The room was pitch dark. Solid black. She opened her eyes and closed them again and realized there was no difference. She heard muffled voices, muttering downstairs. Sound travelled through the house like an epidemic. She couldn't quite make out the words to be anything other than unintelligible phrases. She somehow felt she was being talked about. Since Adelaide couldn't familiarize herself with the sight of the room, she inhaled the scent of it. So very peculiar. It smelled like her room. The scent, the atmosphere, the texture of the covers on top of her. This was her room. She was so very confused. How did I get here? her mind reeled with questions. Her doorknob twisted and rattled on the door, someone was coming in. She closed her eyes and threw the covers over her head like a child. If I can't see them, they can't see me.
Low, quiet voices conversed back and forth. She recognized one as her mother. Another as her father. What is he doing here? Her mother pulled the covers back, revealing Adelaide's face, observing her for a minute and tucking them under her chin. "She seems to be doing better. As soon as she wakes, we'll be able to find out some things, hopefully" her mother whispered. Her father and mother softly stepped out of Adelaide's room and closed the door gently.
Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. the word echoed in her mind like the sound of a gunshot in an open field. Empty, like her mind. So it seemed for the time being, anyway. Hopefully she'll be sane by then. Hopefully they'd understand. Hopefully she'd see the lion again and know it wasn't a dream.
Hopefully is just a word uttered to ensure hope. Especially when there is truly none to be found.
Adelaide sighed. She was tired although from what she had heard, she'd slept a rather lot. Mentally tired. She rose from her bed and went to her chalkboard. She had begged and begged for months for her mother to install blackboard in her walls. Now these walls had become a cornucopia of unexpressed knowledge, rough sketches, thoughts, words of her music and mind.
Upon one in particular she reserved for her friends. Deirdre, of course, had tainted her walls with her brilliance. Deirdre was the artist. Adelaide the writer.
Always the opposites. It worked, though, and neither complained.
Adelaide's room was a mess. As always, She lived by the phrase "In creativity, neatness doesn't count" as far as her housekeeping went. Her room was her sacred laboratory for words and sentences with pages sprawled everywhere. The pages her beakers and test tubes, the words her chemicals. Acids and solids and all manner of chaos. But somehow made it together on a page to make sense.
Very little made sense to Adelaide. In her mind, the world was this gigantic mass of unexplored ready to be discovered. She missed it.
She missed exploring her world. She'd been gone for so long, she couldn't remember when the last time she developed a simple photograph was. Or wrote a poetic phrase. It was rather pathetic
She loved her room. The different pieces on the wall. Everything piled together defined her esscence. A mess.
I am quite the mess. A mass of contradictions. perfectionistic. Imperfect. It made no sense. All the same. She didn't know how to be different in that respect. So she just did as she knew. She looked at her clock. 12:45 am
Back to bed.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
"and if the sun shone, I'd rather not see it at all"
Sunday, December 6, 2009
There's only artificial light here
I wish I were winged. Deirdre trouped along with her laughing group of friends through the abandoned neighborhood. Her insides ached. She missed Adelaide. She longed for the presence of many who had flown from her. Yes...wings. When one sees a flock of birds dancing through the sky, it is no oddity for one to break off abruptly and begin to fly in another direction. But that is estrangement now. She would get countless questions if she told the party that she was going home. Sighing, she begrudging followed her group that seemed to loudly disturb this land's sacristy. She missed her constant solitude. Her only desire was to be alone. To mull through the thoughts and dreams that unceasingly haunted her. I wonder if....
Moments later, Deirdre found herself alone. It was as if her friends and her forsaking of them were a mere dream. It was all so very still. The sky's ceiling a opaque gray. Her breathing that did not interfere with the wind and trees conjoined classical. Aimlessly, she roamed this desolate paradise. Wind chimes rang in eerie sweet cacophony. Houses that her friends would likely vandalize observed her. These were her. These, with the chipped paint, rusted metal, and broken glass. She found herself in every one of them. As if we are lost entities. They did not know why they were now deemed abandoned anything's. They simply knew that the once content caretakers became tired of them. We are burdens. Just sacks of uselessness that break the backs of the innocent. We both know that those caretakers deserve more than we can give them. But we gave all we could.
One of the rejected shingle-faced sirs was unlocked. Deirdre could not resist. She was tired. She wanted clarity. Only to be alone. Her sickness tugged at her throat, warning her of the danger this would be to partake of, urging her to simply go home. Darklit streets are no place for kids. But it gives me more of a home than you ever did.
Deirdre was in a box. Outside, came a dead hum. She pushed with weak arms all around her, trying to feel where she lay. It was all a hard cold wood, with barely enough room to turn over. Pushing herself up to the head of this box, Deirdre could faintly make out the strains of “I'll fly away.” What the..... A small crack in the box's side allowed a bit of filtered light inside. Laying back down with heavy gasps, Deidre perceived a roughness on the ceiling. Claw marks. And blood. She was in the body of someone being buried alive. Urging herself to inhale and exhale, Deirdre shut her deep eyes and wildly writhed with all her might.
Bits of something were knifing her face and head and chest. Something glasslike had just been shattered, and the explosion of it sounded like one thousand mouths gnashing together teeth. This gnashing was hurting her entire upper body. Something penetrated her eyelid and scratched the surface of her cornea. Something like pain was urgently felt. Opening the other eye, Deirdre saw her catastrophe. The moon adulterated her privacy, and echoed light on the antique looking porcelain lamp. Deidre must have slammed into it. Why would I......the dream. Salty tears came much too rapidly, blinding her in both eyes. Shards of glass pierced her face and eye and neck and chest. Little streams of blood formed rivers that soaked her. That was not the matter at hand though. This dream had been the worst. And Deirdre was lost as to what it should say to her. Only the fact that such a fate was her greatest fear, struck more little girl terror into her than she ever thought possibly. Opening her eyes again, she remembered where she was. In the middle of some god-forsaken town hours from house.
