Flash Fiction Friday: "A Whole Life in One Day"

They barely knew each other, even after watching each other from afar for years.

And now, he studied her. Up close. Personal. From only inches away. One day, by chance, had brought them here.

His eyes detailed the memory he'd replay later - and for years to come. Her cheeks, flushed from the chill of the air and something else - something infinitely more permanent. Her hair, softly silhouetted in the glow of the streetlight behind her. Her lashes brightly glistening in errant flakes of snow.

"When I look at you, I see forever."

He watched his whispered words wrap around her, his warm breath causing a shivered smile to tease her face and his heart, embracing them both in eternity.

He pulled her close and touched his lips to hers. In one second, he knew his life was held inside this day.

On My Terms

I took
the longest
most difficult
most painful
way to get
here.

You better believe
I'll fight
for the right
to stay.

In Spite

Dear Expectations,

You totally suck at this love stuff. You're always getting in the way, and you always ruin stuff that's beautiful. You have no respect for spontaneity or romance, forcing all these obligations on me. I'm just tired of trying to keep up with you, and I think it's just time to be... me.

I have chosen to love in spite of you.

Sincerely,
Nean

Puzzled

she reconnects
as she's done before
possibly millions of times

each time pieces fit again
exactly the way
they always have

it's her world now
where she stands alone
redundantly seeking a match

I sit and watch
this profound simplicity
the certainty in the same

then a sudden remembrance
of the one left behind
a flick of a hand over shoulder

not even stopping
or turning around
a simple and quiet, "Hi, Mom."

Caught in the Middle

here i stay

behind and before

awakening your soul for this crime

of what they call intuitive passions

in anger, pain, desires, intrigue

as we learn to see loves through

together two make one

lovers now from friends

don’t know why, or even how

you ever won this right

to entwine your soul in mine

Smile After Play

Apparently, my love of words is contagious and I tend to call out the inner poets in others. As a passionate writer, poet, and editor (and former writing teacher), my friends occasionally find themselves caught up in the poetic frenzy in which I live and feel the need to try it out for themselves. When this happens, and the words spill onto the page (or computer screen), I encourage and share as I'm given freedom to do so. Please make comments and share the love for our fellow guest poets!

Today's guest poet is Sara Eiser. I met Sara through Twitter, and we have become good friends. She considers herself to be a non-fiction writer, but has recently been flirting with fiction and playing with poetry. Her passion for writing normally lies in the areas of social justice and equality. Her blog, The Covered Wagon, talks about her experiences being Jewish in a largely Christian area and her journey into becoming a doula, midwife, and "lactivist" out of her passion for women's health and her own pregnancy/birth experiences.

(Untitled 1)

they smile after playing

take what they need

want less

have coffee

and grow from the past

is it not why we love?

(Untitled 2)

