Words like weapons, fired recklessly slice through her soul. Wounds so deep she feels them in her bones.
He begs for forgiveness as she kneels all alone. Fighting to survive stay intact and whole.
Finding her strength she rises from the ashes. Veins full of ice and a fire in her soul.
She looks down at the girl kneeling in fear. Then wraps her up and holds her near.
A vow to her to never be there again. To protect her heart and never bend.
The area is dense with trees that come alive, their branches, arms that reach for me from the shadows. Misery grips my soul as I run. Will I ever get far enough away? Bare feet slamming down on forest debris, bleeding, caked with mud, I take a third tumble that leaves me tattered and bruised. My outside resembling my inside, the thought races through my mind in an instant.
I crouch next to a weeping willow, her foliage hanging down, covering part of me. I try to make myself small hoping that all the other things in the darkness will simply forget about me.
According to the dictionary, vulnerability is the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally. Synonyms include words like helplessness, frailty, and exposure. Some say allowing yourself to be powerless is a sign of strength, from my perspective it is a sign of stupidity. Knowledge is power and people will use that knowledge for their own purposes. So why on God’s green earth would I allow myself to be exposed and helpless you ask, well obviously I am stupid, nice to meet ya.
I guess you are wondering why my not so intelligent self is running like a crazy person through the forest of wretchedness. Well, I would love to go into the details of my misfortune with you, but that openness would further expose me now wouldn’t it. So how about you put yourself out there for a minute and follow me along the trail of bloody footprints and maybe you will learn a little something.
I see a light illuminating the darkness ahead of me just through the brush. Trick, it must be a trick. Fear becomes the blood in my veins. Pumping, pulsing, my mind says move, but my limbs will not or cannot cooperate. Oh my god, what is that? Cowering, trembling I move back, back into the weeping willow. It cradles me but is no protection at all. His, its arms reach out taking me.
“Jealous?” the words dance through my mind playing tricks and sending shock waves through me.
“Not at all,” nothing could be farther from the truth I discover as I sit home alone waiting for a text or any sign that his thoughts are with me.
I cannot stand it at last. The idea of you out with her. Holding hands as you walk along through the crowded fairway. Bells, whistles, shouts, and laughter of the carnival grounds filling the air around you. Framing an image that breaks my heart.
I imagine her hand resting lovingly at the back of your neck, fingertips gently caress, or her body turned into you, breasts pressing firmly against your side, your arm around her, her hand resting against your chest. She gazes up at you, looking down you take her in.
You, unaware of all the noise, the smell, all you see, feel, want is her. The vision takes my breath. I am back floating on the dead sea, the waves like arms welcoming me home, a place of sorrow. There are no seagulls in the distance instead ravens black as my heart. Their low gurgling croaks fill the bleakness around me.
I push the image away, only to have it return. “I think you are.” What a peculiar emotion, is it insecurity or fear? I don’t understand it, I do not think I have ever felt it before. What a cruel thing it is. All I know is it’s useless, this idea of the green-eyed monster, I hear Iago in my mind, “it is the green-eyed monster that doth mock.”
“Jealous? I think you are.”
I wake in the night to a lightless room. Reaching for the lamp certain I am not alone my fingertips brush wet coldness, jerking away in repulsion I knock my phone off the nightstand. The screen lights, from the corner of my eye I catch a shadow moving deeper into the room. Startled I bolt up in the bed and hit the lamp switch flooding the room with light. The room smells of the ocean, damp and dirty.
A trail of water leads from the bed out the door. I grab my gear and flee the room determined to discover the truth certain that whatever this thing is I will catch it this time.
I run down the pier bare feet slapping hard on wet wood. She runs swiftly ahead blond locks flowing out behind her like smoke dancing in the breeze. Her footfalls are empty, hollow as if she isn’t really touching the boards at all. The oddity of it should’ve caused me to pause but the strangeness didn’t really register in the confusion. This thing has invited itself into my home three times in the past month. The police never find anything but dripped water. This time I will investigate.
Ahead she abruptly turns right and heads straight down the shadowy dock. Trapped now with nowhere to go. I had her to dead rights. “What do you want?” I question with no response. Darkness engulfs the end of the dock. Waves lap at the pillions below. “Wait! Please!”
A large splash breaks the peacefulness of the waves ahead as I reach the end I realize she jumped. I stand there peering out into an empty darkness. As I turn to walk away defeated, cold hands grip my ankles and yanking hard I plunge into the black waters below.
He rescued my heart from sadness, pulling me straight out of the darkness that had become my world. I look into his twinkling eyes, his smile adding to the illusion of a mischievous dance. In them I see eternity, a soul I have I have known forever. I share with him my inner most secrets, thoughts, and desires. He is the only person in the world who knows me. In him I find everything I ever wanted and everything I never knew I wanted.
Sitting in his lap, facing him, staring into that beautiful face, I run my fingers along the back of his neck, through his hair, feeling the soft shortness of it brings me comfort. He closes his eyes, but the spell isn’t broken. Leaning into him, we kiss, softly at first, our lips barely touching at times. I feel his breath, like I am taking in his being. The act is more than desire, more than passion, an ultimate intimacy is somehow achieved in the moment. We come together not out of desperation but out of desire.