Deirdre staggered out of the debilitated forgotten. The clouds must have seen her exit, for they immediately cloaked lady moon in black. All that could be distinguished were the silhouettes of claw like trees and houses that seemed more like shapeless blocks than anything of consequence. I just need to find my way out. “Why?” Unsure as to who had pierced the bleakness with audible words, Deirdre could not answer. Not only for the fear, but also for the inability to formulate an answer. “I need peace. This is not peace. This is fear,” she feebly cried out. No answer. Maybe this is peace. Maybe this is all I have wanted to run to. Just to be lost. “If you can't find yourself than how can I expect to find you?” Whatever the beast was sneered. I've no other choice and nothing further to live for. Wavering on her feet, Deirdre began to walk in no direction. Just away from myself.
After an immense amount of seemed time, Deirdre could wander no further. Her glass infested eye was only half way open, but had swollen so much that it was nearly impossible to see out. The glass that held the rest of her body captive felt as if it had driven farther inward, and was creating black crusted dents in her pale skin. She collapsed on the wiry ground, and just stared at her surroundings through the live eye. Her ears tried to prove themselves, and grasped the silenced bushed and damp grass all around in search of danger. Never before had Deirdre thought of this place as dangerous. Unassuming and still. Not dangerous. Now the thoughts pestered her like surely the gnats would be if the night were not so frigid. A spark of blue flashed only three feet in the distance. It was gone....then returned. Baffled, Deirdre outstretched a frail arm towards it. She felt drunk. That mite of blue was the only hope in this eternal blackness. She felt as if only black and white were the colors now recognized. Blue. She needed the tranquil glassy blue of whatever treasure produced light as that. The blue reproduced to two specks simply gazing at her from three feet away. It glided nearer. With it came a deep rasping. Closer. Closer. It inched nearer to her, until at last looking straight down on her small dirty body.
A huge gray wolf. It looked at her with eyes blue but dead. Deirdre deliriously reached up to it's massive face, when suddenly fatigue stole her from the present. Her lifted hand fell with a thud.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Taking Wing
He watched from his crouched position, as the people ran and shouted, scurrying like an embodiment of cockroaches from harmless rain. He would wait, silent, until he saw her. Or at least recognized her scent. The humans were preforming quiet an odd ceremony. It consisted of a lot of dumb people, swaying to cluttered songs, all in black. Their eyes were black and empty, their deeds are just a showing for how big and bright their fake smiles glow. Yes...this was a hoax; a threatre practice. The last person exited the scene into a great barn.
Lion waited. For what seemed like hours he waited, and refused to move. Finally, the massive red sun began to sink, and blend with the rest of the sky for an eerie blood red. Bats flew tonight, instead of birds, and they gathered themselves great troops to scan each portion of the sky like scouts.
Inside was a rectangular box, locked with no key. Tilting his head in curiosity, he slid down the deep hole and climbed atop it. There was an element of familiarity about this box. He felt as if he were a cub once more, and this was his home. The more he stayed, the less he wanted to leave, the less he cared about finding his own cub. This box was far to precious. He curled up, forgetting himself to be in a dangerous area, and closed his large green-amber eyes in peace.
Meanwhile, inside her most least desired cage, Adelaide awoke. She had fallen asleep amongst the chaos and the rain had finally started coming down hard enough that it drowned out the people's cries, lulling her into a visionless sleep. She heard a most unusual sound, almost like breathing. And purring. What on earth.. She wondered aloud. Whatever it was above her must have heard her and stirred. The creature growled lowly and frightened Adelaide into tears. It continued crying and writhing like a banshee. She heard scratching above her. So this is my fate? Finally, my timely end has come from a savage beast trying to claw it's way into my death chamber to eat me live. F this place SICK!
Above her, Lion had caught her scent and was clawing this cage, this chamber of death to retrieve Adelaide. The splinters and chunks of wood were flying into his eyes and mane. He had many stuck in his paws but he ignored all but his goal. A plank flew behind him and he could see his beloved. She looked even more haggard than before, eyes with eternal dark circles, hair matted and atrocious, but he loved her all the more. Finally cutting through the wood, he made a space big enough for her to crawl through. She cried and hugged him and kissed his muzzle and spoke words he did not understand but based on the tone, knew they were words of gratitude. He licked and nuzzled her face. "How are we to get out?" she wondered aloud and that much the Lion understood. He nudged her upon himself and she realized what he was trying to do. She got atop his great back and climbed out with his help. Now how will you get free? she wondered if he could hear her thoughts. Animals tend to know things we don't want them to. Animals and children.
He jumped up the side, attempting to climb up. His wounds still sore on his beaten side, he breathed a great heaving moan in pain. He tried again and again and finally resisted. Adelaide felt so helpless watching him and being unable to do anything to ease his pain or get him out. Little one, run. Please run away, I want you to be safe. His pleas screamed from his eyes and she knew what he wanted. I can't leave you here. You saved me, I owe you this much. Her eyes began welling with tears. You owe me nothing, dear one. I love you. That is enough, now go! He roared a great and regal roar sending Adelaide's hands to her ears. She was sure the Dark Ones had heard. She heard faint stirring from a distance. Go, please go! the Lion's pitiful eyes begged. For you, I will. Tears coursing down her pale, dirt smeared cheeks. I love you, dear Lion. Thank you. She leaned down into the hole, the lion balanced on his back paws, lifted his head to her and she kissed his nose. I love you, little one. came his telepathic reply. He licked her face and she swore that he smiled at her. He growled lowly again, signalling her to go and she did on the very little energy and strength that she had. She ran faster and faster until she could hear his moaning any longer.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
hush
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
home of our least desired cage
WAKE UP! WAKE UP, you imbecile! But this, oh no. this was not a dream. This was her most feared nightmare come true. She was not strong enough to break this crypt. This charnel house. The home of her least desired cage.
