blue-echoinglights

[blue-echoinglights]

alterplex

(adj.) divided, twofold, double.

My first clear memory of the heavens was of fear.

The night was young still, and I just as much. My hair was short and curly and stuck to my forehead, and my chin rested neatly on the edge of my grandmother’s jacuzzi. The water was near boiling, and my already pruned skin had begun to turn pink.

I refused to get out, though. Her porch overlooked the hills, and the air was crisp and gentle. Inside I could hear quiet voices, my brother having gotten out long before me and my grandfather beginning to head to bed.

Still, I remained.

I wasn’t sure why, but I felt that I had to wait. Had to keep my eyes pinned to the horizon, full of shining pricks of light and navy skies. The wind brought a chill that was strong enough to overtake the warm water, but the gooseflesh on my arms gave me no pause. There was something here for me, I was certain. Something I needed to know.

I waited. The churning of the pool water did not cease, and neither did my gaze. And, soon enough, the heavens answered.

A bright shot of a star scattered across the sky, followed quickly by its brothers and sisters. They danced across my irises, light footed and infallible in their journey. Though it lasted a mere minute, their effect was not lost on me.

I felt afraid.

A wish was mercilessly strangled in my throat. My fingers shook, scattering droplets of water on the tiles beside me. My tear ducts burned, and I brought one chlorine-drenched palm to rub them frantically.

Wish on a star, and it shall come true, they say.

I missed it. I missed it.

As much as I had wanted to wish, I felt raw. Seen. God had sent his children and they had looked straight through my being.

How could you even ask a favor of something so ethereal? So powerful? A being that danced across the rolling universe, wholly free and without their feet chained to the filth of the ground? Earth-walker that I am, I feel inadequate, inferior.

I stumbled out of the water, slippery and hasty in my escape. My heart was beating too fast, like I had encountered a wild animal.The light on the porch flicked on, and I startled. As I took a towel from my grandmother, shivering, I stole one more glance away towards the night.

It was silent, dull. Nothing was present, nothing to warrant my fear.

I swallowed and shut the door.

That night, I realized that promises and wishes were for people who were true, and connected, and close.

Human that I am, I’ve never been close to heaven.

<>

I’m not sure when I realized my family was lying to me, exactly.

I knew my parents disagreed with my mom’s family occasionally. But I was a child. I didn’t understand. They seemed like good people.

My grandpa Jesse was a pilot, good with electronics and woodworking. His garage always smelled like wood shavings and engine grease, but his hands were soft. He liked to read before bed and tuck my hair behind my ears, and I loved to sit in front on his dirt bike and whoop as we flew over desert sand. My hiking boots used to warm with the heat of the engine, and I was always fiddling with the gas cap and getting covered in grease and exhaust. He called me sweetheart.

My grandmother Linda always smelled like antique lavender. She had a habit of running her manicured nails over her palms, and always had raspberry vitamin water in the fridge. She spoke with a slight New York accent and I used to laugh at how she said washer like wersher. She laughed often and loudly, but always seemed to maintain a constrained air, like I could see hidden thoughts behind her eyes if I looked for long enough.

They were a dream, the fun grandparents. We camped in the desert and had bonfires and baked cookies and played with their golden retriever. They liked my drawings and listened eagerly when I told them about my horse riding lessons and they tucked me in at night.

It was a fairytale, really.

-

We are cleaning my closet out and coughing away dust when it comes back to me.

It was a fuzzy memory, dreamlike;  the words warped around my head and shapes indistinguishable. My hand held in an adult’s, their face blurred and uncertain. Your cousin, they say, handing me the paw of a teddy bear. He was in a terrible fight. We don’t know if he’s gonna make it. A frown, my five year old visage scrunching up in confusion. I fiddle with the bear and twist my head around, looking between the lines of different people that surround me.

The bear sits on my shelf now, soft and floppy still, if not a bit faded. Wiping my hands, I turn to my mother- “What ever happened to my cousin Nick anyways? When he was in the hospital from that fight?” It’s been ten years, but everyone would remember that, right?

My mom stops folding my old dress clothes, frowning. “What fight? He never was admitted to the hospital for anything like that.”

I sit back. Both of us are confused now, it seems. I wave her away.

My mind brings me another one, Your parents never wanted you to fly with grandpa- but they won’t know-, and why don’t you ask your parents? They are so strict- and all your cousins are coming to visit, but we haven’t seen you in a while, and I know your brother asked but we wanted to see you do it first-

Next to the bear is an old card, signed with my grandparent’s signatures and a little plane drawing. The lines are long and sloping and I get lost for a second, wondering, who knows the truth anyways?

-

My older brother was a smart kid. He loved electronics and computers, he loved train engines and flying and broke our desktop until he could fix it again. He was the algebra to my art, the chemistry to my english. He was sweet and looked very little like me, our dad’s genes far more prominent in his red brown hair and kind eyes.

And we fought. Oh, did we fight. We fought like we were afraid to stop. We fought with words and pulled hair and even bites, if I was angry enough. We fought like scared cats.

I was young still, seven or eight. My grandparents had a quiet side room near their office, with sea green walls and mint bed sheets. The desk had an old fashioned rotary phone, next to a golden frame of my cousin’s faces. I stared at my bare feet, hung off the side of the mattress like a doll with the springs cut. My knuckles were fisted in the sheets.

The only light came from the hallway, and I could hear my grandpa’s quiet voice carrying from the TV room. Something in my chest burned, but I didn’t look away from my toes.

My fingers tightened further, pulling at the rough threads of the sheets. What was this ugly feeling? It settled, dark and nasty, at the pit of my stomach. I wanted to say it was unfamiliar, but it wasn’t. It haunted me, here, like my grandparent’s house stretched and pulled at my shadows until my voice was loud and biting and hurtful.

It brought out the worst in me.

(Here’s another view: In another room, my brother sits in bed and wonders, What did I do to make my family hate me? Why does my sister know how to get their love and I am so incapable? Why does the engineer in this house pay more attention to a seven year old’s art than my own mechanical questions? Why do our parents disagree so much with grandma and grandpa, why do they treat us like- like- but why Why why Why-)

When we get home, my parents separate us until the dark feeling in my chest goes away. When it finally clears, I wonder why I fought with my brother in the first place.