I am not surrendering to my brain

I have nothing to give

when I can only see blackness

my head full of horrible focus

today let me fail you

let my fire get cold as death

inhale the ocean

suffocate on the future

and vanish

~~~~~~~

I'm more than happy to share beauty and passion with the world. If you are interested in sharing poetry or short fiction here, please comment below. (All comments are monitored before posting, so your request will be privately emailed to me.)

Melting

walls ...
the color of tears
melt slowly to nothing
like ice
cream drips
on a hot summer day

from one touch of the tongue
to that sweet burning gaze
unfreezing
these walls
dissolved into tears

making me savor
frozen need
you create
sparkling in eyes
that behind these walls
… wait

Where the Road Leads

I'm on a journey and I can't see the end. I mean, I don't even know where I'm going, to be honest. But it's a bit like a road trip: I've piled into the car with no real defined destination, as little stuff possible, and some amazing friends, knowing there will be stops along the way. There will be bumps in the road, detours to be made, and even random break downs. We'll take unexpected hikes with a gas can because we were too busy enjoying each others' company to pay attention to the gauge.

But we'll also see things we wouldn't have if we'd stayed at home in our comfort zones, instead of taking the risk and seeking this adventure of life together. We'll learn more about one another than we need to know and see each other at our worst. There's no need for make-up, fancy clothes, or any sort of facade on a road trip. There will be days we don't know when we'll shower next, what we'll find for our next meal, or where we'll sleep that night.

But it's good. It's growth. It's learning about ourselves and trusting one another to help us survive this trip even if we don't know where we're headed. We can get out the maps and guidebooks or consult the GPS to find out where others have been before us. We can learn from their experiences and enjoy their pictures and stories, but their journey is not ours. We have to find our own way. And we have to do it ourselves, learning with our companions along the way, finding treasures that are distinctly ours to discover.

I love this road trip, even if I don't know where it ends. It's fun and it's exciting. To those of you who've hopped in the car with me and have decided to ride off into the unknown, thank you. This is an adventure that will change us. And I'm happy knowing I'll never be the same and my life has been worth living, because of my journey with you.

Mosaic

What you see

is the intricate

the thousands of details

the tiny stones within

you engage in the trivia

of type, origin and history

cut, color, and value

and the reason that all of it matters

What we see

is abstract

and what brings it together

the beauty this picture creates

through interplay of parts

and of pieces entwined
into one unified whole

but without each other

your view would be pointless

rendering single stones meaningless

and ours left incomplete

with holes in the whole

of the unfinished art
that we see

so understanding
acceptance
and the allowance of us
draw essentials together
to help us become
perfect balance of

yin and yang

http://www.truthseekerart.com/catalog/i46.html

Spare Change

like pennies in a jar
I cherish you in my life

for when you go
this still belongs
something you gave
something that's mine

to those outside us
seen as little more
than copper in the street
underfoot unnoticed
ignored in change

but this is mine
these golden sparks
seen and chosen
consciously held
collected and kept

and if you leave
you still add to me
increasing the worth
my life collects
as I lose only
an equal part to you
something so small to me
yet worth millions to you

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

I go to, what I would refer to as, a very non-traditional church. We don't have a lot of standing traditions, but one of my favorites is our end-of-the year prayer cards. We fill out 3x5 cards (usually on the last Sunday of the year) with our prayers and hopes for the coming year. They are collected, stored away, and then sent back to us in December of that coming year for reflection.

The last couple years ... I've been broken and empty. A lot of things had stolen away my hope and I had nothing left. So, these cards became more and more difficult to fill out. When I got my card back this December, it said, "Read, 'A Note to my Future Self" from December 2009." And I remembered the journal entry I'd typed late one night last December. It took me two days to locate it as I didn't remember where I stored it, but I finally found it.

I want to share it here (at least in part), because I've reclaimed love and hope this year, and I'm ready to let that grow. Thanks to all of those who've started or shared in the healing process. I love you far more than you will ever know.

December 2009

Dear "Future" Self~

I'm doing something a little different this year.  I'm not making a list of things I want or hope to see happen in the 2010. 

For my card in 2009, I made a list of relationships that I wanted to see restored. I know what I was thinking last year at this time: That I'd strained so many relationships in 2008 and I was looking for 2009 to be a year of reconciliation and healing of those relationships.

Funny thing, 2009 was more a year of Reconstruction, but not Reconciliation.  And before the reconstruction, apparently, I needed to tear apart all that I knew before to make way for the new. I've been through a year of hell as far as relationships go, and I'm still dealing with the fall~out from that. I read the card for 2009 with a heart that's broken and bleeding.  Of those listed relationships, all but one or two (as well as many others) have been strained ~ some to the point of breaking ~ possibly beyond repair. This card is nothing more than a mere reminder of all I've lost over the past year.

I won't do it for 2010.  Not like that at least. I won't ask for anything specific, except to have some healing of my heart this year and to know love more deeply and more fully.  Even that feels a bit like tempting fate, though, and I had to hesitate to write it. I'm beaten by 2009. I'm bruised. I'm lonely. I'm tired. I'm confused. I'm hurt. I'm frustrated. I'm angry. But in all of it, I am loved.  I know this because, with all the pain this year, came love.  Lest I forget it, THAT is the reminder I want to have this time next year.

So to myself at the close of 2010: know you are loved, even by people who can't say it because of time, space, or just an inability to speak the things they feel.  You are loved. You are beautiful. You are better now than you were then, even if you don't feel it.

Always in Love,

~Nean

After the Hour

in the longest night
fear finally breaks

opens cautiously to light

shedding the earth
and the shadow that falls
from past indiscretions
that lie

in stillness it wakes
brightened slowly in grace

swallowing darkness

it waits

as the world's interference
slips softly away
and the focus of hope

is revealed

