A World Away

The shimmering patch of air was now positively beckoning her. 

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Kitty asked out loud.  As long as she took care not to run into the cactus lurking just behind this potential hallucination, the answered seemed to be nothing, other than a few wasted moments of her life.  And it wasn’t as if Kitty had something better to do.  Her existence was so devoid of excitement that it seemed a shame to ignore even this smidgeon of potential.  So she said brightly to herself, “Well, here goes!” and feeling more than a little stupid, marched straight into the shimmering light.

Kitty felt herself gasp as a blast of frigid air blow through her—air colder than anything she’d ever experienced during a Wisconsin winter, including the January when the temperature failed to rise above zero degrees.  Just when she thought she would never feel warm again, however, the sensation passed.  And then Kitty stumbled and promptly fell down onto her knees.

Embarrassed, she stood up and brushed herself off.  At least no one had been around to see her make a fool of herself—and, more importantly, she had avoided the cactus.   Kitty didn’t even want to think what it would have felt like to fall into that.

She was still flicking bits of dirt off of her clothes, imagining herself covered in cactus needles, when she noticed a battered pair of black riding boots just a few feet in front of her.  

Kitty looked up.  A man stood in front of her.

*From my upcoming serialized YA fantasy novel, A Window to the World, coming to https://channillo.com/ soon!

            

Silence

I hear riddles all day long

words but not in English

no one wants me to know

My heart is a tinder box I

am not allowed to open

Illusions

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

when she could not worship the sun               for so long she yearned to sleep         

but the storm came rolling in

                        the storm came rolling in

a million miles of prairie grass

and your golden-haired girl                            exposed once again

unsure how the course of right became the final turn wrong

how her rabbit-hole time for falling   

                                    just      gone

gone

gone

a triumph but for you 

my one truth worth deceiving

a child’s dream for tomorrow so good           it deserved to be buried

behind the wall a red she had never seen                  

           

if I had                        discovered

yet not been found

would your golden-haired girl           

be six feet underground

I guess this was why you had to go

maybe I should have known

but the sadness—

no one told me it would come with the leaving

especially not you

my last hope worth believing

The Open Door

January 2005

Dream Journal

Dreamt I went back to school and I was in algebra class.  Unlike in my other dreams I was actually having fun, thinking I might be able to catch up and not fail the course, when suddenly one of my classmates shouted that someone had a gun.  Everyone started to scream and run.  In the hallway I saw the guy with a gun.  He was from another high school, a football player.  The room we all escaped into had a telephone, but when I dialed 911 they put me on hold.  The football player came into the room and we all ran again, panicking.

Everyone got ahead of me and went outside, in a direction they knew he wouldn’t think to follow.  I was trying to follow but suddenly I couldn’t run at all--it was massive effort to lift my feet.  The football player came outside with another guy and a girl, and they were all laughing together, like they were having fun killing people and scaring us.  I climbed a brick wall and tried to hide in a drainage ditch, but they’d seen me.  As I was climbing the wall the girl took the gun and shot me in the foot.  When I then crouched in the gutter she shot at me again and just missed my stomach.  Somehow I knew I would have died had that bullet been even half an inch closer.

Finally I managed to jump out of the gutter despite my wounded foot.  I ran through a cemetery full of huge holes in the ground, down side streets, even through people’s houses, as I followed signs to a road that I knew would lead me home.  But when I reached the road I looked over, and the girl with the gun was walking alongside me.  She seemed very queer and scary.  Although she wasn’t holding the gun I knew she was still dangerous.  I tried to pacify her with small talk. 

When we reached my house I managed to go down to the basement without her.  Although people were home no one in the house was helping me.  I grabbed the phone in my brother’s room and called the police, but the police wouldn’t let me tell them what was going on.  They just kept blathering on about how they knew the shooting had taken place and they were looking for the suspect.  I couldn’t get a word in edgewise to tell them the suspect was in my house! 

Then all at once the girl was standing in the doorway to my brother’s room. She accused me of calling the police.  I shook my head and tried to say things into the phone that made it sound like I was just having some random phone call.  She obviously didn’t believe me.  In a somber tone, she told me, “Think of all the lives you’re going to ruin.”  

Secrets

Whisper it to me while no one is listening

tell me I am a fool

tell me I am not

tell me something that makes sense

and then prove it

Drowning

Let me tell you what I know about

my broken heart

this is the rhythm of it falling apart

toss the stones in the river because

we are

we are coming up for air again

What did I even know about

guilt and sin

all of the dreams that

I was dying in

it was a curse it was a blessing it

was utter nothingness

until it skidded and came crashing

home

No telling how the earth will

record this disaster

whistling dixie in the wind

as if I had the answer

            ballet with fractured form

tripped up by vengeful rapture

the hammer flung against

the wall

Dismantled piece by piece into

a million parts

buried back with Santa at

the Christmas tree farm

what is dead is what is real to

the falling apart

we heard the siren but not the

alarm

I wonder how I will know when

the sky becomes my master

when dreams of yesterday stop

mocking me with laughter

tomorrow is today tornadoes

circling my trailer

I was wrong over

and over again

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

Innocence

With a belligerent expression on his smug entitled face, Adam told me, “I love her."

“I’m sure you do.”

“Why are you so cynical?”

“I think realistic might be more apt," I replied.  I tried to get the bartender's attention, but he ignored me in favor of a trio of giggly college girls.  "You aren't the type to stick around."

“I’ve been with her for almost three years--long before you and her deadbeat father showed up on the scene.”

“I know,” I said, bored now with this conversation.  “Are you going to get the beer, or should I?”

“Dude, you’d better get used to me,” Adam snarled, “because I’m not going anywhere.”

“I guess that’s you volunteering, then,” I answered, and fighting back the urge to punch him, I returned to the table.  “Adam’s getting the beer,” I told Angie.  “He’ll be right back.”

“Great,” she said with a big smile.  But I didn’t care if she thought she loved him.  Soon enough his useless ass would be bouncing straight out the door.