Ride

The road surged
Our weight painting the curve
I galloped the engine into the strawberry picking day
      And if honeysuckle summers
      Were finger-pinched nectar
I would touch them to your tongue
And laugh at the destruction we create

Sacrifice

(From the Philadelphia Art Museum)

He watched her in conversations and candlelight.

Wine blended the colors. The quiet laughter and velvet room. His mind's fingertips painted glorious portraits of her skin, and he shivered with the scent of pigments.


The long line of her legs cut though the dress, and dark waves of hair fell on her white-petaled neck. She moved when he moved. Eyes ignited. A dance of glances and fluidity.

When they wrapped the cool shawl of night around them, new conversations of starlight and breeze tasted them. He drew to the moonlight in her throat, and her arms crushed him breathlessness. He drank her heat and yearned for the sculpture of her waist. The sighing trail of her thigh. They carried the shadows to their room and let fall the pretexts that clothed them.

He fed on her, open and animal. She encircled him, arched and gasping.

They pulsed the nectar of their religion and cried incantations to gods and each other's name.

They sacrificed every preciousness.

And drowsed to their confessions of need.

Serpent

Bask in the rot
Of a heartbroken tree
Tickle the breeze
With tongue tasting V's
Bird keeps her children
Fluffed to her knees
Someone is coming
Smile prettily please




(Note: The second photo demonstrates the stunning skill of Aine with the camera! Pretty good, eh? I was busy. Holding the snake.)

Fun Friday

Between the final sprint on my novel and a total virus takeover of our desktop computer (luckily we didn't lose too much on the restore), I'm going with another fun, kick-back-and-relax post!!

The game today is LOVE/HATE. In your comments, tell us something you love. Then, tell us something you hate.

Give us a peek into what makes you tick!

Children of Mental Illness

Were you raised in the company of mental illness? Perhaps a parent or a sibling? Maybe it was depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or schizophrenia. Maybe it was an undiagnosed condition that caused a person to act differently than the norm. We understand about the person afflicted. I'd like to introduce you to the quiet victims.

Most people are kind-hearted and try to give people the benefit of the doubt. They want to help people in need, and give deference to people who are sick. However, the altruism has its limit. Most people are happy to help so long as they are not far detoured from the course of their day. For example, you may brighten the day of a person with depression. But would you be so enthusiastic about that interaction on the 94th consecutive day (morning, noon, and night)?

Enter the child.

See them cringe at their parent's behavior. See them darken and withdraw as others become flustered. Or, they may speak out, beg for someone else to see. Don't you see that this is not normal? Can't you admit that something is wrong? But others often react to negativity with negativity. They want to deliver a boost, then walk away. But children can't walk away. Their love becomes mixed with discomfort and confusion. They want to help, but they are worn down and tired. Their frustration is met with criticism.

Doesn't the child still love the parent? Why can't they be more understanding? Why can't they be more accepting that the parent can't help what they do? Why can't they be more supportive?

Being a child of mental illness is a no win situation. It takes pieces of your parent away, and you have no experience to know they're missing. The child might be forced to switch places with the parent. The parent's behaviors might be annoying, draining, or embarrassing. Anyone would become confused, uncomfortable, and angry. But what happens when the child speaks out? I know a person who would become upset at her brother's obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Her parents acted like she was the problem for not being more understanding. She was the more mature one, after all. They made excuses for her brother and went so far as to suggest that the real problem was her. My father, on the other hand, had nascent neurological problems and severe depression. When I was left alone with him for a couple of days, he suffered an emotional breakdown after refusing psychiatric care for weeks. I was later criticized for not being more "supportive" when I admitted him into an inpatient hospital for treatment. No one particularly cared about what a 17 year old might be feeling when he is forced to commit his father to psychiatric treatment. I wasn't the sick one, after all. I wasn't the one who needed help.

But we are the silent victims. We are the ones made to feel like bad people for our emotions, because they can't help it. But who can give so much of themselves? Who can one day deal with a father crying hysterically because he can't fix a toilet, and the next be berated because the father feels insulted by a perceived lack of respect?

It's a very confusing role with precious few allies.

I urge you that if you ever come across a family struggling with mental illness, give a special look to the family around the afflicted person. Consider how they might be suffering. Fight the human urge to jump to the emotional rescue of the afflicted person and criticize family who seem angry or uncomfortable or withdrawn. Yes, you can't blame the afflicted person for his or her condition, but it doesn't make the harm caused by it any less potent.

