this is the moment that you know: a new chapter

The season's change was indeed a conduit. Winter's falling only reminds me of the summer past. Life on wooden swings when all was young, with summer tongues. To be honest, I'm tired of someone else telling my story. So I've decided from here on out to tell it myself. 


I sat in that swing at Deirdre's for hours it felt like. Days, seconds, minutes, time didn't matter at all. Kairos kicks in and I have no sense of time or home or human emotion or anything. Simply swinging. Back and forth, flying to rhythms dictated by the trees. They swish with the rain and wind, like an orchestra composition from the the 20th century. Humming and whispers are usually attributes given to trees. They seem to be the quiet type. But rain and wind thrown in the mix tends to make them hyper and chaotic, in turn, stirring up the universe. 


I heard this said once "When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire."
I never understood the significance before and to this day still do not, if there were any to be found. All I know is that in a few instances, I can think of moments when I would have loved to literally go up in flames. My thoughts tend to make no sense until on paper. The universe seems to make more sense when I have it down on paper. Or when I simply choose to ignore the trite world in which I live for a little while. 
I swing back and forth until daylight runs away. Eventually the wind and rain desisted. My hair and clothes are soaked and but I continued swinging, shaking from the cold. The clouds are sparse and scarce in the night sky and as I swing, I catch glimpses of the stars, twinkling in the sky like broken shards of glass. I know the world's a broken bone..  and it's moments like these when I realize everyone's perpetually broken. In a state of temporal imperfection. "Maybe the whole world is just a mass of broken," I think aloud "Just shattered and dented and crooked and lacking. Maybe, there's nothing wrong with that. Just that we play the fool and wear our broken masks to cover up the inevitable." To whom am I speaking? possibly myself. Possibly no one. It just strikes me in that moment that all that we see isn't all that is. I check the time and realize I should get home already. The grass allures me so, beckoning me come lie down and eternally sleep. Which, in retrospect, I would love nothing more to do, at this point. Really and honestly. It only reminds me of the Lion. But then again, everything seems to of late. Long gone he is, and I, I am fine. This is it. And here tonight, while the stars are blacking out, with every hope and dream I ever had in doubt. I've spent ten years trying to sing them all away. but the water keeps on falling from my tries..
This is the moment in which I come to grips with the fact that I hang on too tightly. This is the moment in which I see that people will come and go. Those I love will fade over time.
this is the moment in which I realize I've no say in the matter at all. and I've embraced robotics with the most duplicitious of intentions. 

this close

Adelaide walked up to the front step of Deirdre's house. Her car wasn't there, so she presumed she was not at home. In her icy hands, she carried the sacred piece of Deirdre's heart in the form of a key. She enclosed it in an envelope and placed it at the door, hoping she'd find it. Wind and rain whipped around Adelaide, but she felt none of it. Only acknowledged that it was. This was not the first time she had missed Deirdre. Busy lives kept them from fellowship and Adelaide was very alone otherwise. Isolation and heartbreak will do that to a person. She was tired of not being understood or comforted by the ones upon whom her love rest. She was simply a rusty machine. Like the tin man after years and years of weathered change. She taped a note to the door, knowing she'd be the first to see. I'm tired of chasing you. Come to me when you are able. Adelaide. She hated being so cold, but she was. She was cold. She was rusted. She was tired. Tired of having to work for love all the time. So she lie dormant. She'd lost her Love and swore it would be the last. The last until some lucky man decided to show her they were not all the same. She looked at herself in the window's reflection very puzzled. That cannot be me..She touched her own face, hair and body trying to make sense of it. After a moment, turned away in disgust and frustration and cut around through the backyard to the side of the old house to the tree swing. She sat upon it and began flying back and forth, singing softly as she did. Her heart sunk and mixed in with the mess of her internal organs. It hurt. It hurt to be so isolated. And here was as close as she could get without being with Deirdre. The distance hurt her much more than she could stand to say in just one sitting. But she'd rather not say anyway.

Every bite you gave left a mark

Deirdre curled into a ball of yarn shoved against the window. Midnight's chill blissfully conducted itself from thin glass to her thin body. "Something isn't right. Something isn't right." Her guts longed warmth. Her mind beamed with the previously memorized image of that great blue eyed wolf. He had rescued her from the deceased culdesac. And she was unsure whether she loved or hated him for it. She could still feel his warm body pressing against hers. Lungs rasping, regardless of the cold; wild inhuman heart beating crinsom blood. She could feel the same fire-like blood pulsing through her own fingertips now. It burned every vein it traveled. She shuddered, touching his rough skin and matted hair. Her coneas flashed errotically with thought of his pained concerned eyes.
Then, like a needle to a helium balloon, he was gone, replaced once again by the window's frigid blank sheen. She fitted herself into a cramped fetal position; her fragile fingertips brisking their way over bare legs in attempt to wane the chill. She could feel several raised crescents in her skin.
His brand on her.
His love on her.
His carelessness on her.
His bitterness on her.
His hurt on her.
All on her.
Yes, of course he had saved her.
But he expected her life and ever present devotion in exchange.

