Natural Disaster

Laying next to you I know I heard it.  A flutter.  A Shuffle.  A burn or a shiver.  I’m not sure what, but it was movement, friction.  An archaic, rusty beating despite the death we both knew hung over your head like an Old Testament curse.  It was delicate and humble like the seed we saw in the garden, accidently sprouting before the spring.  I remember how you bent over it with a quiet bewilderment.  It was so tiny and green and desperate to drink in the sun. It was precious.  And it horrified you.  So you plucked it, brow furrowed.  But the roots did not come so you violently clawed at the soil, staining and crusting your fingers with time.  It took you minutes to undo what took nature thousands of years to pack down.  And I’ll never forget how you looked back up at me and smiled.  Eyes large and ferocious, fresh from the kill.  You were so pleased with yourself, dangling this web of thin life from your fingers like a trophy.  I should have known then you weren’t a soul to nurture so much as a force to reckon with. A natural disaster that lived above, maybe below, but definitely outside any of the moral laws that bound the rest of the world together.   Something other. That freely allowed itself to tear up all things intentional, beautiful and delicate because it was in its power to do so and do so gracefully.  But I still slept with you that night…and every night after, because I felt it when you closed your eyes.  The humming that resided deep within your cavity.  That almost sounded like my name.  That drew me in and stirred me up.  Made my hair stand on end.  I thought it was connection.  An intimate dance between protons and electrons that raced and charged and could not be reproduced.  Electricity.  I should have known I was only chasing a storm.

Undecipherable

The rocks or the waves; you can’t tell which one you are…worse still, which one is which.  Deciding where one thing begins and where one ends is something you’ve never been good at defining—it’s the reason your silverware drawer is a pill to open and why you can’t remember who came first: Jake or Lucas…or was it Leandro?

Teaspoons and tablespoons go largely undefined in your presence as do salad forks and dinner forks. You carelessly toss them in so they crisscross, lock and ungracefully spill into one another with sharp hostility and nest. Forging a mêlée of edges you know your fingers won’t be able to emerge unscathed from the next time you dare to reach. Utensils come with a fight, much like your memory.     

Rehashing yesterday’s love songs could make anyone raw and a bit unnerved, but being unable to confidently see the face of the person’s pants you were unzipping when you heard it can really fuck you up and loosen a couple screws.  Shoulders lose their curvature, eyes their color, whispers their breadth and depth of tone till the only thing you have to anchor you is a month and three possibilities tallied in a diary you forgot you even kept till you needed it.  You still can’t decide, is that even worth keeping?

The way the fog congregates and swells around your head makes it damn near impossible to see past your nose.  Or maybe that’s your bangs.  They haven’t been cut in a while.  They shag at an awkward level that lets them brush up against your lashes.  You like the way it feels when you close your eyes.  Butterfly kisses that bristle and caress the base of your lids.  Small sensations that make you involuntarily inhale and unknowingly wake with child.  But it doesn’t look flattering.  You’re sure of it.  Almost.  You’d go fix it now if you could remember where you put their card, or if you even grabbed one as you ran out.

Your coffee’s cold now—rendered useless, though you’re not sure you ever had much of a use for it—you remove the lid and give it some momentum.  Let the wind do the rest.  Watch it carry it up and over in one graceful swoop to greet its first death, or second, who are you to judge? It merges with the mist and breaks mercilessly against the rocks below, where it scatters into a million crystals that swirl and glisten defiantly in the sun ‘till it’s reunited with a force that drives it asunder to wind it up again. And you lean over the ledge and wonder, would you ever look as beautiful and broken crashing?

You can’t see that you already are.  

That you lost your footing, and forgot about the railing.  And never once grabbed for the belly that, despite yourself, was quietly trying to grow something inside. 

You just fall.

And leave the divvying of sinew and bone up to the elements, allowing them to rhythmically fracture parts equally you and not you, 'till you become what you always wanted.  Undecipherable.

Here's The Deal

I'm trying to be more disciplined with my writing.  So, with a little nudge, I'll be aiming to write two pages every day.  Fiction, non-fiction...perhaps even a bit of crapy poetry.  But mostly fiction.  'Cause that's what I truly like to do.  They'll mostly be character sketches or the humble beginnings of somethings and nothings.  They'll have to be waded through, but the point is writing every day.  Practice.  In hopes that I'll get better, and the words will flow more freely, and I'll learn how to derrive inspiration from things even when I don't necessarily feel it.  It's time I started to take this stuff seriously.

So, first up...

"I'da Called You Woody, Joe"

August 21, 1952 - December 22, 2002

Song of the Moment: Long Shadow - Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros (Streetcore)

Well I'll tell you one thing that I know
You don't face your demons down,
You gotta grapple 'em jack and pin 'em to the ground

Witness

Sometimes I feel like Moses, stumbling and tripping over the flesh of my lips. Gasping for words unformed to tell of miracles and horrors fully fledged.  And I ponder Aaron and wonder, who'll speak on my behalf?

God shakes his head and whispers, would you ever let someone see you stagger through a sentence?



Song of the Moment: Your Love Is Strong - Jon Foreman (Spring EP)

Today Feels Like Summer...

Song of the Moment:  
If (Acoustic) - House of Heroes (The Acoustic End EP)
Truth is, there are few bands that have the crooning capabilities to make a girl swoon over Sci-Fi.

You'd make a beautiful bird on a line
A beautiful bride of Frankenstein, a beautiful drop of iodine.
If you were mine, if you were mine, if you were mine

"Last night I dreamed that I was a child..."

I drove through my old neighborhood today and it felt like I tore through time.  I could see myself sitting beneath the trees in the Green Area, reading Nancy Drew with Keli.  I could see my brother jumping The Three Hills with Joey and his minions.  I could see Nellie and Jill laying out, trying to erase tan lines; and Grandma and Grandpa Fisher holding hands, taking a walk, adding a bit of southern warmth to the block.  I saw my mom sitting in the car, putting the top down to the Mustang.  But when I pulled up to my house someone else's car sat in the driveway.  And I felt replaced by a superficial lover.  Their yard was prettier--the grass grew for them.  The tree I used to do backflips off of was uprooted.  I found myself stirring with jealousy, wondering if this person knew what used to reside there.  How there used to be a peach tree in the backyard that bore so much fruit it grew limp and stunted its own growth.  Or how the apricot tree bustled with so much life it grew over the fence, and our neighbors would pick the fruit and bake us tarts because they were thankful.  And how a loyal dog's bones are buried deep beneath the earth.  I wondered if the walls felt thicker in my room from all the music, or if they kept the booth Mike made for my mom that lined the bay windows in the kitchen.  I wonder if they knew we once fit a Christmas tree in the living room that scratched the highest point of the ceiling, or how I loved to do my hair in the master bathroom because the three mirrors made it possible to observe and carefully pin the back of my head.  I wonder if they knew the backyard once hosted two weddings before we put in the pool, or how the back gate was always left unlocked so neighbor kids could come jump on the trampoline when we weren't home.  I wonder if they knew I once spent a summer destroying roses with my mother that were planted before her and for another--and how it took a couple years of digging and tearing before they wouldn't rise again.  And I wondered, if I was able to enter now would it still feel familiar, or would the tile echo what I've been suspecting all along: a house does not make a home.  As I drove past I saw my history unfurl beofre me, swirling images of opened and closed doors.  I wanted to stop, linger for a while but I knew I couldn't.  It wasn't mine any longer even though it felt that way.  So I let my foot rest on the pedal, not slowing or accelerating.  Just passing, as if it were just another house.


Song of the Moment: Ten Cent Blues - Eisley (Combinations)