war.
diverted you.
now absent for the noblest of aims.
the exhausting battle of the mind.
return only dead or alive.
i am alone with a farewell embrace waned chill.
my handkerchief trembling in the wind.
it whispers.
"do not forget me."
my eyes lie.
my lips lie.
my heart lies.
the pen anchors my hand.
my fingers etch words.
i cannot lie.
My mind is void of eloquent words.
My heart is stoned by accusing slurs.
Alas, my voice is of one moaning in the bright of day,
Crying from the feat that acidly devastates.
How may I state this? I have hoped you saw through my games to the truth,
But now my heart capitulates for the agony your heart is sure to spew.
I am merely a wounded sparrow, striving to fly,
Under the loving gaze of your watchful eyes.
You outstretched your arms in a broken plea,
But still a cage, not freedom, I perceive.
I cower away and seek safety in solitude,
Oh, and yet you pursue!
I ache to open my mistrusting heart, and beg you to stay!
I wish to scream, "I NEED YOU!"...oh! I hope to God I am not too late.
Now. Tis only myself and the truth.
I will tell you at last the terrifying truth.
I love you.
Lunch is the most depressing half hour of the day.
I can tolerate teachers and homework and exams. I can giggle at the antics of my classmates that never fail to get them Parkered. I can embrace inspiration gained of intelligent class discussions.
I can subsist.
Yes, endure, and possibly even let my heart regain lightness.
Until lunch time.
I loathe it. I cannot escape it.
The all-determining clock shouts 12:25...and I cannot face it with bravado.
The hour in which one gathers with those they hold dear and talk and laugh and eat. I find that whether with a group or otherwise...
I am alone.
I cannot find my place, and the sticky atmosphere grasps my words and throws them to the hard tile, where they never fully reach the ears of my acquaintances.
I belong only in solitary.
Perhaps I am no more than a pompous snob, intent on bestowing no favorable glances on those not worth of my favor.
Like a spiteful queen, damning anyone deemed unworthy of my pursuit into my self proclaimed inferno of antipathy.
Yes...I am a nasty devil of a queen.
Math is my study of affliction.
Numbers muddle interchangeably simply to inflict confusion upon my brain.
My, how I am taken aback that on this day I should persist after them!
I pray I am not becoming a skeptic, but I must say throughout the day I have been in pursuit of number meanings. Repetitious ages and times, furthermore, anything deemed important.
One represents unity, primacy, the first, the best, the only, it has no divisors, no factors, no components, it is universal, whole and complete.
Two is unity plus another. It tells of companionship and choices, good or bad. Furthermore, it boast of always dragging along a choice to be made. A crossroad.
Three is the divine number. God's attributes are three, omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence. He is one in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Four is the number of imperfection. Of mortality. Four limbs of man. Four seasons. Four corners of the earth. Four is the number of natural creation...plus one.
I suppose the purpose for a document such as this is to account for the paradoxical.
To take note of the good in relentlessness confusion and stress.
How a character so common as the number could have such infinite connotation and truth.
Perhaps like math class.
Perhaps even like school itself, I presume.
Today,
all,
is dry.
the classes,
the people,
the teachers,
the food,
the ground,
and sun,
and rain,
the clouds...
Dry.
impossible math,
imposing parents,
fraudulent smiles,
parched lasagna,
silent grass,
obscured sun,
desirous rain,
reclined clouds...
Dry.
You are elsewhere.
Hence far this morning, I have been asked four times to explain myself.
I am weary of explaining myself.
The fact that "people never hear what's really going on now."
It's all "Tell me what's so wrong now."
Is too repulsively lucid to disregard.
The rain draws out my dwellings.
Whether it be as poison from a viper,
Or fragrance from a gardenia.
It comes.
Not great numbered are those who bare the others burdens.
Small in the eyes of the mighty, for we stoop so low under our millstones.
But.
On that level we can see one another.
Those like us.
And we trade our hindrances.
But in this place, all that reside are tall and powerful and do not wish to hoist anther's dead weight.
