The architect

Standing in resolute splendor

Bows before the fervant nature girl

Wrapping herself around pieces

Of splintered wood

Both appreciating the materials

Of a land indifferent to its end

He the builder of timber towers

Frontman to progress and production

She the dreamer of Summer

Blankets and books companions

In her walless canopy

Forest her playground of youth

Mother nature, a dear old friend

For him the trees

Are the fodder of imagination

Kinlin for a mind

Driven to destiny and repupose

Will the visionaries love

See abundance

In both dreams

Old and new

Or will they see only scarcity

Competition and regression

Will their differences divide

And blind them from their true face

Do they know they are the world

And their affair our children's fate

Photo credit to Scott Mutter

https://loccikiy.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/escalatorlg1204.jpg

We all want to know where we come from. Not only is it natural, but in my opinion, perhaps our most divine right as human beings. They told us that we were from serum 6, a combination of DNA and computer codes. I understood the process from which I had come, but not the inexplicable. Why was my hair brown and not blonde? Why did I have a hunger to make up stories that I could not find any pictures to depict? Our language is so complex, but the expressions to me have always seemed to fall short.

I invented something today. Our teacher told us to emoji about our holiday. I took out my pad and imputed a smiley face. Then I deleted it. There had been smiles and some laughs but that was not all the feelings. And there were things about the holiday that I had experienced seperately that had no feelings, observations and imaginative thought waves.

Sometimes our teacher allowed us to use the stylus function if we needed to elaborate on our emoji logs. I started to draw and then I paused. I looked at the ground realizing that a stick was quite like a stylus. I picked it up and began to weave it through the dirt. When I was done I smiled in a way that no emoji could ever capture. There was a light in my smile and a deep sense of satisfaction. I had drawn my holiday. I could see the waves of emotion, but it was not straightforward. The sadness of losing my grandmother was in the folds of the rolling river. The beauty I had experienced at wearing the key necklace she had left me looked out from the eyes of an owl I had drawn perched in the cottonwood tree. The imagination of what the key could lead to was foretold in the stepping stone path that rose to the clouds and hid in the mist of a sky based seashore. My teacher did not understand. She said that playing in the dirt would not qualify as homework and insisted that I rub it out with my hands and then go wash up. Some of my classmates laughed and others never even bothered to look up from their pads. I went to the river that I had put in my masterpiece and did as she said, washing my tears there in the bank. Hoping to let them run dry before returning to class.

When I turned around a small girl was peering at me. I realized all at once that she was the girl I liked whose beautiful brown eyes had found their way into my owl in the cottonwood tree. She said nothing but offered me a handkerchief and disappeared. Something fell out of the handkerchief. It was a print out drawing of the land. I could see where she had placed the emojis and then warped the lines to create pictures of real places. There was a long line where she had dragged the stylus to a waterfall I knew well. It was a gathering place for our people. There she had pressed an imprint into the page. It was an exact imprint of the key around my neck.

In wonder, I forsook my classes and ignored the instructions of my teacher and started the trek for the waterfall. When I arrived it had begun to rain steadily. I wasn’t dressed for hiking and my clothes began to plaster against my body. Upon arriving at the falls, I ducked behind the watery veil and found, much to my surprise, a small cave. I could scarcely begin my examination of the limestone walls therein before I heard faint footfalls. As my eyes adjusted to the relative darkness of the cave, I saw her! The girl who'd given me her handkerchief! How had she known I would come? I waited for her to speak, but she said nothing and took my hand. I realized then that I had never heard her speak. She drew me into the darkness of the cave and placed my hand firmly against something cold and solid. But not so solid. I realized then what she was showing me. Nestled into the limestone was a wooden oval door with a brass keyhole. She nodded to my necklace and smiled at me. Her smile was sunbeams and buttercups. That’s how I would have symbolized it for my teacher, but my teacher would not have had the same rumbling in her stomach as I had, delighting in such imagery.

I placed the key in the keyhole and at first, nothing happened. The door had not been opened in so long, we had to push together to get it to move against the corrosion of time. When it opened, the girl lit a small flame from a torch and the walls came alive before me. Before us lay a most fantastical collection of capsules. I had seen one before. I knew that capsules were what had brought us many of the plants here and even some of the animals from eggs. The girl pointed to these capsules looking grave and then placed a finger to her lips. She then made a slash in the air and a motion of slapping herself on the wrist.

