#jsydsprose

Thunder cracked, waking me from my deep sleep under my mamma’s bed. Everything was blurry as I opened my eyes to let everything sink in. The blanket under me was soaked from sweat and my gown might as well of been a swimming suit. Summers in the south were unforgiving, especially when the power was out from a last minute thunderstorm.

Laying on my stomach, I folded my arms under my pillow and propped up my chin to let the blood circulate through my body again.

On stormy nights, I liked to crawl under my mamma’s bed and hide. Partly from the storm, and partly because I wanted to be closer to her. My brothers were like stones in the night. Nothing could wake them up. So, I was left to my own devices, and my imagination presented fantastical things, both exciting and scary.

Thunderstorms in particular were scary. The loud booms and flashes of lightening on top of a dark night allowed my brain to create dangers both inside and out.

I used my skinny pale legs to push the blanket out from under me and laid stomach down on the bare hardwood floor. It was my imagination that was now beginning to go to work. If not for knowing my mamma was laying in the bed above me, I might be seeing monsters by now in the shifting shadows from the trees on the wall.

I heard a creak. Then I saw my mother’s small feet timidly hang over the bed. She used her big toe to test the floor as if it was a hot bath steaming in anticipation for her to step in. The humidity made the floor feel sticky, so she lifted her foot back up and put both of her feet in her blue silk slippers. She walked around the bed towards the balcony doors.

I don’t think she knew I was under her bed. She knew I hid there during storms and often coaxed me into bed with her, but tonight I watched her move in the dark with shadows, like one of the ghost from my imagination. Completely unaware of me watching under the bed.

She opened the balcony doors, and the sound of the rain swept through the room as if it was claiming our home as part of the outside. It was hot inside and the sound of rain was accompanied with the sweet smell and cool touch of every drop that touched the ground. But the rain was so hard it was splashing onto the mahogany floors. Mamma didn’t seem to mind. Her slippers soaked now, she kicked them off and stood silently as the warm humid air surrounded her body.

Mamma was not one for words. Even in the middle of the day. Daddy was her voice. He seemed to always know what she needed to say. He was gone now. I was her new voice, but I didn’t always know, like daddy did.

I watched as her feet began to move. Barefoot, she stepped left, then back, then right and forward. She repeated her steps and got more creative in her movements, drawing swirls in the rain on the floor with her toes as she danced. She didn’t make a sound. The rain was her melody and the thunder her rhythm.

I fell asleep again to the music she made with her feet. I never understood what drove her to dance those rainy nights alone, but she said more in those moments than she ever said at any other time.

Kaleo - Save Yourself

I catch her sometimes, listening to music with her headphones on and her eyes closed. Her head bobbing, shoulder bouncing, lips moving to the words, and her hand glowing to the down beat. Her body is so in sync with the music I can almost hear it. She doesn’t care who’s watching because in that moment it’s just her and the sounds driving her deeper into a world guided only by the rhythm and rhyme of what comes out of those headphones.

I want to be those headphones.

i used to spend all day in the woods

in a world of flying fairies, camouflage dragons, underground gnomes, and magic elves.

there, I believed the enemy lived without

as long as i was within, i was always safe

but the truth no one ever told me

my enemy wasn’t the monster at home

with fist made of invincible stone

the master of lies

the good son in disguise

my enemy was inside all along

not inside the woods

but inside of me

my enemy got stronger every day

eventually the fairies flew away and never returned

the dragons permanently faded into the trees

the gnomes never came above ground

and the the elves took their magic away

eventually the enemy in me, took me out of the woods

and everyday, every year, my enemy got a celebration

happy birthday, a reminder that doesn’t count the number of years since my birth

but the number since the death

the death of my imagination

the imagination that kept me safe

you may think the woods were full of lies

full of unreal friends who didn’t exists

but because of those friends, i live

they gave me a world to escape to

from the real monster everyone told me to pretend didn’t exist

but how can i fight a monster that grows stronger every day

what weapon does the safety of my imagination have against age

there’s a something else that grows with time

when all is but lost

and the battles with past demons have been fought

i stand on a mountain of hope

because that child in the woods

she still believes

not in magic elves, gnomes, dragons, and fairies

but in me

— Andrew Harvey from “The Return of the Mother”

The night is lonely. 1 a.m. is a lonely time. Tears flow uncontrollably for the past, the present, and the future. And not even my cat recognizes my pain. So I am truly alone.

The thought occurs to me. No one knows, no one cares. In this moment the only person aware of my suffering is me. My heart is broken for all the love I’ve never had and the love I believe I cannot find.

I don’t long for attention. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I just want connection. Someone to tell me I’m not crazy, because I feel like I’m going mad.

Then I remember, there is an entire world at my fingertips. So I light up the 6 inch screen in my hand and tap on the icon I think will bring me some sanity.

And there the words are. Words of such profound beauty I’m not worthy of their insight. Here I am breaking over a moment and there is a world of wonder waiting for my heart.

But he’s right. My heart was made to break. It was born with cracks. A testament to imperfection that was never meant to be one hundred percent right, for a whole can never know what it misses if it’s never without.

I thought I was awake. Unable to sleep through my heartache. But I live in somnolence.

The call is to wake up, to transform, to move.