listen closely to the chaos

When chaos takes from you, the way it took from so many before, you will ask “Why me?”

they call me ‘victim’, they say

circumstance did this to you

I say, you did this to me

I say,  I am only what you turned me into

I say, this is divine intervention

I say, you made me,

There are too many stories to tell about Dana. All of them would give you a glimpse into the family I was raised by and the people who made me who I am. My dad is a proud, invulnerable man who stands tall and keeps his chin high but my mother, she is an entire universe of kindness, selflessness, and unfailing loyalty encased in a body. Her body has failed her more times than any of us could probably count, but I think it because the mortal coil she’s stuck inside truly can’t handle the power and energy her eternal being has. She was not built for this mortal machinery, and it shows. In everything she does she is more than just human, everything she’s touched with her fingers now shines with gold shimmer and the words from her mouth are something not everyone deserves to hear.

Opinionated and as headstrong as a bull, Dana and I don’t always agree, but I can tell you that her mind holds a wealth of knowledge that I want so bad to drill into. She may not know everything, as most beings rarely do. She could tell you everything there is to know about Runescape, and while she’s still figuring out Minecraft, she probably knows more technical things about the game than most people. She has trouble coping with the death of her character and doesn’t want to fight mobs or be put in any danger. I don’t know if she doesn’t understand the respawn mechanic, or she’s just too caught up in the game to realize there’s more to it than surviving.

I can also inform you that she has no trouble taking life by the balls and telling it she’ll do whatever the fuck she wants. Dana is a thrill seeker, anything to get that adrenaline going. Recently she picked up ghost hunting. She’s not actually gone ghost hunting yet, but preparing for interacting with the spiritual plane takes a while and I’m not going to rush her. As she does, she’s also managed to drag all of us, (me and dad mostly) into ghost hunting as well, not that either of us is going to argue in fact I think we’re both just happy she’s having fun.  I have respect for her ghost hunting desires but I don’t personally share the need to be in a dark place with possibly angry people I can’t see wandering around with the sole purpose to fuck with the living, but Dana has always been a special kind of fearless.

Terrified of spiders and most small rodents, she maintains perfect composure as she comes careening down the stairs to wrangle my dad and sacrifice him to the spiders so they will leave her alone for another year. This technique along with this amazing thing where she releases noise and such high decibels, the spiders just pop. It’s truly impressive to watch. Not to mention that she remains completely lady-like as she strings together curse words with the diction and elegance of a well-traveled medieval pirate.

Dana loves her cats. That’s a big subject to unpack because I think that actually she just likes things that don’t have homes. Always the doorman, Dana has no problem letting in any stray animal or human for that matter that has the gusto to share a home with her in the first place. While she may open her doors to anyone who needs it, its best not to cross the woman herself as I’m pretty sure the garden was converted to a rose scented graveyard years ago. While the outside of the house is a little worse for wear, the inside is warm and welcoming and filled with cats. The fireplace is literally on all the time and by turning it off you’ll cause the whole house to collapse and Dana would not be happy to clean up the remains of her home and start rebuilding it again, so just don’t fucking turn off the fireplace.

Getting the chance to meet and converse with Dana is a time and moment that you will need to cherish as I’m pretty sure she will do what she always does and give you advice that could either ruin your life or make your day and honestly it’s your problem what you do with the power she gives to you. She doesn’t hold back anything, whether it be truly necessary advice or just how much of a dumb cunt you’re being. I do respect that about her, it takes a lot of courage to say what she thinks and feels, but also what does she have to be scared of? Based on my research Dana is one of the most powerful and unforgiving beings dancing around this reality.

Her true and unforgiving beauty emerges from the moment you manage to make her laugh or smile. Her radiance is so powerful it could blind a man. Pushing mid-life crisis age she still sounds, acts, and looks, younger than any of her samely aged peers. But again, her mortal appearance is the last thing you should be worried about when you encounter her. She is more than how she looks and that has always been mind-blowingly obvious. The light in her eyes only gets brighter the more you can get her to smile. I don’t see her truly happy as much as I would like, any scientist knows that the more you experience the phenomena the more you learn.

The rare instances where I am blinded by her radiance are times and days I will never forget. Days like vacation to lake Billy Chinook and teaching the goddess herself how to smoke weed out of a bong or play Kings Cup, Christmas Eve when she got a free dab pen from the store and got so high and giggly none of us could stop smiling, Dad’s last birthday and the look of utter disgust as me and him took shots of fireball and Baileys mixed together. Also anytime the words ‘don’t be a pussy’ leave her lips.