“These are forbidden?” I asked solemnly. She nodded. We spent the rest of the afternoon pouring over these strange pictured pages. None of them had emojis or the usual symbols. There were pictures of children like us with two big people, one male, and one female. There were strange black slash marks that seemed to be repeated over and over in different shapes like some sort of code. These were what fascinated me the most. I noticed that the girl was looking at them differently than I was as if there was a sort of order to it like dressing or preparing food.

She sat still and elegantly holding one of the square objects with the wafer-thin inserts and looked at every blot and etching one insert at a time. She would pause before turning each one and take one dainty finger and moisten it with her tongue before going to the next.

It took months for me to understand her. I learned her name was Lena and I told her mine was Paul. We had to develop our own sign and symbol talk before she could help me understand the mystery that was the square objects. Books she called them. I learned such wonderful things from the books. Mysteries that had alluded me for so long like where children came from before the serums and before the interplanetary settlement. I liked the names of the authors. One of my favorites was a man by the name of Longfellow. He wrote of a man named Hiawatha who spent a lot of time by Lake Superior and the Tahquamenon River. He had a speech impediment, but he was still able to unite tribes together under one language. Lena and I can both relate to this man. Though we have never met him or ever will in the traditional sense, the books have acquainted us like old friends.

Lena says that our world is not ready for these stories yet and we must be patient and cautious. But I have noticed many things sense discovering the books. I see the eyes of my classmates staring out the window. Some to the forest and others to the hills. I have seen the teachers boredom as they scan our homework and heard the deep sighs of restless yearning. I know that I am not the only one searching for something more. I am not the only one with questions and hunger for knowledge beyond what we can see in the here and now. They may not be ready yet, but they will be. And when the time comes I will fight for the written word to be restored. I will not let these books return to the dust, but resurrect their ashes and plant them in the hearts of those who are ready for so much more.

It was a funny thing indeed. So small. So insignificant. And yet, I knew this would be one of the greatest discoveries of all time. The tiny creature in my palm looked like a flower. Not even a healthy flower, but more of a weak and wilted lilac. I had examined the specimen 20, 30, no 8,559 times. I knew that for fact. I had counted and documented each observance like a bio scientist. I was not a scientist. I was not even a respectable blue or white collar worker contributing to society. If you're expecting a story by the next Marie Curie, or Mother Theresa, I can assure you,you are very, very wrong. Let me take you back.

It's 1929. I am homeless. I'm told that a lot of respectable people are these days. I suppose that's supposed to chip off some of the shame. It doesn't. My home is a dump. Not a figurative or metaphorical dump. I've actually settled in Boulder, Colorado City Dump. The nights are frigid, but I have plenty of flea infested, discarded blankets to break the wind with. My children are gone. They were taken to live with their grandparents in Boise, Idaho. I do not even have an address to get letters from them. I spend most of my time going through the trash to try to find something worth pawning, or melting down. I use the money to buy groceries and whatever is left to make pay phone calls to my children. 

"No, Loren, I'm sorry the children can't come to the telephone right now. They're quite tired from their studies and their recreation with Grandpa pa in the park." Translation: You are an unfit mother and a drunk and Charlie and I would never dream of letting you speak to them.

I always hang up quite dejected after these little chats. As if the sting of my mother in law's voice could be any more excruciating than my own voice in my head, telling me how worthless and miserable I am. 

And so, day after day, here I find myself pillaging through the trash looking for gemstones in the rough. It's amazing the things that people throw away, even in a great depression. My theory is people panic when they have to leave their homes and scatter their belongings to the wind, hoping that one day they will return to a state of normalcy and perhaps they can return to the obscure place where they left their beloved cast iron skillet, the grand piano from Aunt Josephine, the wooden dog house, the chipped blue china.  

It was an ordinary morning when I made my discovery. The sky was a hazy London like overcast. The streets smelled of sulfur and cheap cigarettes. So far I'd found a corn cob pipe, a half rotted apple, and a pair of sewing scissors. I was most excited about the scissors. Sure I'd been making do with an old butter knife, but there was something awfully civilized about a working pair of shears. I could cut my hair, trim the lose threads on my clothes. I could look right presentable when I was done with them. A week ago I had found half a tin of coffee beans. It didn't seem like much but I had wept with joy, I had learned how to start a fire from one of the travelers who had shared my tent for a few nights that were particularly frigid. The learned skill more than made up for the small favor. Now I could boil water and coffee in my burnt kettle. 

