#writine

[image description: A torn piece of paper on a denim blue and soft pink background. On the paper reads a Baltasar Gracian quote “A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.”]

My mouth tasted like ash when I woke up. No surprise, since I was partially buried in the stuff. I thought I was in my family’s living room, but I have never seen such devastation in this room. Three walls were missing, gone to where ever the roof was. The furniture was either gone or burnt to a crisp, and the T.V. was one giant lump of melted plastic. The sky was a harsh orange, raining ash as far as I could see.

           I tried to call for my parents but the ash clogged my throat and made me cough. Where was everyone? Was this a forest fire gone bad? What happened?

           My body ached as I pushed myself to my feet, still gasping for air in this smoky hellscape. My house was gone, just the one wall left. All the beautiful trees in my tiny neighborhood were gone, burnt down to stumps or less. What happened? What could have happened to destroy my neighborhood, but not me?

           I wanted to cry, to scream, to panic and freak out. But I couldn’t. it wouldn’t help me in the slightest, and I knew it. The only thing I could do was promise myself time to freak out later, take a deep breath, and start walking. Surely one of my neighbors survived too? I had to see. One foot in front of the other. My resolve lasted all of ten seconds before the tears broke through. Keep moving, I told myself, you can cry and walk at the same time.

I wandered down the street, crying renewed with each devastated home I passed. The ash was knee deep in some places, piled higher where homes used to stand. All the trees that used to shade the road were gone, nothing separating the property lines anymore. There was absolutely no sign of human life on the street. How long had everything been burning? How long was I out cold? Where were the firetrucks, the police cars, the news helicopters? Where was everyone?

There was an awful noise from behind the ruins of Mrs. Perkins house. Something loud, high-pitched. It sounded like someone crying out in pain. Hope stirred in my chest and gave new strength to my hurt body. In the backyard, or at least where the backyard should have been, I found the source of the noise. It was Brutus, Mrs. Perkins Doberman. The poor dog was badly burned, some bones peeking through the remains of his skin. He was alive and crying in agony, lying next to what must have been Mrs. Perkins, but was now a vaguely human-shaped lump of coal. He cried louder when he saw me and tried to stand, but his legs had no more muscle to support him. I cried harder. What was I supposed to do for him?

A step forward, and my foot brushed something hard. It was his water dish, still with water in it. I picked it up and brought it to him, laying it just under his head. Poor Brutus, he plunged his face into the water and drank it as fast as he could, crying again when it was gone. He turned his big, dark eyes to me and licked my face. Slowly, I put my arms around him, trying to avoid the burns I could see. He whined, but didn’t struggle. I guess he was as desperate for comfort as I was.

New tears fell as I remembered the days I had played with him as a child. Brutus always had so much energy, and he loved nothing more than running up and down the street. I used to sneak dog treats to him in the gap in the fencing, and he’d lick my face every chance he got.

He shivered in my arms. I don’t know how long we sat there, crying, but some time had passed when I realized I was supporting his full weight, and that he wasn’t breathing. He was so still, he didn’t respond, no matter how much I shook his doggy shoulder.

Writing – Patience

Chase And Money writing in the studio.

I’ve always been perceptive about other people’s feeling. I can vaguely read the atmosphere someone is carrying. If I meet their eyes, I can perceive what they’re feeling. I can understand what they are feeling and can deeply connect myself with their feeling. Why are they feeling this way? Is something wrong? What is the reason behind their emotion? Is there anything I can do to help?

I can drown myself in my own perception of their feeling. Perhaps, I’m not as heartless or emotionless as they said. Even I consider myself to be someone who feels. 

However, what does it matter if I don’t show it? 

In the end, even if I feel deeply for someone’s happiness or misery, but if I don’t show it, then I might as well be an emotionless and heartless person. 

