man on a bus, child on the stairs

i didnt feel well this morning, i woke up with the swollen eyes and throbbing head of a woman whos gone to bed wearing her grief like a blanket. i shuffled to the bus, feeling less than stable and more than nauseated, i sat staring north, waiting for the 16 bus to take me to work. it arrived in much less time than i was prepared to wait and as i stepped onto the bus and paid my fare, i noticed a man, clean-cut, with baggage, sitting in the front seats. he was mumbling to himself, and talking to no one and everyone. in this situation i know the drill, look out the window, look distracted, sad, tired, bored, disinterested, etc, anything that will make me part of my surroundings, i make myself disappear this way often. as the bus driver continued on his route, he took a sharp turn, though much less sharp than ive experienced with other bus drivers and so when the man in the front seat slid with a sandpaper thump to the floor, i was a little surprised. then came the marked change in his attitude, he suddenly became angry, irrational and belligerent, cursing and swearing at the bus driver. the driver tolerated him for a while longer, and when the man kept grousing and asked to get off at the next stop, he was more than willing to oblige. it was a less frequented stop in the middle of a residential neighborhood, the man sat in his seat and slowly gathered his things. when he moved his way to the front of the bus he stopped, cornering the bus driver in his seat and started yelling, swearing and making threats of violence. "ill kick your mother-*&$^# head in if you call anyone, ill knock the glasses off your face you *&$^#-*&$^# punk, is that clear?" this kind of language continued at the stop for about 5 minutes. five minutes of which i sat with my phone open, 911 dialed, just waiting to hit send. i was not in any doubt of the man's intent to physically harm the bus driver, and i was actually surprised first, and then relieved when he left the bus. i got off the bus at my normal spot, and went to cross the street when a man walking next to me asked "hey! where are you going" in a creepy, not friendly way. when i walked through the stone archway of the park i was afraid he would follow me in.
i got to work a little shaken, i greeted parents and children and started to go around and check attendance. one of the teachers told me that nigel would be late and i would need to lead him to the sanctuary of the neighboring church for christmas pageant rehearsal. he arrived soon after with his mother and as i started to lead him down the stairs, he did something unexpected, he took my hand. it was then that i knew there was still hope, there was still nigel, a sensitive 4 1/2 year old child, willing to learn, and able to love.

felted and soft

he is always weeping, at least in my visions. he weeps for joy and pain alike, and his eyes always lacquered with the silver of sea-salt tears. he wrapped me up last night, in the dark cathedral, he held me. with his ineffable everything, he wrapped me up in a long, beautiful, and crimson scarf of the softest combed and felted wool. this is far more than love. this is everything, the whole world and yet none of it, a smile and a frown, a kiss, a sigh, a tree's low swinging branches, intangible, ethereal, and at the same time, sweetly-softly-gently-passionately all mine.

october seventh, dusk

like a lamp lit above, red leaves illuminate the hall casting a blushing shadow on my book's jealous pages. the sky is pink and an eerie yellow. it is full of sallow grey jaundiced clouds, but the trees seem to be aflame with their autumn leaves, a ghostly vibrant fire dripping life into the wind. the gusts of breeze seem to nourish the quivering leaves, shaking them to life from their sweet slumber and kissing each one with its fullness. suddenly a darkness falls, splashing everything with its violence. the leaves' fire dulls to embers and and its warmth is lost in the chill of a fall dusk, but i am cozy, wrapped in a sweater and scarf, warmed by the sweetness of wine and a gregarious fire.

who is this

i have awakened with a song on my tongue and a breath in my lungs to sing it. i have woken to chilly autumn morning. i will lie with my eyes closed, the morning's cold breath on my nose. how content, how sweet, how lovely, i am touched by nature, felt and tested, held. i am inspired, i am not alone, i have mine, and you have mine. my senses are satisfied, my eyes full of light, my hands are cold, my mouth has tasted, my ears keep the sounds of nothing and everything. i can smell you in everything. you. you must smell like everything you ever created, and every beautiful rain and fall leaf rotting hill. the sweet apple scent of love. i do not understand, you are a mystery, and i like you that way. you, my father, brother friend and nature. you have not left me, you have not forgotten me. you have me. how have i forgotten your goodness. how you treat me like your own earth, changing me and giving me what i need.

i havent written in 5 months bear with me.