She truly had a bird's spirit. From a young age, she could not be contained. Her mother could forget trying to keep her in shoes and socks. The young Adelaide would rip them off as soon as they were on. She was a runner once. She did not race. She had nothing to prove to anyone. She was a sparrow flying free. but sparrows are also breakable. She was fragile. She hated it. But her self reliance would not get her out of this. Jesus, kill me inside this! her soul cried out, for her lips, her voice were both bereft of sound. She felt as if her mouth was bound. Placed inside a cage, she had done this to herself. this was only the physical manifestation of her heart and mind. Adamant to protect them, she locked them away in a box much like the one that housed her now. She'd loved once. Actually twice. She'd loved a person that was supposed to love her back. And he forsook her. She loved again, against her own will. He was supposed to love her. And love her innocently as she did. But he did not. He took her beauty and perverted it and gave it back to her smutty and torn. Her anger and the outpour of her suppressed little girl heart led way to hot tears coursing down her dirty cheeks. She tried to control her breathing so as not to lose air too quickly.
Her life did not pass before her eyes, so she knew she lived still. Just the more unforgiving, God-awful memories that she had buried in the back of her brain resurfacing for a disconsolate and malevolent bloody redemption.
She heard the muffled sounds of a preacher speaking words over a person he never knew. Or was she even a person anymore. She felt the winter wind through the box even still and shivered, but no one noticed, of course. Suddenly she hear a strange sound. Almost like a tap on top of the sarcophagus. then several more. Then women and men shouting and screaming. A drop of water fell on Adelaide's head. Rain. She heaved a deep winded sigh of relief. She could not see the chaos and dystopia of the outside world, but she didn't have to. The people gathered there were all amuck trying to get out of the rain. Adelaide sat in waiting, knowing she couldn't for too long, or her chances of survival were slim.
At any rate, it was unlikely that she would get out of this alive.
Equally Skilled
After so long absent of feeling, Adelaide awoke, breathing heavily thick air. She tried to stretch from her small curled position, but was restrained. She thought for a moment. Then tried again. Hard resounding wood met her knuckles. Her feet sought freedom as well, but were met with the same reply. Hard dense wood. Panic sheathed her white. She gradually felt along her surroundings. There was perhaps seven inches above her, and two on either side of her. She was boxed. Caged, like an animal. Incredulously, she remained calm despite herself. However, ever so faintly she could recognize the distant humming sound similar to the previous one in her mind. Believing herself to be, of course, delusional, she closed her eyes and expected to wake up in another atmosphere or some nonsense. But the humming remained, and her surroundings remained, and that hard wood remained. Rather, now, it was coming from outside of her. Staining to hear more, she forced her ear against the box's presumed top. Hymns.
Hymns!?
With an uninvited abrupt crash, she realized her true state.
She was in the process of her own funeral.
She was being buried alive.
Outside the box was a well acted scene. All the mourners donned in black, though none were sure exactly why that garb was chosen. They did not even know the girl, but this was their job. To find those who had run from accepted society to find their own way to higher knowing. The children who decided that, rather than paying taxes to formality and pseudo smiles, to break down the walls of the surface. Children who see the rotting flesh beneath the mask. The mask not fit but one he learns to wear. These were the sparks that lit society afire. These were the ones who started wars against corrupt government and held signs to all the selfish rich, screaming at them to do something about the children dying only hours away. These were the ones who wrote despite themselves, immortalizing their words to generations to come. And most of these reformist did not even understand what a dangerous position they hold. Their dreams to “change the world” are only met with loneliness and animosity. So they run away, hoping somehow to raise attention to more than themselves....to their cause. And so, time and time again, they are taken captive by these fellows and ladies dressed in black, drugged, and buried. No wonder they feel lonely. No wonder they feel there is none to fight the common cause. We kill them. Oh, not only with physical death, but we kill them with insults in our beauty magazines, and static on our televisions. We kill the fire. Proper burial for those dead inside. And they never seem to mind. It is a mass cleansing. Hitler really knew what was best for the community. For the world. To run properly, we must have rule and order. These misfits should not be tolerated. So one by one, into the coffin you go. Do not fear the black box. Soon you will have all you wanted. All that does not exist here. Shh. Shhh. Sleep.
Adelaide wanted nothing other than sleep. For one moment she wished she never would have fled. It is better to be accepted and complimentary than one never satisfied and alone. Oh, she was never satisfied. No good nor bad could satiated her thirst for reality uncensored. What a barbarous ideal. She LIVED in uncensored reality, and despised it. But perhaps she wondered if there was more to life than what they would like her to believe. Well look where that got her.
Somewhere, in the back hollows of her head, she could remember some good that had come since her departure. It was....a massive animal. An animal, she scoffed at the irony, an animal is the only one good here. An animal. A lion. And Deirdre. Her heart cracked when she thought of her almost-forgotten friend. Her nose burned as salty tears threatened their way out of her eye. Dear Deirdre. With your art you sought recognition of the world's darkness and filth. But thee darkness is so strong....it could captivate you. It could beat you senseless or allure you. You cannot fight it on your own. But look at me, so wretched, I am caught in mine own darkness. Because I resisted it, and thought myself strong, it drove me here. Is this our sad fate? Two kindreds fighting what should be battled against, only to be muzzled? Like the lion. The good lion, who never meant to hurt a soul alive, had forsaken her.
This is surely it then, there's nothing here at all. Nothing at all here that could placate my hunger. We're all murderers and thieves setting traps here for even our brothers. The Godly people are all gone, there's not one honest soul left alive here on the planet.
With that, she came to grips with her fate. No one would come for her, she was a useless addition to a pseudo-cause. And no one even knew what they were fighting.
