Reckoning

Spread your arms      wide

dive

the snow envelops my knees

it makes me want to believe     in you

your candle is dim  a flickering light

in sight on top of the hill

I am pushing

a thousand clouds to insulate the sky

only the beat of the ice crunching     underneath my feet

purple the color of your hidden majesty

in this river flood of oncoming night

                               

play your sad drums for me

underneath the tree

up there on our crayon hill

keep it steady           keep it still

but in a minute I am undone

I cannot cannot leave you now

in the world all gray I wanted to feel

zephyrs and sunrise against my face

it looked so warm

                it looked so warm

from the other side

so I strapped on my wings

took to your sky

                blinded by a million sparkling dreams

                snowflakes falling into infinity

the howling drums of wind and war echoing

around me…

 and then the

candle

                went out

                               

               

Disturbed

Hello, monkey.  How are you today?

Swinging around.  Swinging around.  Chaos everywhere.

Disbelief

“Oh, it’s some kind of tumor.”  His mother waved a dismissive hand.  “Who can understand a thing those doctors say nowadays?”

Horrified, Jonah returned, “Are you going to be all right?”

“Hmmmn.  Now where did I put that phone number again?”

“Mom,” Jonah loudly interrupted, “are you going to be all right?”

“What, dear?  Oh, that.  No, I don’t think so.  Tumors aren’t good, you know, and they can’t operate on it for some reason or another.”

“What are you saying?  Are you going to die?”

“Well, we’re all going to die, dear.”

“I mean soon!”

“It seems that way.  Can you help me find this phone number?”

Jonah stood there, watching his mother search the roll top desk that used to sit in Grandma Mueller’s dining room.  She’d mis-buttoned the back of her housedress, so that one of the tiny pink plastic buttons stuck out on top by the collar.  “Cheer up sleepy Jean,” she was singing to herself.  “Oh, what can it mean?  To a daydream believer, and a homecoming queen…”

Nowhere

Welcome back

I am not back

do not speak to me

Tell me a story

There is no story

only tears that blur

the words

Because I lost victory long ago

lost its taste, its smell

I lost the smoke and

the screams and

the burning

I lost the cool taste of

water on a hot day

I lost the quarry and the

lake

I lost what I believed myself

to be

I lost daydreams and goodbyes

and hellos and new chances

I lost imagination

You are not lost

Stop talking to me

It is all over

I forgot the lyrics long ago

In stasis

I have considered you as

I watch the creeping

mould overtake the

fading paint on

the walls.

As the dampness of an

unventilated room drowns

each molecule of

air.

And I wonder which certainty

chased conviction away.

But whatever took me down the

other road—

it becomes simply another irrelevant,

better left unknown.

And just when I thought I had made

myself old over wishing for

something to whisper

like a kind stranger into

my ear,

            I understand, and I do not

            blame you

I find myself catching the edge of

every movement of

atmosphere even the leaves

have forgotten.

Listening

waiting.

But you will not send me any dreams tonight,

when there are already so few left believing.

So it is here any chance for you

to find me again.

It is here.

Just me and the mould,

listening

waiting...

Broken, Pt. 4

I woke still tucked between the sweaters, and still, to my disappointment, very tiny.  A quick check confirmed the presence of fairy wings.   I risked a small peek outside of the drawer, but nothing in the room had changed.  The lamp glowed softly, the faded flower-printed covers of the double bed remained untouched.

As I emerged from the drawer I realized I had no idea how long I’d slept.   The endless twilight had not given way to dawn—it never did.  That hadn’t seemed to matter the other times I’d visited, but now it left me cold.  I wanted to know how long I’d been in this room—or at least to believe that the clock was ticking down on this fairy fantasy, and that soon I would wake up somewhere else.

Try as I might, though, I could find no clock.  In low spirits I left the room, the quiet now beginning to stifle me.  Yet it seemed unwise to make my own noise, so I flew in almost total silence back to the restaurant, hoping to discover Marietta this time.

Once again I passed no one in the stairwell or the grand hallway.  The restaurant was similarly empty.  Disappointed, I buzzed through the restaurant, looking for any sign of life.  In the kitchen I noticed a door leading outside, slightly ajar.  With a peculiar feeling of dread I moved toward it, tempted to turn around but somehow compelled to keep moving.

Broken, Pt. 3

For Part One:  http://thedevilsdiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/broken.html
For Part Two: http://thedevilsdiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/broken-pt-2.html

Part Three

The corridor seemed miles longer than usual, maybe because I was so little now.  I peered into all sorts of paper thin passageways I’d never noticed when I was big, but they were so dark and uninviting that I dared not travel down any of them.  I needed to solve this fairy riddle first. 

My woolly thoughts seemed to be leading me somewhere, so I pushed out of my mind the math exams I’d missed, the classrooms I couldn’t find.  I didn’t want to think about the times I woke up in a library, with only a few days left to write a year-end term paper I hadn’t even started.  I never knew how these crises turned out, because suddenly they would be over, and I would be here, on my way to the restaurant to visit Marietta.  She never asked where I’d been.  She was my friend.

Finally the hallway widened into a large, silent atrium, with massive stairs leading to the second floor.  I buzzed up the staircase, following its curvature instead of simply flying straight up.  In the much smaller hallway off to the right some instinct, or past experience, brought me to a small bedroom, gently lit by a reading lamp.  I didn’t know whose it was or why no one slept there tonight, but I did know I would be safe here—at least for a little while.

The bed, however, was not an option, so I fluttered over to the tall chest of drawers.  Each drawer had been left open, just the tiniest bit:  I settled for the middle drawer, the one with the thick woolly winter sweaters.  When I was big I’d hated wool and its scratchy, suffocating warmth, but now I curled myself into a tight ball between a snowflake-patterned jumper and a purple cabled cardigan and let out a little sigh.  Tomorrow, perhaps, I would be big again.  Tomorrow I might remember why I kept forgetting.