to feel the moss of the forest floor - this was her favorite. she would bend down periodically, just to caress the soft verdant covering. when she came upon a cluster of burgeoning ferns, she reached and ran them through her fingers like she would strands of a lover's hair. she loved the forest quite as much, and found spending time in it much more peaceful than time passed with any lover she'd ever known. the sun-dappled ground. the falling leaves led in a gentle dance by the breezes. the sight of it all renewed her spirit, in the way...
He looked upwards. My goodness - it was high! What would he feel like under these arched ceilings, dwarfed by the massive columns and enclosed within the brick and stonework of this enormous building? A cold wind blew between the arches and pieces of litter fluttered by.
But to gain entrance to this place he knew that first he had to pass the exam. And he knew he had not prepared enough, not worked hard enough, not learnt the texts by heart as he should. He had been too busy with other things; eating and drinking, loving and sleeping, singing...
"Swing." She watched her daughter, ignoring the wails and screams.
"Push me Mom!"
"No. Lean back and put your legs out. Then lean forward and pull them back."
"PUSH me MOM! NOW!"
"No. Lean back then forward. You can do it yourself. You will go higher then. Higher than even I can push you."
"MOMMY! Push me!"
"No. You need to be able to do it yourself." She watched as her daughter swung her uncoordinated legs about before giving up.
"Mommy! It DOESN'T work!"
"Let me show you. See! If I lean back and forth the swing goes without someone...
Goodnight sweetheart, well it's time to go...
Goodnight sweetheart, well it's time to go...
There's a contentment there. I find myself humming that, especially when everything has gone to hell and the day is a loss, and yet there is still the final evening bits to get through.
It's Sha-NA-NA in my head. A sense of contentment settles over me, a sense of belonging - to another time, a younger time - a time before pain. Well. A time before this particular kind of pain, or even the pain of what was coming a few years after that song stopped...
The disco ball was turning. Who knew there were real discos anymore, with real disco balls?
This was my seventh time coming here in three weeks, all because of her. It was the same story every night: I walk in, I see her, I sit, I do nothing. Why do I do nothing? She paralyzes me. She paralyzes me but she doesn't see me. Or so I thought.
--
She's back. Again. Seven times. Seven nights of coming in, seeing me, sitting, and doing nothing. Why does she do nothing? It's clear she sees me. It's clear she wants to...
What's this?
Dad showed me the picture of the orangutan splayed on the grass.
A monkey, I said.
It's you, he said.
Neither of us laughed.
Remember that time you asked me for a Coke and I stood at the soda machine filling it with Root Beer imagining Homer Simpson saying Mmmmm Root Beer?
Dad laughed.
I laughed.
It's silent most of the time now. I don't think to text and neither does he.
"Clung to" means everyone in the house knowing when I am there and when I am not. A friend is dropping off some cookies she made...
Dancing on the beach in bare feet. What a careless thing to do. You could get glass in your feet, or step on a sharp rock. And what on earth are you wearing? It's too cold out; you'll get sick. Get back in the house this minute, girls. It'll be dark, soon, anyway, and you shouldn't be out after dark. That's when the bad men come out.
Sometimes, I wish I could be like you. Innocent, with the world ahead of me. Able to do silly things like dance on the beach at sunset without worrying about the consequences. But...
He sat in the truck parked on the gravel drive, his arm hanging out the window, a cigarette dangling from his finger. The radio was on and Bon Jovi's Bed of Roses was blaring.
She watched him from the behind the closed screen door.
He lowered the visor so she wouldn't be able to see his reddened eyes. Def Lepard's Pour Some Sugar On Me came on next, and he tweaked the volume nob. He could tell she was still looking at him.
He finished his cigarette and flicked it out the window. He took a long drink from the...
It was enjoyable, this feeling. And so unaccustomed! He had come to a place in his life where so little really made him happy anymore. Leaving the store, though, despite the fact that it was a cloudy, cool day, he felt sunny on the inside. He had bought a new shirt, and he was wearing it - he decided to put it on right away, before he had even left the store. It was green - but a certain shade of green that he didn't see very often. It was his favorite color, and it had called out to him....
Seed sack in one hand and broom pole in the other, Johnny Appleseed approached a patch of freshly tilled earth. Four rows, twelve feet long each, ran parallel to one another. With the broom pole in his left hand, he faced the first row, made a hole and dropped three seeds within. He sidestepped six inches to the left, made another hole, dropped another three seeds in. At the end of the first row, Johnny briefly glanced back over his shoulder and caught a hoarding chipmunk stuffing his face with seeds from a hole he'd just sown four feet away....