Offer them some understanding. Don't make them feel worse.

Strawberry Patch

"What did she do when you showed it to her?"

"She talked about the strawberry patch. How beautiful it was. She told me how she liked the smell of the Earth on her gloves digging in the spring."

"You're kidding me."

"Nope. I kid you not."

"Did she talk about the strawberries too? Did she say how delicious they were?"
"I think she mentioned that, yeah. In fact, I was treated to a recollection of a most 'glorious' May afternoon with a picnic blanket and a pitcher of lemonade on the lawn. The bowl of strawberries was freshly picked and perfectly warmed by the sun."

"Yum. Was this before or after her husband disappeared?"

"After."

"Christ. So she had no reaction whatsoever to the skull?"

"Now wait. I didn't say that. She had quite a memorable reaction. In fact, we got a positive ID."

"And?"

"She held it in her hands very lovingly and smiled. Just like she was holding a person's face. For all I know, she was seeing him alive in her mind. Kind of creepy, actually. She whispered something. I was too busy picking my jaw off the ground to ask her to repeat it."

"What about the ID?"

"She commented on his teeth. They were still in pretty good condition when we dug him up out of the strawberries. She said, 'Lordy, Daniel, I'd recognize those crooked old teeth anywhere.' She even poked around at a silver crown on his molar."

"That's fucked up."

"Pretty much. Yep."

"Are we going to charge her?"

"Let's see what the medical examiner comes up with first. The way he was laid in that grave with his hands crossed and all makes me think that he just died."

"But she ate the strawberries."

"Yeah. Little bit of Daniel in each one...."

"I think she whacked him, buried him in the backyard, and planted the strawberries."

"Maybe she did. But seriously, who's going to indict a ninety-two year old woman for the death of her husband almost fifty years ago?"

"What the hell do you want me to do with that?"

"Strawberry? Go on. They're amazing."

Fun Friday

It's been a while since we kicked back and had a fun Friday. You're in the mood for some fun, right??

Have you been itching to tell someone something? Good or bad? Get it off your chest. Today's game is: TELL 'EM.

Each commenter grabs the next letter in the alphabet, and using at least one word starting with that letter, lets the truth fly! (You don't even have to tell us who you're talking to.)

I'll start with the letter "A."

Go for it. You'll feel better.

Angel From Montgomery

If dreams were thunder
Lightning was desire
This old house would have burned down
A long time ago
Make me an angel
That flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster
Of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing
That I can hold onto
To believe in this living
Is just a hard way to go
     --Bonnie Raitt, Angel From Montgomery

The old woman turned up the fire under her kettle of tea.

Outside the screen door, she yawned at the summer heat buzzing with cicadas over the hazy fields. She hated how much easier it was to sleep during the day. The porch roof sagged on posts carved by too many hands of children. She rocked on the weathered floorboards.

In the heat-buttered distance, a man sledge hammered a fence post. Sun glinted off his sweat and bare skin.

Muscles swung. The smack hit her ears a second out of time.

She crossed her legs.

And squinted through the circling bees.

Damn fine specimen, that young man.

She grinned, forgetting for a moment how tired she was. She knew what it would be like to saunter over there. Head cocked as she commented on the blazing day. The coy smile on her face. Touching the dress over her slim, young legs.

She'd touch the fence. Soft. Like she would touch his chest before she kissed him. And he'd pretend to be strong even when she held him in the palm of her hand. She would let him. So much better to play.

Inside, steam puffed on stove.

Once. Twice.

She blinked. It whipped up a long, wailing cry.

Her delicious smiled faded, and she dragged herself from the chair.

Shuffling into the kitchen with the flies, she grimaced at the pain in her legs.

She yawned.

And turned down the fire under her kettle of tea.

Tadpole

~
Ripple grey-green pools
Mud squirmed into fleshy tails
Soon to leap at June
~

Feed

10:34 p.m. In an apartment not your own.


Did you know they have hooks on their legs?

That's probably the thing that most surprises people. Little tiny hooks. So when they climb trees, or grass, or scurry up your hairy legs, they can hold on. Pretty amazing, huh? They secrete sticky material too. Itty bitty drops of glue. Right-side up, upside down. Left, right. Here, there. It don't matter. Beautiful things. Beautiful naughty fucking things.

Another thing people don't know is that all those little legs, six on each, times each insect, times hundreds, times thousands, so many poking little legs, make a sound when they walk.