i am soft, lonely, happy and soft. like a handful of feathers, a polished wooden table soft. i am your mother, your sister, your bestfriend as a kid. i am a lover of, a holder of, a cherisher of. i am the sweetest thing youve tasted, the most savoury, i am. i am what loves you most, what feels your pain, what makes you laugh and what dries your tears. i am what holds you when you feel like your skin wont even do you the favour. i am what kisses your rough knees and pushes you back to the playground. i have looked in the mirror, i am. i am beautiful, i am full, i am free, i am loved, i am. far from where i stood just one year ago, but i am still there. i am loose, my heart is loose, my heart is open and free and full full full. fullest. i can love. i can feel. i can just be. i am what you have allowed me to be. thanks be to god.

faux love

what is it about love that scares people to death? open love that makes people run? we have all loved before without inhibitions or fears, but that was years ago right, before we learned our lessons, before we got hurt by "faux love." love is an interesting thing, and as i grow older i realize how much love i still have for many people, more love than i even did 3, 2 or even 1 year ago. something has changed in me, i am able to see people's potential, where they might have come from, where they hope to go, all of these things, and this ability also makes it so easy to stop judging people, and start loving them. somehow knowing that so-and-so had an alcoholic father makes it easier to love him, or knowing that the girl working at the coffee shop was verbally abused as a kid makes me less likely to call her a bitch or a whore, i know her, and she needs love too, even if she is orange from too much tanning, and wears alot of makeup. i used to think that i could not love everyone fully, and i still acknowledge that i cannot emotionally give 99.8% of people in this world the kind of love and care i have the ability to give, but i can give love to some people. the love i give is maybe more intense than it should be, i like to smother, when i love someone, i let them know with hugs or gifts or words or time spent. im not the best listener but i try. i open my heart to many people, but something about our world twists and skews love into something sexual and dirty when it is really quite innocent.

what i am, what i cant be

i am a breeze, i never settle, i am never able to just settle, settle in the branches of a tree or on the surface of the ocean to feel the waves move beneath me. i will always be a breeze, i might accelerate down a mountain, or pause on on a rooftop to look back and see where ive been, but i will never be able to rest. i long for rest, i long to lie still, i desire more than anything to be able to just stop, drop into the household of some family and lie still between the coolness of plaster walls. instead i frustrate the branches of little bushes, push wee birds out of their nests, upset piles of papers on desks, steal napkins and plastic bags, and snatch balloons from children. i agitate everything i meet, i cannot leave anything else to rest either, everywhere i go i cause trouble, occasionally pleasure but mostly irritation, i am the hair in your face, the leaves scuttling up the road, i am broken branches and displaced families, if only i could rest, or wrap myself around the trunk of a tree. even if i could just lie flat in a field and be content to rustle its grass, but somehow, i am always pushed, pushed to continue, pushed to move where i dont want to go, to do what i dont want to do, to hurt what i dont want, to be where i dont want, and never to have what i do want. i am the breeze, i will never rest.

knowing my place

he is out of reach, so completely above me it sickens me a little. he said my name last night, for the first time ever, ive known him for months, but hes never said it. in fact we've never shared a civil word in eachothers direction before. my name sounded foreign on his lips. i turned around, i had been trying to slip past him unnoticed, but somehow, he recognised me. "yes?" i asked. he started on about whether or not i approved and made comments well studied and articulate, premeditated even. i stood there, so awkward, like a child being asked math questions that were too advanced. i stuttered and stammered through answers, hoping they were clever enough, or smart enough. he and i are on different planes though. he is high up in the ethereal world and i am the earth. we mix like oil and water, there will always be a separateness with us. the laws of nature say it must be so. the thing it uses to separate us is like a knife, so sharp that if either of us leans the slightest towards each other, we will get cut. this is how the universe tells us that we are not meant to know each other, not a little bit, not at all.

we are on different planes
we are different worlds
i am water, he is oil
he is beauty, i am function
he is sky, i am earth

the life of a loyal doormat

right. im a doormat. i let myself get stepped on all the time and i do it in the name of love. i am a doormat. i am at your mercy, if i care about you, i will not say no to something i can reasonably give. if i can do it for you, i will, if i can sacrifice it for you, i might give up everything. i let myself get used. i pretend to stand like a desert tower, strong, diligent and full of definite boundaries. i am its moat instead. walk over me, walk straight into my heart, do what you like, make yourself at home, etc. etc. etc. i am uncertain, i value relationships above my own thoughts, i will do anything (mark this) anything, to keep, maintain, and protect the life of a relationship. after all, they are but little plants struggling to grow, and i will pour my own blood before i let them die. i will live sick for days with a nervous stomach ache before choose to do anything that might, might effect a friendship. i am loyal, i will lay at your doorstep til you throw me in the dumpster, i am your doormat.

