We are intrepid; we carry on.

Deirdre's insides felt as if they were falling out from the violent shaking of her own small body and the violent shaking of the great oak beneath her. She buried her vulnerable head inside her soft slightly mangled wing. It slowly turned warm like blood. Warm with salty exhausted tears. She would surely suffocate herself in the death sauna. Deirdre squeezed herself out of the enjambment, her small smokey eyes falling downward under the weight of the skies.

As if an angel alighting to catch Deirdre, Adelaide was climbing towards her. Deirdre wanted to scream, to fly, to weep until she could no longer sob. But she stayed taciturn, drinking in Addie with her transformed black eyes. How Adelaide had changed since last they met. She was, in fact, the creature of Deirdre's dreams: gashes from beatings cling to her olive skin, her ebony hair was matted - like the wolf's - like the lion's, her amber eyes were tumultuously storming - disrupted ocean stirring up sediment. But she was not growling, clawing at Deirdre for coming too close. She was not sullen, grudgingly slinking towards Deirdre as some sort of pre-conceived false reassurance. She was carefully gently maneuvering herself into, between, under, above the stoic branches.

Deirdre watched her with a critical eye. The resurrected apparition eventually reached a branch parallel to her, and lifted her aching eyes to Deirdre's downtrodden ones. Deirdre did the most uncanny ridiculous thing. Every muscle in her body urged her not to do it. Her body told her to fly, to quit. Deirdre pulled her legs over to Adelaide's domain, and tucked herself beneath Adelaide's arm. She curled herself to fit with Addie, trying to force her constant warmth into Adelaide's foreign coldness. Deirdre spoke words to her. Words of comfort and joy and forgot her previously swearing to remain silent. She opened her heart to Adelaide, comforting her with words of God and joy and peace and love. Being herself comforted the same.


Adelaide was falling apart. Falling apart in her arms; Deirdre could sense it. A relief washed over her icy fears and brought pale green grass to grown again on her heart.


"The seasons always change, and life will find a way."


I believe. What if I believe you now? Forgive me, believe me, please come back to my life.


A trickling stream of words began, rushing into a flood of apologies for wrongs and apologies for apologies. Deirdre cried, Adelaide spoke - two displays of securities that neither had expressed for months. Its about time. Any longer and the misunderstandings would be enough to scar.

Bewilderment is common amoungst Fauna

Deirdre was balanced in the trees gnarled grasped. Though she was deemed a bird, she was unable to sing. The very idea seemed blasphemous. Caged birds sing for others, but how might one sing for a broken person? It is the cruelest of jokes, that a song to please will decimate. She was unsure of herself because she placed her security in those she loved. But she ran and they ran, and the whole world is running, trampling itself. One would think Deirdre the most self-less sacrificial person breathing. But though she pretended it didn't hurt to lose an organ when a loved one took it with them on a journey from which they may never return....it did. She felt as if she were decomposing, unraveling, unbearably empty, relying only on what she had ingrained in herself years ago. Years ago when life was easy. Regardless, that was no excuse. A terrible vicious current that she allowed her mind to be warped in to in times like these. Nothing made sense, and all the problems she had were too confusing to dwell on. She desperately needed time alone without worrying that she was neglecting someone. As she felt now.

Deirdre started in her repose, the chilled air stroking her face and ruddy brown crackled leaves nudged her skin. Subconsciously, she could feel the guilt of neglect impending. Her most loved, Adelaide, the one who she felt scourged on the inside for not being with constantly was the same one whom Deirdre felt herself doing more harm that good. Idle words. Yes, yes. But when love is idle, what else might the words be?

Always apologizing.

Where did I go? The despair was too heavy on her chest. Where did she go? The past was too devious and unpredictable.

Always apologizing.

For the noise, for the silence, for the....

The misunderstandings.

This gap seemed insurmountable. The walls that were never there now were preconceived electric fences. And the words that were always there now seemed merely offensive.

Always apologizing.

How could Adelaide love such a cynic and a skeptic and dull one? Deirdre could offer her nothing that she lacked. Only more tears. Another faded relationship to weep over. Deirdre hated herself for causing more heartache. Either people were worrying over her or crying over her.

