Her back was curved against the dark, with her spinal column in sharp relief against her back, the contrast made sharper by the play of shadows. She was gaunt, frail, as though the watery moonlight was too heavy for her to bear, as though she was dying in this dark room that was at once too small and too big, too empty. She was too pale, bleached by too long without sunshine, by too long in darkness. She had an air of faded beauty about her, as though the vibrancy sunk into the cold concrete floor, as though the world has bowed her back and left her weak, dying.

That’s all people saw. They didn’t look past her frailty. They didn’t stop to learn her name. They thought they knew her, that she could never be anything more than she was. They didn’t try to hear her because they didn’t know how to listen. They heard her as muffled and discordant, broken. They didn’t want to hear anything else, really. They didn’t want to listen when they could just talk. They thought she didn’t matter.

They were wrong.

Under skin drawn tight from hunger and cold, behind eyes glassy with the reflections of apathy, she had a mind. It moved slowly, almost peacefully, forced into pained serenity, having so long waded through the stickiness of others’ self-centeredness that it had been crippled. But she had a mind.

She was stirring.

She was alive.

She had a name, but she couldn’t speak it.

She had a voice, but no one heard it.

She was alive.

She just needed to be free.

It started small. Warmth pressed against her temples, and fluttered in her fingertips. It spread and grew until it almost hurt, until it bubbled inside of her and pressed her back out of its curve. It filled out her gaunt frame, and burned inside her.

She stood, and no longer looked at the stained concrete, nor did she even see the water-stained ceiling. She threw her shoulders back and spread her palms, and she was no longer a crushed snowdrop in filthy snow. She was no longer ash to be swept away by ice-laced wind. She was not the frozen ground, dead, but waiting.

Not anymore.

She was a rose, with petals weeping with dew, rising from warm, loamy soil, bare, and pink, and sun-kissed. She was a phoenix with the fire of her soul burning a path down her feathers.

She was alive, so very alive, with the air snapping with her energy, with her mind shooting sparks.

She had a voice, such a voice, that it no longer mattered if people paused to listen. She was content, no, ecstatic, because she would sing, and her words would fly and dip in this charged air, and she would be the judge of whether they were worth listening to. She threw her head back and her voice was clear and pure, a sunrise, a morning glory. She could not be crushed because she was no longer crushing herself.

The ceiling crumbled, the mildewed, industrial steel sighing in release as it bowed to the power of her voice. She was illuminated by the sunlight that fell like a robe about her, folding around the lushness of her figure, casting warmth across her cheekbones, illuminating the play of dust fairies about her. In the sunlight, her hair was a fiery red, like the first rays of dawn, like a solitary fire beating back the darkness of a cloaked desert.

She was beautiful.

She had a voice. And no one would ever ignore it again.

She was really,

truly,

alive.

And, as people turned towards her, the same people who rendered her nameless, wordless before, the same people who boxed and packaged her, a smile, the first true smile in forever, the first smile to break the ice of her soul’s tundra, played across her lips.

She would never be trapped, never again.

The phoenix of her voice took flight. And, looking up into the vast, blue sky, clothed in sunshine, she shed her final shackle.

She told the world her name.

1. What do you love?

I love Piven. I love the feeling that I’m changing things with my words, that the clearly defined line between mind and body are blurring, and power emerges from the tearing out of that cocoon. I love that, at Piven, I feel like it’s raining, just in my ensemble’s honor, that thunder will roll from the tips of our outstretched fingers, and that the Earth will shift, warm and giving, under our feet. I love that, at Piven, a word is enough, or no words at all. That power and opportunity can be born just from the clash of eye contact.

I love my body. I love that I’m a woman, and have curves. I love that I’m feminine, undoubtedly so. I love my changeable eyes.

I love the Earth, a panorama of water and earth and air, sunshine, rain and hail.

I love writing, and feeling words fall in intricate designs upon paper.

I love words, in general. Words change things. Words can fill people up, spill over like jewels. Or words can be short and cold and hard, like pennies in a icy alley. Words can overcome people with joy or anger, passion or loneliness. Words change things.

I love physical contact. I love hugging people, kissing people on the cheek, holding hands.

2. What do you fear?

I fear failure.

Rejection.

Breast cancer.

Becoming mentally handicapped, incapable of  speech or thought or communication.

Never seeing myself as beautiful.

Burning out.

Being too old to walk.

I fear taking chances.

I fear not taking chances, and losing because I didn’t.

I fear my family dying or being hurt.

I fear being raped, being pregnant, STDs.

3. What do you want?

I want to be happy, loved, and loving.

I want to get past this mental barrier that I can feel is keeping me from being the best actor I can be.

I want to be successful (read: happy in my work and financially secure.)

I want to learn more about people.

I want to write better birthday posts.

I want to win Blogher Keynote.

I want to really, really live.

So, tell me.

What do you love?

What do you fear?

What do you want?

“Candy”

Grotesque. Lyra’s deadened mind could conjure no other word for the vision before her. Frank, the head mortician, was whistling a cheery tune that bounced like a six-year-old with a lollipop through the room. Do they get cases like this often? Is this occurrence so commonplace that they don’t even notice? Not for the first time, Lyra rethought her decision to move here, join the practice, return to the world that had spawned the living nightmare that…no. She wouldn’t think of that. Not now.