Monday, November 30, 2009
like a Jackson Pollock
She stared at the page as if it had offended her standing. In all technicality, it had. Her pride and gift offended by this blank page. Blank like the glare in her eyes. Blank like the look she held in class. Blank like the page in front of her now. She never found assigments for English debilitating like this particular work in the making. Her mind, along with the gray sky, was blank. She looked down at the blacktop and growled primitively in agitation. She stared into space. Staring into the black. All the emotions splattered upon her core like a paintbrush of many colors upon a canvas, turning it all into a muddy brown mess. That was her emotions now. Her mess. A few passerbys made their cordial hellos but refrained from a formal conversation. They had places to go. People to see. Things to experience. And Deirdre, Deirdre did not. She did not want to go anywhere. She did not want to do anything. She didn't want to see anyone. She wanted to go hide in a cave somewhere. A tranquil place. She hated this and her growing resentment was more futile by the second. How dare she? She loved her friend. But everyone seemed to be a passing fancy. A friend only for sunny days and blue skies. And a present fact that Adelaide herself would not admit to but Deirdre reminded her over and over that Adelaide was a true friend. She tried to push both thoughts from her mind. For the time being, Adelaide was not. Adelaide had promised, she swore on her life she would stay and never surrender her trust. Yet she fled in turmoil. Deirdre understood, but at the same time, she did not in the least. And she can't understand how everyone goes on breathing when true love ends. Or at least when it is missing.
Her family rejoined her and in her desperate attempt to get out quickly and in order stepped wrong on her knee as she made her way across the school parking lot. Oh, damn this broken knee to the firey depths of Hell her agitated reply came to the source of her irritation. Or rather..one of them. Too many people, too much noise and not enough peace for her taste. Finally muttering with a voice that disturbed only those homosapiens that would rather not hear her, F this place sick. She'd read it in a book borrowed from Adelaide. She honestly hated remembering that name. Her thoughts returned to the last time she'd seen Adelaide in real time and in her dreams and both were unsightly visions of the person she knew and loved.
She hated what her friend had become. More so what she had become. It all sickened her. As if she didn't feel sick enough. A hand with claws like razors seemed to be scraping at the back of her throat. Her nose congested and running only permitting her to go a few minutes without bringing a tissue to her face. She sincerely hoped she would die from this. It's only a head cold. Absolutely ridiculous. Ridiculous, but one would suppose not. If it mattered to her, it should matter to someone else, correct? For the most part, ethically correct. But not humanly. Humans are cold creatures. They do not consider the thoughts and feelings of anyone but the individual. She groaned inwardly. Whatever. was her post-modernistic mantra. The mantra that controlled the puppet strings. Her apathetic fuzzy creature, sucking the life out of her, in turn making her a creature too.
Into her little car, she piled everyone in and amazingly, not any one of her siblings said a word to her. Her little one, the sister that she loved so looked at her inquiringly through the rearview mirror, wondering who this strange person was in her elder sister's body. Deirdre didn't even know anymore What a cliche. She could have said out loud, but truly. In her mind, she would have loved to know who was making her move her brake and gear shift.
Flat Lines
Earth became a flat hum. Like the hum of bees around sultry bushes during summer. Only this was more without hope. Bees in the summer have hope. Hope of prosperity and sustenance. Adelaide had none present. Only dear Lion...which, by the frequency and horror of her dreams, could very well be an evil embodiment of some sort. Not that she was sure she even believed in evil anymore. Only indifference, which causes the most dreadful screech like the classic fingernails on a chalkboard in one's soul. Adelaide remembered her massive chalkboards back at the place others deemed home for her. Not that they would merit any benefit, considering her mind was a absence of thought currently. It was thought that was displayed on those chalkboards, and even if no one understood, at least she could give them a glimpse of her own insides looking out. Only this hum, likened to the sound to the educated ears, of a tv that is on and yet not playing. Just that annoying never ceasing cyber blue that stares at you until your eyes hurt and you turn it off. Then with a sort of hiss, it diminishes into nothing of consequence. Maybe that was her destiny, to diminish into nothing of consequence. Like her mind, still somewhere up there, having a keen time.
Somewhere, possibly in the middle of her begrudging thought of Mind without problems, there was a terribly scurrying. Deer? Yes...it must be deer galloping by. Deer live in woods I am sure. There was also a change in the constant hum of her head. It oddly echoed in and out with different keys of a hum, as if someone were trying to find something on the radio but could find nothing clear on the AM channel. The ground was moving beneath her, she knew. Probably an earthquake that the deer and running from. She was unbelievably unafraid, merely observant of this odd phenomenon other than terror that resided now in her mind.
Quickly, as if a light had been turned on, or her throat had been cut off, there was silence. She knew she was thinking, and possibly feeling, but there was nothing. Not even the seemingly massive black box she existed in that simply reverberated her own ideals. Just...a flat line. She was existing on a flat line. And she didn't care.
Lion moaned as he careened his great mane to and fro. He felt wretched for leaving his dear cub. What a selfish horrible beast I am! Because they inflicted pain upon me, I leave her for it to be afflicted upon. He wanted to die, but felt content to wag on in his misery. Everything was penance to him recently. Because his every act was an atrocity, he felt he should punish himself for them, rather than take the convent way out and lunge off a mountain. No...it was better this way. Maybe he would learn a lesson from his mistakes if he dwelt on them enough. Like leaving her. The thought collided with an ear splintering crash over and over in his head. So much that he wished himself voice if only to make the agonizing screams she uttered all the time his own. Oh, what the humans will do to my innocent cub...surely they have even taken thick thread and sewn her beautiful lips together, so as to keep from hearing her cries. Wild with confusion of the moment, Lion howled in angst. He had to go back. Follow her. And if he needed to, he would unsew her shut lips. If only to hear her cry, which caused him uncensored pain, he would die to unsew her lips.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
the sun only betrays
Miles away in her bedroom, the sun poured through Deirdre's window, stinging her eyes with a passionate mocking fury. It did this every morning but seemed slightly less than uninviting today. The sun was never a comfort to her. It only stole the night away from her weary body and mind.