-

I am sitting in the kitchen late one night, slurping my way through some corn puffs, when my mom tells me my grandmother tried to commit suicide when my mom was thirteen.

I’m not sure why I did, but I had asked when she had finally felt like an adult. With her reply, I set down my spoon and purse my lips. I cannot come up with a good reply. Who could, to that? I choose to wait instead.

“I found her in the garage leaning over the washer. I guess she tried to take too many of her pills, gotten too deep. I wasn’t sure. I remember the sirens, the firefighters putting her on a stretcher and not asking any questions.

I knew she had a rough childhood, abuse, assault, you know, the works. But I don’t think she ever dealt with it properly.”

My mom’s fingers are cradling a mug, and her eyes are a little misty.

“She never treated my youngest brother right. Mark. He was the family scapegoat, I guess, and she turned on him. He used to act out, I remember. Glued the locks shut once.” She lets out a short laugh at that. “And my middle brother, Paul- he was the favorite. I think he knew it, used to get away with everything.”

Her eyes have gone a little hard, and I’m still silent. Despite the fact I was an adult myself, I knew very little about my parent’s early lives. The basics, sure, but very little besides. I’m beginning to understand why.

“I was the adult.” She says, bitter. “I was their mother. My mom was better friends with the girls at church then she was with her own daughter.”

She takes a sip of her tea, and I look away.

I think about harsh words, and favoritism, and second meanings hidden behinds platitudes, and I wonder, did I really know the truth?

-

Packed away under my bed is a shoebox.

I didn’t hide filthy magazines or old diaries in there, just old cards. In that shoebox lay the words of two decade’s worth of birthdays, easters, christmas, and graduations.

Some of them sparkled, some of them made noise, some of them had little slots for giftcards, some of them had my name spelled wrong and “Happy Birthday, Granddaughter!” in swirly feminine writing.

Most of them were scrap, I knew. We don’t talk to my aunts or uncles and I stopped getting cards from them years ago. Whenever I got cards from my grandparents, they were filled corner to corner with we still love you and we hope to see you visit again and what a beautiful young lady you’ve become.

The last one rankles for more reasons than one, but I never throw the cards out.

Whenever one comes in the mail, my mom gets a nervous shine to her eyes. A pursed lip. “What did they say, now?” she’ll ask, and I’ll hold up a big check and a two page letter from my grandmother. She says nothing in reply. I’ll skim over the letter, but feel very little in response to the words.

(In another scene, my grandmother hands my mother a card with a smile. On it, her name swirls in pretty handwriting- but not her married name. Never her married name.

There is a reminder, there. Don’t forget who you truly belong with, it says. You can’t leave us behind, it whispers. Not ever)

I never throw the cards out.

What do you do with empty words, anyways?

-

Shortly before my great grandmother passed away, the family threw her a vibrant 90th birthday celebration.

The venue was at their old church, awash with the fresh scent of spring and the warming of the afternoon air. There is a music performance by an old friend, lots of cake, and nostalgic stories were shared relentlessly.

She was a firecracker, my great grandmother Jean.

Her hair was always done up and pinned perfectly, neat little waves and swirls held in place. I had never seen it down. According to my mother, it was a source of pride and a rare sight to see- my great grandmother’s hair used to be a deep ukrainian ebony, straight and well past her hips. It gleamed a proud silver in the light of the spring sun, that day.

I had been gifted her name when I was born. Jean. “God is gracious”. She had raised three young boys with a husband away at war, with the great depression on their heels and very little family left. She had told me once, echoed by the clock ticking on the wall of her kitchen, that it taught her value. She had grabbed my hands, oh so similar to hers, and shown me her cactus garden and her birds and her art. She had smiled with her cheeks and her little head tilt and told me about love.

Looking back at that church room, I realized that her sheer will was the only thing holding that family together.

(Here is a different view of that room: My father has been talked over for the third time in one conversation. There is a slight circle of avoidance around my uncle Mark’s table, one my mother and I have dared to cross. He is tall and imposing, but he shows me his camera and compliments my creativity. My cousin waits a bit further away, nothing to say to me. My grandmother tells my brother and I, once again, that it was a shame I didn’t want to perform for my great grandmother on my flute. In a hushed conversation, my mom’s cousins criticize my great uncle’s suicide. A drunkard, they say. Drowned himself to death, they snicker.)

The drive home was silent.

-

I don’t really know when I started noticing the fairytale had soured.

Age provided a different perspective, a distance to my childhood that allowed me to see the realizations that had led me to that conclusion. Maybe it was when I snuck around the corner of my parents’ office, seeing them spending hours drafting emails and pacing on the phone. Maybe it was when I looked back and thought, why did everyone have a different story to my memories? A different truth? Who told lies to a child?

Maybe it was when after seven years of silence, my mother decided to have coffee with my uncle Mark and apologize. Maybe it was the following shouting match that night on the phone. Maybe it was after we saw my grandparents only three times a year, twice a year, once a year. Maybe it was after I stopped fighting with my brother, maybe it was after I heard the nasty words my great aunt had thrown at my mother when they thought I wasn’t listening. Maybe it was after we got home from a family reunion and I had felt sick, feeling like I had played a role in a twisted storybook.

Maybe it started, and ended, with the heavens and emptied truths and promises.

-

One of the last few times we camp in the desert with the family, I lost my vision for around an hour.

The sky was as clear as it could get, and on those nights you could see the sprawling glow of the Milky Way. We would build bonfires out of wooden crates, and pour gasoline into the sand and watch the heat spiral up into the stars.

I was never a fan of the smoke, but I liked to sit in the lawn chairs and drink pepsi and giggle at my dad’s jokes. I used to race my cousins through the sand dunes and they would pretend to lose, and I used to carry around our dogs and collect petrified wood and squeal at scorpions.

The men used to take out their guns and shoot aluminum cans, old junk cars, wooden posts. If they weren’t shooting those, my uncle Paul would pull out the rockets and shoot fireworks into the sky. It was one of those nights, watching them pop and crackle and scatter across the rolling hills of the universe, that I realized I could not see.