Yes, crying. She could feel the entire tree shake with a sob, she could feel the wet unwanted tears, hear them clouding up her ears. Perhaps the whole world was running, trampling itself, but the whole world was crying, drowning itself while looking, paranoid, for Noah's ark.

Just because I hold you for a little time, does not mean I am your Savior.

you might tire of me

At the foot of a tree, Adelaide is standing, unaware to the realization of fact or fiction. Whether it is real or not, she is here, standing at the base of this great tree who's species to her is unknown. She feels so very close, close to something familiar. Closer to something she remembers. Maybe love, maybe pain. She cannot be certain. Familiarity is a strange and foreign notion to her of late. She seems to have left the past behind her, like sand by the sea. It sits there and stays there. Carried occasionally into the depth by its watery grave, and oh, how she wishes it would die. She wishes the past to die, so that she may move forward. Chains around her ankles, weights of  great mass strapped to the only source she has to run and she is stuck. Stuck at the base of this tree. You might tire of me, while our December sun is setting. Cause I'm not who I used to be.. She is so very changed. A warm, summery breeze blows through and plays with her hair, making her want to dance. Dance for joy, release, or simply because she can. For ability. But where is love? Where is passion? Where is depth and understanding? What? Why? Where has she gone?
She has been reduced to a shadow in a game of hide and seek. And those she loves so are coaxing her out of hiding for what seems to have been for years now. Trying to help, but in essence, only want her back. But she's not coming back.
 She thought a bird to be a most wonderful thing to be. Not if all she does is fly away. People are worth sticking around for, right? Sometimes, she supposes. It's easier to run away. Especially with all the chaos humans make. She simply wants to scream "NO MORE SOUND!! NO MORE IDLE CHATTER! NONE!" Her mind hurts from the dystopia. But the odd thing about the place where she has found herself is that it is quiet. No one is here but her and what is familiar. and she doesn't know if she should fly away or make herself at home.
Before her appears the man again. He holds a wall mirror in his arms. She opens her mouth to greet him, but his eyes refuse her from speaking. She looks in the mirror and sees nothing short of a monster. An abhorrent creature. And it is her. She looks at him in quizzical horror. His face serious and tight lipped. His expression tells her words are unnecessary. And best is such for both of them. What have I become? He places the mirror on the ground and in his hand is a stone. He shows it to her as to demonstrate and drops it on the glass. It seems as though the glass is water and the surface breaks eerily. In a broken up mess, she sees my real reflection again. I am broken far beyond repair. "Beyond human repair, I hope you mean." He whispered. She looked at him, puzzled. "How can you tell me that this is fixable?" He looked at her, then the pieces. Then her again. "Anything is possible." She faced down, ashamed. "I feel like I've done a terrible thing. I hurt one of the things I love most. I hurt so much but can only say sorry." he placed an index finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. "You are forgiven."

He disappears as he does with a small breeze to follow. She hears rustling in the leaves above her. The knots and branches on the tree are perfect for climbing. She scales the branches closer to the ground with ease but the ones higher above prove more difficult. Whatever it is that is the ultimate goal, is worth the trouble. She smells a familiar scent. One she gave to one she loves most. She follows it and finds her. "Deirdre?" her voice a whisper

