Death

Devastating black oblivion, and
entire souls stripped from bodies, or
an endlessly open flower garden, and
turns for angelic transformation?
How will it happen?

In darkness, or
never-ending light?

Distressed screams of your brothers, and
enkindled, rotting flesh saturating your senses, or
a peaceful quiet empty place, and
thick rosy aromas filling your head?
How will it happen?

…

Where is your mind?
harboring thoughts; though
even still, void, with
nothing at all?

How will it happen?

Do You Dare Dream a Dream of Me?

She stands tall, elegant and graceful in her black leotard at the very center of the floor. Music begins to play and she leaps and tumbles to the violent tempo, the notes seemingly tossing her about, as if in control. The audience in the bleachers doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, it doesn’t make even a sound. Perhaps that’s because they're lifeless dolls, mannequins that only begged to be freed from their inescapably plastic existences.

No one notices as red water slowly fills the room, coming up the girl’s ankles as she splashes through it, uncaring, or perhaps just utterly oblivious. 

The desperate cry of a baby booms like thunder through the place and the babe writhes on the lap of a still mannequin. There is no one there to calm it, or shush it, so it continues to wail for the relief that will never come.

The girl pays no mind and flips high into the air before landing on her knees. Her small body falls backwards into the water, now up to her waist, and she lies still for a breath or two. The music fades out like a dream when you awake and she stands, tall and elegant before the motionless audience. The baby continues to scream and fuss. 

No one notices.

The girl walks neatly off the blue performance floor and into the bathroom. She stops in front of the giant mirror and leans her elbows onto a counter made of liquid fire. Her skin blisters, cracks, and peels under the heat’s intensity, but she doesn’t cry out in pain even as the fire boils and sloughs the skin and muscle off her, leaving only bone. The water, up to her shoulders now, gives no mollification, no healing.

She sees that her face is crowded with innumerable white heads as she scrutinizes herself in the mirror. She poises two sharp nails by one, pinching it until it pops, revealing the shiny, pearl head of a pinning needle. Undistressed, she pulls the two inch needle from her face and examines it like a foreign object. Blood begins to drip down from the hole it left. Again and again, she pops the needles from her head and lets them fall down into the flaming liquid until not a trace of them remains. She’s weeping blood now.

The water is way beyond her head, but all the same, she walks back out to the performance floor and finds the bleachers empty, all but for the skeleton of a small infant. 

Where have they gone, she wonders, as her gaze pulls down to her chest to reveal a gaping crater of missing muscle and skin. Five left ribs are snapped off, leaving splintered edges, and a number of unattached arteries hang down like bloody threads over her stomach. 

And where, she wonders, is my heart?

Why Do We Love?

I looked up at the sky tonight and gazed at the moon through a window of wispy gray clouds; it was just a small break, like a crack in time, and a curious thought hit me. I looked confusedly at the almost-full moon and wondered…

Why do we love?

Why do we throw ourselves out on the table and become five times more transparent just for a single soul? A single soul who we don’t know the thoughts of, who we can't know for sure what their motives are, who we can only rely on their words and actions to tell us the truth.

We just have to trust that what they say is true. Trust is the key to the locket of love. Without trust, love is utterly lost.

So again, why? Why do we pour our beings and thoughts and smiles and laughs into a soul who we can only hope trusts us as much as we trust them? And in turn loves us as much as they say?

For some, the reason varies; others just want companionship and the closeness that intimacy brings; others just want someone to always be paying them attention; and sometimes, someone just wants another kind soul to open up to.

But why do we do, still? We crave it, as humans; nearly all of us do. Kudos to those that God calls to be single for life, because I know I couldn’t do it.

So, we as humans are willing to risk everything, our memories, our feelings and emotions, and even our entire selves just to be loved by that one person in return. We invest ourselves so deeply in one relationship that when that dreaded time sometimes comes when the other pulls the plug, it’s like spiraling downwards from cloud nine as if you were a mere rain drop, a small tear to just be shed and brushed away by cold fingers. 

Everything you poured into them was ripped away and you feel like a jagged remainder of what you once were. Your edges are rough and sharp, your emotions and memories shatter you to pieces along with your heart and the mental pain hurts worse than any physical injury.

…why do we risk so much? Perhaps it is because of that tiny little voice in the back of your mind that says, don’t worry, you'll be alright; you're strong, you’re tough, and you will heal with time. It’s okay that sometimes when you fall, you’ve just got to catch yourself, no matter how scraped up your palms get or depths of the gashes in your knees. Then there comes that word again…trust. Trust in yourself, and God, and the people that surround you. Even though you know trusting in anything human is hard because they will always let you down, you continue to anyway because you know you don’t move very fast when you only trust yourself.

Is there really an answer, then? To why we love or why we trust? Not really. Is it just human nature, perhaps? Or a learned behavior? Or maybe something that we all happen to believe?

It’s just life. We love, we trust, we bestow upon each other our faith and hope, even with the preconceived and not entirely unbelievable notion that everything you poured into the individuals may very well have been wasted from the beginning.

Or perhaps, we do all those things because the Father has the grace to do them to us first?

A Shower

So...this is kind of deep, I suppose, in a way. I'm having trouble recalling when exactly I wrote it and why. Or even how I was feeling at that particular moment. Anyway, enjoy. Or ponder. Whichever comes first.

~Vicki

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You step out of your dust ridden clothes and into the beaming spray of hot water. A sigh of relief and finality emanates from you as you run your hands through your knotted hair. The layer of grime you feel on your skin begins to thin as the water runs down your arms and legs and body, taking with it the dirt of the day. But the dirt isn’t the only thing you’re trying to wash away under the steaming water.

The events of that day are coiling themselves in your hair, or even perhaps of days before and beyond. That sick swirling of thoughts in your head will not cease but only for a moment while feeling the beating pressure of the hot water on your back. Somehow it is a pause button on your life.

The dirt packed under your fingernails is the reminder of bitter memories that won't relent. The dirt caked between your toes won't let you utter the words that leave a bad metallic taste in your mouth. It tastes like pennies. 

A scowl overcomes your features as you hastily scrub away the dust clinging to your body and close your eyes at the memories flooding your mind.

Everything always happens too quick, too fast. Regret soon follows. Sadness falls into stride beside it.

And not matter how hard you try, you cannot escape it.