My chin had been pointed to the sky, neck aching, my jaw hung open in wonder. The fireworks looked like shooting bullets, shooting stars full of color. The smell of gunpowder and sulfur was suspended in the air, nostalgic and heavy. I kept my eyes trained on the heavens.

My eyes began to sting. My right eye burned viciously, and I jerked my head down towards the ground. I thought for a second that it was just the bonfire smoke- I turned away from the people gathered, laughing and jeering at each other in their excitement.

It did little for my eye. I couldn’t open it at that point, and it was puffy and swollen. I stumbled inside to the nearest trailer, opening the bathroom cabinet and scattering eye drops. Little by little, the oily blackness that had overtaken my vision began to recede. I was left staring at my reflection in a tiny plastic wall mirror, lit up only by the occasional burst of light from the windows and the red emergency exit light.  

My hair was curled against my forehead, dusty and disheveled. My arms were a bit chilled from the desert night, and I shivered. My eyes drained tears, the veins swollen and angry. A hand came up to touch gently at my cheek.

There rested a small colorful tear, a remnant of the falling stars I had been so enthralled with. The paper had slashed my eyes, the burning gunpowder had attacked my tear ducts. Staring at the piece of firework paper, I couldn’t help but be reminded of that night on a porch, lit up by falling stars.

(Staring up at those fireworks, I had wished that it could last. That my fairytale could be honest.

The heavens had sent a reply.

Wishes are for things that are true, honest, connected. And your fairytale had never been any of those things.)

fin

[blue-echoinglights]

You know that feeling in your chest? The one where, when you press your hand to the warmth there, you feel as if an entire galaxy is setting your ribcage ablaze? As if a beast is howling in your lungs?

The tightness of your throat, the stinging of your eyes, the trembling of your fingers. The hotness of your skin, the clenched teeth and the blurriness of your vision. The overwhelming embrace of true feeling.

It’s an old friend of mine.

I used to resent it, really. I would have my eyes on the classroom chalkboard and think- not again. I would clench the fist in my lap and will the white hot fear blossoming in my stomach to fade away. Until I was numb, and my gaze felt distant, and I didn’t feel so much. It was easier that way.

I’ve been reading, as I so frequently do when my lungs become too small for the breaths I cannot take. It eases it, a bit, to feel things not of my own. Of the unrealistic hopes, of the dreamers, of the fantasies far away. Tonight, the transaction of feeling was not the normal give and take. The words flowed both ways, the emotion echoed. I could not remain distant as I so often did.

It seems that even if I chose to run, I often come face to face with myself in the end. No matter where I go. A two way mirror, an echo, a shadow.

The story goes like this:

He is a soldier, a man of barely 21, in grief and in growth and fear. He experiences, with his whole being, the sheer life force of the universe he lives in. The pride of his men, the loss of his father/brother/life, the weight of his fate and the power he wields in hand and voice and heart. He is strong. But he fears he is weak.

He has lost before. He fears he will lose again. He dreads the feeling of echoing grief and so so deep trembling aching fe a r that resides within his very being. He can crush mountains and hold a sun within his palm. Yet, he trembles at the touch of a hand upon his cheek and the gaze of the one he has lost. He is at once a god of immense power and a humble beast reliant upon his heart.

I read through his eyes. And the beast greeted me.

How do you know this beast? You ask. How can this greeting be one of familiarity?

I ask you this, in return: Do you not see the answer? A heart is a heavy burden. What are we, if not carriers of such a heavy thing? What is the purpose of our bodies if not for the heart to pump us forward, into the unknown and the known and the terrible and great?

My heart is my master,

and I am its beast

tonight, the echo roared.

that was his answer

and it too, shall be mine.

i am my heart’s proud beast of burden

and i would rather fade

than never feel its power again.

fin

[blue-echoinglights]

i sent you a note the other day.

well, ‘sent’ is a strong word. i stood in front of the ocean and willed my thoughts across the waves. i don’t have the guts to actually say them out loud, much less write to you.

you used to say that i was brave, that you admired my way with words. i used to laugh, and say you were brave to even be friends with me. it was, and still is, something not everyone could do.

in fact, i don’t think there is a single person besides you who could.

-

we’re driving down the coast, and i keep forgetting to look at the road. she laughs when she notices, and tells me that if we live near the ocean, why do you still stare at it?

a wry smile makes its way on my face. the freckles on her cheeks shimmer with the afternoon sun, and her laugh crashes on my ears like the sea.

it never gets less beautiful- no matter how much time i spend looking at it, i reply.

-

when we are 18 and stupid and a bit too drunk on the possibilities that our lives hold for us, she asks me a question.

“If you could have an ideal life, what would you do?” she’s lying next to me on her mom’s ratty picnic blanket, our elbows touching gently. her eyes are lost in the heavens, alight with the hopes of the future.

it’s incredibly clear tonight, but i’m too lost in my clouded thoughts to realize. a stray curl rests gently next to her temple, lifted in the breeze. i can’t help it and reach out to tuck it softly behind her ear.

she turns her head, and her gaze is too bright, too piercing. i move my eyes away and rest my hands behind my head. the stars are flickering. somewhere over the hills, a truck passes on the freeway.

after a moment, i grin. “i would be a baker.”

she laughs, startled. she remembers our last adventure with dough and yeast and flour covered hands and fire alarms. “we know how well that went last time.”

“i would call it ‘charcoal treats for the brave’.”

she’s still grinning. ‘i would be first in line, every morning. you know me. can’t get enough charcoal.’

my smile widens, but we go silent again. just for a moment, i listen to the waves crashing below the cliffs. an owl hoots, far and echoing.

i speak up this time. “what about you?”

she sits up, still quiet for a moment. when i finally look over, her face is full of determination and wonder. “a sailor.”

“oh yeah?” my eyebrows go up.

her mouth quirks, eyes locked on the horizon. “i’d have a sail boat, and cross the seas with my dog sidekick that I name scooter. watch the sunsets and write some books. maybe i’d sing for the mermaids on my way.”