For the people who are lucky enough to even call her acquaintance, I tell you being her daughter is more magic than any of you could handle. As a DM, I often imagine the people I know as more than they are. Deep in the land of dragons and fierce fighters, they live whole other lives. In that world, Dana is like she is in this life, but more the way she deserves to be portrayed.

Danyra Witherwillow is a high elf witch. Tall and tanned skin, rapier on her side and heart of oak staff in her hand. She stands tall, black hair tied around her head in intricate braids, feathers and flowers dotting the style. She’s angry, clad in full leather armor, a storm brewing in the clouds behind her. She stands for the weak, in this case, her forest home. The king’s men are setting fire to the woods and she will not stand for it. Gathering all her strength the sky cracks with her anger and the look in her eyes is enough to turn the lead guardsmen to stone. She utters a simple warning, “I fight for this land, and we are not falling this day.”

Some of the guard's cackle, wondering what this simple elf woman could do to stop all of them. She deepens her stance, pulling the staff up to protect her body, and with a terrifying battle cry the skies open up and a searingly cold downpour clouds the vision of the guards. Danyra has no worries, she somehow knows it won’t be her watering the trees with her blood. With the confidence of ten million man army, Danyra begins casting. Roots and vines disarm the men who came here only to do harm, as it's hard to hurt anyone with no weapons. The forest watches as she kills every last one of the hundred soldiers sent by the king, some she kills quickly with her sword, and some she allows the forest to suffocate or be crushed with the strength of the roots and vines entangling them. She kills their warhorses too, unforgiving and righteous, she has no mercy. The weather clears and the sun emerges and the earth swallows the bodies.

Laying her hand on the trunk of a nearby tree she can feel it pulsing thank you.

My mom might not be an adventuring elven galavant fighting to protect her home. She’s probably sitting on the living room couch with a cup of tea, surrounded by her cats, watching YouTube videos on her phone, wonder, and laughter in her eyes as she researches whatever topic she stuck on that week. While she’s not a sword-wielding witch deep in the forest, she and Danyra are the same. Dana stands in front of her family, all three of her kids stood proud behind her. She stares at anyone who dares threaten the life we have here together. She’s not saving a forest right now, but she is saving us.

Dana has been saving us since before we knew we needed to be saved. Sometimes I look at her from my perch in dad’s chair or the adjacent couch and I wonder if she ever thinks about the lives she’s living in other people’s realities. I wonder if she feels the people she saved, her trees, pulsing thank you. I wonder if she feels me, radiating thank you. Those are the only words I should ever say to her anymore. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

The thanks aren’t much. Just a small effervescent reminder of all she’s done for me, my friends, our family. She has taken what we built together as a family and she has laid down her own life to keep what we have.

“Us versus the world,” she says and smiles at me “that’s the way it’s always been.”

I never really thought of it like that. Us, the five of us, against the world and everyone in it, but it has made me realize that we are Danyra’s forest. We are the sky filled with storm clouds above her as she screams a single threat at our attackers, we are the pouring rain giving her the upper hand in battle, we are her rapier slashing through the flesh of the weak minded people who came for us, we are the vines and roots that take out what she misses, and we are, above all else, her home.

im pissed off.

I'm pissed off that you for put yourself where you are.

Im pissed off that you think i like seeing you this way.

Im pissed off because i can't be pissed off at you.

What we had was holy reckoning, prophecy spilled from our lips and the word was us. My religion was you, and our bedroom was the only church i’d ever stepped foot in. When beings like us come together what else can we be but God? What can we be other than prophets screaming our scripture at the top of our lungs? I ask you when this ends, as I don’t deal in if’s, don’t forget that here, in this room, we brought heaven to earth and kept it there for as long as our fingers could desperately cling to one another, and I swear I heard you proclaim testaments in your sleep.When our bodies are scorched from being too close for too long and our two reborn souls must split, I pray to all the holiness we created that you know I won’t ever believe in any other God again.

the way you pull me into you, we are two glaciers colliding

we are crashing together and becoming less ourselves

if giving my myself up to oblivion is what it takes to have you in my arms a little longer

then this is my goodbye

im not who i thought i was

at least i know im not who you think i am