I cheated.

Embracing Robotics

She sat upon the cold, wet ground in the rain. She was at the base of the woods where she had gotten lost. She was found this time. Found, lost, and grey. She stared ahead at nothing. She felt like plastic. Plastic or metal or something that doesn't feel. Everyone will ask what became of you.
What HAS become of me? Beautiful eyes that sparkled with the sunlight, it was as if someone blew them out and they were nothing but smoking embers. Her hair, whose sheen was undeniable, playful as she was, dull and faded. Her glowing skin and a smile that shone like the sun, they were gone too. She was reduced to a rag doll. Or worse.
He was gone. gone for good now. He hated her now and she deserved it. She'd watched him leave. He didn't  run at her and tear her to pieces. Not in the physical. but his eyes ripped her limb from pathetic limb.

Goodbye. The only thing she had said. And she hated goodbyes. Her eyes grew heavy and came to terms with how very exhausted she was. Like a child, she curled up in a ball right where she was and somehow drifted off into subconsciousness.

She sat in a single chair in a white room with no windows or doors. One lonely light bulb hung from the ceiling. Swinging back and forth to the rhythm of Adelaide's breathing. What the.. There was a television in front of her. Silent, no sound evoking from it. Simply static. Silent static. A sinister and confusing lullaby. Fear gripped her and shook her like a heart attack. She looked down at her hands that were taped to this chair. Her legs as well. Her mouth, somehow, had been sealed shut. She couldn't move. She had no idea how she got here. the last thing she knew was that she was at the base of the woods...
Out of nowhere the hooded apparitive creature in chains returned. In his shackled hands he held a large shard of a mirror. In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to scream or cry or run away or all of the above. He held up the shard so she could see her reflection in it. Upon her face was blush, bright and pink on her cheeks. On her eyes the brightest beauty paste imaginable and her lips donned the same. Except, her lips were sewn shut with black thread. And her eyes replaced. They were grey. They were glass. She could see through them, but it was very limited. With no power to scream nor freedom to punch her fists and stomp her feet. She was beyond trapped. This was worse than Hell. She was alive. Alive and mute and deaf and blind. THIS was Hell beyond measure. She could see only one feature of the horrid apparition's face. It's smile, a smile like the Chesire cat, lips curled over perfect straight, white teeth. It dropped the shard to the floor and she watched it shatter into more shards. The apparition picked up one of the shards and smiled bigger, more sinister and held the shard upon her pasty skin, dragging it across but no blood poured from it. No, the shard simply drew a black line. The ghost continued this, drawing black lines on her legs, arms and any skin revealed. What in Hell? Why am I not bleeding? Her eyes were false, she could not cry. Her lips were sewn, she couldn't scream or beg for mercy. Her legs and arms were tied, she couldn't run away. She looked down at her arms and legs and saw that red was pouring from her. She was bleeding. She was in the beginning processes of dying. Jesus, kill me inside this!! Her tortured heart cried out, doubtful that the desired recipient even heard her. Suddenly, there behind the apparition, stood a man with no face. Yet she recognized him immediately.

The apparition knew too. He disappeared and appeared behind her as suddenly as a vapor. "See him? He can't help you. You're not real. You're broken and easily replaced. False, plastic. A robotic, living flesh-toy. Let yourself bleed and die. No one will notice, none will see or care." Just as quickly, the faceless man appeared behind the creature, taking his hands and wrapping them around the demon's neck, whispering but loud enough to reach Adelaide's ears "It is finished." Choking and gagging, the creature cried and shrieked surrender, dissipating as the faceless man let go. He then stood before her and she shut her false eyes and squeezed them together tightly, biting her tongue. She wanted nothing more than to scream "Don't look at me!! I'm a shame!" He, with such a quick motion, removed the shackling from her wrists and ankles. He gently placed his hand over her eyes and gave her original eyes back. Then with one finger placed upon her lips, removed the thread so she could speak but placed his hand over her mouth so she could not. He moved his head close to hers and whispered in her ear "You are free." She looked at his face to see that there was one present. Kind eyes and smiling lips, pearly teeth and a nice face. He was kind. He was love. And as soon as he appeared he was gone again. Looking around the room, she realized there was a door on one of the walls now, and turned the knob to the waking world.

