Crawling, creeping out of the soft earth. Spitting out worms. Rubbing dirt from my eyes. Or my eye...or whatever you call this thing hanging from my socket. Anyways, yeah I'm crawling in the dirt.

Death called for me. Came for me.

BUT

I wasn't ready. Angels? White light? Peace and harmony?

Overrated.

My hunger for life was too strong. I spit out ambrosia and jumped back into the grave. I thirsted for the muck of this world and this world only.

So I grasped.

And I clawed.

And I pulled myself up.

And up

And up.

Out of the casket. Past the graveyard. Through the woods. Over the hill. Down the road.

Leaving little bits and pieces of me along the the way. That's not a metaphor.

Until I saw the bright lights that not even Heaven can match and a smell not even Hell's sulphur could mask.

Most of my left leg had fallen off a mile ago but I could still locomote like a 3-legged redheaded stepchild. An Igor of desire.

And finally, like redemption, I arrived.

The beauty of the simple building before me blurred my good eye with what once had been tears. If I still had a tongue it would be salivating.

My good fortune continued as the automatic doors burst open with the fanfare of seven trumpets.

I crawled triumphantly to the cashier.

She screamed.

I screamed back. A low, primal voice long buried and no longer human escaped.

"GIVE ME A BIG MAAAAAAAAAAAAC!"

Love

Is a lifeboat

Here to save

The drowning soul

Treading water

She lies exhausted

In this rescue vessel

Suddenly aware

Of its leaking

Sinking

Surface

Love is like

A funhouse mirror.

In we walk, willing witnesses

To the diverse distortions of dimension.

We enter to gaze at the reflections -different

Versions of ourselves grinning

or frowning back at us.

Shorter

Fatter

Taller

Thinner

Hourglass

Stretched to the ceiling.

We find one that shows us something

We never pictured for ourselves.

We pause.

And gaze.

The other us

Gazes back in the dim

Liminal light of the otherworld.

They say breaking a mirror

Is seven years of bad luck.

But breaking this one

Would shatter us.

One female character

Damsel in Distress

Passive

Submissive

Naive

Beautiful, or so all the men obsess about

Stands to the side as he fights

Fought over by men as a prize to be won

One of my favorite movies of all time

Hilarious

Absurd

Romantic

Fanciful

Comforting

Quoteable

Perfect

No fun without suspension of disbelief

You're speeding home.

You plead with God, listening to the dial tone again. Pick-up, dammit!

You reach voicemail a third time. 

You have three minutes until you can skid into your driveway - three minutes of terrifying possibilities cycling through your mind.

You swerve down your neighborhood street.  Convulsing, you leap from the car, blood pulsating, prepared to commit voluntary manslaughter.  No one is downstairs.

You bound upstairs in two strides, screaming his name.  You throw his door open-

My back is facing the door.  I turn; he's drooling on my left sleeve.  I whisper, "Look!  He's finally asleep."

She loved me once. I can barely remember the last time she held me, let alone touch me. I don't even know how soft I am anymore. I sit on her dresser, making friends with the dust bunnies who grow behind her piggy bank and wait for the moment she sees me again. Every day, she walks past me and I hold my breath for just a glance in my direction. I get none and I'm suppose to be okay with that.

There was a time where she couldn't go to bed without me. She'd cry if Mother stole me to wash me and then complain that I didn't smell the same. I wasn't suppose to smell like roses and buttercup blossoms. She couldn't explain it, but I knew what she meant. I always did. I remember what she smelled like. Peanut butter and fresh chocolate chip cookies. Her laugh is a faint hum in my ears. I never hear her laugh anymore.

I try to remind myself that I'm just a bear. I'm stuffed for a reason so I shouldn't care. I see her now, twice the size she was, with pink hair and metal in her mouth. She rolls her eyes and curses now. She was so sweet and small. Like me. I'm old now, with more stuffing in my left leg than my right. One blue button for an eye because the dog thought I was his toy. I never found my other eye. She stopped looking for it years ago. Maybe I should too. 

She tosses in her sleep now, mumbling and sweating. I watch with distress, hoping the nightmares would leave her alone. All I do is sit and watch, in tormented agony, knowing I can't do anything from the neglected prison she left me in. I know she would sleep better with me, she always did. 

I haven't slept in years.