Catch 22

Deirdre sat amongst her classmates, only enduring the field trip bus ride, and not enjoying it. Odd how life had changed from exhilarating and mysterious to only static. Once there was a time when she would write for the freedom and pleasure. Now she wrote for others. If there was anything genuine in her words, they remained protected in her journal. The words used to look like code,with scratches and scrawlings and circles and underlined words....Deirdre's own language. Now, for pleasure of others, for acceptance, for neatness, Deirdre was careful of the word's cleanness. Her writing was beautiful, her erase marks unnoticeable, her form perfected. Only...the words were not the same. She had mutated into an obsessive sentential protecting bones of beggars. Somewhere, something went wrong and now she wrote from someone else's point of view. Who knows what the answer was. It was blissful freedom to write...now it was rare. When she exposed herself, she shouted that she was unmysterious and the unmysterious are forgotten as worthless additions to society. What people once fought for in her was now open and pleasing to the critical eye. Before she expressed herself, she was happy with herself. What possessed me to think I needed to give my words to the world to be happy? I need to start over. Restoration requires death...as she had once told a dear brother, "An oak is ugly when its burned...but that's what it needs to continue growth to become better." She hated eating her words. She hated her double standards and her embarrassing lack of social skills. Life was like a knotted snake at this point. A beautiful snake consumed in eight million things until it tied itself to suffocation. Her recent lack of sleep and excessive caffeine shots made her physical heart feel it was poisoned. Poisoned with exhaustion, with lack of art, and foreign love. It seemed that the only music that calmed her was instrumental, bereft of words to warp her demeanor in any way. The only person that could make her laugh was her brother, and he made her laugh long, with an influx resulting only from its starvation. Deirdre stared out the thick windowpane, and without realization of the fact, fell asleep.
Deirdre was atop a tree, higher than humans, observing their curious ways. Love, hate, nothing new under the sun. She was a narcissist to the rotten core. She had built tacky cheap houses with her vital organs. Now she wanted them back. Even if it required destruction.

nor the moon by night

In a daze, I awake to the starry night sky. I realize where I am and am not frightened. I inhale the scent of the soil beneath me and the leaves where I've made my bed. I am uncannily relieved. Knowing that God had placed this particular pile of leaves here, knowing I'd fall but implanting something to break the fall. Knowing he put the stars overhead to make me feel as if all his eyes are watching me. I am relieved that now someone is watching over me and something is holding me. Relieved that the stars have returned to greet me with their beautiful faces and make a horrible situation less horrible. that they aren't merely shards of broken diamond. They are my stars. They aren't broken anythings. They're not like me. I lie there for hours it seems, conversing with the nighttime stars and the moon, asking them of life and death. I knew good and well that the stars and moon had seen both. Life being brought in the dead of night, a beacon undeniable. And life being taken as the dark seemed to snatch the soul away. "Moon," asked the I "why do you do nothing to prevent the capture of a child in the night from it's home. Or the death of human. Or the death of love. why do you simply watch it come to pass? I thought you wouldn't smite the weak." asking such a thing brought tears to my eyes. the moon did not answer, but the Creator did. "Humans are broken, these things cannot be helped. It is all well in the end. I promise, dear one." his response did not bring comfort, only a confirmation of my and my kind's infirmity. "Why, Creator? Why must we die?" I asked. It was in these moments where I felt the child in me again. where I felt small. "Because in death, there springs new life. don't be discouraged if it seems as if the  world is grey. I will take winter's blunt charcoal pencil and spring will come in with the technicolor paintbrush once more. The snow is white and white is all the colors mixed together, my child. I send it for you because I know that you love colors but necessitized placing them all in one form. Winter kills so life can spring anew. It will all make sense one day." With his words he stroked my hair and kissed my forehead. From behind the trees, the man appeared again, the one originally with no face. He walked up to me and watched as I lie there, helpless on the ground. He was built, not a muscle clad beast of a man, but muscular enough. Strong arms and hands with skin olive toned. His face bearded and his hair medium lengthed. Please don't hurt me, like the rest. I brought my arms up to my face in protection. "What are you doing?" he asked me. "Shielding my face" I replied, bluntly. "Why?" he asked. "Because I am afraid and vulnerable and I cannot get up." I placed my hands over my face so he couldn't see. "Don't be frightened. I promise to never hurt you." I tore my hands away, my eyes burned fire. "How can you blaspheme? Do I look stupid? No one can carry out such an oath." I looked into his eyes and saw that he was not human. He had a human face, but his heart depicted not the same. "I will never let you down. I will never leave. You won't always see or feel me, but I'll always be there." I looked at him incredulously. "How am I to believe you? I don't even know you." He smiled at me as only a lover can. "I'd love for that to change." came his reply. "Why do you want me? I am a mess" He bent down picked me up with so very little effort and swiftness that I couldn't have fought him off if I tried. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he turned his face to mine. "I am more than capable of handling you, my dear." He then walked on through the forest of threads, pins, and needles that my woods reflected. I held tight, but not tight enough to choke him. We came up to my house and he bent down a bit so that I could turn the knob and open the door. My room was warmly lit, which before, it was not. He trudged up the stairs to my tower. My room was warmly lit, which before, it was not. He lay me on my bed, covering me with my blanket and tucking me in. He kissed my lips very softly and said "Don't say a word. I just love you." and vanished, taking the light with him. In the dark I became moderately fearful, since I am fearful of the immediate dark. The sky was velvet dark and my room saturated in shadows. Don't be afraid, I'm right here.