~~~~~~~

Solstice Blessings on this darkest of nights. 

May nothing overshadow your love or your laughter! 

~~~~~~~

The Skunk in the Manger

I just returned from our first family Christmas dinner without Gramma, which went surprisingly well. With all due respect to Gramma, it was one of the most relaxed dinners we've had in a long time. Perhaps because no one felt the need to be on best behavior for Gramma's sake and we were all our true selves? I don't know why exactly.

Maybe because we all realize that life and family are precious, made even more so in the past year due to the loss of the one person we all had in common and loved dearly. We used to come to Christmas at Gramma's for her benefit. But this past year, as we all stood around the casket, mourning the loss of one of the most beautiful, feisty, and incredible women I've ever known, the question that I heard over and over from my cousins was "Will we still see you at Christmas?" Funny the things we struggle to hold on to in times of loss.

And we enjoyed being together today. We spent part of the afternoon reminiscing, sorting through old photos, recapturing moments from our childhood when life was simpler and there were no "family politics" ~ at least none that mattered to us. We took the photos that meant the most to each of us and thanked God for the invention of scanners for the ones we might have fought over.

No one asked today where the pizza was ~ a long-standing family joke when we would stare at each other over the usual spread of two meats, various vegetable dishes (including Gramma's broccoli salad), and miscellaneous condiments, pickles, olives, rolls, and butter mints. Instead, we had barbecue sandwiches and some of the "usual fare" but we didn't sit in our unassigned usual seats at the table or eat off of actual plates. And somehow we all mingled, rather than separating into the usual two groups of the "Christians" and the "Pagans."

One tradition I did miss today, however, was the skunk in the manger. It all started "innocently" enough when one or both of my twin uncles (the youngest of the siblings and the self-proclaimed trouble-makers), decided to add Gramma's ceramic skunk into her nativity set ~ always somewhere new. And one year the skunk replaced Jesus in the manger. It was intended to annoy Gramma and was, at least in part, rather purposely sacrilegious of course, and always upset Gramma. And then one year, the skunk disappeared entirely.

Who knows where that skunk is now? Such a little trouble-maker, it symbolized so much. It symbolized the fact that we all come to Christmas, and to God from very different angles. Some of us come as the shepherds, the wise men, the angels, the holy family, or even the animals. But we all belong there - together - and even the skunk is welcome, one of the most odious of creatures to many people. Welcome at the manger.

And as much as I don't condone the skunk replacing God in the manger, I would love to someday find a little skunk to add to my own nativity set. A simple reminder of, not only Gramma and the part that those memories play in who I am today, but also of God's love and grace.

Thank God for this New Laughter...

I was born to laugh
I learned to laugh through my tears
I was born to love
I'm gonna learn to love without fear
~"Born" (Over the Rhine)

I'm laughing today. Not just at the moon. Not just at the night. Not just in some feeble attempt to convince myself that I'm happy. Today, I am truly laughing.

It's just... Something as small as laughter. Something as important as laughter. Something that I haven't fully experienced for a while. Something I'm afraid to allow myself to experience most of the time, because of what it usually means for me.

See, laughter often signifies a manic episode. I become hyper-active, bounce off the walls, fail to sleep (and sometimes eat), and laugh hysterically over stupid things; I'm invincible and uninhibited and I am literally unstoppable. And I'm often not aware of it. Oh, I know how I feel and I know how I'm acting, but it doesn't register.

It registers more clearly when I hit the intense irritability and anger, the almost paranoia over the feeling of spinning completely and wildly out of control, the panic attacks that make it impossible to breathe with stabbing knives in my heart, and the inability to stop laughing, even when it's wildly inappropriate to laugh.

