...

He took a breath, exhaling deep regret upon her face. Her expression frozen in fear, forever, cold and unforgiving. The blades of the willow tree, looming above, begins to sway as he kisses her cheek for the last time. I'm sorry my dear, you did your best. He croons into her deafened ear as he wipes his hand across his cheek, -a scratch mark from a struggle- evidence that will heal.

Her body becomes one with the earth, buried deep under the ground. The ground that life walks so carelessly around on, unknowing. She flutters her eyelashes as muted footsteps scatter above her, dissolving into a painful silence. Her hearing is back; thighs are sore; neck is broken. She blinks rapidly, trying to rid the dirt from under her eye lids. Her heart -once frozen with death, still with stiffened, thick blood- begins to pump heavy spasms that shake her body, throwing her breast violently up and down. Her hands claw towards the sky in fury, breaking the surface of her grave. Radiant moonlight pierces her skin as she takes her first breath in days. A ghastly noise, mixed between a gasp and a howl, escapes her mouth as her body shudders in relief.

A dream and wake.

Walking barefoot in the desert. I saw you running toward me, through mirage and the high noon sun, with knives bared like teeth; fingers splayed out scraping the scenery; pillows of bruises floating underneath your balmy skin. Run away, run away. Turn around, turn around. I am no match for you. Beads of sweat drip from my swollen temples, colliding with the broken ground making it tremble and making me sway.

Everything is steady, everything is slow.. Bottled up for the world to show. Clicking bottlenecks against the fencepost, she throws her head back to laugh. The sun bathes her pearly face as she forgets the joy of the moment. The bottle slides from her fingers. Her lips curl into a devious smile as her feet begin to take her away.. To something foreign and new.



Hands, oh hands.. Precious, beautiful instruments of our minds, with the power to create and to destroy; to love and to explore.

I finally did it..

A 360 view from the summit of Mt. Hood. April 18, 2010.
So, when can I go again?!

Observation of the Day.

Sitting within darkened rooms in an illegal state of mind.
Ancient people with their flesh coats dripping with slow motion death.

What once was..

I danced for you, like the cascading frost in the early morning.
From leaf to flower; from bird to tree; from house to pavement.
All the while, trying to prove myself to you.
A pirouette, a leap, a dip, a curve, a smile.
All the while, trying to prove my beauty to you.

You watch me curl and bend with ravenous eyes, with a hunger fit for a King.
With a smile and a gentle hand, you lead me into a field of thorns.
Where I will dance no more.

A yearning.

Portland encountered an unusual taste of spring last week, with temperatures in the 60's, bright, blue skies, and a beautiful, nurturing sun shine. People woke up from their winter hibernation and waltzed around, shedding off their winter coats. Smiles were not hard to find as an unyielding cloud of joy wafted through open doors, open windows, around fences, through car vents -which is to say that no one was left untouched. Individuals turned to their estranged neighbors and greeted them with a wave and a hearty, hello! During this blessing of a week, cherry blossoms began to bloom, flowers and plants started to poke out of their seeds, reaching up towards the sky, bathing in the Sun's effervescent rays.

Excuse me while I cut this short.

Portland encountered a very unusual taste of happiness last week.. But we should have known, we did know, that it would not last. We close our curtains once more to ward off the thick gray that looms over the city. We've wrapped ourselves up in our personal cocoons, once more, our neighbors remain just strange faces in the distance.

I wait patiently by my window for you again, Sun...
My face shall be the first face to greet you with a smile, when you return.

Transitions.

Matthew's Death:

Gloria holds her husband's weakened hand as he lays in the street, surrounded by worried and invasive eyes.

Ten feet away, a man frantically explains the situation to a stranger on the other side of his cellphone. His words are clumsy and his palms are sweating, "he's losing a lot of blood -oh, God, there is a lot of blood- can you please send some help?" .. "Help is on the way, sir. Can you tell me if he's breathing, please, I need to know that asap." The man swallows a lump in his throat, "just barely" he says and covers his mouth with his free hand.

Gloria gasps for breath, her lungs pressed heavy with love and fear. Why did this happen? she thought, as my eyelids flutter. "Stay with me.." I keep hearing, "stay with me.."