A hell constructed of ice and snow

"This is not my heaven! This is my hell!" cried my voice so despairing, so desperate inside my own skull. I want to get up. I want help. I want to make things better. I want to create rather than war with myself. She said it's fine. She says she loves me. Her words echo in my brain from the last time we spoke. I am back to lying in the snow and ice. I don't care to die. I don't care to live. I don't care at all. No..that's a lie. I do care. I'd just rather not. Little white flakes flowing from their skybound home make their way down to the earth. They fall on my face in attempts to bury me alive, attempts becoming very well executed success. And I am bound here. Still to the ground. Who will pick me up and brush off my wings? Even if they are simply spiritual. My wings are pinned to the ground, icy needles never ceasing. Never letting up. Helpless, hurting, hell. My eyes hurt. My nose is frozen. My fingers have become like sticks attached to my hands and the rest of me, numb.
I had ventured off into the snowy lesser known of my backyard to take photographs of the world in two different dimensions. Apparently, walking out without a torch is hazardous to one's health, for I slipped and fell and now I am here on the ground once more. After one too many falls, my spine tingles and I know it is not a good sign in the least. I cannot get up and no one is here or within earshot to come to my rescue. Darkness disturbs me now. I am frightened, like a child, but with not a soul to care for me. I cannot help but feel abandoned. The ones I trusted the most pushed me far away
And with good reason too. Am I to be trusted anymore? I don't know, I've yet to make an assessment. 

 Where is the sun? Where is anyone?

Take my arms that I might reach out to you!

How can I reach out if I am down? Nearly impossible. As I lie here freezing to death, my candles finally snuff out. Dead. Dead like winter. Dead like earth. Dead, like me. Or dying, at least. I know this because my life plays out as a film in my mind's eye. Childhood memories, bittersweet. Or what I lacked in a childhood. My stepfather and his heinous behavior toward me. Reliving the darkest time of my life makes me wish I could cry  again. Best of friends that come and go. Suitors desiring my attentions. And then Deirdre appears, and I recall swinging beneath our tree named Muse and singing to the trees around us as they listen attentively to our conversations. I remember being nearly chased by a homeless man and our silly little girl adventures. I remember trekking out in the snow with my dove and finding solace in a cage of all places. I see us in my room and me speaking to her as she falls asleep on my chest kissing her forehead like a mother, holding her like a lover. Being her protection. Loving her with all I am and even here I love her still along with all the ones I love and have grown to love. All those precious and dear to me that have fled because I pushed them off for reasons of my own. All the hearts in my hands that I have sliced open. Cut after bloody gash. Beside me I feel a gigantic creature. A heavy breathing cat, who's growl penetrates my ears and I am frightened. How he returned and found me, I do not know. Hell, I don't even know if he is real or my subconscious's conjurings.The lion I loved so dearly, my friend and lover, I beat him and he bore his claws and struck me in return and has returned to finish the job. I feel the pain now from his beating all over and my body convulses. I see him and a blur of red and he rips me to shreds. His claws tearing through me, I feel nothing but anguish. He doesn't look me in the eyes once. He keeps his eyes completely averted. I caught a glimpse of them before he left me the first time. Cold, broken, unkind. I have made him unkind. I have struck him and now he tears me apart in return. My vocal cords are frozen stiff, so screaming is not an option. Even if it were, I wouldn't. I deserve it. I deserve this..I deserve this..

I feel his presence leave me, leaving me to bleed out as he has finished I deserve this, I deserve this. I'm sorry. Take what you will, what you will and leave. Could you kill, could you kill me? He couldn't even be courteous enough to do away with me. He had to leave me here to die in the mess I made for myself. A mess it grows.. I had told Deirdre once. 