During my last manic episode, I made a comment on Twitter about how the upside to a manic insomnia was the ability to go all night without sleeping and still feel charged and ready to go the next day. A friend replied with something to the effect of, "I think all moms should be manic."

No, Sweetheart, you really don't want that. Manic episodes are terrifying, and not just for me, but for everyone around me. Sure, I'm far more productive during those periods, but I'm also entirely unpredictable and irrational, and no child should ever have to deal with a mother like that. Happily, my mania is mild, my kids are in good hands, and I have the help I need to make sure we're all taken care of when necessary.

Still, because of this, laughter has become a bit of a warning signal for me. A symptom of something else that has incredibly ominous potential. And so, it's been a long time since I have been able to enjoy laughter this much.

But I do. Today, I do. This is a new laughter, a healing laughter. This is a laughter that overflows from hope and love.

Because I have found reasons for laughter. Reasons to believe that the pain of the past couple years might actually be closing and a new chapter in my life might actually be opening.

And this chapter might actually be full of real, honest, and non-mania-induced laughter.

Finding You

Each petal opens
awakes to the sun
as the new drops fall
making them glow

marking beauty within

blossoming to the world
as this flower unfolds
excruciatingly slow
some things can't be rushed
and pulling them apart
will just leave them crushed

Flash Fiction Friday: "Shards"

"I would have said something, but I knew it wouldn't matter."

He looked at her, studied her face slowly, trying to figure out whether he agreed or disagreed. He raised his coffee to his lips, staring over the edge at her, buying time he knew they didn't have.

"Why?" It was a simple word, punctuated in frustration by the cup clunking on the counter.

"Because... I..." she shrugged and even her shoulders frowned. He understood that she didn't know why.

"We can find a way..." he tried to figure out if his voice even realized he wasn't coming along for the ride.

"You don't know how."

"No. I suppose I really don't." He stood, his eyes still searching for some reason.

"Shall I get your coat?"

"I guess." He watched her go, knowing that he should follow, not sure of exactly why.

He glanced around the kitchen, where the tea cups lined the top of the cupboards. He counted slowly.

One...

Two...

Three...

He didn't need to count, but it was what he did in times like this. He already knew there were seventeen... and a half. The broken one at the end was the last he'd given her.

She returned then, interrupting his count, holding his coat toward him limply. He couldn't read her expression. It seemed to be a mixture of resignation, frustration, and... sympathy? Did she really feel bad for this?

Shrugging into his jacket, he sighed.

"Can I have it?"

"Have what?" she asked and he gazed up behind her, waiting for her to turn around. "You want that?"

"Please?"

"Why? It's broken. I was going to throw it away."

"I know. I still want to fix it."

"Pieces are missing you know."

"Yes."

"What will you do with it?"

"I don't know, but I want to fix it somehow."

She nodded slowly and he knew that he wasn't the only one who had no idea what he was doing. Pulling a chair from the kitchen table, he climbed carefully up to the cupboard and reverently picked up the half of the cup that was there on the saucer. There were a few shards still there as well and he gathered them too.

"Do you have a paper bag?"

He looked down to see she was already holding one up to him. She always had known what he needed before he did. Packaging the pieces slowly, deliberately, and almost sacredly, he glanced yet again at the line along the shelves. Regardless what happened, he knew they would stay there. She wouldn't be able to part with them.

Neither of them said a word as he climbed back down carefully and returned the chair to its place at the table. It belonged, even if he didn't. There should always be five chairs at the table.

Turning at the door, he took one last look into her face. He felt he needed to say something.

"Make them butterscotch pancakes for breakfast. They deserve at least that much." It was hollow and they both knew it.