“Well,” Frank merrily intoned, his ruddy cheeks reddened by the less-than-subtle bite of frost in the air. “Looks like a heart attack.” He pulls out a coin. “Flip you on who has to tell the family. His wife is downright hysterical. I-“

“Are you joking? Do you think this is funny?” Lyra’s face reddened, and it wasn’t from the frost. She looked down at the mutilated corpse, long slashes making a macabre Carpaccio of the man’s back, as if he had been mauled by a furious bear. Teeth marks that seemed…delicate, almost, perforated his skin. “He was obviously attacked by…by…something! You! You who holds the power of truth in your hands would dare to so undervalue this man’s pain, and that of his family, such that you would, even in jest, call it,” She mimicked his chummy tones, underlaying them with her caustic ones. “‘a heart attack’.” The acid drained from her tones, leaving her feeling cold, as if the icy air had burrowed into her bones stealing her warmth as it flew away, malevolent cackles warping it’s lips, leaving her pale and fragile, a pane of glass so thin, the wind’s most gentle touch could shatter it. “How could you, Frank?” All signs of teasing had left Frank’s face. Good, he ought to be ashamed. Lyra didn’t feel victorious though. Just numb, numb and exhausted, limbs heavy with grief, grief for the man, his wife, for the world that had become so twisted, so estranged from goodness that this could happen.

Frank now looked concerned.

“Are you seeing something here that I’m not?” He gestured. “There are no ligature marks, nor tooth or claw, no lacerations, and his family had a history of heart failure. What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you see?” She gestured weakly. “The scratches, the evisceration? Don’t you see?” Frank dubiously looked at the corpse.

“Where?”

“Everywhere! Everywhere, don’t you see? Don’t you see? Somethinhg got him! Something is here, here and it got him! It’s here!” Lyra, hysterical, collapsed, a chorus of “Don’t you see?” spilling like water from her mouth, her heavy breath fogging in the air, a cloud of ocean froth, white marring the uniform gray of the sky.

“All I can see is that you need a little break. I’ll get you home.” Frank tucked her arm over his shoulders and attempted to urge her out. She sat, a dead weight, uncomprehending, the world seeming blurry and muted. That failing, Frank scooped her into his arms, years of being the town blacksmith before the accident that cost him his hand showing in his residual strength. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you home.” Lyra barely heard him, only dimly noticing the tears making a run for freedom down  her cheeks, tangling in her hair, and freezing. Her conscious thought before she passed out was how terrible it was, how unsatisfying that her tears couldn’t reach the ground. How disheartening that they should freeze into temporary crystals after being ruthlessly quelled, pushed back all their life. All they wanted was freedom. Lyra passed out.

Waking up the next day, drifting through the perfunctory motions, Lyra felt dazed, as if the strange stupor of the previous night had not yet run its course. She shook off her dolorous attitude. She needed decisiveness. She needed to whip herself into shape. To get on with it. No more pathetic mewling, no sleeping in, nursing psychological wounds. Ever since her husband had died, ever since she had seen his body laid out on the mortician’s slab, ever since that day that she lost everything, that haunted her nights, that hurt her still, she had done this. Swept her pains under the rug, stifling the horror that lurked on the periphery, a constant threat of being caught, dragged into the quagmire of shadowy nightmares that hovered in her mind. But, a whimpering voice from a corner of her mind pleaded, a little girl’s voice, the voice of the child who had died with her husband in that fire. Can’t we, just once…? We’re scared. We need to rest. We can’t just forget this! We- Lyra shook her head, banishing that voice that murmured her fears to her, spoke the truth that she would never face. Heading into town, she strode with purpose, the spider web of gossip clinging with sticky strands to her, the prating whispers loud in her ears.

“Did you hear that she…”

“She’s a mortician! I would have thought…”

“…absolutely mad. Said it had been cut up or something!”

“…hysterical…”

“I think she’s the one who did it! Poisoned him, and was so mad with regret that she…”

Parents led their young away, casting nervous glances at her as they passed. Vendors lost their cheerful smiles. Teenagers cackled from street corners, tight groups pressed together as if they derived warmth from each other’s cruelty and couldn’t get close enough. Lyra bought some bread, and changed course when she heard a gasp, then a communal sigh from the crowd, whose malevolent gossip abruptly altered to cooing, like fat, satisfied doves on a warm day.

“Aren’t that just perfect?”

“Such sweet kids! So charming…”

“What adorable children! If only they were mine!”

“Never have I seen two more astounding children…”

“Look at that perfect blond hair, those wide blue eyes…!”

“Wait!” Lyra called, voice easily carrying over the murmurs of the crowd as they spoke so softly as if their voices were goose down for these two cherubs to lounge upon. “What children?” The crowd turned as one, eyes glazed and dreamy. Their voices were as one as they sighed:

“Hansel and Gretel.”

Pushing her way through the crowd, Lyra strained for a glimpse of these miracle children but was foiled, the crowd pushing toward the church, a mass of sheep dutifully heading to slaughter, sweeping Lyra up into the entranced mob. She heard the kindly priest chide gently,

“Now, now Gretel. You can’t have a second sweet. That wouldn’t be right.”

“But why?” A chiming voice, as sweet as the spring air, with a complaint lilting through it, like  brown thread desecrating a golden tapestry.

“We have to treat all people equal, Gretel. Now run along; your brother is waiting for you.”

