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.

A Prismatic Hunger

Please, give me some color. I cannot stand the shadows and the deception, the pretense, the false semblance. The same pale, tasteless consent and dull compliance. Tell me there are different shades of gray, that the world is within and without and that it would cease to exist without its painted intricacies. That the perceived can embody both good and evil, but that they aren't the same shade, not at all. Help me see the difference between crimson and red, olive and sage, yellow and gold. Let me unearth the strange intensities, the deluging iridescence, the hues and tints and glows. I'm so sick of black and white. So set me free, let me go.

Rain Through the Looking Glass

Slippery shoes against the marble as we sit on the long wooden benches, looking about us as if we have just been born. Our whispers echo off the cavernous walls. We sense we are intruders on this glorious abyss and our voices instinctually taper off. A silence spreads itself over us, muting our thoughts, our heartbeats, our mindless fidgeting, if only for a moment, but in that moment time stands still. We listen, there is nothing. We strain our ears, searching for something we can use to prove to ourselves that it hasn't all stopped. It comes to us from a great distance, almost inaudible, dampened by the sheer volume of the silence.

A sound like no other, a sound we would know anywhere. The sound
of rain.

The drops, they hit the rough surface of the stained glass, reflecting prisms of color through the silence. That which is so deep we'd have to wade through it. The faint echo of the rain slowly fades away, till we are left with a true absence of sound. And we sit and listen to that absence.

Those Days, So Far Away

That was really insensitive, he said.

Insensitive?
Is that all that remains from the memory that brings back the ecstasy of my childhood? That's certainly not how I remember it--it was always a sort of carefree joy unleashed from the soul, for young souls have the least experience but know the most about the intensity of the truth, even if they can't fully understand it. Me and my sis, twirling around in circles in the white light of the morning, spinning to the music that starts as part of the air and soon becomes a part of us. The elation, the rapture, the wonder of those morning hours. Then, it was as much a part of us as our fingers, our toes, our faces, our hearts. It was what we did, it was what we lived for. Apparently it's now different.

I thought maybe you'd remember those days we used to dance, I reply.