And so it was, on this particularly smog infested morning, I sat idly sipping my coffee and picking through the newspaper, when a flash of color caught my gaze. I glanced up from the paper. It was a really dull piece anyway about muggers trying to pawn fake Tiffany's and stealing teeth from abandoned dentist offices to do heaven's knew what with. What was that flash of purple? There were many insects around my dump abode, but usually they ranged from brown to green to eight legs and tar black. This color had been a radiant almost magenta. Perhaps it was a butterfly I mused, but I didn't see anything winged flying about. I turned my attention back to the paper as one does dutifully to a school book. It was useless. A nagging feeling had begun to settle. I felt as if my spine was tingling. I scratched at my hair, my cheeks, my bum. I had an awful habit of scratching. Who cares what it was I tried to tell myself, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it had stirred in me-- a feeling of bliss, like when the first spring flowers peek through the snow, the aroma of chocolate chip cookies reaching caramelized perfection, the sensation of new love blooming on a hot red sunset with a glass of chardonnay. And then, I saw it again, the radiant purple. Peeking out between two heart shaped, arrow tipped leaves, was a glorious amalgamation of lilacs. The sun, absent until now, appeared to have woken from its slumber and was peeping out from a rain drunk storm cloud. It's curiosity illuminated the small shrub in a liquid gold spotlight, making the leaves look velveteen, and the petals a soft, voluptuous satin. 

There was something striking about the tree and I couldn't pinpoint what. Sure, it was an aesthetic wonder in a dilapidated kingdom, but there was more than that. For starters, I had never noticed the tree. There was a fence that ran along the periphery of the dump with a few sprawling virginia creepers and something that resembled poison oak. A handful of abandoned houses lay beyond, so rat infested I'd decided to take my chances here. This was a gardener's jewel, something more purposeful and thought out, and yet, I had never seen it before. It was as if it had sprung from magic beans like in the bedtime stories I'd whispered to my kids on many sleepless nights following multiple trips to the bathroom, and second and third request for waters. I held my pain in, at the memory. If felt like a knife twist to the gut. 

I mused on the miracle tree for some time, but despite myself and my hobo coffee, I grew tired. I slept and I dreamed fantastical dreams. I dreamed that I was in a forest. The trees were emerald green and they vanished upon touch. The floor was bedded in downy soft pine needles. No thorns, no bramble. I was running. I was running with the deer and the elk. I was fast and I felt no pain. I never had to catch my breath. I was sure I would run to the end of the universe and determine for myself if it was flat or round or neither of the kind. Exhilaration. That's what I felt. I felt as if I was in a state of bliss that would perpetuate so long as I did not stop, did not look back. I was the machine. I was the clock, and I would tick, tick, tick, and never know the pull of future or past. I would be something else.

Suddenly, something awoke me with a start. It tickled my nose. I sneezed a horrific eruption of sound and snot, and sat bolt upright. I wiped my slobbered lips, embarrassed despite my solitude. But I wasn't alone. I felt it, like a mother feels her children calling her in the middle of the night, like a woman feels it in an alley when a strangers eyes are near in the dark. Slowly, carefully, I turned my head one painful centimeter at a time, barely breathing. Behind me was a lilac, laying transfixed on the ground. The way someone might lay a flower on a corpse or at a graveside. 

"She's playing possum" -A voice. In my head?

What? Where did that come from. That didn't make any--

I felt a presence again, only this time it was behind my left shoulder. I turned, and what I saw should have made me scream, but the surprise was deeper than a moment of horrific surprise or emotional reflex to something human. What I saw was not human. The torso of a man and the body of a goat, with horns that spiraled from his temples and cascaded to the ground like gnarled finger nails or tree roots grown wrong and backwards. He spoke again.

"She isss playing possum young laaady."

I must still be dreaming. My forest dream had clearly slipped into a much more vivid nightmare...maybe the coffee had, had something toxic in it. I was hallucinating. 

"You are not insane." he purred, as if hearing my thoughts out loud. "Your eyes are simply more open."

I stared at him. My throat dry, unable to make so much as a murmur. 

"I'm here to make a deal with you. You give me that lilac, and I will give you your children," he said, rubbing his hooves in a way that sent shivers up my spine. The sound was like two saw blades  grinding. The mention of my children, made me brave.

"I don't know what you are, or what this is, but you stay far, far away from my children!"

He laughed; a long, cooridor echoing, sickening drawl from his belly. 