“Good-bye, Father,” her voice was as sweet as candy, bursting on your tongue, smooth and sweet and…frightening. Despite the sweetness of the voice, Lyra felt an ulcerate fear sink it’s teeth into her vulnerable flesh. Something in that voice reeked more of grandiloquence than authentic kindness. And still the unease grew, hemorrhaging through her system, as she eased down the aisles, drawing yet nearer to the children that had enthralled this town, the children whose voices were clear and sweet, the chiming of crystals as they fell against eachother, almost painful, the cut of a sharp knife before the pain sets in. Their voices alone made her feel off balance, ensnared perpetually in that moment between one thing and the next, that crystalline moment when she was falling but haven’t hit the ground, or have been given the news that changes your life. The off-balance moment where she, her surroundings, time itself, seem to catch their breath, where the world is completely quiet leaving her to that moment that has no friction, the restraints of life didn’t hold her. She was free, but only for a moment, and when it is over, she rejoiced, for the end of the off-balance moment means that a choice has been made, the silence of that moment has birthed this cacophony of sound, of adventure, of life. It might not always be better, what comes after, but it carries more weight. The off-balance moment is wondrous, the perfect turning point. But to be trapped, unchanging, in that limbo, by the sound of a person’s voice would erase the freedom that caused the allure. For, what is it, but the freedom of choice that fuels the moment? To be forced into it would be a contradiction. Nauseated suddenly, Lyra turned on her heel. No one would rob her of her freedom.  She would always have a choice. She would never let herself be trapped, screaming to no avail in her own mind, as her husband and daughter did in that fire. Not if she could help it. But what if you can’t? whispered the scared voice in the corner of her mind. Lyra got home, and, this time, the tears fell.

That night, the church burned down. The priest who had refused Gretel was found outside, with non-fatal burns, yet he was dead. Frank thought it was a heart attack.  Lyra didn’t. The town was puzzled. Lyra wrapped her cloak tighter around her and walked into the smoldering rubble. Wisps of smoke, twining like unraveling ribbons, delicately twirled upward toward the cold face of the winter’s sun. She picked her way, with Miles in her heart, remembering the fire that killed him and her daughter. She was hit with a visceral sense of unease, cold, clammy toes dragging down her back. Her immediate reaction was to turn around. To leave, and abandon with the rubble that sense that there could be something, neither human nor beast, but some other, that lurked beyond her scope of knowledge. Yet some pugnacious faction of her mind persisted. She found her feet treading with the soft sibilance of feline paws across the rapidly cooling ground, drawing her inexorably closer to the source of her apprehension. Her olfactory sense registered with grim connotations the scent of viscera, of death, of murder. As the edge of the woods that flanked the former site of the church approached, she felt a brief disembodiment as she knew that the second she set foot into these woods, she would not be able to go back. There it was. The off-balance moment. The moment where even she was surprised, holding her breath, waiting for the scale to tip. She stepped into the forest. And so the choice was made.

Lyra could smell the loam of the soil, even through the coffin of ice that imprisoned it. The barren trees raised leafless branches in supplication, patient as they prayed for spring. Her trail became considerably simpler as she noted the indent of a body having been dragged through the snow. Not another villager. Not another one, please.  Her pace quickened with her desperation, as if by hurrying she could allay the disaster she knew had already happened. Her shoes stuck and slid in the icy landscape in turns, but as the scent of death pervaded her senses, exclusive of all else, she could not spare the precious time that it would cost to slow her gait. As the tracks ended, she was met with a sight, a sight that precluded all others in terms of the horror that it wrought upon her. Grotesque. Her usual eloquence was denied to her yet again as she discovered that the creatures themselves were more hideous still than their victims. Scaly backs shimmered in the diluted sunlight, iridescent and black, an oil slick polluting the wilderness. Ferociously smiling mouths easily displaying pointed, yellowed teeth were rimmed it the gore of the hapless victim. Lyra realized with a sickened start that the creatures were not smiling, but rather, had no lips to mask the horrifying teeth. They were digging their faces into the exposed belly of a deer, ripping at it rabidly. Not a villager Thank God. Lyra’s gaze drifted though, to a previously unidentified object, her dazed mind registering it as a human skeleton, picked clean of meat. Lyra realized she had spoken too soon. Slowly, loathe to abandon their decadent meal, the two monsters turned slitted eyes upon her. She froze, a victim caught in the basilisk’s glare. Finally, one spoke, in a voice that was so treacherous, so saccharine, a sugar plum, voiced. “Hi! Are you new in town? I’m Gretel, and this is my brother Hansel. I guess my dad will be pretty worried if we don’t get home soon! Especially if he knew we’d been eating all this candy.” She gestured to the carcasses, then fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly. “You won’t tell, will you? Oh, of course not!” She bounced up to Lyra and gave her a cheerful wave goodbye, Hansel following suit. They don’t know. Her mind was alight, adrenaline pouring through her. They don’t know I can see them .Lyra thought about her life. She thought about what she had done, and what she could do. She thought about the villagers, their close-knit community, their reliance on each other. And she made a decision.

The woods were rife, rich with the smell of gingerbread and candy, drawing Hansel and Gretel towards them, tiny shoes covering tiny feet, their outer forms of irresistible toddlers wide-eyed and innocent as they trekked over snow deeper into the woods, Hansel’s “snack”, bread to the villagers, leaving a startling red trail on the pristine snow, which they called “breadcrumbs”. They traveled on light feet, prancing toward that enticing scent. Soon enough a house rose before them, a house that sparkled with crystals of sugar. Walls of gingerbread, still warm, cast heat like a spell into the air, drawing the siblings closer. The house was bedecked with gumdrops and candy-coated chocolate drops reflecting the candlelight from within in brilliant jewel-like colors. Red and white streaked peppermints reminded the children of the trail they left stretching back to the village. The house had arching picture windows, flat sheets of spun sugar accented with golden butterscotch. The walls gleamed with a thick layer of caramel and lemon drops added their citrus tang to the ginger-spiced air. Crown molding born of carefully shaped taffy adorned the tops of the doors and windows and the shingles were flat disks of honey and maple candies. The doorway looked to be framed with white marble threaded with gold and rose, but as the tiny gormandizers devoured it, they found it to be made of raspberry and honey accented white chocolate.  The siblings felt woozy, claws scrabbling for purchase on the sweet walls, to no avail. They drifted into drugged unconsciousness, snake-like eyes closing to the snowy world.