The door thudded softly and he shuffled through the leaves on the walk on his way to his car. The porch light went out as he slid behind the steering wheel and he realized he had nowhere to go.

He opened the bag and peered inside. Even if there were parts missing, she'd loved this once.

Even if she didn't think it mattered, he'd find a way to fix this.

Why Bother?

I feel alienated and isolated.

There's so much going on right now in my life and with people that I care about very deeply and I want to fix it all. I can't. And I know that my own limitations are only contributing to my feelings of isolation. I feel like I just can't quite grasp something very important ~ or even come close to reaching it ~ and I don't even know what it is.

My loneliness has nothing to do with a lack of people around me, or even any inadequacy of their depth of concern. There are lots of people who care about me. And they're coming out of the woodwork in droves. I'm so blessed with love, understanding, and support on all levels right now. And I know this logically and am INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL that they are here.

I have physical evidence to prove it. People ~ actual people ~ who are here helping where I need them to or just sitting and being with me if that's what I need. People who call, text, instant message, email, tweet, facebook, and even stop by to visit at random. Even people on standby if I just need to chat. I know they are there. And I know I can reach for them. And sometimes I do. But a lot of times I don't.

Why?

Because I don't want to be a bother to them. Because they all have their own issues they're dealing with and I don't want to add to those issues. And because I want to be there for them and I don't know how. Because I don't have the strength, energy, or know-how right now. Because I still WANT to be there for them ~ even if only to listen ~ but I feel like people don't want to bother me either.

Because I have an innate sense of paranoia at this point. Because I don't want to be accused in any way of taking advantage of anyone or using them just for what I need. Because I don't want the scales to be imbalanced. Because I feel I need so much more than anyone can give me, and so much more than I can give back. Because I don't know how to articulate properly what those needs are.

And so I feel alienated. Completely surrounded by people I love and who I logically KNOW love me. And I'm scared to reach out to them. I'm afraid of being needy or clingy or attention-seeking.

But I'm also terrified of being left alone.

Still Waters

I woke this morning

with the awareness of you

lying beside me

your arms around me

your breath on my neck

your heart beating in mine

deep in the center of all that I am

You run deep through my veins

mingling in warm blood

quenching my withering thirst

flowing endlessly through

the basis of all that I am

Always there

Through unstable events

Through mitigating circumstances

Through life and death

in me and through me

and all that I am

Father

We see him ageless now, but ancient,

with senility assumed,

because we skulk around

behind his back in alleged secrecy,

squirreling away these

f r a g m e n t s

assumed as something lost --

Finders keepers after all

and if you snooze you lose ...

Does he really never notice?

This coercing...

This cajoling...

This childish clamoring for more

While we curse this chaos

and call it's creation coincidence

refusing all responsibility for it's reality

or repair...

Somehow it feels just like forgiveness

when we've thieved only to waste, watching

all appreciation slip away in grains of sand,

within these missing moments fleeting

in a gift we'd rather steal, as

we're all stupider

than we've

known.

Yet

in his

wisdom he

allows it -- leaving

minutes unattended -- in this

lesson carefully crafted, then ignored;

letting yet more fall, he entrusts delinquent

stewards with a whole new day we've surely

stolen, in all this careless waste of time.

Through The Shadow

stop

please
just stop talking

it's lurking

here

under the oreos
behind the vase of daisies
clouded by this happiness
and childish conversation
joking with new friends

breathe
slowly in, slowly out
'til it feels like tomorrow
or three days past last week

what day is it today?

leave
the wilted flower petals
and cookie crumb pieces
on the tidy kitchen counter
reminders of today

and know
that this day is so much more

than what we see in just this shadow