“can’t forget the mermaids.” i quip, a bit too seriously.

our gazes finally meet. her voice softens. “no, we can’t forget the mermaids, can we.”

i love you, i think. i love you i love you i love you.

-

when we’re 15, and young and scared, she comes to class wearing makeup.

that in itself wasn’t unusual. her eyeliner was always perfect.

but today it wasn’t.

“hey,” I started. stopped. she isn’t looking at me. “what’s up? i saved some skittles in my lunch for you. my mom bought extra-”

she cuts me off, softly. “thank you. i’m okay though.”

my mouth clicks shut.

her curls shift as she opens her notebook. her cheekbone looks shadowed in the cheap classroom light, jaw clenched.

i sigh. “that bad, huh.”

she grits her teeth. “that bad. she told me not to come back for the week.”

i pretend like my vision isn’t shifting red, and try to keep a light smile. “well, you know you’re always welcome at my house. god knows you’re already there most of the time. i’ll text my mom.” not that my mom was a saint either, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

we were just friends, anyways.

(and if her mom’s neighbors suddenly strung up a truly obnoxious number of rainbow colored items in their yards, well. that was none of our business)

-

“there,” she says. “almost done.”

the grass i’m lying on is starting to make my legs itchy, but i’m completely still as she traces lines of paint along my arm. she’s told me not to look. something about a surprise.

“you said that ten minutes ago,” i tease.

she scrunches her nose at me. i resist the urge to reach up and kiss it.

i lock my jaw and flick my eyes to the clouds instead. bird song fills the air, light and airy, and the skies are a sharp blue against the treetops. the winds tousle my hair, honey sweet with the scent of spring. 

her voice cuts in, a bit distracted. “you know how artists are. gotta get everything just right.” she’s adding details, i think. i can feel the feather-light dancing of careful brushstrokes along my wrist.

“well, i guess that’s what i get for being best friends with a perfectionist.” a snort is her only reply. she knows i’m even worse.

it’s a beautiful day, the kind of forest scene where you expect the frogs to speak and faeries to giggle behind toadstools. she had convinced me to stay in the shade, where she had laid her art supplies. i hadn’t the nerve to say no.

there’s something to be said about art in the making, i think, watching her eyebrows crease as she mixes colors. something kind of raw about it. honest.

the thought makes my lungs tighten a bit. honest.

maybe i should be that more often. for my own sake.

i push the thought away as she sets her brush aside and sits up, excited. “okay, i’m done! you can look now. and don’t-”

“-judge, i know, i don’t know why you’re always on about that, your art is always-”

my eyes catch on the scene spreading along my arm, and the words leave my mouth. she’s painted the sea, stretched from wrist to elbow, glowing in the warmth of the setting sun. the palette is stunning, and if I look close to my elbow, i can see a little sailboat with a dog perched on the prow. my heart beats fast, and sure enough, there’s a tiny shadow of a mermaid waiting patiently on my wrist.

“-perfect,” she says, and i look up to see her watching me.

“yeah,” i say, not looking away. “perfect.”

-

i have bad days and good days. she knows this. i know this. i can’t help but wish it was otherwise, sometimes.

today is a bad day.

i haven’t responded to her calls. my phone is somewhere lost in my rumpled bed sheets. maybe i threw it across the room. i wouldn’t remember.

the fan circles above my head, too fast and too slow. my head aches and my pupils are unfocused by now, but i can’t look away.

the summer heat sits heavy in the house, and so does the feeling in my chest.

maybe it’s for the best, something whispers. maybe it should happen this way.

the carpet is too thin. the floor juts into my shoulder blades, my hip bones. a spider crawls along the door frame, and my eyes track its graceful march.

maybe she deserves better.

the door slams open downstairs. i can hear keys being thrown carelessly in the ceramic sea shell bowl we keep near the entry way.

“Rachel?”

i close my eyes, willing the voice away. just leave.

the footsteps get closer, determined in their intensity.

please.

in the hallway, the steps pause briefly at the bathroom. the relief in the pause is just as audible. too many bad nights have ended there.

the reminder causes more aches to spread through my temple. by god! for your own sake-  

she palms the door open. “God, Rachel, I thought-” her shoulders droop, and her voice softens. “I don’t know what I thought.”

i’m silent. go go go please just-

she kneels next to me, and a soft touch gently pries open my fingers from where they’re fisted in the carpet. she guides my hands and my back until i’m curled around her middle. the first sob is silent, a hot exhalation of breath.

stay. oh god. just please stay. her fingers cradle my neck. the sobs are wrenching their way out of me now, audible and terrible. “I know,” she says.

please don’t leave.

“I know,” she whispers into my hair.

you’re the only one i’ve got.

-

sometimes when we’re in public, i look at her and think- how does no one else see this. can they understand the sheer devotion and love i hold for her? me, an apostle to the holy? me, a follower of the light of the suns, a servant at the alter, a serf of the divine.

i follow her like i follow hope and destiny and the shimmer of our star at sundown. trying so desperately to think, this was made to be, it won’t end.

(when she walks in front of me, there is a fear that she will simply fade away. that i will have been nothing more than a religious fool in a hopeless myth)

-

we are driving home after work, and she’s resting her head on the cool window, breath fogging up the glass. i used to tease her that i would aim for the potholes on the freeway when she did that but. we both know my fingers rest ever so more carefully on the steering wheel when she’s next to me.

the freeway is near empty, this time of night. shift went late. her hands are neatly folded in her lap, and lines of fatigue are cast in neat shadows with every passing streetlight. we are 23, exhausted, and more than a bit scared.

looking at her, though, i know i am not lost. i am right where i need to be.

she tilts her head, and a smile cradles her face. she sits up from her slouched position and nods her chin towards the next exit. “this one,” she says.

“are you sure? we normally take the 15-”

another nod. “i’m sure.”

i flick my blinker on, head over shoulder, switch lanes. click, click, click. all the while wondering why tonight, of all nights, she’s decided to change her direction. i will follow her without doubt, of course, but i’m curious.

there’s a question in my gaze, but she doesn’t look at me. “do you remember that one trip we took after midterms that one year? after you failed your dev bio exam?”

i scrunch my eyebrows. “to the castle ruins?” they’re coastline barracks from a century old war, but we’ve always had overactive imaginations and a taste for youthful naivety.

