going, going, gone

Figures fading out of sight

Merely shadows 'gainst the night

Can only hope we did it right

But we're walking, walking on

Drink the poison, stop our ears

Now just wait for sixty years

Please come faster, end our fears

And we're treading, treading on

Pain and hate but no more grief

Walk 'tween faith and disbelief

Hope that moment will be brief

Still we're plodding, plodding on

Cross the threshold, close the door

We can't turn back anymore

Won the battle, lost the war

Yet we're marching, marching on

So do we walk toward black or white?

And will we pass from peace or fight?

Someone tell us of the plight!

Help us struggle, struggle on

But we won't know until we try

If we'll fall or if we'll fly

Fin'lly learning how to die

So we're moving, moving on

A life we're not designed to keep

Dust to dust, eternal sleep

Just an echo o'er the deep

Now we're going, going, gone

house of horrors

Tight spaces.  Sharp corners. 

I see faces.  I see scars. 

I can't get out.  I can't stop this. 

We try to run, we don't get far. 

Every wall contains a person,

Every person looks the same. 

Wide-eyed terrified and running

I know each story, know each name. 

They seem to all close in around me

I push to find a space to breathe. 

A missing wall--I follow through it.

And for a bit I think I'm free. 

But no!  This looks just like the others,

It doesn't matter where I go.

I'm trapped inside this house of horrors,

Where fear and guilt are all I know. 

But I still try to outrun myself,

Escape the things I cannot hide,

The dirty, shameful parts of me,

All my regrets that haven't died.

At every turn I face my failures,

The past, the present, future, all. 

At last I know it's time to give up,

We bend our knees and take the fall. 

And now, my hands upon the glass,

My own eyes staring back at me,

I realize in this maze of mirrors

I'm facing my worst enemy.

There's only one way to escape;

One last chance to end all of this!

The shards of glass rain all around me,

I feel the blood drip down my fists.

I plunge the glass into my chest,

And finally my nightmare's done.

But though I'm no longer in pain,

I don't know if I've lost or won.

on june and being alive

If you were to ask me what living was, I would tell you that it's biking down a hill,

Tongue out, hands held high, trying to taste and feel the breeze with every inch of my body,

Standing up, gripping the seat with my knees, not bothering to pedal as gravity does the work for me,

My phone wedged between the straps of my backpack, the music it plays seemingly coming right out of my chest,

As if I'm living and breathing in relation to the beat of a drum, not of a heart.

My helmet, strapped to the back of my bag, is rendered useless, because what's the point of it if you can't even feel the  wind flowing through your hair?

It feels like I have freedom flowing through my veins and breathing easy summer joy in my lungs.

And reaching the bottom of the hill, I'm back singing along with the music and riding towards the edge of the sky.
That, my friend, is being alive.

end

And so we run swiftly

Into the arms of Death

In the way that a child rides down an empty street,

Yelling "Look Mom! No hands!"

Too excited that we're flying

To be afraid of falling

cloves and stock

She stepped on his porch, glancing once again over both shoulders to make sure his car was nowhere in sight.  It was a beautiful day in March, the kind that would have felt cool had it been in May, but after a long and cold winter almost felt like summertime.  And although the grass was still brown and dry, and the trees still cold and bare, she swore she could smell a hint of growth in the air.  However, as nice as the day was, she didn't feel that same sunshine in her heart.  She turned around and sat down on the steps, willing herself to hold it together.  She never planned for it to end up this way--she was never supposed to tell him like this!  He was supposed to tell her first, or figure it out on his own, or maybe she could have even told him in a grand way and he would understand.  Yet instead here she was, leaving an abandoned, coded message on his porch, only to run away once again.  Speaking of running away--she checked her watch--the train would leave soon.  She'd better be going.  She looked down at her hands, where she held a bouquet that she had made herself.  It was filled with cloves, cyclamens, white monte casinos, stock, and red and pink carnations.*  Holding her bundle of flowers up to her face, she finally let a few tears fall from her eyes, trailing onto the petals.  She breathed in the sweet scent of them, and breathed out a goodbye.  She set them down on the porch and turned to go, pulling an index card out of her pocket.  He probably would not find the message in the flowers, but the words on the card were something that both he, a reader, and she, a writer, would understand.  You, my friend, she read out loud, were the worst, most awful character I could dream up in my own life story.  Not because you were easy to hate, but because you were so easy to love.  And I was not so easy to love in return.  And with that, she walked away without a second glance, leaving her own tragedy on the way to catch her train.

*The meanings of the flowers are as follows, using Victoria's Dictionary of Flowers from The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Clove - I have loved you and you have not known it

White Monte Casino - patience

Cyclamen - timid hope

Red Carnation - my heart breaks

Pink Carnation - I will never forget you

Stock - you will always be beautiful to me

If you enjoyed this, check out my new blog http://imperfectlyandwithoutroots.wordpress.com/, where I'll be writing short stories on the meanings of different kinds of flowers.  But don't worry, I'll still be posting on here too!