Lyra kept them like that for weeks wavering in indecision for, if she killed them, she would have degraded herself to their level, yet, she could not free them for obvious reasons. Finally, an idea arose, an idea stemming from the one thing she could give them: compassion. They couldn’t help the way they were born, and with no one else similar, they were of course lonely and misled. They hid behind masks, folds of disguises, to hide the pain that filled them from always being different, always excluded by the lies that they built. They couldn’t live without the lies, and yet, they could not continue to live with them, alienating themselves from others with their untruths. They hated themselves, for how they were born, for not being understood, not having anyone capable of understanding.  Lyra was determined to reform them, to help the children love themselves, as they were, and love others as well. So when they next woke up, she let them out, and told them her plan. She was ripped to pieces for the trouble.

Because the truth was, they were just evil. They weren’t born that way, but they had become something irreversible. Lyra was too little, too late.

Hansel and Gretel dragged the body back to town, smiling proudly.

“What’s that you’ve got there, guys? Something sweet?” One old lady inquired. The two smiled mischievously and chorused:

“Candy!”

So, yeah. Kind of creepy. Very strange. Hope y’all liked it!

But I was never a hero. I was never that person. Not a lion, not Superman, not Antigone. Just a girl. Just a girl with delusions of grandeur.

Just a girl who was wrong.”

I’m not sure what to do with that monologue, there, if anything. I’ll just let it lie, I guess. Ohh, I hate when this happens! No plot, no setting, just a bunch of mental jargon that my mind meshed together and spat into my consciousness. Ah, well. I’ll write a story another day.

In my world, there’s only one direction to face. Forward. I have seen so many who hide, and turn away from the truth, from what scares them. They can. But I can’t. But, then again, is it so valiant to steadfastly face forward into the face of life when you have no other choice? Maybe not. Maybe I’m not brave at all. I don’t know. I only know one thing: I want change. I want a home.

I live tucked away in the corner of a store, an old store that is not so much housed in a building, but rather a labyrinth of cubbyholes and crawl spaces, made worse by the unorganized horde of items. They rise on legs of chests and boxes, a sea of porcelain dolls with glassy eyes and graying lips, jewelry boxes that spew nests of dead spiders, old maps with yellowing edges, bells with chipped rims and discordant notes, and torn portraits of nobility who stare with dead eyes. This is the graveyard of things that have been lost or forgotten. This is a place for the old and withered, those with scarred hands and death rattles in their breaths. People don’t come here for shiny new toys, or elegant conversation pieces. They come here for the truth. They come here for stories. But what they don’t realize is that none of these stories end happily.

I traced my frame with a finger, the gilding worn and chipped, gold-painted roses no longer so dewy or fresh seeming, carved vines whose leaves have smooth rounded edges from years of wear, delicately carved fairies faceless from the wood being rubbed smooth. My glass is tarnished around the edges, spots of age kissing the once-glorious frame and creeping inward. Dust had gathered like dew on the lips of the roses, the upturned leaves, the fanned out wings of fairies. I hadn’t seen anyone for years. But then she came.

She was tiny. Perhaps seven, with a pert nose kissed by golden freckles and wide grey eyes that took me in with childish fascination. Her hair fell in auburn ringlets down her back, carefully pinned into place by her mother, and her cheeks were rosy and plump. She was alive. She was still in the dawn of her life, still had the sunlight in her eyes and trust in her heart. I didn’t understand why she was here. This was a place for the dying, the hopeless, the condemned. She still had time, life.  What was she doing here?

“Mommy!” she cried in a voice that was as sweet and new as spring water from an untouched pool. “I want this one.”

Her mother arrived from behind a stack of mildewing books whose ink had run and whose covers had frayed long before they had arrived here. This woman belonged here. She had eyes that belied her somewhat youthful looks, eyes of an abused animal who has given up on escape. Her eyes were blank, lobotomized, emotionless, as if she had closed herself off from her own pain. She had a colorful network of bruises crawling onto her wrist from beneath her sleeves, and winding like a blue-black noose up her neck to curl and settle around her deadened eyes. She had tried to cover it with an ill-applied mask of makeup, smeared unevenly across her face. Her hair was the same as her daughter’s but the luster had dulled with age a pain, and had been struck through with graying strands. She was dying. She belonged here, yes, amongst faded glory and neglected beauty.

“Alright, Nicole,” she sighed, not as though exasperated, but rather as though she merely sighed everything. “We’ll see how much it costs.” I had wanted change. It seemed as though, in the space of a few soft breaths, in the refection of dim light off auburn hair, in the smell of wildflowers amongst scents of mold, I had found it.

My vision was blackened by thick brown packing paper, which muffled the sound of ripping tape. When the paper was ripped away I was lifted and dragged into a room in powder blue. It had a canopy of sky blue cloth overhead which swarmed with colorful silk butterflies and exotic faux birds. Over the bed hung a painting of a field of wildflowers in pale pastels and soft watercolors. I was hung facing the door, my frozen face full of white trim, crown molding, and the glowing face of one little girl whose lacy white socks blended with the pristine white carpet.

I grew to love her. I loved her springtime voice, and her wide grey eyes, and her gentle demeanor. She would often have tea parties with her dolls with her tiny rose painted tea set, or gather herself in front of me, throw back her slim shoulders and bellow importantly “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…who’s the fairest of them all?” Even though she couldn’t hear me, I would always whisper “you”, before she collapsed into gales of laughter on the floor, her auburn hair pooling like blood-soaked golden silk on her white carpet. She was beautiful, in the way that all children are beautiful for some amount of their lives. Her eyes shone with that uninhibited, unconditional trust that society, life beats out of everyone. That is what made her beautiful.