“yeah.” there’s a hint of wistfulness now, shadowed by the weight of exhaustion. a wish for lighter thoughts, a touch of adolescent hope.

i tap my thumb on the steering wheel. “you wanna get some froyo and sit on the edge? for old time’s sake?”

there’s a little more light in her eyes, a quirk to her mouth. “for old time’s sake.”

when we finally make our way up the concrete riddled hill, the moon has started to reflect long lines across the rolling waves. my sneakers are wet from the dew-soaked brush and i can feel a chill along my neck.

there’s no warm blanket to sit on this time, so we find an outcropping and swing our legs over the side. the frozen yogurt sits sweet and cold on my tongue, an aftertaste of youth and old nostalgia.

she’s still quiet. i’ve tried to crack a few jokes here and there, but her responses have been short and soft. she needs time to think, whatever it is that is bothering her. i let her have the silence, just soaking in the salty air and letting the rumbling of the surf fill my chest.

i wonder, not for the first time, if this is it.

she hums, and i’m broken out of my thoughts. maybe i should wait longer, but i feel like i need to say something. “what is it?”

there’s a pause. my heart slows, echoing with the beat of the tides.

“I think,” she says, eyes still on the horizon, “i may be in love with you.”

i freeze, not daring to breathe. the chill spreads from my neck to my spine. for a second, I worry that she has somehow gotten the note I had sent, that the ocean had betrayed its vow of silence.

“i didn’t want to admit it. but i think i’d rather have you know and have you leave then spend any more time living a lie.”

her voice has dropped to a whisper. i don’t have to look to know that tears have begun to pool in her vision.

i take a breath, and it wobbles. her hand is cool to the touch, but i can feel the pulse beating frantically underneath her skin. i raise our conjoined fingers to her cheek, and our foreheads meet. her eyes are frantically looking between mine, but my gaze remains constant. in the space between us, whirlpools of fear and vulnerability and warmth and belief and life spin tirelessly.

i hum, a grin threatening to make its way on my lips, “seems like i had nothing to worry about after all.” the song in my soul, the shifting of the sea, comes to a crest, and the emotion comes crashing in.

i kiss her.

sitting upon that ledge, she tastes like hope and strawberry froyo and truth and salty ocean air, and i know that we were never, not once, a lie.

.

.

.

fin

Baby can't you see there's no other like you

When you leave I'll expect the things you'd always do

Maybe it's a death wish to have become so used to

You and me, you know I need to know that you'll be true

                      - Kate Bollinger, No Other Like You

[blue-echoinglights]

Villanelle

Are you content?

It’s a good question, you know.

It seems every day you wake up already spent. 

.

 Maybe it was never about your own intent.

Perhaps it was only to ask when your talents would show.

Are you content?

.

You’re sorry to misrepresent;

Sorry that you’re not the perfect part to set the stage aglow. 

It seems every day you wake up already spent. 

.

 You nod your head as if you knew what their words meant. 

They say it’s all because you need to grow. 

Are you content?

.

Maybe the brain lost your serotonin when it was sent. 

Maybe the joy was not meant to happen- you aren’t in the know. 

It seems every day you wake up already spent. 

.

 Perfection is a word you’ve begun to resent.

If you were just that, maybe happiness would’ve already said hello.

Are you content? 

It seems every day you wake up already spent.  

[blue-echoinglights]

Sky to ground, a careful creature

made friends with even opposites of the earth......

There’s something strangely hypnotic about fire, you think.

It’s not alive, but there is a certain spirit to it. It dances, teasing a flick of heat into the night air, shifting to tiptoe across the logs you’ve built it upon. It sways with every breath of the wind, and if you didn’t already know that it was soundless besides the occasional pop or crackle, you’d assume it would sing.

Finally moving your eyes from the flickering of the fire to the wisps of ascending smoke, you trail your gaze into the heavens. The night is still young, and the stars are beginning to breach the tree line. With the west wind comes a sense of cool freshness, but you can’t help but feel a bit lost. Directionless.

You’re broken out of your musings by the hesitant warmth of a canine tongue on one fingertip. The pup is looking up at you with eyes that seem too old, too knowing of the emptiness that seems to be emanating from your chest. But, in a blink, the look is gone, replaced with its regular playful wolfishness and a slow tail wag.

You give him a small smile, and begin to scratch under his muzzle, the spot that makes his leg thump in a pleased rhythm. You hum. “You always seem to know when I’m getting too lost, huh, boy.” More scratches. The wind shifts direction, and the smoke swept into your face makes your eyes sting.

You sigh, and take a moment to lose yourself in the warmth and flickering flames of the fire before you. Through the waves of heat, you see the telltale red leather of your notebook tucked innocently amongst your bedroll. You stare for too long, eyes unseeing.

The water pooling in your eyes is not from the smoke, but you shift positions anyways.

“I think it’s time for a little night stroll, wha’dya think?” Your canine friend tips his head with bright eyes, tail scratching arcs into the forest floor. There’s an excited woof, and you laugh. “Ok, let me grab my coat, and we’ll go for a little adventure.”

The notebook remains carefully on the edges of your vision as you ruffle through your pack and shrug on your coat. You pretend your hands aren’t shaking. You are running, you coward. Just like you always have.

There’s flashes. Faces, open and free in a laugh, in horror. A cry of joy, a cry of agony-

Hyeong-jun

Navi

Mia

Luke

Tao

why did you - should -have  - you must go - i won’t just abandon - there’s a thundering in the ground, the rumbling of artillery - the walls are cracked and worn, and the bloodied hand that reaches to caress your face is just as scarred - there’s a horrible keening, straining your throat and echoin-

“Jeremiah.”

A hand scrubs frantically across your cheek, and you resist the urge to check if it’s stained red. You know it won’t be. The phantom warmth of viscous liquid remains, sunk into your skin.  

There’s a claw digging into your knee, and a whine that cuts through the haze.

