leaving her right where Tuxedo had left her the night previous, completely, devastatingly alone to sift through amber winds, citrus heat, and granite thoughts, a place she knows better than most, a place that cost her much, a place that failed to leave the most meager of tips, and one that sold her soul to black market thieves.

Why They Call It Falling

Why They Call It Falling

Someone please push me, so I gain momentum. What
has appeared to be so effortless, that “something” that
has developed between you and me, protons reacting
to electrons, that makes the you and me, the we.
It’s magical, fantastical, an elixir for love, filled with
all of love’s complexities and love’s frailties. I watch as we
fall into a feather bed, ether if you will, supporting us
so we become aware of both inner and outer worlds.
I feel both calm and fluttery, living in shades of silver layers
and translucent dreams, a reluctance for being accepted and loved.
Nagging tapes play in the back of my head, the ones
that are no longer pertinent, the ones pushing buttons,
pulling me down just below the surface, the undertow,
lying to the world again, again, again, revealing sordid, rancid
past remembrances, so I think, as to why I will never will be
good enough, so much so, that although my head truth knows
better, my heart truth grows wary.

“You never were good enough, so you will never be good enough.
You’re diseased. Recovery is an impossibility from the trauma
that was chosen for you. Just for you!”

So my face smacks down hard against harsh pavement, everything
growing grey. It’s almost best to start over than try and fix what is
dilapidated. Damaged goods sear my soul. I try to cascade
upon a safe netting, that soft, secure, that sanctuary. I still cannot
fully accept with an entirely open heart, that appreciation
has been earned. I return to “I’m sorry”, aware that
each time I say it, no matter how many times I mean it,
it lacks the same amount of sincerity, punch, as it did previously.
And I do mean it. Besides, who am I apologizing to anyway? That I can’t
give you more? That I am paralyzed in fear? These shards
undermine what is true.

Time to suck up, return to bat, line up over first plate, and allow that
first pitch to hit in the winning run. For a time that works. That works.
Just fine.

Lydia (Racoon's Mother) From Baby Girl series

Lydia



She just wasn’t cut out to be a Mother. True, she had gotten pregnant by Stan before her nuptials, had told Charles that the unborn child was his, all the while knowing that this was an end of an era, her independence squandered, the dependence of the child growing inside of her, causing her body to change, causing her to feel woozy one minute, ravenous the next, someone she did not even recognize, and then the dependence on Charles, for now she would be limited to bed rest, her doctor had told her. She wasn’t naturally built to carry a child, and the birth would be excruciatingly painful, a laborious process, so much so, that she began to loathe and detest the seed that was spawning. At what point did it actually become a living soul, she often wondered, as if there were any reasonable recourse for her.



There was a point in time, when she was a young girl, fair haired, wearing a yellow cotton sundress, hair pulled back into a ponytail, when she would carry her dolls, her babies she would call them, her babies, babies just like her, when she would fantasize about becoming a Mother, changing diapers, feeding, loving unconditionally these babies, the children she would someday have.



But something somehow had changed her, she had changed, and all she felt was a seething hostility at the boy she would be forced to raise mostly by herself, because Charles was always busy for work. Charles was busy at a rotary meeting, the Boy Scouts Club, or at a fundraiser. And she was left to feed and clothe Wayne, Wayne who also loved to play with his dolls the way she did, that faggot sissy boy. She used to watch him as he would say, “When I have my baby, I will dress you up in pretty dresses and bows,” just like she had done, and she felt repulsed and ashamed of him. It wasn’t as if she was religious and had a problem with whether Wayne would grow to like boys instead of girls. It wasn’t that she had a problem with the boy who would later apply mascara and go to school, the little freak boy who would get teased, pushed, and bullied by the other kids. It was the fact that she would have to come over to the school when they would call. “Please come pick Wayne up. There has been some trouble,” and Lydia would have to stop in the middle of putting groceries away or stopping right in the middle of preparing dinner, which would no doubt be ruined, to clean up his mess, his fucking mess. Always disgraced she was, and Wayne knew that his Mother was angry at him, no not angry, that she hated him, and that somehow made her even angrier. And that is how her life was stolen from her, an indiscretion with a handsome young man before her forthcoming wedding, producing a bastard child whom she despised that looked nothing like Charles. She remembered when she first called him Raccoon, an animal she thought, eyes lined with what appeared to be coal, something that made him appear soft and a target for ridicule, and how he had adopted the name for himself in mockery, humiliating her. All this work, this damned work she was doing for every fucking else, and nothing to show for it.



No, Lydia was not cut out to be a Mom. She knew it, just had she known the moment she had had sex with Stan in the heat of his car, throwing away her future, lying to Charles, telling him lie after lie after lie from that point forward. Like, when she told Wayne that she loved him, she had felt so disconnected and unrelated to this beast, that she actually gasped, this beast that was part of her, born of her, and who might someday grow to be just like her. Lydia, Lydia. How had it all gone so wrong, gotten so fucked up? Lydia, Lydia, Lydia. She lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly, blindly watching the serial on the television.

