Ghosts

I hold onto the clothesline as the

wind shrieks through the backyard

oh how I loved you

more than the tides could ever

love the moon

but now silence mocks the faithful

as I ripple with the green grass

go blind from the apathetic sun

The Sore Thumb

Diary entry, 1994

A psychic told me once I was from another planet.  Perhaps she was right after all.  I feel strange enough.

Alone, Pt. 2

Now I whisper to the wind about

my broken heart

failing in slow motion

not a subtle art

toss the stones in the river because

I am

I am here alone at the end

Magic

"But how does it work?” Kitty asked him.

“The stone will glow," the King answered.  "It will be quite obvious to you.”

Frowning now at the bracelet, Kitty returned, “How does it do that?”

“It is magic, of course,” the King replied, causing Kitty to raise her eyes sharply to him.  But the follow-up questions that response prompted—and she had a lot of them—never reached her lips, because Leo broke in. “Your majesty," he said, "we must be leaving."

Unfinished

And when I choose to come here again                                                                     

will it snow how it did in my dreams

                        will I be

a story worth telling

                                    because the sadness—

it crackles in the night

           

for you           

the mistake worth regretting

                                                the faraway voice        filled with belonging

do you see where eternity ends

did you know that you were my friend

this planet a box that holds me

Waiting, Pt. 2

January 9, 1983

Dear Diary,

Today we went to church.  Yuck!  We bought some rolls and French bread after church.  Mom got a pass today.  She came down and took Steve and me out for ice cream.  She said she might have to stay one more week after this.  I hope not.

Consequences

Kitty now saw that the location of the Last Window was not coincidental at all.  Her father had told her he was born in this town, but in a way he had been; here was where he had begun his life as an Outlier.  When that life began to unravel he’d come back to the Last Window, in the hopes that he could find a way back to the world he’d abandoned.  That was why Kitty lived in the same city as the Last Window, and that was why they had found her father dead just across the road from the soccer field.  He hadn’t committed suicide, or died of exposure. 

He’d died trying to return to his world.