“Oh, hush, Jaq, I’m coming. Just got.....lost.” Jaq barks and pushes off his leg to bound toward the treeline, slobbered tongue flopping without dignity. You huff, “You mutt! Wait for your old man.”

Despite the hour, the trees are easy to navigate in the starlight. It casts an eerie glow, but you can’t help but feel relieved. Worse things had happened in broad daylight, anyways.

I told you to go! For once in your life, listen to your commander!

I can’t ju-

Please! If not your commander, listen to your father.

p l e as e just-  

I-

-Go.

Jaq is barking again. You’re choking on a sob, hands fisted in the pine needles splayed out on the forest floor. You don’t remember sinking to your knees, or feeling the now sharp sting behind your eyelids.

You are a soldier, you think. You knew it was going to be difficult. You grew up as the son of a military family. You had gone to more funerals by age ten than most civilians had by age 50. You knew.

But you could not have known. No human could truly know this sort of agony, until they had experienced it themselves firsthand.

You recognize that your throat is burning, that your shouts and cries are ripping apart the hushed tranquility of the darkness around you. You scream, It’s not fair, they should have taken me instead, it’s not fair it’s not fair I would rather just have died myself then live with out you-  nobody could have known I just needed more time its not FAIR -

Jaq is there, pushing his weight against your torso and grounding you to the dirt, the dirt you had wished had just taken you instead. He’s pushing his muzzle against your sore throat, and your unsteady hands grip his fur with desperation. Spit bubbles on your trembling lip, the fury from before long dissipated. Your voice drops to a whisper. “How could you have gone without me?”

The forest does not answer.

But the wind whispers, and the stars blink high above, persistent in their gift of sight. The tear tracks on your cheeks glisten like rivulets of silver.

“Dad, why do the stars blink at us?”

You’re six, the age of big questions and an even bigger world. You’re swinging your feet at the kitchen table, and your father is cleaning one of his pistols. He picks up a rag, freshly oiled, and begins to work it between the engraved ridges of the metal. He lifts his gaze up, eyes distant, but still playful. “What do you think?”

You always liked that about dad. He never did the hard work for you. He made you think. “Well.....I always thought they was like eyes, b’cus- sometimes they cry. Right? The rain?”

“’Were like’.” He corrects, gently. He’s set the pistol down, and his eyes have settled on his scar again. The one that ran past his thumb, curling around his wrist like a snake. He never talks about it.

He huffs a laugh, gaze finally lifting, and drops next to you at the table.

“Well then, whose eyes are they?” You know that to anybody else, they would think Dad is mocking you by asking. What soldier cares about the stars? But you know, no. Dad does. Dad always cares.

You frown and tilt your head, thinking. “I  think...I think that ey’re are all the people who love us, but can’t see us on earth no more, So they blink, so we know they see us.” Your eyes light up, lit with an epiphany. “Like a night light!!”  You turn to look at your father, and startle to see the full focus of his gaze on you. The scar soon takes his attention again as he leans back with a chuckle, voice a little too hoarse and eyes distant again. He hums, in thought.

He quirks his mouth in a slight grin, and his gaze softens as it lands on you. “Well, then maybe I’ll be up there too someday, and I’d be proud to be your nightlight.” He stands and presses a quick kiss to your forehead, laughing as you squirm.

“But don’t worry, I won’t leave just yet. I have a little kiddo to tease first.” The soft look is gone, replaced with his trademark mischievous grin.

You’re instantly on the defensive. “I’M NOT tic’lish! I promise!”

He laughs, a full sound that fills the too-empty house. The stars blink through the window, ceaseless in their provided light.

You realize that the forest has gone silent again. Jaq is still lying in your lap, and the chill of the late hour has started to seep into your bones. You’re still staring into the heavens, watching the pinpricks of light shift in their positions.

Your gaze finally focuses, and know what you must do.

.

You had taken this trip in the hopes of escaping the people, mostly. They had congratulated you, speaking of honor and bravery and sacrifice and most of all, ‘heroism’. You had felt like laughing in their face. War doesn’t make you a hero. War makes you a murderer, and at best, dead. 

How could you say you were honorable when those names lay listed in your notebook, crossed about and never to be spoken again? When you had to face a teenager’s mother and practically say, “I’m sorry for your loss, your son spent his last moments vomiting his intestines and praying for me to forgive him?”

They worshiped the heroes, singing praise about ‘patriotism’ and ‘fighting the good fight.’ How the people who go to battle are deserving of respect, and love and support.

There is none left for a soldier who returns from war. There is no good fight. There are no heroes. Only broken men. And people would rather live in a daydream than acknowledge they were sending their sons to die.

.

Your footsteps make no sound as they cross across the pine needles, and Jaq has returned to his favored position alongside your left leg. His presence is a constant reminder that even in this mundane task of walking, you still have a willing friend.

The fire has been reduced to embers since your walk, but it doesn’t take much to pile on more logs and light the kindling with a small match. You shake your fingertips to rid them of the match’s sting, and stand back to watch the flames grow.

There is one more task you know you must do. Eyes flick towards your bedroll.

Hesitation.

This is childish, you think. Soldiers don’t believe in the stars. There is nothing pure on this Earth that soldiers believe in, not really. You stand there, breathing in the smoke, letting the weight of that thought settle in.

Then- But I’m not a soldier.

Mind made, you take a step towards your notebook. I am a brother in arms. Another step. I am a fighter, step, a lover, step, a man, step, a friend. When you’ve reached the notebook, your shadow darkening it’s soft leather cover, you take a breath.

I am a son.

Your fingers grip the red leather, darkened already by consistent use. It takes more effort than you’d like to admit, to flip that first page. You may have done it hundreds of times, but this time is different than the rest.

1/03 Nick

1/22 Hyeong-jun

2/ 02 Alex

4/04 Navi

9/15 Mia

10/22 Luke

6/ 24 Rosa

8/25 Yijun

The list stretches for several pages, names of people long gone. Some older, some newer, but of the same pain and longing nonetheless.

As you flip through each page, each memory, the pain in your chest tightens. There, at the final page, scratched with innocent blue ink, sits one final name.