The days were sun-drenched and filled with Nicole’s laughter. I thought that I had found it, that I had found change from the world I came from. Nicole made me feel young, as though my roses were still freshly carved and delicate, as though I still smelled sweet and acrid with new paint. The days were beautiful. Until the third night.

That night the streetlights fell through the window with sick, orange beams and the shadows of flitting moths. That night was the first night I heard it. But not the first night she did. She sat in her blue beribboned night gown on the floor and stared at me. While the two drunken voices rose and fell in conspicuous, angry tones, slurred words falling through key holes and slipping under the door, she stared at me. When a resounding slap paused the voices for a brief moment, her eyes changed. For just a moment, they were no longer her eyes, beautiful, trusting child’s eyes. In that moment, I saw her mother’s eyes. She was dying. Just as surely as I was or her parents. She was dying. With the cold lights of the streetlights stealing the color from her cheeks, she whispered, as only the resigned can whisper:

“Again.” Not as a plea for it to stop, but as an acceptance of its continuity.

That one word broke my heart.

This continued, seemingly indefinitely. The days were filled with Nicole gathering wildflowers from her yard and arranging them in makeshift vases made of tall glasses and empty bottles, the nights with her locking her door to keep the monsters out. I prayed from the cage that is my frame, I prayed for it all to end, for her not to have to live in this world anymore. I shouldn’t have. Because one night, it did end.

That night, her door creaked open, the one sound in a silent house. Her parents had passed out, but she was still sitting in her pool of light, staring into her reflection with those empty, horror-stricken eyes. She turned towards the noise.

“Uncle Tom?” She asks. “Why are you here?” Her voice wasn’t accusatory, just sweetly curious, as she turns toward the man she trusted, in the way that children have. In the way that makes her beautiful. But beauty isn’t worth more than life, and that’s why that trust always ends.

“Did you know,” he rasps, in a voice broken as one who spends a lot of time yelling would be. “Did you know that I was the one who was supposed to marry your mother? We were engaged. My brother, my own brother, took her from me.” His voice rose with every word until the silk butterflies trembled as if in fear of his force. “He TOOK her from me! He didn’t deserve her, he hurts her. He took my girl, so I’m going to take his.”

Nicole turned to run.

A knife flashed in the cold light.

I saw wide grey eyes one last time, as that unconditional trust died, as she died.

My roses caught her blood in their petals like rain.

I was returned to the store. Dust returns to me in a powdery fall, like an old friend. The mildewing paper, and graying toys, and discordant music boxes are the same as ever. But now I understand what everything else here has known for years: There are no happy endings here. There is no youth. No love. No joy.

This is a place for the dying.

“Karma”

Everyone knows one. That quiet girl in your class who nobody can come up with a description for, who nobody likes, but nobody dislikes either. The ungainly boy who move jerkily, like a badly manipulated marionette. The teacher who speaks just a little too slowly, not enough to pin it down, but something’s always just off. Take a look to your left. Take a look to your right. You’ve just seen one. Now, the most prudent course of action is to locate the nearest exit. Just in case.

Charlotte made her way through the crowded hallways, a seasoned sailor pushing through the seething waves of people who populated the oceanic straits of ETHS. She felt clearly the weight of the backpack that latched like a starving tic to her shoulders, she felt the everyday anxiety that was attributed to the stress of trying to get to class on time, she mentally double-checked that she had her homework. And, as she sat down in the seat she always did, as she half-listened to whatever inane tale her friend Amanda was telling, as she stared at the mold spots on the ceiling, she thought: There has got to be something beyond this. There has to be something beyond this battle this struggle for friends, for popularity, for…for what? For a place to fit in? For “friends” who you pretend to agree with because you don’t want to be alone? Why? Why would I claw my way through this murky swamp of emotions, of cruelty and prejudice simply to be one of the cruel and the prejudiced? I won’t. I will not permit myself to sink to such a level. And so, staring at the mossy fungi that had infested her science rooms ceiling, Charlotte made a vow. A vow to be free. A vow to cut the chains of her desperation for social standing. Charlotte wanted to be free, truly free, more than anything. And, within a week, she fell from mildly popular, to the most socially pathetic girl in school. Save for one.

Sarah was a quiet girl. She had a steady “B” average in all her classes that never degraded to a “C” nor improved to an “A”. Her dark hair fell in a tangled disheveled mass to her waist, and hung in her eyes, but she never spared the effort to brush it away from them. She was sallow and pale, her eyes sunken in and underlain by dark shadows that emulated sleepless nights. Her clothes were ragged, fraying at the hems and she shuffled more than walked, as if those sleepless nights had posed such a burden that she could barely lift her feet. Charlotte drew in a breath, and approached her.

“Hi?” she ventured, shuffling her feet. Hmm, she mused, maybe I’ll like Sarah after all. I’ve certainly got the walk down.

“Hello,” Returned Sarah, the corner of her lip twitching.

“So…I…uh…” Charlotte was scrambling, searching for a comment to make to this girl, this girl whose impenetrable stare brooked no nonsense. “I’d really like to get to know you better.”

“Hmm,” Considered Sarah, her unblinking gaze fixed on Charlotte. After a nerve-wracking pause, she continued. “Why?”

“I really would like to be your friend. I have recently realized that we may not be so unalike.” Oh, my gosh. I sound like a low-quality “The Power of Friendship” movie. Charlotte cringed inwardly, her forced smile becoming more strained still. Both corners of Sarah’s lips twitched and Charlotte realized that this was how she smiled. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

She started noticing posters adorning walls in the hallways. “National Coming Out Day!” They proclaimed. “Join us for a Free lunch in the courtyard!” Charlotte smiled. The cheery colors and charming, if stilted by it’s brevity, message made for a lovely poster. Charlotte turned and saw Sarah talking to a boy, Bryan, and, startled by this unusual occurrence, sidled over.

