Diary entry, 1994

Erica calls me a couple of days after Thanksgiving.  We talk for a while about work and debts and boyfriends.  I thought I knew everything but now I realize I know almost as close to nothing as you can get without having fallen here on accident from another planet.

Searching

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

― Friedrich Nietzsche

Diary entry, April 21, 2014

She has a memory.  One beautiful memory.  Carefully held in the palm of her hands, so that no one else might find it and steal it.  She must leave it nowhere.  It must always remain with her.  The memory of that one summer morning, while they still slept.  The pavement of the driveway cool on her bare feet as she stepped into the shadow cast by the huge Mountain Ash in the front yard, the sun burning golden at the edges.  No one must have this moment.  This moment must never be touched.

Because she must hold it so close and so carefully, she cannot hold onto any others.  She lets the pictures framed in broken glass fall through her fingers.  There must only be one world.  One world, underneath the tree, where no one else exists.  Let the others sleep.  Let them all sleep.  She is a girl standing in the shadow of a golden halo.  She must never step out.  She must live here forever.

if you must hear a story here is one for you if you must hear a story i know one or two if i tell you a story i will only laugh if i tell you a story it will surely be quite daft once upon a time in a room without a view there was a little girl or maybe one or two he was strange he was weird he was a big buffoon he had dandruff in his hair he liked to play the spoons there was a connection you see between the first group and the last there was a line between the trees when he was at last invited back bring the little girl see if this time she will learn bring the little brat after all it is her turn but the little girl was bad and ugly through and through at last they all gave up and tossed her in this room you cannot come back they whispered into her ear you belong to us but we don’t want you here so now she skips off into a night without a gentle end she looks behind for the plagues that they might send i am one of them whether i am here or there i am one of them my life you cannot spare la la la la you cannot break the wall la la la la it’s a hundred feet tall guarded all around by a thousand beastly men their axes and their spikes pointed square at her neck la la la la here it is I smile la la la la we knew this all the while humdumdedum together we will go humdumpudum ours is not to know

The view from inside

January's Relapse

Most remained here with me

I gave some to the wind                       the wind that separated my toes

but something stayed crept poked inside

mocking me with icicle whispers to

never mind the frost outside

inside is just as cold

whatever stole into my pillowcase

left me silenced

crystallized the dripping ceiling

buckled the paneled walls

I could never begin to wonder how

it came to happen

how I whimpered for it to go away     

yet still forgetting to scrape off the scent

that yesterday is a dangerous thing

this something has left my cheekbones bruised

this something has cut into my knuckles

why God has given me these fingernails                      I do not know

but maybe forgiveness hides in the mattress

maybe in the frozen droplets trapped

on the branch’s edge...

Most remains here with me

Unfinished

The Man Who Could, But Didn't (Pt. 1)

Joe lived in the mountains.   He thought they were the most beautiful mountains in the world.  Every evening when he watched the sky turn orange behind them, he felt like the luckiest person alive.

In the morning Joe would wake up happy, because he loved his job.  He worked at the bottom of tallest mountain, where he operated the ski lift.  As a child he used to watch the ski left ascending into the sky and the people disappear into the clouds like angels.  Nothing made him happier now than to be the one who helped the skiers fly up into the heavens.

And there were many, many skiers.  In Joe’s village everyone loved to ski—everyone, that is, but Joe.  He had never liked it.  His parents had tried to make him learn, but gave up in despair when he insisted on going down the bunny hill on his bum, no matter what they promised him.  He didn’t even care when his older brother Will made fun of him and called him a scaredy cat.  The moment he strapped skis on he felt cold and miserable.  Speed did not interest him.  He was content to appreciate the mountain from the bottom.

So Joe attached himself to the people who operated the ski lift and they taught him all about it.  By the time he was done with school he already had his dream job waiting for him.  Will, who had made the local ski team as an alternate, pretended he didn’t know who Joe was whenever he was in line for the lift.  Joe didn’t mind.  He didn’t much care for Will either.

One day Joe received a call from Jilly, the operator at the top of the ski lift.   She loved working at the top of the mountain as much as Joe loved working at the bottom.  “I don’t feel very well,” she told Joe.  “Do you think you could come up here and take over?”

Reluctantly Joe agreed.  He usually avoided riding the ski lift at all costs.  Jilly needed help, however, so Joe left his assistant Mark in charge, strapped on his skis, and felt himself transported up into the mists.