"I won't lay a fiiinger on them," he said, his voice as delicate as crystal. "Just give me what I assk."

"Why can't you just pick up it up yourself," I retorted. "Why do you need me?"

He smiled and his handsome dark man face, took on a reptilian gleam. "I cannot touch her because she isss hiding from me. Pursuuit is what she desires, and I am mooore than happy to oblige."

"What are you talking about? Why do you keep calling this flower a she?" I asked, picking up the bud, like one would draw a blade and brandishing it in front of him with what I hoped passed for menace.

He laughed again, that cruel, ancient, guttural growl. 

"My daft pet, that thiiing, as you call it, in your hand, is no flower, that is a nymph. Her name is Syringa and she has pledged her loyalty to Artemis," he said, not masking his disdain. "No matter, I forgive her. I know how Artemis can be. Charming, but an absolute nightmare in the light. I know she only needs a mere hour in my presence to be persuaded of that."

I looked at the flower in my hand. Five minutes ago, I would have dismissed his words as rubbish instantly, but the mere fact he existed caused me to waver. If he was a real beast or man beast, or whatever, then what else was real. Clearly everything I'd been told to trust by sight alone was rubbish. What could I believe? What could I not?

I stared again at my palm and the stem seemed to wiggle. The green shimmered to nude for just a blink, like a chameleon changing shades. Impossible. A tiny foot emerged, followed by a leg, a bodice clothed in ivy green, locks of straw gold hair falling elegantly over her bust and her tiny shoulders. I stared dumbstruck at a tiny feminine creature. Her skin the faint glow of lilac, her eyes a periwinkle brilliance, one petal rested in her hair like a beret. She opened her doll-like eyes and a wisp of a hand flew to her lips. She stretched and a squeak of a yawn snapped me back to my senses. So it was true. 

The goat man leaned toward me with a ferocious wolf-like eagerness that made me want to recoil and cover up the girl where he couldn't see her, smell her, or touch her. He lifted one hoof, cautiously. I shook my head.

"Leave her alone," I said, my maternal instinct rearing up again. 

"Caaareful," he purred. "You may not know who or whhhat you are messing with."

"I know enough."

He made a show of slowly and sardonically planting his hoof back on the ground. 

"Let's talk exchange," he said after a beat. "Your children for the nymph there."

I shook my head. "No, it's a trick. You can't give me what I want. Besides, even if I had them I cannot give them the home that they deserve."

He made a clicking sound in the back of his throat that made the nymph fold deeper into my hand and cover her face. 

"What if I told you I could give you the life back that you had, only better...richer, fuller? Name your price." He smiled serenely. 

I faltered at this. What was the tiny girl to me after all? Whatever she was, she wasn't human. And more importantly, wasn't my children. But still, it didn't feel right and I didn't trust this beast, whatever he was. Every instinct told me no.

"She's waaavering," the goat man observed, watching me shrewdly. 

"And what would happen to the girl if I give her up?" I asked. "What would happen to me?"

"Nothing at all," the creature said, as if placating a child. "Youuu get what you want, I get what I want and we never cross paths again."

"Somehow I doubt that," I said flatly, but still I chewed my bottom lip. Maybe there was a way I could double cross him.

The nymph had, had just enough of us. She sensed my fickleness, my weakness. Without warning, I felt a sharp jab in my palm like a syringe injection, and Syringa shot into the air. Simultaneously, Pan, for I would later learn his name, leaped to catch her. His hoof collided with her tiny frame and a strange thing happened. I almost thought for a moment she had disappeared entirely, but when I looked again, in her place was only a handful of lilacs, one splayed on the ground, the remainder not but a fistful of reeds, pressed to Pan's chest. 

The horrid creature burst into tears, a gut wrenching cry that I might have felt pity for, had I not seen his relentlessness and ambition just moments before. 

"It's over," he moaned. "I've lost her." And he went away to do what I would later learn is turn the reeds into pipes, which he would play on cool spring nights, a melancholy tune of what might have been.

