a fragment still untitled

It had been announced several days later that they were looking for him. But he already knew. From the moment he awoke on the day Janie dissolved, before she ever told him she felt unusual, strange and funny inside like she would crack open and burst all over their newly tiled kitchen floor, Thomas knew they would come, soon enough.

The men in orange were a strange breed, they were not clones but they had the same empty look in their eyes, the same haunted lifelessness that made them seem like ghouls, that made their cold soulless gaze crawl under his skin and turn his marrow to ice. Thomas loved Janie, and the ghoulish clan of orange-clad faceless non-beings did not understand love. He did not understand love. Janie probably did not understand love, and yet she loved him back.

It must have happened the day Thomas came home from the factory and decided never to go back. He told Janie as soon as he stepped in the door.

“I’m done. I’m not going back.”

“Oh?”

Her eyes met his, but her fingers kept flying, knitting a perfect little sweater for a perfect little baby boy.

“Yeah.”

“I see.”

This was their usual manner of conversation lately, crisp and to-the-point, and rarely very informative. She had not questioned him further, and he had gazed at her sadly, knowing that she had slipped far beyond his reach.

The truth of the matter was that she had begun to crack, deep inside, and he knew it long before she did. There was no baby boy, the sweater was for a figment of her imagination, and Thomas knew Janie would never realize that her pregnancy was of her own creation and had no basis in reality.

He had married Janie the day after they graduated from college, and they had an outdoor wedding in June, just the way she had always wanted it. She had been radiant that day, with beautiful brown curls framing her round, bright face, clutching a bouquet of lilies.

There was only a shadow of that girl present in Janie’s face now, and it flitted across in such short flashes that Thomas could never see it long enough to recognize it before it was too late. Her hair hung limply in front of her eyes, revealing gaunt hollows in her cheeks, under her sunken, still startlingly blue eyes. Thomas loved her as much as always, and that made every day feel like a betrayal, like a best friend who stabs you in the back with a cleaver when you’re just about to tell him how much he means to you.

Thomas was not quite sure exactly when Janie started believing a child was on the way. They had slept in the same bed, as always, but had not touched each other in almost a year. Thomas had started to forget what Janie’s body looked like under her crumpled clothes that no longer matched. Janie did not seem to notice the significance of this fact.

She had started by painting the spare room in pastels, squiggles and streaks that made no recognizable pattern. She thought it was beautiful, although it looked nothing like how a baby’s room should look. He did not know if Janie really could not see what the room truly looked like, or if she did not care.

Next she had made the rounds of their immediate neighborhood, announcing proudly and happily, almost girlishly, that she and Thomas were expecting a new addition to their little home, and inviting them all to come and see the room that she had arranged for their darling boy. They all congratulated Thomas when they saw him next, and he smiled obligingly. He did not know what to say.

Heroes

Published in Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees; by LitNoire Publishing, 2006

At first there was nothing.
and God said, "Let there be light,"
and here we are, in the
dark.
The world began in nothingness
null void.
hardly different today.
dark night
blood in the streets
all i do in response is write this
worthless poem.
we live in a time of typhoons.
emotional whirlwinds.
we tear at each other's throats like
wild dogs.
the world
- our suicidal world -
is on a transplant list
waiting patiently in line for a
soul.
we are the world
we are the champions
who crucified christ
who burned joan
who denounced luther
who imprisoned galileo
who called washington a rebel
who shot lincoln
who killed gandhi
who murdered king
we are the heroes
who have desecrated ourselves.
i mourn not the loss of our innocence
but that our goodness was stillborn.
i mourn that we are callow
that we serve the basest of human vices within ourselves.
that we gorge ourselves on the sour wine of
cowardice in the guise of self-respect.
we are gluttons when it comes to the bitter potion of
human intolerance
if there is such a thing.
we are broken.
broken beyond repair.
perhaps if we obliterate ourselves
we can begin anew
from the ash we become.

19th September, 2005

A Plea

This is a fire and brimstone world
that drags me by the hair
leaving a trail
of blood.
this is a world whose lifebreath is lies.
cruel and blind lies.
but the truth of you keeps my eyes from closing.
the rhythm of your words keeps my heart from stopping.
our heart is stretched taut
a link that will not break
but will pull and pull until we bleed
you and i both
we will bleed

this is a cold world of terror and hate
that has you in a stranglehold
until you choke
and splutter.
this is a world whose lifeblood is deceit.
heartless and unfeeling deceit.
but the truth of me keeps your blood flowing.
the cadence of my words keeps your stomach from turning.
the link will not break.

you have me in your grip
in your hands and in your heart.

Truth, i live for you.

Do not let me go.
Without you i will not breathe.

My heart.
My blood.
My breath.
My life.

12th March 2006

felling blows

The earth halts in its whirling spins
jerking fading slowing failing
burdens too heavy too big too angry to bear
stumbles and stops
knock-kneed
she kneels
the sins of the people of the demons we call people
kill murder destroy the people the angels we call people
and the equation is unsettled
the balance swings dangerously
and we turn our heads avert our eyes and pretend.
homicide genocide ethnocide
it is all just suicide
where are the bones of steel and spines of iron
where are the hearts of gold and souls of pure mercy
what have we become that we turn away and run run run when a drop of blood falls and turns to a single tear flowing down an emaciated cheek
the earth shakes from the voices unheard
silent screams
begging
crying
she gives up
gives in
the world is shattering.

20th March, 2006

you think it's like this but really it's like this

circles
spirals
mazes
it's all a rat race.
we run around and around and around and around and somehow never seem to realize that no matter how far we walk we haven't really gotten anywhere.
it's like a whirlpool.
we get sucked in.
we spin
and spin
and spin
and spin
and then there we are again, the insanity spits us back out and we're back
where we started.

sometimes we find company along the way, as we make our way through our labyrinthine paths.
friendly, sometimes. hateful, more often.
permanent companions, never.
we think we're walking together and then all of a sudden
they vanish.
and we are left to wonder
if they ever existed
at all.

and so we go on, embroiled in the snares and tangles of existence, and we fight and struggle
against it, not realizing that that is precisely how we lock ourselves in.
when we let go
and submit
and drown ourselves in the troubles
that's when we will arise
new and free.

we will break free of the dreadful orbits in which we are trapped
and we will choose our own trajectory
one of liberty
and choice
and release.

28th May, 2006