“What are you all talking about?”

“Oh!” Sarah jumped. “Bryan is organizing the Coming out day festivities.”

“Yeah,” He added, his voice carrying the same halting quality as Sarah’s. “I’m really excited to finally show the world what I am.”

“I’m happy for you,” Charlotte interjected. “It’s wonderful that you’re embracing your sexuality. I had no idea that you were gay.”

“Oh, I’m not gay,” He smiled, and a shiver raced like icy rat’s feet down her spine.

“Oh.” She said, deadpan. There was no way that she would pursue that enigmatic response. When they were alone, Sarah turned to Charlotte, and, with a fervency and vigor never before encountered, whispered:

“Don’t come. Please, don’t come to the Coming Out day. Just…please.”

“Why?”

“Do it for me. You’re my only friend. The others…aren’t like you. Don’t come.”

That afternoon, there was an assembly about the exclusion. Charlotte hated it. She thought it was aimed, not at the people doing the excluding, but at the excluded. People like her. They didn’t really care if the bullies stopped or not, but really it was to make sure that they could stand on their moral high ground, eyes cast towards the pristine blue sky as the victims drowned in the flood below them, and, as the waters just missed the shiny toes of their boots, whisper a mantra of “I did what I could, I did what I could…”. They spoke so sternly, but Charlotte just heard a chorus of “I don’t want to be held responsible”, and all she could think was: What do they think is going to change? Do they think that these children will surrender their cliques, their fun, their precious scapegoats upon whom they showered their own self-doubt, insecurity, and excess emotion in the face of a few people on a stage telling them not to, and a worksheet? Do they really intend to hand out a piece of schoolwork and miraculously, combat the evils of exclusivity with the power of busy work? Charlotte thought not. But one line caught her ear:

“It’s called karma. You hurt people, and karma will find a way to hurt you back.”

Coming Out Day rolled around, and, as per Sarah’s instruction, Charlotte played sick, and stayed home. She lay in bed, giving a little cough or an anecdote about how sick she felt every time a parent checked up on her. The day passed without event, and that night, she fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of Sarah, her breath smelling of blood and rotting things, leaning in and whispering the word “karma”.

The next day’s headline read: “Massacre at Local High School Indicates Cannibalism”. The stry went on to tell of how, at the Coming out day at ETHS, the brains of 500 students were eaten by a “zombie” cult. Charlotte snapped the paper closed as a knock at the door punctuated the air of the kitchen which suddenly felt stale and heavy. She opened the door with a shaking hand.

“You,” she whispered. “Why did you..”

Sarah giggled, her clothes stiff and tacky with dried blood. “We’re not a zombie cult. We are zombies.”

“No!” Charlotte softened her voice, now aware that she was dealing with a madwoman. “No. You just…you just need some help. You Think you’re a zombie, but…”

“You don’t see, do you? Coming Out Day was us zombies coming out, you assumed, that it was related to sexuality, because that’s what’s normal,” She spat “normal” as if it were venom that would land on flesh and burn through. “What you think of as normal is but a facsimile, a lie. I can show you the truth. Do you want to see the truth, or do you want to bury your head in the sand, remain ignorant because you don’t want to learn? We exist,” She put emphasis on we, making it mean more than it ever was meant to. “And we will be powerful. Soon. Come with me.” Sarah held out her hand, and Charlotte looked from the palm to her dark eyes that were wide and alight with manic, frenetic energy.

“I can’t. What you did to those kids…I can’t.”

“It was karma, don’t you see, karma! They were figuratively brainless, now they are literally! Come with me,” She coaxed again.

“The truth will set you free,” Charlotte whispered. She wanted to be free. More than anything.

“Come with me,”

Charlotte placed her hand in Sarah’s.

She was free.

Yeah, not my best. Probably because zombies are so inferior to unicorns. Hope my unicorn story is better.

Lies, Corsets, and Church Picnics

The woman noticed the girl right away. After all, she had been that girl. Once, she had been the one with bruises on her back and arms, trying to conceal them with a long sleeved shirt. Once she had been the one with her head down, shoulders hunched, trying to be invisible. Once she had been the one sitting by herself on a swing in the corner of the playground, afraid to play with the other kids, worried one would spot her bruises and that she would have to spout the same tired lie once again. A church picnic, with the smell of burgers and hotdogs in the air, the cries of squealing children in glee shrieking across the playground, what a place for such a girl to be, a girl that obviously was not emulating the glee and goodliness of the place. The woman approached slowly, like a veterinarian walking toward a wounded deer: wanting to help, but not to scare her.

“Hi,” She said.

“Hi?” The girl ventured, quizzical that anyone had noticed her. I’ve been there, The woman mused. I understand. She took a deep breath and decided to skip the preliminaries. She never was one for small talk.

“How long has he been beating you?”

“What?” The girl’s hand flew to her wrists, tugged down the cuffs of her shirt.

“How long has your father been beating you?” The woman repeated. They stared at the wooden mulch for a long time, sitting on stationary swings, the question hanging heavy between them.

“Six months,” the girl finally whispered. “Ever since he found out my mom cheated on him.”

“What’s your name?” The girl looked relieved to be asked such a simple question.

“Maura,”

“Maura, I’m not going to tell you what to do, or not to. I’d just like to talk sometime. To tell you what I did.”

“O-okay,” Maura stuttered.

They set a date.

