Left behind

Diary entry, November 21, 1983

Today I threw up and was sick.  Mom and Steve fought again.  Mom and Steve are both slamming around.  I hate it when they fight.

Lost

Now our half-truths ship out

under cover of a cloud-filled sky

the sun you once spoke of

never any friend of mine

                                

can you feel it rain

can you?          

Digging out

Debbie had liked to grocery shop.  She said it relaxed her.  Why this was Jonah could never figure out; he would have preferred to speed race through the grocery store.  But there he would be, idling next to the cart, as Debbie read a label on a product he knew she would never buy.  “And how many hours have I spent in Best Buy?” Debbie would pointedly ask him, but he thought this wasn’t a fair comparison.  At least at Best Buy Debbie could walk through the DVD section, scouring it for the classic musicals she loved.  At the grocery store there was nothing for Jonah to do, other than watch Deb read labels for products she would never buy.

After he lost Debbie he did not particularly want to go to the grocery store again.  That only worked for a couple of weeks, though, so he went on Thursday night, when he saw that T.V. was just reruns anyway.  The grocery store was fairly deserted: that meant he could just speed his way right through it, how he’d always wanted.

Except that he didn’t.  In the cereal section he stopped to read the label on Frosted Mini Wheats, just because he was curious.  And in the frozen aisle he spent a long time marveling at the wide selection of frozen entrees out there for people like him—people who didn’t have anyone to go home to.

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."