If you had the option to disappear forever, would you? Why is it that the comforting knowledge that we are on the doorstep only comes in the pools of despair we often wade through? When the inky pool of dread and hopelessness swallows us whole, we hold our breaths. What happens if we try to breathe? Do we cross the threshold? What if we tried to swim, instead?
Blonde
When I was a little girl, I begged my mom to dye my hair blonde. I fell somewhere in limbo between lovely dark hair and stunning golden locks. Like the color of mud drying on the road. Growing up with barbie dolls, I'd pedestalized the blondes. I could never be pretty if I didn't have hair like that.
Eventually I flew to the other side of the spectrum. If I couldn't be pretty, I'd be a tomboy. I refused to put on dresses even on Sundays. My mom had to fight me to brush my hair and soon gave up and chopped it all off. All my best friends were boys when I was little.
High school came around, and all of my friends were finding girls they liked better than me. The other girls thought I spent too much time with their boyfriends. I found myself shunned by both sexes.
My father moved my family ten hours away my junior year, but perhaps it was for the best. The fresh start helped me make friends, play sports, and even get a boyfriend myself. He was kind of a jerk, but every girl had a boyfriend, and I didn't want to waste time finding another one.
He put me in the hospital after we argued once in our senior year and my family moved again right after my graduation. I left for college as far from home as I could get. I traveled to Europe and South America. I moved from place to place and person to person. I guess I’m still looking.
I've never really fit in anywhere. I still want to dye my hair blonde, but I never do.
Flame
As precocious children are, she was a curious little being: all inquisitiveness and no fear. She devoured knowledge and craved myriads of experiences. She carefully lined the shelves with books like trophies. She conquered series after series, topic after topic, always hungry for more. But with desire and longing so great, her little flame could not withstand the deluge, and the fire winked out. What good does knowing everything do for her now?
Hands
A hand rough with callouses, pushes little indents in the soft brown soil. A chubby dimpled fist drops two or three seeds in each little hole. Every day, those hands carefully water the seedlings. They shoot up fast and strong. But the hands stop coming. The young plants struggle to push their roots through the drying soil. Soon, the yellowed leaves shiver in the blistering breeze. Their shriveled stems cling desperately to the stalk. The entire plant is stunted. No flowers have bloomed. No fruit has ripened.
Finally, the chubby hands return and trace a dimpled finger over the dying crops. A soft pair of hands that the plants have never seen before pinches a leaf between the forefinger and thumb and plucks it. It shows the leaf to the small one. "Aphids on the underside."
The Things I Have Conquered Today
The things I have conquered today, may not seem like much to you.
But while you were at work away, I did laundry and then went though
Our old baby's old clothes and his room, Some I threw out or gave away.
A few I kept, because quite soon, our boy's child may come here to stay
A night or two, with me and you.
If I keep up my health and smile, our son might allow me to hold
The precious girl just for a while and keep me from growing too old.
I washed the dishes and dried them, and I changed the sheets on our bed.
In your pants, I took up the hem. I painted the chicken coop red.
I wanted to spruce the lawn up.
Nonsensical. Noncommittal. Disingenuous.
She exists in a state of perennial, nonsensical gratification. Flitting from blossom to blossom, she quenches her thirst with ever changing flavors. The nectar of the honeysuckle has no sooner faded from her tongue, than the vibrant violet catches her attention. The morning glory, the lilac, the mums, the hyacinth.
She is too disinclined to engage on the same excursion a second time for fear it was her destiny to summit only once. Too disingenuous to admit defeat, she embarks on the journeys tailored to a skillset she hasn't cultivated, but rather been granted. Why conquer the dawn wall if she can walk up the trail behind and sit on the peak of the captain with her feet dangling over the aspiring climbers?
She's too afraid to decide on one meal, because there is a chance she may like another better. She samples bites from each like a famous critic. Never full, only a whetted appetite. Too soon, the restaurant is closed, and she has no choice but to go somewhere else to find a morsel to tide her over until she may embark on another journey, tasting, and tasting but never full. Noncommittal, lest she find herself satisfied: only to be let down again.
Youth. Beauty. Time. They are her pleasure and damnation.
White Feathered Wings
When you were an itty-bitty baby, before you even took your first breath, you lived inside your mama's belly. Of course, you don't remember that, but it’s okay; I don't either.
You were only days old when God began to craft the heart that beats in your chest. You were only the size of an apple seed when he gave you your bright blue eyes. When you were no bigger than a grape, He formed your toes and your fingers. Can you imagine how tiny they were if your whole body was that small? Soon he made your ears, and teeny teeth that would grow in someday. Yes, I know you lost one of them last week.