Her pleas send me back to the time when I fell in love with her, seventeen years ago, at the ripe age of fifteen. It was late and I walked to her parent's house to try to coax her out for a night time walk with me. I was unsuccessful because it began to rain, and her room was on the second story of their house. She whispers her fear of falling out to me and I blew her a kiss and walked home. Late that night, I get a call from Gloria and she's asking to see me. I can hear her swallowing sobs as they threaten to escape. I'm over there within minutes and climbing the deck, rail, gutter to get to her window. She looks magical with her hair a mess and her face stained with tears, free of make up. I treasure this sight of her, completely unguarded towards me. She is Gloria, simple yet astounding.

My eyes open to a blinding light that pains my temples. I blink and adjust. I look up to focus on the face of my beautiful wife, and a smile breaks across my face, so wide and so warm that I feel myself rise. "I am here, my dear," I whisper to her as I sit in front of her. Her eyes cast down and lift for the slightest moment, as if in reaction to my words; her deep, blue eyes are swollen and tear-stained; her expression blank and unforgiving. The crease between her brow has been intensified by sorrow, as it dances it's way across her face and through her eyes; spilling out of her eyes to continue it's dance on the ground, mingling with my blood. She weeps and allows her head to fall into her lap where my head rests.

Instantly, fear takes a hold of me and I began to feel uneasy. I have something to do. I have somewhere to go, and it is not here in front of my honest wife or my dead body. My dead body.. A wave of nausea and fear hits me, and probes every nerve in my body. I will never hold Gloria again, as she weeps over my body, I have to turn away.

The world that I inhabited begins to fade away. I turn back as the scene of my death begins to blur, like a pastel drawing submerged in water. Within a second, everything pools and drops to the ground in a mass of color that washes away, like a stream. It flows downhill, although, what that means on this blank canvas is uncertain. The only certainties are that the water flows and has washed away the world of the living; Gloria is gone; I am dead.

My fear begins to ease as a new feeling nestles it's way into my nerves: wonder. The ground on which I stand turns a deep shade of green, with patches of moss adding a nice contrast, here and there. Thick ceders begin to rise from the ground, growing feet by feet, within seconds, until they reach a satisfactory height towering high above me. A gentle breeze flows and tousles the branches with a wave that smells of cinnamon, once it reaches me, my senses are engrossed with familiarity, love, and warmth.


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Jezebel's Death:

The light of a soft dawn breaks through the trees. The light wraps itself around my lashes, skin, and lips, encouraging me to rouse and greet it with a sleepy smile. I do. I stretch towards the sky as the dawn bathes me in spotlight. I run my pale fingers through the tangles formed during sleep, with the gentlest of movements, the knots are free and my hair flows in fragile waves again.

Jezebel had slept in her father's old cabin, again. It was nestled deep in the woods about a mile from the home she shared with her mother. Her family owned the mile stretch of land, and her father had built a small, wooden cabin when Jezebel was only a baby. It had a cot with a heavy blanket --a smaller one for a pillow, a small wooden table with a drawer stuffed with pens, pencils and paper, one large window over looking a meadow, outlined by high trees, and a book shelf full of her father's favorite books.

She got up and walked to the window to catch the first movements of the day. She lifted her hand and gently touched the line of books along the shelf, the wooden table, the various drawings in piles left by her father. She said a prayer for him as a tear fled her eye. It dropped onto the top drawing of a lark drawn with immaculate detail.

Her father had died three years ago while walking home from the ale house in town. It had rained that night and the paths were soaked and slippery. --Some say my mother had cursed him to his fate, for she had shed no tear for him, while her daughter ached with pain and longing for her truly loved, and heavily missed father.-- He met his end when he slipped and his head discovered a boulder hidden in the dark. Granted, his eyes were blurred by the rain and fuzzy with ale. An unfortunate death.

Her mother had never known of the cabin hidden in a fold of the forest. Her father had built the cabin to relax and become one with nature, through his drawings, which was a passion for him. Her mother had disapproved of the drawings, saying, "what a waste of time.. The shingles need patching, the garden needs tending, the cows need milking. Make yourself useful!" He was an artist, everyone had known that. He lived in the trees with the birds; he saw the greenest of greens in the bed of flowers, clovers, and moss. Her mother had once known this and loved him for this, but she grew bitter after years of marriage when she had not become his muse. She was just a wife to him. He had loved her passionately and dearly, but he loved nature more. He had lived for nature, until his daughter was born, giving him a new beauty to wonder at in life.