Epilogue:

I no longer live in the shadows of the city, among the debris and decay. I am not rich, but I am not poor. I have a small apartment on the corner of 3rd and 8th. I no longer imbibe alcoholic beverages, though I have stayed fiercely loyal to my coffee addiction. How did I come to be here you might ask? I like to think I had a little help from a small nymph named Syringa. Seeing her flight, her bravery-her refusal to give into a force she did not want to dominate her, inspired a change in me. I kept my Syringa flower and took it to the Byenstien lab, where to this day they are still examining it. In addition to trying to crack what wondrous mystical qualities that flower has, they are examining the fossilized foot prints that Syringa left behind in the dust. So far, none of the data is being released and I am quite certain that half the staff think that I am absolutely loony. They can neither prove or disprove anything. A check comes every month that this goes on and money under the table from lost wagers. I've become something of a spectacle to talk about, a pop icon I'm told. I am an author now, and while this is not a respectable career of my day, it's at least passable enough that my children are allowed to visit again. Sometimes the memory seems so far away, I wonder if it all really happened, any of it. And then as I shut my eyes, I hear pan's tune lulling me into sleep. A lullaby of all that was and all that could still be.

The vase was red

As red as wonder lit rouge

The sheen a skin silk luster

Of pearls and Sunday tea

The smell a paper thin

Aroma of cut outs, coupons, and smiles

But this is not my mother

This is not

All that remains

No flower could state

The state to be

No vase encase

The absence of tragedy

Yet the sentiment

Remains strong

Perhaps the essence

Still resides

The bird has flown

But not the song

I made a friend

In a very unexpected place

A place of blue buggy power walking

Baby bopping bulk shopping

Christmas stocking

Toe blocking

Chaos scoffing

Pill popping

Mayhem

She was second to last in line

And on and on ticked the time

The glorious groans

Were sonar pitched

But we felt them

Like an itch

I felt a smile begin to twitch

We exchanged funny words

Raised eyebrows at the absurd

Then proceeded to do the dance

The slow hustle

Hangry hop

Conveyer belt slide

Moving closer to the card reader

Chopping block

Then suddenly I spied that person

The one I hardly know

Whose name escapes as well

Politeness insisted I speak

New friend forgotten

I manage a squeak

What a fleeting moment to smile

Like the yellow face on the plaster

Forgetting consumer hell

And the silent chants crying

Faster, faster, faster!

The Alaskan forest was pristine and crisp. There was not a sound for miles save the wind whistling in the trees. I had gobbled down three oranges and four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and was nursing a slight belly ache, but I was happy. I always had a voracious appetite when hunting, and today was no exception.

I had been tracking the brown bear for four days. There were four prints by the brook where I was sitting and they looked fresh. I was getting closer. Also, I noticed that the ice was cracked in several places. My bear, and perhaps some other game, had stopped here to drink. I tapped at the place where the ice was cracked using my index finger as a small pick. I then scooped out a handful of water and touched it to the tip of my dry tongue. I sighed. It was heavenly.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of twigs breaking. I froze. Much too big for a bird or a squirrel. And then came a low growl. Despite all my survivor training and the advice of my crazy cousin Dale, I panicked. I felt all the breathe go out of me. My knees knocked together in weakness an I somehow lost my footing falling into the frigid snow bank.

There bounding out of the forest on the other side of the brook came not one, but two bears.Neither animal was the brown bear I had been traking...no these, were much much bigger. These were grizzlies and they looked ready to lunge.

What followed was not a calm and collected moment where I scoped out my options and decided what to do. I did not feel heroic or brave, or like my ancient ancestor hunters as I'd hoped. No, I, Vivio Antonio Black, the son of the famous pro wrestler Demarcus Black the Obliterator, screamed like a little pigtailed girl and ran for the hills. 

How inconvenient, that my only escape route was uphill. Not just uphill, but up a cliff. I began to climb, but my hands were ice numb. The rocks were coming out from under my grip, the grizzlies had crossed the bank in one beautiful synchronized leap and I felt a rush of panic as warmth brushed the hairs on the back of my neck.

Too late, I remembered my rifle...it was on the bank. I had a small knife on my belt. I fumbled for it, turning to face the music and there was something so strange, so confusing, I felt I must not be well. One of the grizzlies was holding my rifle under his arm. That couldn't be right. Even as I thought it, I felt ludicrous.

"Put your hands up," a low male voice growled."Throw that knife on the ground. Up, up now boy, where we can see them!"

I looked around, startled in a stunned kind of way. People? Here? How? I looked at the largest bear in front of me. It was moving in a strange way...like he was shedding skin...his eyes looked stone dead. He wasn't growling anymore. Was he trying to...stand up...or, or vomit something out?