So I refuse to explain myself,
Instead, I bestow a pseudo smile,
And a lie that everything is fine.
Fine, fine, fine.
Lie, lie, lie.
Formality is a lie.
Yes, I wear an albatross today.
But I would rather it keep my mind company,
Than give it to a stranger for beating.
Speechless graveyard:
Tombstones
Engraved with reminders of life and death.
Names. Names. People.
One boast of an oddity.
Two names.
Three dates.
And rings of beloved espousals.
The gentleman's name included Two.
The ladies...one.
I secretly addressed my thought
With my silent companion.
"I suppose
That when the one you love withers,
Your heart does the same.
Death is not so daunting as before."
Then-
We were reticent.
We understand.
You must know that I am lying through my teeth.
You must know that I cause you pain intentionally.
You must know that I am most selfish of all beings.
I am not as I appear.
You appraise me as beautiful.
I am an ugly mess of brokenness.
You envision me to be honest and raw.
I am fake as plastic boasting to be redwood.
You perceive me as unselfish and forgiving.
I protect my self above all else and hold grudges like the devil.
You do not want me.
If you could unearth my genuine soul, you would turn away in disgust.
If you only knew the hate I have spewed, the mistakes I have made, and the regrets.
You would not want me.
But you are blinded by something I am unaware of.
I cannot appraise myself to be a wonder.
But you see me as such.
Oh! I wish I had will to turn you away!
To wound your feelings before I wound your soul.
For I am a disappointment.
I lie to you and yet you pursue!
Why?
What is this in me that lightens your eyes and your heart?
I will continue to lie,
With the best of intentions.
But you must know I love you.
I just can't give you that hope.
Such a sight have I beheld that will never leave my memory.
Someday, I will go back, otherwise, for eternity will I be haunted by it's beauty and mystery.
Still waters,
never saw sin, but see every wrong.
Dim and mysterious, a warning to those brash enough
to disturb the tranquility.
Generation of sons,
hold fast the sun's bounty in their shimmering green surfaces.
Perfect apart from the triangle cut-out
each withhold.
As if they together cut out a piece of their radiance
and gave it as a servant's vow
to sing praises of their Maker.
Daughters as well,
breathtaking white ladies of the water.
Cherished and rare in the family,
shining in all their youth and glory.
Magnificent, but still dimmed in comparison to the water lords.
Trees,
emerge forth of the water's darkness,
roots wide and strong;
proof of strength and struggle.
Excelling towards the Heavens.
Majestic.
Overwhelmed by all grandeur, I stop and breathe,
in revelation.
And so is told as the celestial story of my life:
Once upon a time, there was a ratty village vagrant named Adelaide.
She made her home with gargoyles atop chapels shaking with the sound of monks voices.
She was an outcast, and really, preferred life as such.
Her only acquaintance was the evil dragon,
Casimir, who hated flesh and blood, and despised the hypocrisy of imperfect souls. He wrecked havoc on members of town and palace, for rank and wealth held no prejudice in his eyes. Indeed, Casimir was lord of the country, for every mortal lived in great fear of him.
Every mortal but Adelaide.
Adelaide knew him to be wise.
He delivered judgment unto those who were too cowardly to deliver it amongst themselves.
She liked him.
And he her.
He knew her to be the true soul amongst all false.
Hungry and hiding.
Yes, he liked her too.
They coexisted in harmony,
the devil,
and a fallen angel.
Somehow happy in their despair.
I like the bits and pieces.
I like the moss crawling on tree roots and the baskets on bikes and the pupils of a person.
That is probably the reason why I like Pinebluff.
The towering pine trees here were literally bluffed.
They were lied to and told that they would spend their existence growing in solitude,
shading the souls of the undeserving from intense southern heat.
Enclosing the mundane suburban houses while the people inside watch their T. Vs,
without a thought of gratitude towards those pines.
But their tormentors were wrong.
There is enchantment in this sleepy town,
if one would only have eyes to see.
Time stops in bounds of abandoned houses,
suffocated by foliage.