Jezebel pressed her fingers to the glass of the window in the cabin. She gazed at the edge of the trees to see the morning birds cleaning their beaks on twigs and branches. A memory invaded her head and she was sitting on her father's lap, she was six years old and brimming with happiness, her father and told her to keep quiet as he picked her up and set her on the dusty ground of the cabin. He tip toed to the cabin door and slowly opened it with a gentle hand. He placed his finger to his mouth, to shush her, and tip-toed out of the cabin and into the meadow. Jezebel threw both of her hands to cover the giggles that were about to pour from her mouth. She sat on the ground hugging her knees, amazed at the warmth brewing around her and in her. Her father's head popped back in the door's frame and a hand beckoned her to him. She quietly joined her father outside, still covering her mouth for the fear of disappointing her father.

"Look at them Jez," he whispered as he lifted an arm, commanding her attention forward.

That's when she saw the fawn taking its first step on its new set of legs. Still wet from birth, it stumbled around in the comfort of its mother. She licked her newborn tenderly as it adjusted to its new life. Her head lifted every now and then to scan the meadow for danger, then continued to lick when she found no threat.

Jezebel squeezed her father's hand as he held her close, breathing as slowly as she could, fighting against her thumping heart.

The fawn had managed to stand steady on all four legs.

Tears streaked her cheeks and she let out a gasp that startled the deer.

The deer urged her newborn to run and they scampered deep into the meadow.

"That was beautiful," she whispered into the wind turning to see her father smiling at her.
"So are you my girl," and he picked her up and held her little body close to his. He felt her heart beat against his chest was thankful for life and for all things living.

Jezebel was brought back from her thoughts by the chirping of morning birds. She often lost herself in memories now days, and the absence of her father had left a gaping hole in her chest. She dried her eyes with a swipe of her hand and straightened her back, holding her head high. She would be brave for her father. She would be thankful for her father.

***

The dawn was starting to climb into the sky. I was starting to worry that mother would be awake, to hassle me for details of my whereabouts. Claiming she'll castrate the boy and disown me if I became pregnant. I laugh at her assumptions but I always kept her guessing. She could never know about this cabin, it was only for father and I.

Mother was too bitter and angry these days, she would surely burn it down if she knew. I had often caught her muttering obscenities at me under her breath, "little hussy, coming home in the morning, I never raised such a daughter." She would jut her jaw and turn away from me and walk out the room. I would sit there hurt and in rage at her jealousy of my father. She had become such a hard shell that he poured his love and energy into raising me in the forest, away from her sneers and glares of disdain.

I tried the door handle to the cabin but it would not budge. The door felt stuck by a force unknown to me, as if the hinges we frozen in place by the wrath of night against all things warm. I scratched my head, puzzled. I threw my body into the door and it finally gave way and open into the dewy morning. The cold bit me at once and I wrapped my light shawl around my shoulders to keep warm. I had slept in the thin, white, cotton sun dress I wore the day before when I came to the cabin. It provided little to no insulation against the morning air. Goosebumps littered my exposed skin and the light, blond hairs of my body rose like stiff spikes.

Most of the walk home consisted of tromping through the forest, but some spots I had to cut across the man made roads. There was a bridge up ahead, about half a mile from home, that I liked to cross. The road ran over the bridge and I liked to look over into the rushing water below, with the slight sensation of tossing myself over to become one with the rapids. Father always held on to me and let me look over, too nervous to let me look over the ledge myself. I saw my father in everything beautiful. He was in the trees; in the birds that flew between them; in the bugs that crawled over my toes if I idled in one spot for too long. He flowed through my hands as I lifted them toward the leaves to feel their flesh on mine.

My father had died when I was thirteen. For sixteen whole years, I lived with my mother as living proof that my father loved me more than he loved her. I grew up passionate for life, caring for nature, and full of innocence and joy. All things my mother wished she had never lost; wished that my father had kept alive in her, but were long gone and long since buried deep within her soul. She had let her jealousy and anger consume her, for years.

