Undercover

“Why do they keep coming after you?” Kitty whispered, as she wrapped the strange, foreign coat more tightly around her.  If she'd had to stumble into another world, she wished it could have at least been a warmer one.

“Because,” the young man murmured, his eyes searching the dark forest around them, “I am the king of my people, and if they capture me, they can use me for negotiation purposes—or, should a certain element have their way, they can kill me to effect a new reign.”

“You’re a king?” Kitty hissed.  “You’re joking!”

“That is nothing I would joke about,” he answered, in such a way that Kitty got the impression he wasn’t exactly happy about being a king—if he even were one, that is.  While she didn’t expect kings in any world to run around wearing crowns or sable robes, she did expect something…well, less university student-ish.  Yet all those men in the camp had greeted him as if he were a rock star, and the two soldiers who found them in the ditch looked massively relieved to discover him safe. 

Could it be possible?  

Through the Mirror

Into words      into stars          into another boring discussion on who we are            who we were     who we long to be            I am still in that treehouse      still hiding in the leaves                      if memory is my master then I am its beaten dog                  wouldn’t I be clever it I could put it all together                   wouldn’t I be the one calling the shots                mock me with riddles ridicule me with rhymes                      you know I have no power                 that I am afraid to be alive

Waiting

February, 2005

I am trapped.  I can’t do this but I have to do this.  The Roman soldier is at the door: I must drink the hemlock, or be executed.  

Thanks for the email.

I’m surprised that you would think anything is wrong.

Nothing is wrong, I’ve just been taking time for myself to work on things.  But I appreciate your concern.  Everything is fine.   I hope you had a nice birthday.  Unfortunately I'm not having visitors right now, but thanks for the offer.

I hope your job’s going well.

Love, me

Cold

I have been thinking of you

Reminded it seems by

the presence of

something sadder than

you or me

How very long I held on

When now I knock against the

hollow inside

the abyss you left in each

part of my whole

So much and so completely ignored

ripping the hinges off of the doors

catapulting me into a world where

daydreams remember

How I would like nothing more than

to feel the cadence of your

pulsating love again

Nothing more than to know it is me who

you tried with your heartbreak

to protect

Instead I am left waiting on the hill

shaking with knowledge of

lost connections

I am left on the pier with memories of the dead

their sorrow pointed toward

the horizon

Postscript

I wonder who is listening

I am not

You close and you close and you

close

Because there is nowhere to go from here

Opaque

Back at my apartment I went through my pictures of Bryan again.  Studying the captured image of his much younger self on a city street, with his come-hither eyes directed on some poor unsuspecting waif, I wondered if a chance still existed for us.  Could I buck the common wisdom and go home again?  Might he still love me, if not as much as he had before, at least enough to save me from my downward spiral?  Because things were most definitely not getting better—they were getting worse.  Time and distance had provided me with nothing more than a lot of time and distance.  And Tim was not an option.  He needed someone who his family would welcome with open arms; it would be cruel of me to go back to him.  But could I go back to Bryan?

*From my upcoming novel The Last Confession of the Sun God, available soon

Shadows, Pt. 2

Tired but awake again

because wakefulness is waiting for

my answer

am I ready to embrace 

the disbelief

to refuse the hand that

once could pull me to

my feet

Floating into ache once more

with no morning defense

when the sun broke me like

a cudgel to

the head

stole from me any

last moments for

dreaming

Memory waits still and near for me

I am endlessly choosing I am

at last losing what allowed me to

creep through the hole in the

floor

So tired of attempting

            to end this need for sleeping