Ebb and Flow

When I wake up, my eyes remain closed. They watch the lovely dream fade and return to its shimmering pool atop the stream of subconscious thought. Its departure permits again the recollection of a limping heart resting in my ribcage; heart broken, without a crutch.

The compulsory storm crawls in, swirling black clouds.

This waking moment is where decisions begin again.

Do I stay in bed, wounding further the captive heart, or get up and neglect it some more?

Blazing memory flashes brighter than original experience, with every thunderous crack of my heart.

One. . .tw—echo rumbles. Still so near.

Serious love sparks serious burning. If my singed heart were visible, to any undilated, unclouded eye, how pitifully she would plead her case. Implore, reach. But she must be disciplined, forsaken...

Serious work, serious grown up responsibilities must be done; no time to sulk. And no time to play. No time to heal.

If another heart presents itself, how anxious she is to hold and caress. But always she snaps back her reach, eager fingers slapped from stealing a taste.

No indulgence, no happiness. An unfamiliar happiness is not the same as what true happiness was. Don't absorb any hope. . . Be healed, then hope.

Hope for rain.

I cannot see. Tears? Be gone; gone like the half of heart he took with him. Unless you can form the new half I need from your salty dew, be gone. Useless. Nothing grows from dripping tears.

The other half, I kept. That half is his. He took the wrong half. That is why it longs for him: it is his. I cannot give his back and I do not want mine back. I need a new heart first.

Stop thinking. It can't do anything. Thinking is for those with nothing to do. Get up.

Arid hope. Tired thinking. No healing.

I drop out of bed like a tear. Getting up is for those who intend to go somewhere, perhaps grow something. But I flow through motions of survival.

Eat. Work. School. Life. I activate this storm and will traverse it without boots and umbrella; I will not look up, reach out, feel.

Lightning tugs at distant clouds.

One. . .two. . .three; thunder shudders at its leash.

Increasing time between memory and feeling. Maybe it's almost over.

Shine through, unmoving star. That is what you are to me: the sun. My life. I am drowning. Suitors flood in and ebb away, a tidal dance. It is making me sick; you know I never cared to dance. Until you hold me I do not care to dance.

You were my sunshine. You are the storm. I need you regardless.

Work. Eat. Homework.

Suitors. A suit is supposed to fit its wearer. One after another finds me too small, too big, too plain for his ostentatious thread count and style. Ever I was a body to be clothed, never did one body fit my form as yours.

Naked. That is how I feel.

Without your hand in mine, my fingers close. No use; their hands don't fit, just as their suits don't. Their arms too loose around me. Their lips so far from love.

It is not only you I know. It is only you I love.

Naked is how I feel. How I sleep. How I want you here. Naked, bare, exposed, vulnerable like me. Love me all the way, the way . . . the way I will always love you: naked; rain washing over.

Bed time again. Why have a bed to myself? I don't need it. A floor, a spread of fallen leaves, an altar of stones, a puddle of muddy tears: these contain more of you than does a bed.

The bed pulses with the beating of my heart. Beating. Rightfully so. Beating my sensible mind: no, heart, you don't know what you want, want, want, throb, throb, throb.

The heart beats a turbulent passion; the mind flows down a steady stream.

A flash of heart, it tugs.

The mind thunders the constant echo, "I think, I know. . .I think, I know. . ."

And I think and think and thunder and cry and hold his half of our heart as it sparks and flashes in the dark, storming soul inside my skin.

How can you not hear it! You are in my bones, my blood.

Or is it really you? No, it is my memory of you, my longing for you, an echo of my resounding passion for you. . .and only you.

Empty bed. Odorless pillow. Copious blanket. Lightning.

One. . .two. . .three. . .four. . .four and a half. . . .

Thunder's softer reply.

Blink. Heavy blink.

Blink. . .eyes open. Blink. . .one. . .two. . . Errant tear. . . Eyes close.

Breathing ebbs. Subconscious swells. Sleep flows.

Beat. . .beat. . .beat.

Happy cutting-edge twelve month session!

Ask anyone (except Kendall) and they would agree that I would be like a tortoise (and not a praying mantis) were I to compare myself to a creature that creeps the earth. Tortoise is not only a word with magnanimous spelling and awesome pronunciation, but it is also a word used to represent a creature that is slow and, according to Aesop, steady, sure to win the race. (Others may disagree and say I'm more like a giraffe for how tall I am and for the interesting tongue that I possess, but for the sake of simplicity, we'll stick with the representative slow-moving, shelled-in example for today.)

I am not really a fan of "New Year's" as a holiday... The title of this post (I put the word 'new' and then the word 'year' into my quick reference thesaurus for new and original words!) reflects my mild rebellion not to do what everyone else is doing, to post about their resolutions and what not. I am in no way scorning this practice -- au contraire! make this world a better place, one resolution at a time, please! -- it's just that I am really lame at making a list of goals and following through with them. I like to give myself good, effectual ideas and I usually pull through to complete them as they come, but a whole gob at the beginning of a year scares me, so I don't do it. I have some moderately good habits already that I know I can improve on and will. I take life as it comes, pump the future with some adequate planning, but I really just take a flexible approach that leaves room for surprises, good or unfortunate, and just keep plodding.

I have a...goal, you might say, to write a short story every month. It shouldn't be hard....well, I haven't given myself any guidelines so it will be really hard not to succeed. Is it cheating? Okay if you think so. I basically just want to finish the stories -- you know, have a beginning, middle and end -- and revise them at least once. I'm terrible at revision. That's a thing I need to accept as necessary. I'm too impatient and proud for intense revisions, but I need to humble myself and get over it.

So I'll be like a tortoise. Except my goals and I won't be racing against anyone else and their goals. We'll just keep "plodding" along, my vision and me, until...whenever. Deadlines....yeah. Lame at those, too. I usually like to work on "inner" things that just get added to my habits and don't really need deadlines or have endings. But each time I complete some planned thing or surmount some unplanned thing, I stash the little successes in my sweet shell and keep plodding ever onward. I'm tall and not all that graceful, so plodding is an apposite word for my tread, but let's hope at the eventual end of my successful race, when those waiting friends (I love you, friends, by the way, along the way, all the way) will hoist me upon their shoulders and cheer, that I'll look at least a little better than this:



Look at that face! ahaha!

Oh, and look at this real tortoise story. I love the last line: "All lame tortoises should be so lucky." I am a lame tortoise.... :)