I am no longer me. My hair has grown out, mangy and unattended. My nails to claws. My eyes blood red from lack of sleep and insanity's grip. My voice so altered, unrecognizable. Who could love something so hideous? Something so horrid..

The world turns black before me and I feel myself being cradled. My senses paralyzed, so by whom, I cannot tell. All I know is by the warmth of their body, I know they are a comfort, and let myself be swept away by the cold and snow and the whimpers, almost like a child's as this person/creature holds me in their lap and as I black out like the stars again, I mumble this:

Take what you will, what you will
And leave. Could you kill, could you kill me?
If the world was on fire
and nothing was left but hope or desire
And take all that I could bring forth, is this hell
Or am I on the floor over-desperate?
Hold hands streaming of blood again?
And then take full weight of me
Guard my dreams, figure this out,
It's me on my own. Helpless, hurting, hell
Will you stay strong as you promised?
Cause I'm stranded and bare.
Meanness is washed up in all that I am
is God. Take this and all,
Then grace takes me to a place
Of the father you never had
Ripping and breaking and tearing apart
This is not heaven
This is my hell 

Is love alive?

She sighed, that deep heavy-hearted sigh that always broke my heart. I waited for her to say something...and then, like a correlative to the silence came the rich strum of guitar chords that made my soul feel like a lit candle. She sang, her beautiful caged song. I listened to each note, each word, each breath she drank in like life itself to pour into the bronze darling she assuredly held in her lap. The words came as if she had written them herself.
This is my winter song to you. The storm is coming soon, it rolls in from the sea.

Yes, as the snow falls down the impending misery of the storm she faces and tries to hide me from smothers me. But in my mind, the snow continues to fall, each individual said six sided flake glistens before it catches itself on my eyelashes. And I am caught by an unbelievable realization that I am speaking to my bosom friend, while staring at static ceiling fans and knowing that, impossibly, snow is fluttering down outside the curtains of my warm solace. And each flake that falls reminds me of a time when she is who she used to be. Before she felt she had to apologize for the person she became. Before he tainted her with his second glances.
My voice; a beacon in the night. My words will be your light, to carry you to me.

Your voice is the beacon of the night. Your words are my light. You carried me to you and to freedom. You allowed me to experiment with my wings that I had no idea had grown underneath my costume. I remember when we painted the massive ply-board with fall trees and a fluent mixture of purples and blues. I remember naming Muse, she inspired me to name trees. She inspired me to see them as more than beauty, but as representations of people. She inspired me to treasure people, but to understand that there would only be a few that treasured me back.
Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love

It is alive. It is alive. It is alive. I feel it pulsing through my heart with memory.
They say that things just cannot grow beneath the winter snow, or so I have been told.
You're laying on the winter's floor, surrounded by candles you wish you could become. You're purple and blue like our painting. But you'll find a way to rise again, and perhaps its by taking care of me. But remember dear, remember when we stayed up all night on the phone with notepads because we relished the others freshness of mind. Remember when we didn't feel obligated to write those things, but we treasured it. I'm alright if it never happens again, but I still have the notes.

They say were buried far, just like a distant star I simply cannot hold.

You have buried yourself far, you are the distant star, but I thank God you let me hold you. My precious dull yellow emitted from a mysterious piece of stone. Remember when you fell asleep to my song? When I held you as you cried, so thankful you could still cry. When I fell down and scraped my knees and my palms because the wolf I loved so much bit me. When the lion you loved so much growled with anger and cornered you as you took his beating. When we burned what we didn't want to remember.

Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive?

It is alive. It is alive. It is alive. I feel it pulsing through my veins with an intensity.
This is my winter song. December never felt so wrong, cause youre not where you belong; inside my arms.

You're right...I belong in your arms because I love you. Because it's what you deserve. And your voice carries all the ache that the song emits. No one is where they belong...they've all left your cold arms that die now on the pavement, automatically reaching out but cutting themselves off in the process to keep from causing anyone else discomfort.
I still believe in summer days. The seasons always change and life will find a way.