Slowly I slide back, he enters me, driving the passion. Kisses become firmer more urgent. I want him, need him. This loving, passionate, compassionate coupling intensifies my feelings for him. He is exciting, overwhelming, and at times frustrating but he invokes emotions and feeling I never knew I was capable of having. In him my fears of total intimacy and loss of control are gone, I trust him completely.
Open letter to my husband’s mutt. You are a fur ball from the deepest reaches of hell. The white fur that you constantly decorate my home with is not only unwanted but, and I am certain of this, disease laden, and possibly possessed. The way that the wads of it float around everywhere from room to room is well to put it bluntly, disgusting.
My husband a.k.a. your dad does not seem to mind the specter like activities of these floating apparitions. I on the other hand am quite disturbed by them. I am writing this letter to you as a plea for my sanity. Would it really kill you to just eat the hair like my perfectly innocent kitty? Sure, she coughs it up later, but it is in the form of a little wet ball, nice and easy for her mommy to clean.
It is very urgent that you take care of the situation immediately. Last night I woke to find one of the creepy things crawling up the comforter. My kitty rescued me by heroically swatting it to the floor just in the nick of time.
I would also like to call your attention to the complaints of the vacuum as she is also very distressed over the amount of gunk you leave everywhere. First, she is exhausted, the poor thing never gets a break. Second, she is filthy as I do not have the energy to clean her after pushing her through the entire house every day. Apparently, she is also afraid of losing suction and being thrown out like her predecessor.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns of your own. Before you do so please understand that I have the power to shave you completely bald and will reserve the right to do so if need be. I do not wish to take such extreme measures. However, I must insist that you correct the problem immediately.
Sincerely, Your Wicked Step-Mother
My mind is scrambled, shadowy, confused
I am lost at sea, drifting in and out of the shadows.
I live here hidden away from the world outside,
Can they see the truth this question I have often mused.
Do they see the me through the grayness of my life?
Behind the mask and armor of insecurity where I hide,
I am broken, defeated, bruised
A skeleton, a shell of who I used to be
Slowly surfacing a phoenix out of the shadows two images collide
The false me dying, fading, defied
Emerging different, waves of grayness dissolving all around
Embracing the light isn’t easy after all this time
Happiness unfurls, here reinvented, I shall preside
A chameleon in an unknown world, out of place, out of time
Born again, full of life, now I shall manifest my reality.
At forty I found myself lost in a world without my own identity. I was a wife, a mother, a daughter, sister, etc… But that was the sum total of my, me. I am not sure if this epiphany came from the fact that I was 40 or the fact that my youngest child was now entering middle school and quickly headed toward graduating. She would soon be leaving me alone with myself and my poor husband, who, would have to deal with it. I decided I would go to college. This was a very difficult decision considering that I am a 9th grade dropout.
Six months later I walked into my first college classroom. This was by no means an easy task. I actually walked back to my car twice. What is wrong with you? I thought, and then you can do this..no you can’t. I picked a seat all alone in a corner, hoping to be absorbed by the walls. I felt as though all of those college age kiddos were staring at me. I sat there for maybe 5 minutes when I made my mind up to bolt for the door. Oops! Too late in walked Professor Hall, I shrank back down in my seat.
“Good morning, my name is Professor Hall” She began and followed this opening introduction with a surprisingly similar story to my own current situation.There was something in her voice that made me feel comfortable, and the rest of my classes that day and the next seemed to be easier. If she could do it why couldn’t I? Now I needed a major … is a Dean Koontz or even a Kenya Wright buried somewhere deep inside me?
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Revelations of your soul is a tragedy.
It takes great effort to bare your deepest desires and fears,
Be sure the listener is capable and most deserving.
Discovering you are unwanted can be quite unnerving.
Bottling the pain is a practical thing to avoid unnecessary tears.
Living with it forever is not the worst thing that can happen.
Other’s responses maybe harder than your current despairs.
You will never truly know whose ego you may be serving,
Surely you will be the one left hurting.
Your audience has their own agenda, bare you soul if you dare,
Take it from me, I know of that I speak.
Place a bandage over the wound, secure it tightly, keep it there.
Spilling your feelings into reality can be the stuff of nightmares.
Keep them hidden, pain is best left in the darkness churning.
Avoid my calamity, hide your heart, the truth is they will not care.
Death rides a flying black steed. Dark as the night with raven colored wings. The pale face of expiry watches closely for my demise. Sensing something within my soul. I feel him searching, digging inside.
Invisible hands gripping my mind. Promising sorrows left behind. Reaching for his angelic hand, praying for a peace I fear I shall never find. The dark angel looms over me now I see the glow of his eyes, feel it’s breath against my cheek, hot and sweet.
Backing away he points his scythe, holding it against my face. I close my eyes and drift in the darkness, easiness and acceptance await. A long quite moment between us two before the sickle lifts away.
The reaper retreats leaving me alone. Not worthy of peace. Not worthy of you. My pain and discontent growing as I watch the pale rider passing by once again.
Crying I sink to the cold hard ground. The courage to go further, I have not. The angel does not turn his eyes to me again but waits for growth instead. I hope that the next time he returns, I will have the courage to join him.
Pens and Pixie Dust 