Don't wake me up! I am still dreaming! She did not want to be disturbed. But, for her eerie dreams to be disrupted, she'd gladly brave the day. The dark circles underneath her foggy emerald eyes betrayed her lack of sleep for days now. Probably more than that really. She groggily arose from the comfort and safety of her bed and turned her sink on. Her face arose to greet her mirror's reflection, aghast by her own appearance. Her hair a rat's nest by her definition. Skin oily, yet to be washed. Her eyes, she observed, unusually puffy and red. It puzzled her because even after crying, she did not get noticeably puffy, red eyes. She brought a washcloth to her face, cleansing away all traces of tears and muddied make up. She had showered the night before to compensate. She knew she wouldn't feel like it today. She drug a comb through her matted mane and face her reflection once again. Displeased, as expected, she returned to her bed. Her parents knew she felt ill. They would not disturb her peace.
She was afraid to return to sleep. Those dreams, those terrible dreams. Dreams of Adelaide being ensnared by a dark, looming apparition with chains around it's ankles and neck. Waiting, watching. Trying to grab her away in the night. In her helpless state. The dreams of the creature were relentless, it was as if it was too close to be unrelated, but Deirdre could not be entirely sure.
The day after she found out of Adelaide's disappearance she dreamt she too had run away. But ended up somehow in the middle of nowhere and nothing. The dreams frightened her to no end. She was so sick. Sick of being sick. Sick of being here. Restless, she went to her easel. Her confessional. The outpour of her mind's inner workings. She had no ideas. No fresh perspective. She was dry. And she hated it. With a passion and a raging blaze none other would understand. She looked upon a piece that Adelaide had raved over and over about. A piece she loved. Her bittersweet memories returned and she missed her friend badly. But she could not cry anymore. I've spent ten years singing gravity away, but the water keeps on falling from my eyes. The water couldn't fall from her eyes. She didn't allow it. She hated to cry anymore.
She felt her eyelids growing heavy again. She was exhausted no matter how much she slept. She spent night after weary night tossing and turning and struggling to stay in a stable slumber.
She retreated to her bed once again. Hoping to retrieve lost hours of sleep. Even lost minutes would suffice. Up to this point it was getting ridiculous. Knowing she wouldn't, Deirdre climbed into bed anyway. She pulled the ivory covers over her head and buried her head in the pillow. Somehow, by some miracle of God, she drifted off.
Deirdre she heard a voice, a familiar one, calling her name sweetly. Euphorically. So very faint, but almost like a soft spoken lullaby. Words meant to be said and not sung. The child within so longed for a lullaby. Deirdre, I'm cold. Please help me. She saw a haggard, ghostly figure approach her. Hobbling step by step, the figure grew closer. She gaped in horror at what she saw. Addie?! she opened her mouth to synch the words but they did not come out. Deirdre. Deirdre. I'm so very cold. Please help me. As if it weren't enough that Adelaide was painfully thin, her beautiful almond eyes were hollow and dark. Glass. Dark, hollow, glass. Her black hair stringy and dirty. Matted. Her skin, pale as the full moon arbitrarily towering overhead. Mocking as it's lover, the sun. Deirdre tried to move closer to her. Adelaide moved away with every step Deirdre took closer. No, Deirdre, my dove. Don't touch me. I'm unclean. Not fitting. Then backed away slowly, still facing Deirdre. Staring her down with her soulless eyes. Unclean, unclean. I am a monster. Don't look at me. Then disappeared into the fog.
Deirdre opened her eyes and cried.
Friday, November 27, 2009
dear lion
Like a spear piercing the abdomen of a soldier in war, so the sun pierced through the sheer curtains of the tree's leaves with a passionate, mocking beam of light. The world lit and beautiful. The overcast sheen of clouds retreated. The sun poured through, shedding light upon the earth. The lion heaved a pain filled yawn and Adelaide buried her head in his mane. She was ill and had been for 2 days now. He moaned and licked her face, her cheeks flushed a fiery pink from fever. Fever and cold and lack of sustenance in days.
The cold and warmth had morphed into one. She was hallucinating. Horrid visions of her step-father, her father, her mother, and then Deirdre. Deirdre. she sighed her friend's name. She missed her friend. Her dear soulmate friend whose face had not graced her prescence in many days. Not since before she ran away. What was I thinking? Her head throbbed with the tears yet to be cried. Her stomach churned acid. Her eyes and cheeks burned with fever. Beads of sweat mixed with dirt trickled down her face. Her dark hair a matted mess.She sweared she was dying. She was frightened. She spoke in unintelligible, garbled tones and tongues. "Dear Lion, please help me" was the only intelligible sentence she could manage. "The darkness...it's...No! No! NO!" she screamed in her delusions.
She saw a dark shadowed apparition coming toward her. With every hobbling lunge, chains rattled. Chains around it's neck, ankles and in it's gnarled claws. Come to wrap her in itself. Come to chain her. To make her disappear. As she wanted, but not like this. No, not in such a harsh manner. In between tears she whimpered, like a frightened child. She was a frightened child. The lion nuzzled her face, her fevered face, with his large muzzle. Licking her face and keeping her close, the girl's sobs died down and she slipped into unconsciousness again. He did not know what to do. He only did what he knew and it was not very much. She was worth saving, he knew. She was worth protecting. Worth loving. He nuzzled her face until she calmed completely, her breathing panted and heavy. He was afraid too. He did not want the dear one to die. In a short time, he loved her. He loved her with every bruised fiber of being. Everyone pulse of his heartbeat made his gashes throb. More so infected now, he was sore all over. Broken and torn. How could he prevent this little one from being harmed when he was so beaten himself?