"We're right here idiot!" A girl's voice this time. Clipped, impatient, haughty almost. Then it all became clear.The smaller grizzlies skin fell away, revealing a small girl with brown ombre curls and a pinched nose. The larger grizzlies coat dropped to the ground as well, revealing the male voice, a tall boy with pointy shoulders and oil black hair...hard black eyes, like a beetles caught in a puddle, determined to turn over by sheer force of will.

The beetle eyed boy had my gun, and he was jamming the barrel right at my brain. More terror than I could have ever believed possible ripped through me. My heart accelerated to a speed I would have sworn only some sort of adrenaline drug could induce.

"What do you want?" I whispered, hating the desperation in my voice. Hating more still, that I had not acquiesced to my crazy cousin Dale's insistence that he come along or at least meet up with me later on in the week. I was going to die. I was going to die. I thought of my mom, sitting at home and knitting herself into hysteria...my dad, silently walking into the bathroom and taking just one sleeping pill day, after day, after day. Maybe on this day just a few more...

"No, no, I'm not ready to die!" I said shaking. No one had spoken yet. The girl smirked and spit on me. I felt all the blood rush to my face, but I said nothing. I was struck suddenly by her t-shirt.

"You are scum," she said. "But don't worry, we don't have any intention of killing you. We're not killers like you!"

There was something about her shirt. She was gloating in it, almost strutting in it like a peacock.

"New Justice E.R.A.," I read. "What does that mean?" 

"It stands for Equal Rights for Animals," the boy said irritably. "Not that I would expect you to know or care."

"Tiffany, tell him what we have in store for him."

The girl, Tiffany, smiled again...she was the sort of pretty person that still had a sick smile. Her teeth were fine, but there was a pointiness to them, and she almost had a hungry look when she laughed.

"Justice and I are going to take you to The Zoo. Our Zoo. It's a place E.R.A. has created for disgusting stalkers and killers like you. You'll be put in a cage by yourself. You'll be completely dependent on the good graces of our kind. If we don't feel like feeding you, or letting you out to take a dump then you'll starve and sleep in your own mess. Capisce?"

"Capisce," I said, my terror turning to a slow horror, the kind that builds in long tunneled nightmares as you walk toward your doom. 

The gun went down, and when it did, my knees finally gave out. I slumped to the ground. My head hit the back of the cliffside and I remembered no more.

When I woke I was wrapped in the grizzlies' skins. For some reason this made me want to vomit....it wasn't supposed to go like this. I peeked out from the skins and all around me were steel metal bars. The space between the bars was only big enough for my fingers to reach out knuckle deep. There was a shock collar around my neck. In the corner by a cobweb was a small bowl of water, and a food bowl of mush that smelled rancid; the contents were unrecognizable.

I picked up the bowl and slung it across the wall, hot angry tears bursting forth. It was gratifying to hear the ceramic crack. So gratifying I didn't even care when a shard of it stabbed me in the foot. I reached to pull it out and something very peculiar caught my eye.

It couldn't be....I studied the shard. There was an initial in the shard. L.B. My angry tears turned to hysteric delight. I laughed, and laughed again. L.B.--Linda Black, my crazy cousin Dale's mother. I thanked my lucky stars that my craft obsessed aunt had added pottery to the long list of her new hobbies. She put her initials on anything she ever made. I took the piece of shard and kissed it to my lips. Maybe, just maybe, there was some hope after all!   