_/_ Jeremiah

No date, but you knew it was coming. You had waited for the day you knew you were going to die, for the date where someone would finally lay you to rest.

With trembling fingers, you rip the section from the page.

Jaq noses your leg, giving wet kisses of reassurance. You grin weakly as you stand, tucking the torn paper in your pocket. One last thing, you think, staring at the notebook held loosely in your fingertips.

It takes a step to approach the fire, the flames still dancing lightly as they were before. With heart held in your throat, your fingers reach and let go.

The notebook burns just like anything before it, unknowing of the weight it had carried. With every wisp of paper that drifts into the air, the tightness in your chest loosens. Each name grays, cracks, and swirls within the fire, becoming one with the waltz of heat and flame.

As they swirl into the night, you realize that this is what breathing feels like.

Maybe it was a childish fantasy. Maybe the stars truly do not provide sight. But just this once, you think, and smile up into the night.

Maybe they’ll see better from up there.

.

Behind your back, a single star blinks brighter, ever vigilant in its careful watch.

.

.

.

End

[blue-echoinglights]

“I'm in way over my head here....over....Oh and how I long to breathe air....”

You take a breath. It’s short, unsatisfying, and has that unmistakable smell of unwashed train seats and a long day. 

Tapping your finger pads along the threads that make up your backpack straps. Shifting your weight to the other foot, sneaker scuffing against the dirtied rubber lined floor as the train car sways gently along the tracks. Your earbud cords thump across your chest, and you stare, listless, at the white wires that disappear along the folds of your jacket. 

“Despite my glorified foresight, no one will be talking in time....”

Lost interest in your shoes prompts you to look up, just enough to catch the reflection of your eyes in the sunset-tinged windows. They’re grey. Clouded, your mind supplies, not unlike your thoughts. 

Nobody in the cab speaks. What is there to say? The day has set, and the night air has just begun to brew. The work may be done, for a handful of hours, but tomorrow you will step here again. You will see the same grey, listless fa- fac-e s- 

Your music stutters. Or maybe it’s your ears. You aren’t quite sure, because those aren’t your eyes staring back at you anymore. They’re flashes of silver, the sun lighting ice ablaze, the glint of steel. For a second, you swear you smell wet leaves and a warrior’s cry, and the sweet caress of a hand upon your cheek. 

But then it’s gone. You breathe again, and ground yourself in the gentle tone that chimes your next stop. You hardly notice when your music begins to play, echoing softly in your ears as if it had never left. 

“....because there's far more than meets the eye that I've come to admire, all that you have in your sights when I'm slowly losing mine.....

[blue-echoinglights]

I was not made to stay in one place.

Perhaps it is not only now, when I can feel the suffocating routines of my life pressing on my thoughts, that I am able to notice this fact.

When I was younger, I found myself looking out the window of our truck with a sense of longing, of reaching, of curiosity. I used to joke to my mom, ‘It’s always about the journey, never the destination’ because when we pulled into the parking lot of our destination I was itching to /move/ once again. To learn. To keep going. To /run/.

There’s something about liminal spaces that I’ve always adored.

The minute I stepped into the airport at 13, I fell in love. I loved watching people, seeing all the different places they were going and coming to. Just being in an airplane and seeing the stretch of humanity below me and knowing that here, in this little space, time did not matter, made me the happiest I could be.

Traveling through fields of corn and watching the laborers pick strawberries and going through valleys of simple life and cacti and trekking through forests of trees older than my great grandparents all had the same effect- this beautiful feeling of flying, of running with the wind pushing you forwards.

When our family went camping, I used to wander off and find the /spot/. I would spend hours making little pathways, little bridges and trails to get to this little spot of haven in a world that never ceased spinning.

Oftentimes they were forks in the branches of trees, where I would breathe in the scent of moss and cool air and just sit up there and watch the wrens hop along the ground below. Sometimes they were rocks on the sides of streams, worn and smooth and cool to the touch, where I would dip my feet in and watch the clouds reflect on the water. Others were hills that overlooked the sea, where I could sit on the grass and listen to the waves slam against the rocks far below.

I loved the feeling of moving, because it could bring me to these places of steadiness. Of groundedness.

It’s interesting, because when I found this feeling in a person, I realized that’s my love.

My love for what is here and what could be, my love for the past that moves into the future, the love of simple existence and the wonder of the sheer complexity of this world.

I love being in a space where nothing is held against my aching shoulders.

Rather, it swirls around me, gentle, soothing, a guide. Sometimes I choose to go with it, to let it pull me along into a future I have yet to see. I let it pull me to these spots of rest, where I can reminisce about my memories and those yet to come. And when I’m ready, it pulls me forward again into a new world of growth.

I suppose it has been many years since I last let it take my hand. I stay in this fixed spot of work and exhaustion, forcing my own guide to abide by my rules. But now, I understand that you can’t force water to run upriver.

I pay for it.

My happiness is determined by what the river has given me- little flowers and jokes and stumbling upon those small wisps of steadiness and reminiscence in even the smallest of moments.

But my soul is tired, now. My mind is destroyed, beaten, torn from within. In those small wisps of reminiscence my guide whispers to me of past memories and pain I thought I had buried. Release them, it tells me. You have held too long onto your poison. Let yourself heal.

And I’m scared. I buried those thoughts within me so I could avoid the truth, could avoid the pain I had faced for so long. I told myself, if I just kept moving, I could run from it all.

I was running, but in the wrong direction.

My guide tells me to grow and explore, and instead I put a leash around its neck and insisted it follow.

And now I’ve stopped, in one place. One where the river pushes against me and chokes me, pulls me beneath the surface and tells me that I’m going upstream. I can feel the current, can feel it pulling me to a place I cannot see, but I resist. I say, others have insisted I go this way- and the river gurgles and spills over my throat. Your way is a way of fear and denial, it says.

I am scared, I reply. Scared scared scared of the truth I have hid so long, that in fact, I come with baggage that I have blamed myself for. Scared of the fact that I see myself as a shell of what I could be, that I am my own worst demon, that it’s not my fault. That the world treats us so unfairly.