This child was his cub now. He had to do something. After a short 20 minutes she began writhing again, screaming in tongues he did not understand. She was frightened for her life and whatever horrible thing that was after her could only be in her distorted reality. Half imagination, half reality. For hours this horrid cycle persisted. Her delusional fits only left her more and more exhausted with each end. From a distance, his superior senses detected humans. The smell in the air, the sound of faint voices and tread of their step.
He knew they were coming for her. that they could help her. they were still far off into the distance. He gave a mighty and energy consuming roar, knowing they'd come running. "I heard a noise!" cried one. "It came from this direction!" and he heard them running now, their step faster. He rose slowly, his sores aching with every movement. He pushed fallen leaves with his nose over to Adelaide to cover her shaking body. His heart convulsed to leave her so helpless. but he had to. He moved away quickly so as not to be found out.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
I could only sing you sad songs
To belong. Oh, to belong. She was not barren enough to attest no friends, but she was fallen enough to understand the indifference of family. Oh, Deirdre was welcomed yes, though not wanted. They were courteous, only because relations are expected to be. She was accepted like a highschool class accepts a retarded child. They don't want him. They'd rather him dead. But no one says a word for that is far too cruel. I should be kinder and more understanding, she reasoned. Alright, she was wanted, she would be missed, but she was replaceable. Deirdre knew she contributed really nothing, just another face in the crowd. At the table. Addictions fill that table where the family used to sit and conversate to the sound of a record player with its jumping needle and the lights that grow dimmer with time. Yes, the lights had grown dim, so dim that not one would notice if a stranger's face replaced her own.
That Thanksgiving morning, she had awaken uncharacteristically early, and determined to scribe every aspect of life and humanity and the day she had witnessed. So far, her best friends were the only ones on the list. Two. Adelaide.
“Adelaide, where are you?!” she screamed in her sleep. No, calm calm calm calm yourself when life grows weary. Calm calm calm calm yourself, when worry scares you. Calm calm calm calm yourself, because I will be here or there. In a fit of hysteria she tried to awake. “No! No you are not here! No one I love is here! Only me, this disgusting pitiful wretch!” Fighting sheets that were not present, she could not break the coma's hold. It always fulfilled several torturous accusations before allowing her eyes to open.
Thanksgiving day. 2009.
She drove herself the too-short-half-hour to her Aunt's house in the country. Better that way than fearing her father the entire drive. She smiled at everyone, like an accomplished actress who smiles and waves at her spectators. That is what Deirdre felt like. Only a plaything to be viewed by many spectators. It was an apathetic peace. She'd drink it in rather than ache any day. That is, until father arrived.
She never understood why he said what he did. He preferred sharp words over kind ones. They were his weapon of choice. It was once said, that a coward kills with kisses. Her father was no coward. Unless you consider one a coward that kills those who cannot defend themselves. In that case, her father was a coward, and she despised him for it. How was it possible to despise and yet love? She loved him to her core, loved the way he protected her when he wanted to, loved the way he tried so hard to bring her again to God. But despised him for his disregard for any ones heart and mind than his own. He made her cry that day, with the first words he said he made her cry. She didn't care to recollect them. What infuriated her was the fact that as soon as it was over he pretended all to be sunshine. She feared him, even in his joyous moods.
Only a few minutes later, he asked her if she were ill. “No.” He jerked around, only to pick up a napkin, but she thought him furious for not addressing her properly. “I mean no sir!” she chocked out, fearing being lashed out in public. He did not hear her. Or did not acknowledge her, for he trod away and she ate with her grandmother in the other room.
They were truly the ones no one wanted. Though grandmother be wild and rambunctious, and Deirdre reticent and disengaged, they were together unacceptable.
The events of that day were blurred. She had recent told a friend that Thanksgiving is characterized by eating ones self into oblivion, and hence not realizing any distinct events that commenced, therefore a fuzzy distinct Thanksgiving expectation. This was no different, for she could not remember many transitioned events, only the ones that cut the deepest. Like the baby.
Oh yes, the baby. The little crying black haired baby that was shoved into her hands to do something with it. Feeling no paternal instinct whatsoever for this crying thing, she held it in her arms and carried it outside into the frosty air. She sat down and began to sing songs. The baby surely could not distinguish the joyous from the miserable, so she sang the only songs she knew. Sad songs. The dear seemed so peaceful, that by the moments it became more and more placid, until its little blue eyelids sank down. Perhaps from an angry thought, or the realization that this woman holding her was not a soft mother, but a monster with a mane, claws, and putrid teeth, the baby started, and began to sob. To no avail Deirdre tried to comfort it, until at last she carried it inside to its mother. It broke her heart, but she feigned slight irritation. That baby was the wiser of them all.
With memory of that realization almost two months ago, she woke up, sweating terribly despite the icy cold, and held her stomach with the pain.
To belong. Oh, to belong....
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
run away girl
She ran down the stairs blinded by tears, pain electrocuting her with every step. Her broken knee jabbed her body with a most excruciating shock. she did not care. Leaving the warmth and light, she pushed the doors to the Outside with a bang. He had pushed her this time. She was not coming back. Dusk was imminent. The sky a dusty orange hue. She ran. She ran through trees and thorns and brush twice her height. She ran through puddles and through a stream or two, she couldn't remember how many. The flora and fauna, though so inviting during the day, at night seemed a completely different dimension. A new universe in which the darkness desired to swallow her whole. Her eyes blurred still from her wrath, she had absolutely no idea of where on God's green earth she was going. She had a poor sense of direction anyway. Here, she had none. She ran and did not stop until her knee reminded her of her brokenness and fell. "Damned knee! Damn it to the deepest, aphotic branch of Hell's depths!" there in the middle of all the trees whispering to the stars the plight of this young tawny haired one, she broke down. tears fell many from her sea green eyes. A chill crept through the air like a gnarled hand trying to snuff out the light of day. She had no sweater on. Only a white dress. The white dress her mother wore. She'd forgotten even shoes running out of the comfort and protection of her childhood home. I am a child no longer. I don't belong there. She thought.