And remember when we sat on the dock and lost our coffees and wrote furiously though all I wanted was to be close to your heart again. And then we laughed and smiled and you were okay. And that was all I wanted so I could feel okay again. One day we will spend several hours and weekends at the beach walking along the shore and finding treasures. One day the earth will be in bright blues and we can run barefooted in white dresses over the rich moist grass. And life, and you, will find a way.
Ill be your harvester of light and send it out tonight so we can start again.

I love you. I love you. I don't want to start again, I want to continue. I want you the way you are. Broken, mangled, still pleading that I take care of myself and not you. I don't want life the way it was. I just want to stay as you figure yourself out once more. To break down your walls, and watch you threw your windows to make sure you're alive. To play in the snow and the relish the rain.

Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive?

Love is alive. Love is alive. I feel it stinging in my heart with it's previous misunderstanding.

This is my winter song. December never felt so wrong, cause youre not where you belong; inside my arms. This is my winter song to you. The storm is coming soon it rolls in from the sea. My love a beacon in the night. My words will be your light to carry you to me.

I love you regardless of anything and everything.


Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive? Is love alive?
Love is alive.

"how could I be so heartless?"

Invoked with creative inspiration, I headed out into the snowy lesser known to photograph. Lacking in such in previous weeks (which is very unlike me), it is good to finally have purpose once again. I search for every candle I can find within my radius and end up with 8 candles in my arms. I add a lighter to the mix and push open the door to the very cold, very icy, fairly dark lesser known. The snow is hard and packed tight together like a family holding onto each other for dear life. My feet barely make a dent in the white precipitation beneath my feet as I choose a patch that is not as tainted by child and animal tracks far off from the comfort and warmth of my home. My vision is simple and set. Over and over in my head plays "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" by stars. No stars are to be found tonight. The snow clouds have overwhelmed the sky and hidden them from the silent earth. the world is silent here. There is a perceived lack of color here. I know that in truth, white is all the colors mixed together.And I can't help but love the contrast between the dark sky and the white ground. The air's crisp scent strangles me if I inhale too deeply. It's like smoke, but clean. I breathe in deep, the cold air burning my nostrils and my chest stinging inside. My heart is heavy. As always, so lately it seems. Ever since I drove the lion off, I've felt nothing but a concave crater in my chest, deep and charcoaled, like a meteor's crater after hitting the fragile moon.

 I set down my little ones, my lights on the ice. Clicking my lighter over and over in attempts to light them, the little ones do not last long. "Stay alive, please, stay alive" I whisper. They linger a bit, flames jumping about, trying to stay warm. In the same instant they are gone. Snuffed out by the heartless wind. Innocent lives, vanished. The three larger candles keep their fire, they stay lit. And it's all I can do to keep from going mad. They are my salve.
A simple degree of life in a world where innocent fish and children must die. Needless to say, I am unnerved. "God," I whisper in the cold "where are you?"
No answer. And I am only infuriated further. The heart that I gave to him is no more, and you're not even here to comfort me! What the Hell? There is no heart in my chest. It was taken when the lion left. I want it back but am too afraid to ask. I watch my little ones, my little flames. Their intoxicating dance leaves me tranquilized. I lie down on the cold ground, the ice and my face make contact and I realize that our temperatures are entirely too similar. Minutes feel like hours and hours like days. I don't even flinch. I feel my lips turning purple and my hands stiffening, arthritic from the frigid outside. Would you miss me if I died? A whispering wind winds through the trees to bite my face and strike my hands with an icy blow. I would love nothing more than to lie here. Just to see if someone, anyone, will come find me. 




I seem to have fallen asleep on the ice outside. How on earth, I do not know. I realize, quickly where I am and arise. Every bone in my body ache from the cold but are at the same time numb. Somehow, numb to the point of pain. At any rate, I make my way back to my house, kicking up powdery precipitation as I go. I feel like a child again. A latchkey child as I had always been. Very introverted, very much a loner, very shy. My mind is void of thought, possibly all intelligible thought was frozen over with everything else. My hands are stiff as boards and completely lax in feeling. My heart sinks in realization of reality and just really wish I didn't have to remember anything at all. I see my house not far off. And it is my only beacon of light.