The scent of freshly baked cookies pervaded the warm, cozy house. A huge house, one of the mansions by the lake, thick with passageways and staircases, a dozen ways to go, a million rooms to explore. As Maura entered, the woman pulled a tray of chocolate chip cookies from the oven. After taking one, she offered them to Maura, who, biting into one, was comforted by the warm rush of melted chocolate in her mouth. Sitting in this woman’s kitchen which was painted daffodil yellow, with pumpkin orange tiles on the floor and delicately painted flowers on the white cupboards, she felt more at home, more safe, than she had for six months. The woman wasted no time.

“You can’t let this rule your life. You can’t throw everything away for a father who would do that to you. I should rephrase: you can, but you’ll never forgive yourself.”

“What would you know? Anyway, I thought you weren’t going to tell me what to do.” The comment had hit home, and pain sharpened Maura’s voice. “And what would I be giving up anyway? My mom’s leaving us. My dad is the only one I have left.”

“Surely you have something you love? A passion? Something that you’re not willing to give up, just to bend to the will of someone else? I have one now, but, it was too late for me.” She smiled, ruefully.

“So, what are your passions? What do you love?” It was a challenge. She wanted the woman to say something vapid, give her an easy out. Let her slink home to nurse the wounds that her mind and body bore. She thought the question would be simple, with a simple answer. Instead, she was lead down winding corridors, flights of steps, and, after a while, stopped trying to keep track of where she was going. It felt surreal, being led, blind to a final destination, through these halls. When she came here…she didn’t expect this. She couldn’t have. Finally the woman pushed open two heavy double doors. Inside, it was…amazing. Books. Stacks full of books, neatly sorted, in pristine condition. She didn’t think she’d ever seen anything so beautiful in her life. The library had the feel of a sanctuary, a place of rest. She felt intrusive, as if she had goaded this woman into laying bare her heart.

“You ask me of my passions? Of love?” she laughs, and it is like sunrise after the oppressive dark of midnight. “Look around you. These books, I love them. Thousands…thousands of books, and I have read them all.” She bends close, voice soft and reverent, like a priest speaking of her god. “These books are my passions.” Her voice washes through the hushed library and it is as if the world held still, captured in her eyes, which gleamed with unshed tears, with the force of her passion, in her voice, which was like a cool oceanic breeze, full of promise, in her adoration for these bound pieces of paper which she held more dear than seemingly anything. “I love them,” And that captivating voice broke as those brimming tears flowed down her cheeks.

“Why?”  Maura whispers. “How can you…why do you love them so strongly?” Her face looks stricken as if she had never been asked the question before. And then, it changes, with a similar fervency as before but tainted, tarnished with a bitterness that burned at the back of Maura’s throat.

“Such a perfect girl. Always the peacemaker.” It took Maura a while to realize she was speaking of herself…or the person she once was. “ Polite to her elders. So hardworking. So committed. What a good girl. Straight A honor roll!” She lists the achievements, spitting them like the deadliest venom. “Loves to cook and clean and bake. Loves to take care of children. Adores school. Adorations enforced , of course, by my father’s fists. No one noticed. No one cared.” Her voice twists, sickly sweet, as saccharine as marzipan. Maura preferred the venom. At least it rang true. Her voice mimicked some figure from her past. “What a charming, sweet girl. Someone is sure to fall in love with her someday. She’ll have a lovely home, a lovely husband, and a few lovely children.” And that voice, that volatile, changeable voice, hardened. “Lies. What beautiful lies. But lies of my own making. Lies that corset me into this role that I play, this perfect role. A corset laced with forgotten, impossible dreams, boned with a childhood of being told that I was wrong, that I was worthless, that all I should aspire to do is obey. I wove the cloth from their expectations, stitched it with their words, and with rue, sacrificed my dreams for its laces. Let it meld my shape into a perfect prim young lady, until I couldn’t walk without it. Until I couldn’t escape from the gilded cage it offered.  There are so many forms of escapism. Some take drugs, or drink alcohol. Not me. I’m too smart for that. I chose books. Books where I can be anyone I wish. Go anywhere I wish, without censorship. Books can’t lie to you. They can’t betray you. They expect nothing of you.

“Books are like a waltz in the arms of a handsome man, who can distract you from the confines of your corset, if only for a little while. And so I hungered. For more and more, more waltzes, more books. And soon enough, I found myself married to that man. Sitting here in this room, smiling as I gaze at the reflected light of all those waltzes, became my life. I tend them. I love them.

“How could I do anything besides? This is all I have. In books I can be an assassin, a princess, anyone, anything. I can lurk in dark alleys, or go to a bar, or live in Ireland.  I can be rude! It doesn’t matter! In these lines, I am free! I can do anything! All with perfect impunity! Books are like secrets that you have to dig deeper than the surface to find. All these books…I could read them again and again and never be bored. Never! I can never be hurt by them. If I love a character too much, oublie-les*! Cast them aside. Nothing is painful, nothing is permanent. In real life, there are too many dead ends, too many one way streets, too many hopeless live, too many lives wasted. In books, always a resolution. Or, better yet, a sequel.” She gives a slight, wan smile, seemingly drained of the feverish energy.  “I’m sorry. I only speak such hard truths in this room, surrounded by my golden memories. I have gone off topic. What I intended to tell you was this: I let my pain control me. I let my father control me. I let expectations control me. I love my books. But I love no one else, not scarred as I am. I can never escape from my corset, not even now. Love books, child, but love others, too. Your corset is already beginning to form. Don’t let it.”

The woman sent her home with cookies and a smile. As if the exchange had never occurred. Maura walked with deliberation up to her room. And then she called child protective services. Her father was arrested that same night.