I see myself of the future, guided by that light river, strong and happy and just so bright- and I’m scared. I long for her. I hope for her. I wish that someday, I will meet her.

I’m scared.

I know that in meeting her, I will have to conquer my worst demon. And if there is anything in this world I loathe and fear most, it’s myself.

So I fight. I will push upstream, until I can fight no longer and my fear has been lost. I know then, it will take my exhausted body and guide me to a place of haven. And I will move forward once more.

After all, I was never made to stay in one place.

The tags on this post, because they are important:  

“I kind of feel like tagging this as 'character study' because it kind of is. I don't know if anybody else feels this river.....maybe it is just another creation of my mind. but I can feel it. it's always there? especially when I'm traveling and thinking alone......

it's my guide. it helps me learn, and I didn't know how to describe it. perhaps this is our idea of God or the force if you will haha but in short- i have fought it for so long my body has begun to fall apart. my mind first. because I have denied my soul happiness and traveling; soul searching if you want to call it that. idk it's an interesting piece of writing that randomly came to me......I am analyzing the 'trapped' feeling that I get so often, and acknowledging all the repressed memories that have been coming back of my childhood and my early adolescence; also acknowledging that I am not trapped but rather I have been fighting something out of my own volition. 

@future self I hope you get to read this someday and realize you did meet her

[blue-echoinglights]

believe me, oh young one

when i say this is not your final destination.

you are not fated

to remain with your chains rooted in the ground.

isn’t it dirt where all things grow? where they reach for the heavens?

believe me, oh tired one

when i gift you dreams of a warmer sun and a loving gaze.

you are not forever burdened

with the weight of the chilled shadows that follow you endlessly.

believe me, oh fierce one

when i guide your words to war and love and truth.

your tongue is a powerful weapon

but it is also a healing salve.

believe me, oh fearful one

when i can feel your trembles in the evening light.

your tears are not a weakness

but a strength glistening in your eyes.

believe me, oh young one

when i say this is not your final destination.

you were not born to touch the stars

you were born to create them.

[blue-echoinglights]

what do you do when it becomes too much?

sure, i know what i did. i starved myself because it was too much. i took away and held myself at knife point and said it was so I could survive. this is the right thing. the running and the starving and the counting.

it was too much so i gave a little bit of myself away, bite by bite, to make room.

i was afraid and the only thing i felt i could do was to enact rules. because the thing i was afraid of had no rules. the world does not have limits or regulation. it has chance.

i spent so much of my life chasing after the idea of complete correctness. i am eating right, i told myself. i am studying right. i am exercising right. i am living dying right.

at some point, my body knew something wasn’t right.

the fatigue, the effort of walking (not biking, no, that was not enough to make room for it, no, it had to be walking) to my lectures (the ones i refused to miss, always at least ten minutes early, not a single minute wasted or lost, the perfect student always right right right) the lack of sleep the nightmares the refusal of food in my stomach the hollow indentations in my chest the numbness that spread from my fingers to my elbows and the feeling of wrong wrong wrong that swelled with every step

but i lied to her. i told her that her cravings were not right. her hunger is a lie her pain an apparition of past mistakes. her irritation and fatigue a symptom of laziness and bad character. i told her, these are the results of your wrongness.

my mother worried. i gifted you that life blood, her eyes seemed to say. why are you giving it away? what are you making room for?

i told her, you don’t understand. i must do this. it is the right way, mother. why can’t you support me? i thought your job was to guide me along the correct path. this is it. why do you look at me with that fear?

it took months, weeks, a year, for my body to call on its lifeblood again. too much had been taken. there was not enough left. there was no room for laughter and art and poetry and friends. there was no room for life. only fear. only dread.

so my body sang, and called, and it overruled every law i had enacted. my word lost its power. the nerves in my brain, the pathways of starvation and desperation and pain i had formed, were not enough to quell the urge to fill the space once more.

so yes, i have regained that space, filled it with lifeblood and muscle and protection against this world. in doing so, my old fears have begun to overflow once more. it is too much. too much. too much to o m u ch to oo m uch

but i refuse to starve again. i must be wrong. i must be. i must…..

be.

that is all.

i am neither wrong nor right, i just am.

i must simply……..be.

[blue-echoinglights]

this blizzard outside sounds like you.

i close my eyes. i know i shouldn’t think. my thoughts always come back to you, anyways.

(the world is screaming. it’s crying. it’s blaming. accusing. why weren’t you there? why didn’t you listen? why can’t you just lOok aT mE–)

A flicker. A glance. A flinch, turning away from the window. Maybe I’ll make some tea, I think.

Soft footsteps pad across the wood panels, and the tinkling of the cups fills the space between myself and the nois- WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY can’t you SEE mE WHY won’t you ACKNOWLEDGE ME and turn arou- e that encloses the cabin. When it reaches my lips the tea is too sweet, and I grimace.

You always liked yours bitter, anyways.

The grimace turns more pained. You did, didn’t you. You liked bitter things. Maybe I learned that from you. Why else would I have endured the acrid feeling of your care for so long?

Some part of me says I’m better off without you. Maybe that’s true.

But then why can’t I treasure the good? Why do I feel like I’m a locket of solitude, clustered away from the howling that fills the outside, an empty space that neither loves nor hates. A silence.

What is silence? A space to be filled? Or does it exist as its own entity?

(am I nothing without you?)

Here, there should be peace. There should be warmth, and safety, and the sweet release of breath. Of a sigh long trapped, released.

But all I can feel is numb.

There is a clink as I set the cup down. A shuddering reflection stares back, trembling with the soft displacement of my breath.

With each exhale, the mirrors of my vision seem to implode. not eyes as they are on my face, no, but galaxies. bursts of light and rippling space. the swirl of colors captures my focus, steals my breath. there is no sound here, I think.

there is no sound, but there is color. Shifting amber browns and starlit aqua, tantalizing reds and vibrant, lively greens. supernovas, i think. my lifeblood. my breath. my soul.

you were born through stardust, the ripples seem to say. don’t you forget.

sound doesn’t travel through space. but you my love, your light will shine through eons to come.