Encounter

The ledge of the bridge is narrow and treacherous. She walks across it in a straight line, scratching her bare feet against the gritty cement as she plans where each will fall on its next step. She appears as if she could be balanced on the tightrope, perched on the highwire—for any spectator regardless could recognize that iron stability. In truth she feels anything but stable, and it's all she can do to try and find a rhythm in her silent footsteps. It's the dead of night and there is nothing to distract her—well, there shouldn't be, anyway. There are no cars on the road, no headlights floating in air, the water of the bay below ripples as the moon sends shimmers of light dancing across the surface and her hair gleams as it catches an unseen ray of that same light.

It's something about the night, it feels stronger to her now, thicker, stifling in its opaque unknowns and mysterious edges. It's completely calm, so calm that she is slightly unnerved by the general lack of motion. The back of her neck prickles and she swivels around, but there is no one there, and in doing so she almost loses her now tentative balance. To fall one way would mean a set of scraped knees at the least. The other...well, she wouldn’t be so lucky. Her death would be imminent and certain. The drop itself would probably knock her unconscious before she hit the water, but even then…she shivers, looking out at the shimmering blackness below, eerily beautiful, hypnotic, alluring. But she knows. It is terrifying thinking of how cold and helpless she would be as the waves sucked her below the merciless current, thrashing her screaming, writhing form till she was blue and limp, because no matter how hard she fought she would still be pulled under. The agony of five minutes framed in the hysteria of drowning. Death would be a relief. She shivers again, clearing the image from behind her eyelids and focusing on the cracked cement under her feet a mere four inches wide, taking a deep breath. She knows what she is doing. She isn’t going to fall.

She continues her careful footsteps, watching the way the shadows fluctuate on the ground, sheen of light so faint it could fade into the darkness at a moment’s notice. She stares ahead at the solitary streetlamp on the far side of the bridge, a beacon spilling its welcome in a warm glow. But it’s so far away. She walks toward it as if she’s in a trance, as if the streetlamp is all she’s capable of seeing. So mesmerized is she that she fails to notice the pale green illumination that has come to hover directly overhead. She is bathed in an otherworldly luminescence, a light composed of air and stardust and particles from orbit, of the foreign, the unreal, of intrigue and distortion and rebirth. She feels her hair stand up on the back of her neck as her eyes find the skyline from the gaps of the bridge’s structure, widening in disbelief.

A spaceship is approaching, lit up like an entire city in itself. It’s too much for her vision to process, the emanating green blurs into splotches of untamed exposure and she can’t tell where darkness ends and light begins. Why is she here? She needs to get away. She turns to the solitary lamppost, reaching blindly for a sense of direction, any direction, but the light has gone out. Her only flame of hope. Gone. She panics as her vision settles. The blinking shuttle has landed and the door opens a crack, emitting a violet wavelength that triggers a sharp burning sensation in her veins, making her gasp in shock. The door appears to disintegrate into the open night air—it hasn’t moved, it hasn’t been manipulated—it’s simply no longer there. She stifles a bloodcurdling scream as three creatures step out of the interior. There’s no one there to hear her. It’s deserted. The night will swallow her up and no one will know the better. Her heartbeats are crashing, her stomach in her throat. She is sure of only one thing as the distorted forms close in on her wavering silhouette—she must not be taken. She allows one fleeting glimpse toward the glittering darkness below, knowing it will be the last decision she ever makes. And then she jumps.

Nonsensical Dreams

A gust of wind
carries me away
into radiant summer day

I am a daffodil
translucent fairy
never beleaguered
never harried

The whistling sounds
spin all around
dancing prancing
on the ground

A glittering flitting
resounding ring
I see the sprites
I hear them sing

And flying on air
so weightless I'm soaring
bluebells and dewdrops
are never deploring

But I'm out of tune
I'm out of place
I don't belong here
I'm a disgrace

The wind's now a whiplash
no longer calling
my wishing is hopeless
my dreams are falling

As so I wake up
to a blank empty mind
imaginings washed away
sunshine left behind.

Faltering Recognition

The offramp beckons.
Thoughts have been reduced
to a dull thrumming
as the irk of impatience takes hold
as anxiety sets in
like a poison spreading through
seeping veins
the indisputable inkling
We're almost there.
Turn the corner
and we're amidst
the sprawled canal
Sidewalk
and there she is
one girl
nonchalant black dress
a free spirit
in an unfamiliar stranger
But my eyes find the tag
hanging from her shoulder
a telltale identification
and realization
hits me hard.
My hands grip the steering wheel
as uncalled nostalgia envelopes
an unsuspecting soul.
Longing for that month
the world became real
that I discovered the music
and we all
found
the artists in ourselves.
Inspiration
a gradient
and the memories flood me
because exactly one year ago
That girl was me.
I want to go back
For it's such an odd
odd feeling
not being there this
summer
I know how all the others feel
our time at CSSSA is over
expired
came to a complete end
in the clinging fragments
of a year already lost.
Alas
I wish the girl all the best
for her earthshattering month
has only just begun.