Do they really know? Do they know that I wrench my heart out thinking about other’s feelings? Do they know that I exhaust my own heart and let my rational mind take over?

my world goes quiet

into a kind of muted alertness I have never had occasion to confront;

my mind has always been a hive of bees working working buzzing worrying always moving even in sleep there is always something else to do somewhere else to be -

I always thought that

elsewhere

would be better than here

the c l o s e n e s s

of the world was always just too much, too real because

well it didn’t seem real

it couldn’t be real how could it be when I have a mind that

stings

without provocation, without caution?

I found solace in adjacence

But when I am with you that sense of divide somehow dissolves and there is no more buzzing and no more worrying and only the peaceful hushed

reticent

realness of you.

And all of my fantasies and escapism into adjacency never prepared me for the reverie I feel in the tranquil downy nighttime with you.

————-

Science teaches us that color is just light and spectrum’s being recognized in our eyes.  Visual escapades to make the world look beautiful and feel warm.  Sunlight like golden flowers by the stream.  Grass green with envy of ever changing sky.  Hues of blue and purple.  A constant explosion of nature above us.  Wind blown clouds and raindrops from deep silver overpasses.  At night dark purple that shines with a million different stars.  Spinning in awe above this tiny place we call home.

“It’s amazing” said the boy as he walked thru the technicolored abyss far from the world he knew.

“Welcome to my home” said the pretty girl as she spun a stream of light from one end to the other.

Watching close as the girl he knew shined with the light of a hundred stars.  Creating colors he didn’t know.  Bending the sky itself around her as she danced.  Pushing back the shadows and putting the sun to shame.  Intertwining her lovely being with life, love, and all that makes us smile.  The boy spectating to glorious heaven.  Bathing in a rain of colors.  Watching the pretty girl dance to her hearts content.

“Where are we going?” asked the cautious boy.  Scared of the unknown.  No longer running but forced into some form of just being.  Living without existing.  Meaning everything at once with no point of reason.

“Everywhere.” smiled the pretty girl with the blue eyes that shined like stars in the night sky.

“Everywhere is a pretty broad statement.” replied the boy with the brown eyes and messy hair.

“Yes, yes it is.” said the pretty girl.

Walking for light-years.  Beating a path across the Milky Way to journeys less traveled.   Stopping to stare at empty worlds and ponder what could be.  Who holds the book below.  And which grateful star will fall here.

And then the pretty girl grabbed the boy’s hand in silence.  They began to fly with no sense of time.  Floating thru pure nothingness.  The birthplace of existence.  Chronological keeping of history and pretty colors.  Woven memories scarred into the mass of hovering rocks.  Spinning just like the stars abound.  Darkened husks that hide intelligence greater then we could ever understand.

But to her this was a long lost playground.  The back road behind her house.  A hometown in the middle of nowhere. Full of family and friends.  Somewhere a room resides for her.  Full of memories and pretty pink shirts that make the sunset so much more beautiful.

The boy came to a slow stop next to a small moon spinning around nothing.  “Will I even matter?” asked the boy to the creeping frigidness of space.

The pretty girl spun slowly around her prize. Her meaning and ever lasting answer to it all.  A thoughtfully plucked flower from faraway lands.  An exotic lover with fits of escape.  Marred by constant running.  Dipped in sad beginnings and burnt by the hottest fires.

“You matter because I love you.” stated the pretty girl with the colorful dress.

The pretty girl spun once more but stopped halfway thru her glorious routine of light and dance.

“What’s wrong?” asked the perplexed boy.

The pretty girl fiddled with her hands.  “Oh, umm.  Nothing at all.” quickly stated the girl.

“Nothing at all?” repeated the boy.

“Nope, not a thing.  But it seems will be meeting with what your people would call my father.” nervously stated the pretty girl.

“Should I run?” asked the boy as he turned to sprint in the opposite direction.

The pretty girl grabbed the skittish boy’s hand and held on tight.  “I’m sure it will be fine.  Once he sees he’ll understand.” answered the pretty girl.