Lightning

This was a ten minute write in my writer's group and thought I would share it will all of you for good or bad! :)




Lightning


Lightning strikes
Telling me lies
Lies illuminated
Manipulated
As lights go out
Downstairs
A memory flashes
Bright
In the corner room
It was the night you came
To my bedside
Your tears
Flowing like clear streams
Your breathing
Rapid
Increasing
As you profess
To apologize
For what
For what
You can’t say why
Except that you love me
But there has been an indiscretion
An err in judgment
You never meant to hurt
Me
You
Him
Us
Mostly you
It won’t happen again you say
Haley’s comet is only seen
Every seventy-six years
Too long to wait
Lightning flashes
When storms brew
Sometimes when Realization
Blends with the truth
That indicates that it might
Just might happen again
I mean
It did happen
Last night
As you slipped into to door
Tripping over your own shadow
As if I was unaware
Of your absence
But then the phone rang
And I answered
There was a hesitation
A wounded wolf
So I asked
Whom was calling
Knowing full well who it was
And he said
Paul just Paul
Lightening struck for the last time
As the caller confessed
That I was a fool
Made a fool
A fool who trusted
Believed
A liar’s breath
A liar’s tears
A liar’s explanation
Of the distorted truth
A truth of sorts
You can always find where the lie unravels
If you listen carefully enough
It was an indiscretion
Yes it was
And it won’t happen again
He told me
And it won’t of course
Because I will see to it
See to it
Like honey to a bee

Innocene - Raccoon

Innocence (Raccoon)


As he reached down to pick up the jeweled scallop shell, flawless, almost as if from a mold, the symmetry breathtaking in its perfection, I watched his hand, his beautiful hand and wished he was holding mine. His hair, flaxen, bangs almost obscuring one eye: his eyes, like rare jade, piercing. I felt my heart flutter knowing that his man, handsome, unaware that my eyes coveted him, had little idea that I wanted him to hole me close.


I did not know him, but as he stood back up, he saw me out of the corner of his eye, and grinned self consciously, yet slightly flirtatiously, and said “Hey.” Just hey. No introduction, nothing complicated, just hey. And all that was required of me was to say hay back.


“Hey,” I said, as I blinked, then looked down for just a half second before I looked at him again, studying him, his muscular calves, evenly tanned skin, his tight abs, and developed chest, square jaw, that smile, bedeviling, disarming, and his dancing eyes. All of this was captured in a snapshot, so quickly that perhaps he hadn’t noticed my awe. His eyes still held mine as I returned to his face, his face that had gained some intensity, or was it tension. No, it was intensity for he did not look away to even flinch, relaxed.


I felt confused, like my knees were about to cave, buckle, leaving me in a pile of bones, but I tried not to show just how nervous I was, my smile just a little too tight.


“I’m Robert,” he said.


“Wayne,” I uttered in response.


“Where are you visiting from?”


It was summer break and out-of-towners and tourists were en masse.


“Asheville.” And then “North Carolina I mean,” I mustered, as if this was not obvious.


“I know where that is. I go to college at Wake.”


“What are you majoring in?” I inquired clumsily, trying to sound natural, get my bearings, understanding that without the eye liner I felt naked, embarrassed.


“Pharmacology,” he replied, without a hint if feeling flustered.


“Cool,” I summoned. “I might apply to Wake next year. I don’t know. Unless I move to California that is…” trying to show just how brave a move like that could be. Bravado.


He nodded. Something still, yet understood, passed between us, an apparition or a shadow, something unseen, unheard, yet you knew it was present.


“Cool,” he stated matter-of-factly. Just cool. No elaboration. I felt trapped for words in that moment, trying to find anything to say.


“That’s a beautiful shell, “I stammered. I almost picked it up first.”


“Yeah. Take a look.” And as he held it out to me and I reached to grab it, careful not to actually touch him, his fingers lingered just a slight second. I flushed, thankful I had been out in the heat for a few hours.


“Well,” he said, “I am staying at the cottage just up the beach, the blue one on stilts.

“Really?” I replied a beat too soon, my heart pounding like a bass drum, feeling as if I had fallen down a well, or as if the undertow might smother me. “I’m staying just a few houses down – the yellow one.”


He smiled. “Cool.” Yeah, cool I thought. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”


And with that, he turned and walked up the beach, leaving me with that beautiful scallop, a remembrance, and possibly a hint at what a future might be like with someone you adored, who equally adored you. It was the first time I had felt a certain amount of awareness, a certain amount what it might be to be an adult, not quite comprehending that my idealization was still very childlike in general. And it was the first time I felt I knew who I was for just a few moments, moments that would eventually flood me like ocean waves or pockets of rain.

Boy Girl

Boy Girl

Baby Girl was often lonely but seldom alone.
This shallow feeling had persisted for oh what,
some thirty years, back as early as grade school,
as early as when she knew the difference between
boys and girls. The boys teased her endlessly,
as boys will often do, for not being like them,
acting like them, being them. She remembered
letting the captain of the football team cheat off
her exam in Earth Science, an exam about conifers,
tall pines that produced seeds that grew into
cones. In exchange, he agreed to protect her
from those monsters that lurked around the corners
of hallways, a maze she would have to navigate
in order to arrive safely to her next class. Having
a guardian was a lesson she carried with her
even today. Looking back at that boy, she could
still relate to him, the one with the recessive gene,
that freak of nature and science, a mistake,
an aberration, the last to be picked for basketball.
Instead, a new woman had been born on
Her eighteenth birthday, and she never looked back.
These lessons, lessons learned, necessary lessons,
would serve her well, and who she became, the woman
who had arrived, survived, would have knocked
all those childhood bullies down with one punch,
one solid punch. None of her friends, except Raccoon,
knew that Robin was her real name, a name that could
have just as easily been born a girl rather than a boy.
She had been reborn Baby Girl, even if her driver’s
license picture reflected those childhood taunts. But
no one presently knew of this boy, and she kept him
hidden, out of sight, Still reflecting, she sat in the
center of a party in her honor, smiling, feeling completely
and utterly alone.