On the Road

Her eyelids open to the glorious onslaught of untamed light reflecting off the shards of the window's shattered glass. She throws off the dilapidated blanket, shivering in the brisk morning air, squinting at her surroundings--the battered coffee table, the stained rug and peeling walls, the long-forgotten prismatic fragments. The previous owners didn't even bother taping up some cheap plastic sheeting over the gaping hole. No matter, this was just as good a one-night dwelling as any. Nevermind it didn't exactly feel like home--she didn't really know what she called home anymore, anyway.

Too much thinking, she tells herself. She slides on her red sneakers and glances at her reflection in the dirt-caked mirror left on top the dresser, pulling her long hair back behind her neck with a harsh tug. She strides to the empty window frame without a glance back, leans against the marred steel and looks out at the field of dried grass and weeds eating away at the lonely road. This quaint place, now so utterly abandoned, she thinks, but stops herself. Just another place, can't get sentimental about it. So many places in the world.

She steps onto the windowsill and stares at the ground, judging the height. Nothing she hasn't done before. She gathers the unruly folds of her sundress in one hand, puts the other out for balance, and steps off the edge. The drop is short and she makes a perfect landing, pausing only to brush the stray foxtail off her shoe. Once again she is in motion, walking with a purpose.

She treks through the knee-length grass, edges tickling the bare skin of her legs as the wind tosses her mane free from its messy knot and the sun heats her uncovered shoulders. She turns the corner and heads toward the road. Her beat-up Mustang waits for her in the ditch like a faithful dog. She pulls her wad of keys out of the hem of her dress--what good would a dress be without pockets?--and looks at them in mild contemplation. Yes, she decides, slipping all but one off the keyring and letting them fall into the dead earth as if letting pieces of herself fall away.

She settles herself in the driver's seat, revs up the engine and pulls onto the road while fumbling around for the sunglasses she knows are somewhere in the mess of junk on the passenger seat. No longer squinting from the light of the sun, she opens a bag of chips for breakfast and turns the radio up loud enough so that she drowns out her singing voice as well as her own thoughts. She braces herself. There is a long day of driving ahead. She better start it now.

Masked Sunshine

So falls the rain, and with it, she casts away those heavy emotions, letting them fall from her like a spectacular molting, a mysterious unveiling of all that was and will be as water and sparks seep into the earth. She watches in awe, faces the sky and rain and finds herself dancing like she never has before.

The girl will rise from the ashes as the phoenix of old once did. Though bathed in the moments of sorrow and coated by the outpouring of the heavens, a light still burns inside. That light is the power to defy the chaos of life, to dance to the song of the storms. For every star in this world is forged from an inner chaos,

and in letting go she has embraced that chaos. She wonders where all the light has come from, and in this second of esctasy and euphoria she realizes it is herself. A single flame in the darkness. And then she realizes that's indeed all it is and comes crashing down from the stars. It's dark around her and she is the only one, and to glow is not enough because she is so completely, utterly alone. But then...could it be? Another light flickers from far off in the distance.

The girl may wander in the dark, alone for a time. Many others have traveled this route, it is a part of life. The darkness envelopes and consumes, but the girl will find a way out. She will learn not to believe in others who believe in her. She will learn not to believe herself for other peoples' sake. She will believe in herself for herself. She will always have the lights that shine off the trees in the near distance, that beckon a new day and a new way,

and she will be the sunshine as she has been before and always will be.

(Half the glory must be given to fellow writer and dreamer Steve Sonnier
while the piece itself must be dedicated to my dear sister muse)

Queen of Ice

She’s passion set aflame

Wild free raw

thirsty for all that which

the world

is willing to give her.

She wants to feel that rush of adventure

Thrill of the unknown

Look through the glass

And take it all to heart.

Yet through all of this

She knows that nature

the flaws, the faults, the tendencies

And though she looks,

she has trouble finding

the

Sparks,

the ones for whom

Darkness falls

and still they glow

so lit and burning

are the depths

of their fiery souls.

She recognizes these souls

But in a world so impossible to comprehend

there are too few

and their fight

stands too small a chance.

She realizes this

And no doubt would it be far safer

to simply assume

a hard shell

of empty resignation.

But no

She sees

And with that sight

She feels

And she can’t stop searching

for that spark

a faint glimmer of fleeting emotion

just under the surface

which for so many is clearly

Not there.

She wants no more of it

as she wonders

For what is passion good for

If no longer

Can it be recognized

And if none but she knows of it

How can it really exist?

Yes

She should be crowned

Acquire cold words and a piercing stare

Freeze in wicked perfection

And become

So very very numb.

If only she were

The

Queen of Ice

Standing in the endless downpour

Feeling nothing

As she melts into a flooded sidewalk.

The All-Knowing

She handed over the wafer-thin sheet. Such a cruel, hateful glare it gave her as it left her hands, as if it knew of all her indecision and planned to use it all against her.

Is it real? she heard the other ask.
Yes, she answered, it's as real as it gets.