Pendulum

She gagged on the concrete, as she heard the glass door hammering behind her. Hearing it like it was in slow motion. Twice her weak stomach wretched and plummeted, trying viciously to expel the filth she had just swallowed. But no words came out. Her eyes seemed to involuntarily pivot to the window, where they saw her mother's concerned face. A vein must be connecting her eyes to her feet, for she ran, socked feet feeling none of the rocks or vines or thorns beneath them, neither slowing when she heard her mother's calling. Her feet led her into the woods behind the back yard – the place the place she had lain so many times after punishing herself for her tears. Not now. No, she could not stay here. Any set of presumptuous eyes could spot her, and further questioning was unneeded. She fled further; deeper into the brush, mind dizzy and heart trying to catch up with the flowing blood and mechanical lungs. She collapsed on the pricking pine straw; eyes drowning themselves in a horrid catch 22. From her vantage point she viewed stately pines. Their solid bases deposited around her tired body, while their free tops were weaved by the wind. Their green crowns surfaces and receded like waves colliding with the shore before taking back their angry words. But such and act was expected. No one lectures the waves for their rudeness. They apologize in advance, and it is accepted. Like 70 degree weather and 1 ½ children. “So many wasted days come and go like ocean waves. Hits me like a freight train. Now I can't get off my face.” She stayed in the position for a long time. Just reciting mortal thoughts of life's unfairness. So selfish. Her cat, Little Little, purred her way over, nudging Deirdre to see if she were still breathing. She circled several times until at last circling herself around Deirdre's feet. “Oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then I would fly away and be at rest.” Oh God. GOD, make the sky cry because I can't. Tiny particles oh H20 fell on her face, feeling more like frozen needles than water. It let like little freckles painfully being added to her skin. It felt like Chinese water torture. She could feel the rain before she felt it. It chimed into the bushes making whispers come out. It fell, swirling onto her pale skin and mixing with the hot bloody tears that had soaked into her matted hair. The sickening combination only made her cry. Sob and heave like a trembling leaf. Then, as hurriedly as the tears came, they departed. She faced upwards once more, resolving to be silent so the rain could go on uninterrupted. Little Little trotted away, but Deirdre stayed, staring into the drops that fell on her. They quickly glistened before descent, and fell seductively onto her cracked lips. I want to die in the rain. Not here, not now, but someday. I want to die in the rain, just like this. The trees approved in hushed tones as they swayed to and fro in an unprecedented manner. Like a clock's pendulum, ticking back and forth to time gone by at an unsteady rate.

the trees rejoice with the wind here

She slipped out of the laundry room door that leads to the outside world like a cat, smoothly making its way into the crisp night. A black cat with a black backpack full of fireworks.. An unwanted bad luck charm. She felt she'd become this as well. An apparition invisible, opaque only to those who chose to see her. She liked it better that way, to be honest. She couldn't sleep for her life. Not now. Not with the sickening anticipation taking up residence in her stomach. She looked up to the velvet dark blue sky and the stars that called it home. So beautiful. she whispered to no one.
The stars, in her opinion, were the watchmen of God. As if he needed them.. but still. Much too beautiful and purposed than to have been thrown up there at random, like a child with glitter and glue. In Adelaide's own opinion. She tip toed as if the world outside would hear if she made one move louder than a mouse's footstep.
The piercing, dagger smiles of men were too much. Which is why she had grown accustomed to the night. Men don't come out at night. Animals do. The dangerous and benign. Night birds screeched their songs, little ground creatures rustled the grass, hurrying for shelter.
Adelaide made her way to the trees behind her dwelling. The ones that lead her astray. Where she found the great cat. Tears sprung in her faded grey, brown eyes. She missed his presence. His comforting pur, the warmth of his great golden coat. The scent of his closeness. She missed it all. And his eyes. The eyes that spoke to her. Not with words, but with feeling. They spoke with intense emotion and feeling. And she left him.   He had come to save her. To show her he loved her. And she couldn't do the same for him. She ran in the dead of night, in the dark where she could not see at all and called him. Hoping he had gotten free. Hoping he would return and nuzzle her face and look at her with those big brown green eyes and show her his love. That he forgave her. That he knew she couldn't do anything and it was okay. She stopped, out of breath and no feeling in her face, tears coursing down it when he didn't come running up to her side. She sat at the base of a great oak and lay her back up against it. Her knees pulled up to her chest, she buried her head in them and cried. Angry tears. Anguished tears. Bitter tears. Her head pounded. Her ears rung. Her eyes burned. She shivered and shook and her teeth chattered. It seemed as if she had arrived at a place where all of the things that go bump in the night reside. Where they vacation from their posts and watch and wait for pathetic souls to come traipsing in their territory. The trees seemed to be a gigantic hand that closed around her. She buried her face in her knees further, listening to the heinous cackling of the nighttime beasts but not for long. She began to hum within herself, a song she loved. As her shaking desisted and her chattering teeth still, she sung in a voice that disrupted all manner of silence. In some cases, silence is necessary. In other's, it is better to disturb it.
The wind seemed to join her, rustling a breeze through the leaves of the trees, creating a rhythm all their own.
The trees rejoice with the wind here, Hallelujah Yeshua.