lovely

waking up to the damp sweet smell of night being gathered up by the sun. a soft brown nest of blankets keeps me enraptured in dreams, inquisitive breeze plays cautiously with the window linen. i slip my feet from the covers, pulling myself up, i gaze upon the newest day, bright, but hazy, open the window fully, earthy, leafy and sweet. feel silky wind slide past my face, fresh baked walkways, clouds of wool, and still barren trees greet me. i am home.

change of heart

she had broken down several times that week, but todays breakdown was different. it was like the storm that marks the end of a season. the winds that purge the dead leaves from the trees before winter, or the torrential rains that herald the coming of spring. todays breakdown was a fight, a battle, and the end of a war. it was time for change and she felt in her soul the desire for a new direction. it was time she shed last year's skin, and she did it in one day, scrubbing it off in the shower, blow-drying it from her hair, and starting with a new face. feeling new, she stepped from her front door, strode down the hall, and walked down the hollow-sounding stairs. she stopped at the mailbox near the base of them, reached in tentatively and pulled out a single envelope addressed with her fathers sweeping handwriting. an instant smile found residence on her mouth and stayed as she opened the door from the cool hall and stepped into the temperate sunshine. she held onto the letter, too fearful to open it, afraid of the tears that were inevitable. in agonizingly slow numbered steps she opened it, #1: read the address, assess the envelope, #2 rip open the top of the letter, #3 read the first line, #4 place the letter back into the envelope unread. #5 pull out the letter again, look at it, put it down, pick it up, read it all and cry.
it said,
"dear skye,
hey there kiddo! how is work? how is life? i am so proud of you and all you accomplish. but just know that my love is unconditional! no matter what you do, you will always be loved very much by me. i was very proud, but not surprised by you being on the seattle P.I. i would like a copy of that if you could get one. things here at the ranch have been good. breakfast is served between 7:00 and 8:00, lunch 12:00 and 1:00, dinner from 5:00 to 6:00. we also get a snack at 10:00 we have a pool and a weight room to work out. I work 40 hours and i take 6 to 7 classes a week so i am quite busy. I have to go now since i have to go to work. I will write again as soon as i can. please write soon and send pictures if you can.
love, dad"
the letter read like from a kid at summer camp, but in even in its simplicity it thrilled her to read it. it blessed her to know that her father was thinking of her even in drug rehab. it was that day, like the other changes that took place, that her opinion of her father changed, and she remembered the kind of father he was. she remembered who he had been, not what he had let himself become. she remembered, that even though he had made bad choices, and been a bad person sometimes, that he had always treated her well, with love and respect, with care and teacher-like patience. she also came to the realization that if he was able to exhibit those qualities to her, then they truthfully existed within him, and that change was not impossible for him.

what im falling into

the sky is a cup of cream,
a flat canvas for me to paint my self confidence on
ive lost myself in a state of elation, a frivolous sweet feeling, peanut butter tongue, cranberry lips. feeling especially beautiful, new haircut vanity. tequila dizzy, and sleepy rose-faced delight. im losing myself in senses, smell, taste, touch, liquid-soft prophet's eyes. hazy gentle rain. sleeping beneath soft sheets of music. i hear the played chords of sea breath and the quivering of harp fingers. i long for the feel of moss beneath me, the rising of tides and sharp grass to lie lazy among. things do not revolve around my hands. words, breath, birds, all find their own course of life, and so will i.

clipped wings grow

i sat listlessly in my car, considering the past week and the manic ups and downs ive dealt with. i turned down the radio and let myself listen to my own breath, the sound of passing cars, the rain dropping methodically from open clouds and the hum of the engine. as the rain fell and slowly slipped down into the earth, a thought trickled into my mind and i realized, life is delicate. its easy to let it slip by unchanged. i am fearful of breaking it, and so i avoid touching, embracing, or changing it. it is scarey to think of changing things, and it is easy for me to be afraid. i sometimes tend to look at life like i do snowflakes, with awe and the knowledge that if i take it into my hands, even gently, iam likely to cause a meltdown. sometimes the beauty of life is in the meltdown though, in the uncertainty of watching something that is solid, become liquid and changable. this time of my life is exciting. the newness of feeling, original thoughts and freedom of spirit is all so intimidating, but exciting and freeing.