These places are perfect and generous.
Ivy flourishes on the gates and the window eyes are closed in contentment.
Listen,
listen,
and you will hear the deep green growing sound.
Like a perpetual violin's note,
like the shush of water lapping the insides of a hollow cave,
like the sound of a hummingbird's winds,
and the sound of warm hands holding you.
Can you hear it?
We, as flesh and blood, are creatures so unforgiving.
When wounded, we never trust again.
Like a beaten dog,
even when a loving hand reaches to stroke it's face,
it shies or bites.
I shy.
Amiable,
but only so many have glimpsed my true self.
Everyone else,
sees the shell,
while body and soul
run.
There is one though,
who enables me to breathe.
Rubs my back;
I can smell the warmth of his chest.
Gently kisses my eyelids;
my skittish heart releases.
I am not afraid.
Except of this vulnerability...
“Typical American name.”
I remember a boy saying, as we conversed such things while curled up in couches at my previous school.
I protested, but knew it to be true.
Typical.
My name means pure. But who is there that can boast of that high honor?
I was Katherine.
That is...until I knew better.
Katherine for girls who wear pink.
Katherine for ruffles.
Katherine for braids and dolls and tea parties.
I refused to have part with such a name.
I was Kate.
Kate for explorations.
Kate for climbing trees with boys.
Kate for skateboards and scars and big ugly bruises.
Katherine was a sissy. Kate was strong.
And it stuck.
I don't particularly mind it, though the connotation is vastly different now than then.
Kate.
Kate for short.
Kate for playfulness and uniqueness and hot pink hairbows.
Kate for black nails and white dresses.
Kate for orchids and the breath of green and music notes.
Kate for plumb and electric blue.
Kate for the dousing of turpentine.
Kate for eccentricity.
Kate for rain that takes away makeup.
Kate for playing hard to get.
Kate for getting captured.
Kate for swing sets and sparrows and Chuck Taylors.
Kate for a best friend named Jesus.
Kate.
But no one thinks those thing when my name is said.
They think how it rhymes with “ate” and is one syllable.
When 18 hits, I would like to change my name to
Adelaide.
Adelaide for two-hundred years ago.
Adelaide for moon-lit waters and trees that grow out of brick.
Adelaide.
Because I was not meant for this world.
Tonight I can write the lines of the lost.
Write, in vindication, "The night is raw
and numbingly arctic, and the stars
wail my disheartening verdict."
Reticence mirrors my abandoned soul.
Tonight I can write the lines of the lost.
I loved him, because he bravely conquered my heart.
Enamored by nights such as this, we were.
He would kiss me to love and to sleep
under the deathless sky.
I loved him, and his eyes screamed his love
for me.
Those eyes flooded with all wonders of heaven,
the secrets we whispered,
and the passions of music and art.
Tonight I can write the lines of the lost.
I am alone in the frigid air.
Demons torment my unprotected soul.
Their torturous accusations enter me.
These arms that hug my knees
are insufficient.
They do not shield me in the way
his gentle guarding limbs encircled me.
We are the same.
Creatures of despair.
Together we can survive. Severed-
our souls will die within the beat.
In the distance peals a howl.
I answer back in a parched cry.
My lungs also need him.
Not even the earth acknowledges me.
This willful chimera has mutated me into a freak
incapable of reason.
I no longer have eyes to see
nor ears to hear what is natural.
The same moon shines dormant and cold.
He is not here to bring it to life.
He is not here to bring me to life.
Intimacy is fatal but so if life.
Entrusting hearts thrive for the other,
and none else.
We are eachothers and none others.
He is as lost as I. Just as he was
before our shy eyes met, before our cold hands touched and turned warm,
before his body and mind wreathed mine.
I am his savior, and he is mine.
Sweeping eachother out of the excruciating pain
of existence.
Enamored by nights such as this, we were.
He would kiss me to love and to sleep
under the deathless sky.
My heart still beats; tis reason enough to believe.
Rooted in this familiar place, I will wait, until he comes again
to rescue me.