The woman committed suicide. Maura missed the funeral: she was testifying against her father. Afterwards, though, she visited the grave. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry that this was the only way you could lose your corset. I’ve lost mine. I ripped it up.” The books were willed to Maura, who donated them to the public library. “I don’t need them,” she told the woman’s grave. “But someone will.” With a smile, she left. Maura didn’t come back to the grave: the woman had suffered, mired in the fog of her past, of her pain. Maura was determined not to. No one would make her wear a corset again. Not even her own memories.

*Oublie-Les: (French) “Forget them”.

See, what did I tell you. This is a prime piece of “Don’t assign stuff like this” material: it’s boring, long, and undeniably depressing!

I’m going into high school in August. At the end of the year, students from my class desperately wanted to go to high school. They wanted a change. Three years of middle school, here’s your consolation prize, kids: four years of high school. Happy, happy day. And it was. Because for once, I was running with the herd. I couldn’t wait to be a mature freshman. Now, i’m having nightmares about forgetting the Pythagorean theorem. Not cool. I’m afraid. Afraid that I’ll get lost, that I won’t keep up with my classes, that the teachers will hate me. I’m afraid.

I look back on my blog, which was started more than a year ago, and everything seems recent. I feel like my life is rushing by me, things are changing and I am never going to catch up. I will never be this young again. Soon, I’ll be getting a job, parading for colleges, and being an all “A” student just isn’t going to cut it. I’m going have to change for high school: change how I act, change how I spend my time, change my gym uniform. I never used to see the world this way, as a conundrum of what has changed and what was going to. I’ve never been so confused over how to proceed. I just relied on my parents to make sure I had everything I needed. But I’m turning fifteen in October and the time to be needy and childish is trickling to an end. It’s time for a change.

I used to be great friends with my sister. Now, we argue more often than have fun. I didn’t notice it happening. I didn’t notice things changing. And I know I sound like a girl who didn’t know her boyfriend would break up with her, but I never saw it coming, and now I don’t know how to fix it. I can’t go out and find a new sister after crying on my friends shoulders. I don’t always like change. I don’t always want it. Denise says: “If you don’t like how something is going in your life, change it.” When I asked: “What about the things you can’t change?” She told me: “Wait until you can”. I can change things between my sister and me, I know I can. But I was stupid. Because I never asked Denise: “What if I don’t know how?”

I have a cockatiel. A lovely pearl cockatiel with gray and white and yellow feathers. I am ashamed to say, I don’t spend a lot of time with him. I suck as a pet owner. Lyra is going to live for thirty years. I think it’s time that I change my ways.

I bet you all are wondering why I’m writing all this. My blog, for months now has been composed of Six Word Sundays, and when I was feeling really creative, a Six word Monday, or even *gasp* a Six word Sunday (Belated). Exciting. So, this is for all the empty words, empty weeks, empty posts. I don’t want to be a burnt out blogger and I’m not going to  let my laziness keep me from succeeding.

It’s time for a change.

A change that will work for me.

A change that will be un-debatably for the better.

My change is starting with this post.

This is my 645 word Wednesday.

My Metaphor

I was dreaming

I went to the knitting closet

and opened it

to find my nest

of yarn balls

bright eggs

neat

perfect

Every one

But, thats not true

One stands out

Different

In a bad way

filled with

thorns

twists

tangles

I pull the ends

work loose the thorns

unravel the knots

until my fingers bleed and ache

It’s no use.

It won’t be flat

It won’t be like the rest

It will always be different

In a bad way.

They say dreams

are reflections

of what you feel

or what bothers you

They represent things.

The tangled yarn?

I think it’s me.

See? What did I tell you? Poetry just isn’t something I can do. Not well, at least. Thank goodness we never got around to the project.

I sat in history class, listening to Mr. L drone on about something I don’t care about, while Ms. D smiles and nods like he’s saying something profound. I connect the dots on the ceiling panels to make images of tiger faces, rearing horses, sleeping dogs, huge monsters. They leap out of the ceiling in a waterfall of earthy brown and gray furs, and carry me away in a sea of warm, furry bodies. I turn into a wolf and join a pack, soft, furred paws tamping down the summer-sweet smelling loam of the forest, leaves coalescing into an emerald tapestry above my head. Shrubs cling like terrified children to the age-cracked trunks of ancient trees, the smell of deer and rainwater scent the air. I come to a stream, clear and mountain fresh, spring grasses, new and green, sway to the music of a quiet wind along side the water. Suddenly, I’m a horse, but it doesn’t feel sudden, or jarring, it just is. The pack melts into the woods like so many shadows, hungry amber eyes winking like golden fireflies in the stray sunlight that unwittingly wanders into the trees. I change course, trotting alongside the meandering stream, until I reach a field, filled with bold jade grass, brilliant with fireworks of clusters of wildflowers. It is dotted with bluebells, daffodils, sunflowers which turn rapt faces toward the sun, monitoring its golden chariot ride across the sky. The stream feeds itself into a pool that shimmers blue like a morpho butterfly’s wing, rife with a promise of cool relief in the heat of the afternoon. Having gotten here, I am myself again, and I lie in the sweet, sunburned grass, and feel the golden beams of sunlight caress my upturned face with the delicacy of a feather from a Pegasus’s wing, let my hair fall in riotous tangles about my head like a caramel colored halo, and just breathe in the delicate perfume of wildflowers in this place untouched by people, untouched by the poisons that humans seem determined to leak into this planet.

I have just realized that I’ve written another “springtime”-y post. More likely than not, it will snow tomorrow because I’ve jinxed the good weather. Again. Anyway, that was a pretty good dream. In fact, it was almost cliched in how cheerful and upbeat it was. Darn! I’m having stereotypical dreams! Kill me now…