Yeah, I see the way you're looking a me. I'm not saying they goosestep across the floor and everyone looks. Get real. Right? But they do make a sound. I kid you not. Louder than you'd think.

Come on. Relax. We don't have to rush things, do we? You don't want to rush things.

My big mistake was this. One Christmas when I was a kid, I wanted an ant farm. My parents laughed at me. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I guess they figured it was like putting a cockroach on a leash. Gross.

Well, Christmas came. You know how this story is going, right? Noooooo ant farm. I got an aquarium instead. But last summer, I said fuck it. I wanted an ant farm, so an ant farm I shall get. And it WAS the coolest thing ever. Except I get excited in my sleep, you know? And I had the bugger right by my bed, so I could watch them. I knocked it off, okay? There. I said it. My fault. I knocked it off the table. But in the morning, no ants. I had lots of stings, sure. Most people would wake up if a colony of ants was stinging them. But not me. They were gone.

I couldn't find them, but I could hear them everywhere. I looked all around. It was fucking hilarious. I walked and turned around and lifted up carpets. I could hear a whole army of them, but nary an ant could I find. See, they tunnel. That's the key piece of information. First, it's slow. They plunge one tunnel down to get started. Then, they talk for a while. Plan a whole frigging underground railroad. I don't know how they keep it all straight. All the twisting and connecting passages.

Really, I'm serious. You should relax. I'm getting to the good part. I figured it out. Right up here in the noggin. Tap, tap, tap.

You look at me like you don't believe me, but those ants weren't going after hard, mucky ground when they had best, softest, tastiest shit ever! Come on! I couldn't hear right for a while in my left ear. That's how I figured it out. The bastards went in there. See? I can hear them all the time inside my head. Munching and munching the ole' grey matter. They never rest. And after about a month or two, they get things pretty eaten up. I can't think straight. I can't sleep. If I wait too long, I won't even be able to talk.

I know. I'm sorry. If I could, I would whack you on the head really hard to take care of things. But I can't go messing up your pudding in there. Everything needs to be sparkling clean and surgical like.

Thanks for talking to me. It gets lonely sometimes. I can forget the ants for a while, even though I'm talking about them.

I'll do it as quick as I can. If you stop fighting, the saw will cut your skull fast.

Stop fighting, okay?

Shhhhhh.

Stop fighting.

I don't even like the taste, but I have to swallow it all.

I need to replenish my brain.

And the ants have to feed.

Pedigree

(From the Philadelphia Museum of Art)


cook the unpleasant past
into a tea of night
pour it over
my eyelid embroidery
your face is better
when you step back
step back
leave my dawn
to its pedigree

Roast Day

Hope everyone's hungry! Stop over today to roast my novel, So This Fish Walks Into a Cemetery! Also, compete to win a $15 Amazon gift certificate.

Stick a fork in it HERE.

Roasting My Novel

(From the Philadelphia Museum of Art.)

I've been honored to be one of the original Roast Masters over at BOOK ROAST, a site where authors are invited over for a day to "roast" their book. It's a great way to have fun, get to know one another, hang out with authors, and compete to win a free copy of the featured book.

I'm nearing completion of my own novel-in-progress, So This Fish Walks Into a Cemetery. Tomorrow, the tables are turned, and I'm going to be the first Roast Master who is roasted. I'll be sharing a brand new blurb for my book as well an excerpt. Want to know what I've been working on? Want to win an Amazon gift certificate for $15?? (Who doesn't?) Stop over tomorrow and roast that Jason Evans dude!

I'll post a link to it tomorrow.

See you there!

Cemetery Reflections: Desire vs. Passionate Love

                          Cemetery Reflections:
                                     ~~Time is a limited currency. Spend it well.

Today's Thought: What is the difference between desire and passionate love?

Perhaps, passionate love for another exists when we grant that person the ability to wound us. Vulnerability to wound means that another person matters. Receiving his or her approval unleashes a rush of happiness, and rejection burns with pain.

Wounds can only happen when we need. When we dare to lay that power in another's hands. Desire, however, is one-sided. We want, but we don't need. A desire denied can disappoint, or even sting. But no wound is sliced in. We just move on to the next desire. There is no need to linger.

What is the lesson? Don't be afraid to expose yourself to wounds. And if you're with someone who cannot harm you, perhaps some vital connection has been lost. Retrace your steps and find where the emotions went astray.

Love requires other people to really matter.