"Where are you going now, genius?" the rationalization probed her mind with a fiery fury. She could not escape to Adelaide, her best friend's domicile.
Adelaide was missing.
She was told this yesterday. They don't know where and why and how.
"Deirdre, you are truly my best friend. I am completely convinced that no one else cares anymore." Adelaide had told her just hours before she'd found her friend was lost. Missing She had thought the same to Adelaide. All her other apocryphal friends, fair weather companions, had gone. Blown away like autumn's leaves in a bitter winter's wind. Scared away at the slightest sign of turmoil. Adelaide was gone. Deirdre had the most ridiculous notion to go find her. to seek out her friend's comforting embrace and warming kisses. Her soulmate friend.
"Addie, where are you!?" she cried in desperation.
The stab in her knee went directly to her heart and tears continued to freeflow
from her already red, swollen eyes. Her mind went back to the scene at her home. Minutes, hours, days even, it seemed had passed sense the outburst with her father
"You whiny, attention craving, pretenious, wicked child!" cried her father. "I am ASHAMED to call you my child. ASHAMED. You never do as I ask and never do anything right. You great baby, you cry all too much, dry your tears immediately!" "I am NOT a child and I am THROUGH with your constant badgering and degrading me!"
that's when she ran away.
Her father, though she loved him so could do nothing but make her feel so small. So insignificant. She was sick. Sick of him. Sick of people misunderstanding. Sick of having to bear it all. On the forest floor, amongst the moss and earth, she lied down. she scrunched herself up into the fetal position and cried herself to sleep, alone in the dark.
Lion and Child
She lay silent on the forest's splintered base. It didn't even seem like a forest. It seemed like an unruly sick game created and played by an unruly sick child. A child familiar. One perhaps that shared hot cocoa on days like this. Days where the entire sky was a blank tongue bitten gray. Like the blank stare of the child.
Her thoughts stopped there, like a train happily chooing until it realizes it is going no where at all. She didn't know children, didn't have friends. All she had was this forest that looked like a mixed mess of dark threads that you throw away when you find in the dryer.
The fact that she had run away did not bring any sort of feeling. Which is worse than the most anguished of feelings. She wasn't human, and that was okay. Absence of pain was ignorance. And ignorance is bliss.
No...she is human. That was why she felt terror residing in the moment. Her name is Adelaide, and she is never satisfied with face vale wisdom and happy lies. So she is in this forest
why?
Adelaide tried to remember what she was doing there. It seemed as if her mind was floating somewhere up in the mass of gray above, and was having a much better time alone in the sky than in the hell called her mind.
Brain must have dropped a thought down, for suddenly, it all came back.
She wasn't searching for anything. Rather, waiting. Waiting to see if she would be sought. To see if anyone would notice her odd absence for two days now. She should have written a letter. Not that it would ever be found because no one ever went in her cave. But still, then, she would truly be able to say the world was indifferent if she had left a letter and still no one came. Now, she might just have to blame her future isolation on the fact of life. Busyness. Which was understandable.
Wait...no, that's not understandable...that's a wheelbarrow piled with lies like dung. Work is not that time consuming. We're not in Chinese labor camps.
But it was an excuse. And the world thrives on excuses like methane.
Groaning, she pulled herself into a half moon sleepless position, and tilted her face towards her shirt so as to see if a foreign smell of one she loved was present. Deirdre was the last one she had hugged, and even she was incomplete, broken, a misfit. Her nose was far too chilled to even smell, so she concentrated on breathing, though unsure why she even tried.
Between fits of shivers and an empty heart sending pulses to a mind that had run away, she fought herself into sleep. Sleep. What a joke. Sleep meant peace, and there was no peace. How can there be peace between the hammer and the anvil? When one is gone, the other is useless. Useless heart without the mind. Ugh, she should have given into that minds every impulse, instead of disregarding the reassuring it tried to give. Perhaps is she had done this, it would not have flown away.
From her repose she could hear a raspy droning heaving, like the echo in an empty house of a killer. She tried to awake, but her comatose never gave her up easily. If there were men here, I would not be able to differentiate them from the trees, she thought. When at last her charcoaled eyes grew accustomed to the gray air and black sky, she wished she were asleep still.
Less than a foot away crouched an enormous lion, breathing in stridulous, so it sounded as if broken glass were being walked on with combat boots.
He was not kind.
She began to cry. Because her mind was not present at the moment, her heart accepted the job of assaulting her, telling her of her stupidity for even trying to find a way out of the apathy in which she lived. It was better to be alive and anonymous than a tragic story never told.
Upon seeing her tears, the lion's face changed, and his entire being went into a calamitous state. He knew he should attack. The only people he ever had experienced had taken whips to him, and he winced at thought of the crusted infected gashes on his hide. Resolved, he growled lowly, and took another step towards her, his prey, his proof that he was a man, his reminder to men that he could fend for himself. But as he stepped to strike, her glassy almond eyes struck his with more pain than the whips had ever succeeded. Ashamed, he collapsed on the wiry ground, and in penance began to lick her dirty feet with his great pink tongue. He had no voice, but her pain was too great for him to bear. She stared at him in bewilderment, but did not stir in the least. When at last she ceased to cry, he dared to edge closer, and lay his great head in her lap, and kiss her beautiful hands. To his incredulity, she lifted his scarred face, and kissed above his eyes. He made room for her at his side, and nudged her politely. In an exhausted collapse, she fell still beside him, eyes fluttering with the weight of all her ulterior hell.