What comes out

What comes out

When you finally realize your whole life

You've been structured against nature

Yet taught to embrace something so powerful

That even the twisty parts

Are worthwhile in shaping your foundation

This feeling

This feeling

Has been twisting up in me for some time

Why is it that some who taught me how to love

Seem to know little about the subject which they teach

Oh they love alright

But they love what they know

What they can understand

They love

They love alright

But they love a creator

Who suits purposes

Politics

And affirmations

Of the selves they want to see

The selves society

Has convinced them

They must be

If they profess

To be great lovers

If they profess

To know my Christ

But it seems we all know

A slightly different man

And it seems

We all know a slightly different world

When did what I see

And what you see

Have to be mirror images

When did we stop shooting for the moon

And decide a satellite could be our eyes

Or that the people hurting most

Were not our family

Not our responsibility

So many help

Only the people

Who don't make them uncomfortable

Who don't jeopardize

Their reputations

Their feelings

Or beliefs

When did we stop

Wanting to be challenged

When did we decide

That a simple label was enough

To put a person

In a file in the mind

Where we never had to look again

Unless we absolutely had to

For an audit

Or a  conscience cleansing

Well friends,

My filing cabinet is a mess

My labels are in the shredder

And instead of trying to push myself

Into the square hole office

One more time

I accept that I might be round

Or I might be some shape

Geometry doesn't know about

The abstract

But even that is a label

And I don't want anyone to be that

Let's be people

Let's love

Let's look at the moon

And regain our sense of wonder

And our passion to learn

To accept

Let's free ourselves

From any chains

That bind us

From who

We t

ruly want to be

Disclaimer: This expression does not by any means describe everyone. I have had many beautiful instructors who've taught me how to love. My parents, for example, really helped me build a foundation that I continue to springboard from each day. I know that there are great lovers in all religions, faiths, and backgrounds. This describes a small group of people and a way I have come to feel on occasion. It is not intended as a judgment on anyone, but a lament for any humans out there who are struggling (like me) in the art of loving, and are trapped by their own entanglements. This is also a cry to our society to wake up and put action behind the love we profess to have for our fellow man<p></p>

From out my window

I see the city that never sleeps

Dip n dot people like ants line the streets

Wowed by the sky scraper windows

Whose prisms seem to tickle the sky

My imagination remains stagnant

So I turn to the bones of a time gone by

The live architecture

Walking on prehistoric land

I think of the lovely bones

Sculpt the image with the clay in my hand

Modeling it affectionately

First the neck

Steely cedar

Trunk reaching sky

An animal with the grace of a harp

But a size to petrify!

Preface:

Life is said to flash before one's eyes when dying; this I know is true.

Death flashes anew when waking to new life. My story begins in just such a way-- with a death, my own.

My Death:

I never would have believed it

My fiancé dressed as a doctor

A little game we used to play

No game this time

But a ruse

To trick me

To trap me

And doctor 

Played the fool

And I was indeed the fool

I took the pills

Thinking them mints

I drank the absinth

Thinking to God

What sweet, sweet poison

What cruel hilarity

That poison 

That death 

Could actually taste so sweet

And all the lovemaking

Swam to mind

As I drowned in a sea of treachery

And deceit

But my face 

Became fuzzy behind the glass mirror

Now through shattered shards

And death's veil

I peer

Curious

So curious

I see two beloved honeymooners

On a cherrywood bed

With lemon candles

And holly vines

This is my dream

And oh

Oh there is more

The dear

Sweet 

Snow 

White 

Petals

I could cry

But I am less than ice

Translucent

And in between

Unseen

Forgotten

No 

Replaced

And whose face should I see

But Filesha

Filesha

My sworn enemy

Oh that wicked sea goddess

With her wretched

Voluptuous curls

Spun from gold

Surely from Rumpelstiltskin himself

That cheat

I sigh

And the lovers never hear

How they move like music

How he caresses her

With the softest elegance

I never dared he possessed

Thimble to thread

Water to ice

rain to rainbow

But she is no rainbow

Oh the wickedness in that girl

Filesha

That spider

That spinster

Spinning webs of lies

Feigning feelings

And heart bursts

But really just a 

Twisted and talented 

Marionette puller

They kiss

In the soft, soft candle light

We would have had music

I think

Watching his kiss curls

Brush her pearl pink cheeks

I will give them music

I think

Hearing only the slightest

Pin prick of what ghost tears make

When the depths of despair

Pull out waterfalls 

From mere memories

But something is not right

And it's not my broken heart

That aches for its body

And a voice to sing its sorrow

It's Devan

He's dressed

The white coat

The pills

Filesha on the bed

Alone

Crying too

He reaches for the bottle

Transfixed I watch

I dare not know why

Or what is happening

So fast

So fast

The pills are in his hand

Oh his hand

That beautiful brown hand

So bronz

Electric

I remember his touch

He swallows them all

I scream

But wait, I can't scream

It's Filesha

No it's me

It's us

We run to him

Our movements synchronized

Our hatred overcome by love

For this man

For Devan

O'

Oh

Devan

Why

Why 

A mirror lies on the floor beside him

I catch Filesha's eye

She mine

I shake my head

I don't want to see

She grabs the mirror 

Angry

So angry

Look 

She screams

Look

And finally see

I look into the mirror 

And such a curious thing I see

I see Filesha's face

There is no longer a me

She holds the glass to her eye

And angles it once more

So that I can see

The girl in the glass is dead

The girl in the glass

Is me