“See what?” replied the continually perplexed boy.

The oncoming dawn shook them from there pleasant stupor.  Daydreamers walking thru a so thought empty forest.  Ignoring the dangers and webbed floorboards.  A bright light shining with the star.  Spinning in search of night.  In search of the skies brightest star.  In search of the pretty girl who was currently holding hands with a strange boy.

“So this is where my ray of hope has been hiding all this time.” said the stern faced Morning Star.

“Ray of hope?” asked the boy who’s question is soon ignored.

“I wasn’t hiding.” said the pretty girl as she squeezed the boys hand.

The Morning Star stared daggers of meteors into his daughter.  Flushing with light of red and orange.  Keeping the sun itself pushed back.  Keeping the day from moving forward.  Decreeing the time by his own wishes.

“Escaped, ran away, abandoned her post in the night sky.  Whichever way you say you still left us.  Left your fellow stars in hunt of your own vices.” nearly growled the angry Morning Star as he captured the boy with a look so filled with rage that the sun dampened all on its own.

“I only got lost.” calmly said the girl.  But the boy could feel her hand shake in his. “And this courageous boy found me and saved me.” said the pretty girl with all the truth she could muster.

“I found her after she fell–” but the boy was soon cut off by an angry star.

“Do not speak insolent being.  For you do not understand the place you reside in right now.”  said the Morning Star with a stern stare placed solely on the boy who is too far from all he knows.  Too far from a place he once called home.

The boy thought about what happened from the beginning to the end.  The explosion of color in the night sky.  Finding the pretty girl and taking her to safety.  Late night walks that always ended with the pretty girl falling asleep.  Carrying her home each night.  Constant questioning of his book.  Sometimes what some would call fun.  But most of all he remembered how much he cared for her and how much she mattered to him.

“I will speak.” demanded the boy with the brown eyes.  “I will speak of what I know.  Of what makes me smile.  And of what I love.” said the boy surprising the Morning Star.

I will speak the truth.”  confidently said the boy.

“I have never seen something, someone, so breathtaking.  A beauty that outshines the sun and pushes all that exists from my site.  Drawing my attention.  My heart.  All my love that I can muster with purely her existence.”  loudly spoke the boy.  Approaching on borderline insult to the Morning Star but the boy no longer cared.  He knew the truth and he would make anyone who doubted him understand.

“The nights we shared talking.  Each morning carrying her to safety under the hot sun.  For stars can only shine so long and it was up to me to protect her.  To keep the brightest star in the sky safe.”  continued the boy with a point to prove.  A poem to scribble and a truth to shine out for all to see.

“Loving with the greatest passion someone I knew I would lose one day.  I knew she would comeback here one day so I kept her safe as best I could.  I protected her so she could leave me when she was ready.  I gave her all of me to burn in the night sky.  To paint the brightest shades for all others to see.  To be the brightest star this place has ever seen. “  sadly said the boy as he refused to let go of the pretty girl’s hand.

Waves of green and blue crashed around them.  Blinding light pulsating from the boy’s very heart.  Light to shine over worlds.  Light to shine for an eternity.  Light that shines like a star in the night sky.

“I am no longer running away.” said the boy with such a force of honesty that it shook the very sky.

“I am only running toward her and I will be with her forever.  I love this star and I will shine for her.  Creating light from my love for I must be with her.” said the boy with the brown eyes as he glowed and created a new star in the night sky.

The Morning Star faded with respect leaving his bright star in hands safer then his own.  And the sun disappeared letting the night stay for a little longer.  The boy turned to the girl and they both glowed.  A clash of light and love spinning thru space.   One that refused to leave the other because one fell from the sky in search of them.  Never ending stars traveling from one end of space to the other.  And if you listen quietly at night you mite hear them whisper there sweet sounds.

“I love you.” said the boy as he intertwined himself with the pretty girl.