writings

by

Protection

A secret, she said, is this:

If you are about to ask a question, and you realize that all of the responses will be wretched, just do not ask it.

Get up and walk away. Even if you are in a small boat: find a way to go.

It will always have been better not to know. Vague dread will not wake you in the night like a pointy inevitability. Choke the Oracle and free yourself.

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Firefly

I walk through the night with a firefly in a lantern. My firefly lights the way for me, yes; but it is sad. It wants to be free. If I free it, I will be lonely and in darkness once more.

Though I know I will soon be stumbling in the dark night, I lift the lid of the lantern. “You are free,” I whisper to my firefly. 

It begins to fly out of the lantern into the quiet night. On every beat of its wings, it grows larger. Larger, and larger still. It moves it glowing wings slowly and rhythmically. Soon, there is a soft glow all around me. I am able to see so many paths.

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A Poem, of Sorts

a poem, of sorts, that was in my head this morning:

I try to be clever
but I exhale crumpled moth wings

A brain can ache
like a stomach can ache –
it’s when you can’t escape your own self

The other night I went to fold the laundry
and I didn’t want to do it
and I didn’t want to not do it –
how can this be?

my biggest fear is not death,
but being sent into outer space
alone
to a place where I discover bodies do not die.

by

random bits

Do you ever have random memories pop into your head?  she asked.

His smile was a response, she knows he does not.  Her question was not a real inquiry anyway but, rather, a polite intro to her own reverie.

“I was remembering a very hot August Sunday afternoon.  I was about 9, out on the small porch on my grandparents’ apartment in Revere, Massachusetts.  

The small portable radio is at my side and I am laying on a thin bath towel. on top of the splintery wood floor. When I look up the sky is fragmented into uneven bits by a criscross of  wires that look like they have been there as long as the sky, but that couldn’t be.

‘Love is higher than a mountain, love is thicker than water . . . heaven’s angel, devil’s daughter.’  (Two separate women?  two sides of the same woman?)  Do I never hear that song anymore because it is so awful, or because i have fabricated it?

I feel like the big girls, my cousins who sun themselves by their outdoor pool, who Drink Soda and Talk About Boys.  I like to pretend I am becoming indoctrinated and try to ignore niggling questions like “How do they lie there uncomplaining and baking for hours at a time like glossy game hens?”  and  “Does anyone actually find this fun or is this the modern day Emperor’s New Clothes?”

I am bored but I don’t have the energy to get up for a long time.  The sun erased my will.  Eventually I do go inside, away from the too-intense sunshine and too-friendly hornets.

My mother begins, ‘Don’t let the screen door…’

whump.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I understand why the older ladies start wearing shawls.  Once you are marginalized, no-one gives you their heat.  No-one wants to touch you any longer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He loved her for her quirks.  The way her sounds of pleasure were small questions (“Oh?  Oh?”).  But mostly, for the things she was not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She looked at the flags and wreaths adorning the gravestones with a grimace – the popularity contest doesn’t even end with death!

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Manbun Haiku

Talking to tweens – it can be a struggle.

Me: Sometimes planes look like air sharks up there, don’t they?

Her: Yeah.

Me: I wrote a haiku today!  It’s about manbuns!

Her: Yeah?

Me:  Wanna hear it?

<Silence, interpreted as permission to recite>

Me:

Your manbun looks like

tumbleweeds in the March winds.

It sure does suit you!

by

fictional vignette that came into my mind while driving

She’s behind me in line, well, more like next to me, and there’s a relentless tapping of something on the large package in her arms. I take a sideways look and see a bracelet in striking shades of blue; what looks like tiny blue ceramic teeth interrupted by gold beads.

“Wow,” I say, pointing to her wrist. “That’s a fantastic piece. I wonder how they got those to look so much like teeth.”

“They are teeth,” she says. “They’re my son’s teeth.”

“Really? How old is your son now?” I ask.

“He’d a been fourteen this spring,” she says flatly.

“Ahh,” I say. Long silence.

“Next!” demands the postal worker at the second counter. I walk up and my mind goes blank. I cannot remember what I walked here for. I look at signs above my head, hoping they may shake my memory.

“Book of stamps?” I squeak.