You began to wiggle around and poke your mama with your elbows and your feet. You were ready to get out and run! God took a whole nine months just to make you; almost a year! That means He loves you very much.
Did you know that He spent that much time making your mama too? She was in my belly thirty years ago. He watched over her from heaven while she grew up. She went to school and, later, married your dad. She had your big sister, then you. Over that time, he began to miss your mama. He longed to hold her close and wipe away all of her tears. He wanted to give her beautiful white wings and let her lay in the fields of flowers under the warm sun.
You and I had our time with her here, but now it's God's turn to spend time with her. Don’t worry, though. Someday you and I will join her up there. God will bring us up to stay with him. We'll have pretty feathered wings, too. Then you and your momma can race after each other and catch fireflies again, for as long as you want. You’ll never grow tired. You will laugh and she will take you up into her arms and kiss your pretty brown curls soon. It will all be okay.
Wasted Time
You say that I'm bringing you down.
But you guilt tripped me through three summers.
And you never tell me you love me.
Did everyone know, but me?
Waiting on bad luck,
I'm a hostage who has had enough.
I'm always out of dollar bills.
I bleed out like modern art.
I keep finding all your hair ties in my room.
Every tear drop builds up.
I got all these shattered pieces in my soul.
Spent a lot of nights forgetting who I am.
Accept that life is a beautiful mess.
I go along for the ride; it will be alright.
I've been waiting all my life, yes,
I swear all I wanted was to feel like I did something right.
Song List:
We All Got Friends, AJ Smith
All Night, Luna Blue
What a Shame, STRUAN
Dumpster Fire, Knox
HOSTAGE, Brandon Bales
I Love Myself, People R Ugly
Modern Art, Little Hurt
Cool Kids, Harrison Boe
Sad Sugar, New Friends
Spinach in My Teeth, BIZZY
My Sister
I noticed the swell or her stomach, so gently sloping before I even took in the features on her face. Her round belly was wrapped in a pretty floral top that mom had worn years ago when she was pregnant. My sister had told me she was pregnant a few months ago. I saw her post photos of the baby bump on all her social medias with her typical artistic flair. She and her husband live across the country in sunny California. I don’t know why they’d waste a week of California spring to spend that time in New England. We can boast of frost and rain until mid-May some years. Longer if you’re one of the brave souls who lives up in Maine.
Mom reached her first, enveloping her in an overly cautious embrace. Mom has had five children, yet she treats my sister as if childbearing is the most dangerous condition ever. I don’t mean to insult pregnant women, really, I don’t. I’ve never been pregnant, and I’m not sure I ever will. But our mom acts like even a too-firm hug could injure her daughter or the granddaughter within her womb. She fell down the stairs with her second child and was in a car accident with me, the baby of the family. Every single one of us was fine. I think women are more resilient than we’re given credit for, that’s all.
We exchanged hugs and hellos and retired to the living rooms when their suitcases were brought in. My dad immediately made sure my sister could put her feet up and had a glass of water in her hand. I guess she should be pampered. She’s growing a human being after all. She’s seven months pregnant. Every time she glances at her belly or brushes a hand against it, she smiles. Maybe they’re being cautious because they’ve had trouble keeping babies. Two confirmed miscarriages and a few more that my sister claims were certainly pregnancies but were gone too early to test.
Her husband sat proudly beside her. He doesn’t talk much at first, you really have to let him get comfortable before he joins in the conversation. I wasn’t sure he was going to say anything at all. His eyes hadn’t left his wife and the baby hidden inside of her.
I love my sister, I do. But nobody was even half this excited when two of our brothers announced they were having kids with their spouses the last few years. My sister was always the golden child, though, so maybe we brought this on ourselves, anyway. Growing up she was the first one to answer when mom or dad called. She had all As and did her chores without being asked. She competed at the state level in high school in cross country and won scholarships for athletics, her artwork, and her academics. If she were my kid, I’d have a hard time not favoring her, too. But I could tell, even if nobody else could, that my brothers were hurt about how excited mom and dad were for her baby rather than theirs.
I love my sister a lot. She’s never once done anything to make me dislike her even a little; She had a big heart and was a great big sister growing up. She taught me how to put on makeup, style my hair, and even shave my legs. Maybe I do resent her a little. It’s just because I know mom taught her all of those things. I just wish that rather than my wonderful sister teaching me, it would have been mom. I wish mom had taken a moment and spent it with just me, teaching me what it means to be a woman. I don’t even know how to complain about it without sounding whiny or ungrateful.
She went into preterm labor near the end of her visit. And now I feel like a real jerk for being jealous of her the whole time.