-the anonymous misfit
rise again
chastity
It is true for her when said "The name is one's virtue"
Evoking innocence, curiosity
An angel of light
A seraph of real
Inspiration, adventure and shelter
an angel with her wings broken by stone after shattering
stone
Does no one know what they did to her?
Pushed to the ground
Dragged through the mud and mire
Bloody, broken, disgusting to any who would dare
judge without knowing
Your ignorance, your complex
You horrid beast
You dug a hole six feet deep
You said she wasn't acceptable
You broke her and left her for dead
Ignorant fools
Complacent bliss-lovers
You sicken me and I refuse to even spit in your
direction
The path on which you walk
Father picked her up, brushed her off
and nursed her back to health
Still tender and aching
Entrusted little one to me
Changing her bandages
Pressing compresses to her forehead
Calling her lovely
Kissing her bruised cheek
I love her so
Angel, love, you will rise again
-the adopted anyone
Thursday, November 12, 2009
fire & water makes steam
Contrasted like rain and water
I must clarify now, for I always speak of us as if we were an entity of one.
she and I, we are not one. I am an "Adelaide" and she a "Deirdre".
I am fire
She is water
I am love
She is trust
She is protection
I am comfort
We are two separate things. "How can an umbrella be a doorknob?" she asked me once
It cannot. That is why we are not the same.
I was me long before I became acquainted with dear hearted dove. she was herself long before my arrival.
In all honesty, we stimulate and build each other up. The blind leading the blind in a world gray and void of color. we fail to see how we add to the human race our color and depth.
I believe we do, despite our lack of knowledge. I fall and fail. As does she.
We are similar but much different. similar enough to be connected. Different enough for spice.
-the adopted anyone
Friday, November 6, 2009
my Spark
separate from the whole, and would give her very life to fly opposite of trite normal.
she is hypnotizing illumination.
radiant, reminding all of her glorious Father.
she is the one that even babes comprehend.
she is the one that no one understand.
she awes with her beauty and ability to soar above all, swirling upwards to calligraphy like midnight dogwoods.
she is feared.
untamed.
fatal.
evaded because of the painful singe of reality she uncannily bestows.
she spirals freely downward, all aglow and joyful.
parents pull their children away.
she descends on hard cracked earth for a breath.
so incandescent, though on our level.
then she is stomped out.
not only killed.
murdered.
after all, she is an influence.
she has potential so much to set our universe afire.
to incinerate the dead and superficial.
she is never sought after.
no, she will burn you, nothing more.
only by other sparks is she loved.
because we understand.
-the anonymous misfit
me, Raindrop
i am fallen of Father sky.
i am the grieving tears of old men clouds.
i am life.
purity.
joy.
i am death.
filth.
sorrow.
i am too much.
i destroy what has been precariously planted in the hot sun.
i am not enough.
i kill the innocent because i do not give of myself.
i am soft and warm and delicate.
i am biting and cold and brash.
i maim fragile butterflies so they never again fly.
i provide that glorious sound echoing on the rooftop that makes orphans smile.
you can't catch me, i can't even catch myself.
"if you can't find yourself how can i expect to find you."
you will never get enough of me, i am incapable of allowing it.
you can't capture me without deriving me of my purpose.
"you can't rescue me, you aint that strong."
you cannot depend on me.
for i cannot be trusted.
this is my fate.
and all i have ever know.
-the anonymous misfit
Thursday, October 22, 2009
threnody
dove to the ground. made to make others
no algebraic formula to indicate
Desperately caught in a web not her own
I am told this is life
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
we are
not help it.
We are passionate and misfitted. Adopted by the same Father. The world abandoned us and abandons us on a daily basis.
We are foreign. Not of this world. We are birds of a feather. We are sisters and kindred souls. Bosom friends. Dearest soulmate-friends.
We are contrasted. Dark and light, black and white, silence and speech. We are so very different from each other. But so very similar in the most important ways.
We are compassionate and gentle. We are the little girl intent on saving every bird that falls out of it's nest. We become scratched and tainted in the process but our brokenness only reminds us of our humanness.
I am an individual.
She is an individual.
Alone we are misfits. together we are undeniable.
we are loved by many and understood by few. And we like it that way.
-the adopted anyone
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Hosea 6:1-3
“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces; now he will heal us.
He has injured us; now he will bandage our wounds.
In just a short time he will restore us, so that we may live in his presence.
Oh, that we might know the Lord!
Let us press on to know him.
He will respond to us as surely as the arrival
of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.”
Oh how these words bring hope to my heart!
Rant
Emo [according to Urban Dictionary because such a word does not exist in the real one.] :
"Genre of softcore punk music that integrates unenthusiastic melodramatic 17 year olds who don't smile, high pitched overwrought lyrics and inaudible guitar rifts with tight wool sweaters, tighter jeans, itchy scarfs (even in the summer), ripped chucks with favorite bands signature, black square rimmed glasses, and ebony greasy unwashed hair that is required to cover at least 3/5 ths of the face at an angle."
Do you really have to ascribe this definition to us?
I mean...really?
Do you feel more self affirmed once you put a stamp on those unlike yourself?
Stop acting like children.
Please, simply love us or leave us be.
we
shirk homework for the sake of writing
voluntarily lock ourselves away
endure ravenous mosquitoes in order to be in Muse's company
we wouldn't:
ascribe ourselves labels
attribute the word "sexy" to edward
ever mean to hurt a soul alive
when you see us on the street and smile with benevolence, just know, we were not made to fit it.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Dysfunction is our word
It is who we are
It is what we emulate
It is what we evoke
We are the very esscence of dysfunction
who is to say it is wrong or a bad thing?