At the precise moment when I approached the bridge, my mother was standing at the foot of my bed cursing my absence, cursing me for having to provide for, cursing my beautiful face and loving spirit. The tears of my mother flowed hot and sticky down her face. She closed her eyes and wiped the emotion from her face and turned to leave my room. She began her morning chores by heating a large pot of water over the freshly built fire in the fireplace. She would think of me no longer that day. She began to wash me from her thoughts, with housework and boiling, hot water.

A thin fog rose from the river below the bridge, casting an eerie blur above, making it hard to see the danger ahead. I let my right hand glide across the rail guard as I walked across the bridge. I stopped in the middle and placed both of my hands on the rail and I faced the raging river as it flowed below me --and I felt it flow through me, giving me peace and I felt my father with me. He was tugging at my heart. Like a deer, my head shot up into the air as I heard the laughter approaching me. From my left, two hefty men were approaching the bridge stumbling over their feet, and slurring their words to each other. One of them spotted me in my thin, white sundress and stood up straighter. His right hand swung up to hit the chest of the man next to him, as if alerting him to my presence. With a curse, the other man followed his friend's hungry eyes to my direction, and he too stood straighter, with a purpose now. Their minds in sync --attuned to the same channel. They must be men from another town for I have never seen them before, but I've seen that look before. That look of lust and hunger, covering their face.

My heart froze, and for a second I thought it had stopped. My eyes never left the two men as I tried to read their reaction and assess the damage they could do to me. I collected myself and took a few steps back, ready to make my run for it into the forest behind me; the forest on the other side of this monstrous bridge, the side that held a happier fate for me. I felt two large hands close in on my arms from the back. There had been another man on the other side of the bridge closing in on me. He held me from behind and placed his rotten hand over my mouth to muffle my scream.

With no effort at all, he carried my kicking body to the other side of the bridge where his friends waited, grinning as if they had just captured their prettiest, meatiest game. I was thrown up against a brown truck as one of them ripped my dress open at my chest. My heart was pumping in fits of fury and fear, I thought that feeling alone would kill me, but it only distracted me from what they were doing to me. Through tears, I saw snarling teeth chomping at me; red, swollen eyes eating up the features and contours of my body; giant claws ripping my clothes to shreds, gripping my skin, and tearing my flesh.

I heard laughing, grunting, and a close panting in the air. I felt someone's hot breath against my neck, making my skin moist where it brushed against. I was able to free a hand to claw the man that had mounted me on the ground. I broke the delicate skin beside one of his red eyes and it started to drip with blood. There was a shout and an elbow closed in on my face, bringing about a pain so deep that it seemed to lock my joints and muscles. I was tossed from my back onto my stomach, where one of them continued from behind. My face was deep in the mud beside the truck, on the side of the road, by the bridge, next to the raging river that made the ground moist with it's fog.

With every thrust, my face sank deeper and deeper, and I swallowed mud and water in my attempts of escape --in my success in failure. I felt heavy and hollow at the same time. By the time the last man was done with me, I had swallowed my last mouthful of mud and it had stopped my heart. The blood in my veins began to thicken as they lost warmth and circulation. I watched one of the men pick up my stiff, naked body and toss it over the side of the bridge, where it crashed into the hungry rapids of the river below; the river that I felt like leaping into only an hour before. I had felt a heavy presence of my father then, when I was gazing into the rapids before my death. I now realize that he was warning me, hoping that my wild heart would overcome and bring my body with it, for once. I watched, from where I had died, as the men climbed into the truck, throwing my ripped dress and dirtied shawl into the back, where one of them was sitting, lighting a cigarette in his dirty mouth.

Later, he will throw my clothes from the truck.

Later, someone will find my clothes on the ground where the ceders line the road.

***

A lark flies from tree to tree until it comes to a halt on a branch near me.

I watched the lark as it cleaned its' beak and ruffled its' feathers to shake out the dirt. It began to shake drops of water into the trees and onto the ground. Where those drops hit, the color and texture would turn to water, that would spill to the ground to form a puddle. The world around me began to melt into tiny dew drops. A puddle formed --at my feet-- of the colors of the forest, even the white and blue hues of the river, were in the pool; the brown from the mud; the rust and steal colors of the bridge; the dark red hues of my blood, from my ravaged body were all in puddle at my feet.

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