Angry

Someone threw it away

Thinking it was nothing

When really it was everything and you were nothing

Now there is a void

As if everything that mattered

Everything that made breathing

And living make sense has been carelessly tossed in

The trash- like yesterdays news

Or vomit something unused

And unwanted

I’m broken

You win.

Lost

Eyes closed

Can’t see

Can’t breathe

Stumbling in the darkness

Falling

Crashing

Breaking

Bleeding

Crying

Dying

Will I ever find the way back home?

The music rings in my ears

In my heart

So deep inside I can’t imagine

The sounds I suddenly hear

I hear it, I feel it

Inside

The sound fills me

Echoing deep where I didn’t know there were holes

Its spilling over

Like a cup of wine

Spilling over and out

So I’m crying its raining

All spilling confusing

Dripping draining

It falls through my fingers

Puddles on the floor

I’m slipping and falling

Crashing down

The music all around me

Swallowing me

From the inside

Turning me inside out

So I don’t know what’s real

What’s me

But it’s everything

And so am I

You are a pitiful excuse for a human being
Just thought you should know
Just in case, by some weird happenstance
You hadn’t been told, or hadn’t realized before now
Your existence is like a plague or some sort of gore fest
You are a festering annoyance that no one wants around
No one really cares about you
They pretend because your humanity frightens them
But really you are like a boiling sore that no one wants to talk about
But everyone is disgusted by it, by you.
I can’t really figure out why you’re even alive
Was there some sort of divine calling I missed?
Patience, joy, peace, love, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Gentleness, self control, and what, revulsion
You are lower than dirt and less significant than the shit that clings to my shoe
Less than human and somehow less than garbage
I don’t understand how you can live with yourself
So insignificant and so worthy of disgust
Your unworthiness is almost in art
You have somehow managed to cultivate over time
I just thought about you in your wretched state, I almost pity you
But then again, I think I hate you too much.

and ten... the language is once again less poetic its hard to create a flow of unity when each ahs a different idea, a different character im trying to get across..... so excuse it but let it be :p
            As I packed up all the junk my dad had managed to accumulate in the 6 years since he had divorced my mom, I let my mind wander.  Every time I lived in the moment and remembered where I was my whole body would start to tremble, the old fears I had worked so hard to get over began creeping back into my mind trying to consume me alive.  So I started making lists in my mind of all I needed to do.  Making lists is something I inherited from my mom.  She is always making lists for everything- groceries, to do, goals, problems, solutions, pros/cons, everything.  If something can have more than two things written following a thought my mom has probably written a list on it.  Its amazing how much lists can calm you down, something that was once overwhelming can be a manageable account of something easily done once it’s written in a list.  I have developed a lot of habits that I can trace back to my mom and list making is just one of the many little eccentrics.
            I carried a bag downstairs of garbage and then out to the garage.  Looking out over the garage I realize that I have already packed a ridiculous amount of junk.  So I decided to start taking trips to Salvation Army today.  The drive there was interesting, sure I used to know this town inside and out but I haven’t been back in awhile and I really am horrible at consulting maps.  I ended up driving all over town before figuring out I just needed to turn left and go about two miles to get to the Salvo.  I think I dropped off a thousand pounds worth of random knick knacks and clothes.  The black Avalon I had rented was so packed full of garbage bags and boxes I couldn’t see out any windows.  Probably not one of the safer things I had done, while driving around lost.  That’s when my phone started playing Falling by the Beetles; it has been my mom’s ringtone ever since I have had a cell phone.  So funny she would call when I had just been thinking about her.
            “Hey mom”
            “Char!” as if anyone else could be answering my phone, “How is the packing going? Did he have tons of junk? What are you guys keeping? I can’t believe your sisters are making you help out, when they knew how you felt about him!”
            “I told them I’d help out mom, I was ready for a vacation and Ivee had to go back to her family, Jazz had to get back to work, I don’t mind.”
            “Hmm” I could feel my mom reading too much into it, trying to dissect it, “Well I just don’t think its right!”
            I endured my mom’s righteous indignation on my behalf for another few minutes before I finally made it to the drop box.  “I gotta go Mom, Love you”, “Love you too Char, call me if you need me!”
            As I threw away and gave away all the things that made up my dad’s life I thought about things my mom used to say.  She used to tell me that when I was younger I adored my dad, she was never sure what happened to change it.  I don’t know either, I have hated him ever since I can remember, hated him or moved on to just not caring.  I would live in indifference for him until he would do something or I would just think of him and hate him.  I hated him so much that even I knew it was wrong.  But I could never explain why.  I hated the sight of him, why his touch on my arm for his weird hugs disgusted me, why just looking at him sometimes made me want to vomit.  It was the kind of hate that consumed, but when it first started there was nothing I remember that was at the core of it, sure as time passed I came up with reasons since everything he did grated on me, but there was no foundation for it.  My mom used to tell me stories about how I used to hug his leg as soon as he got home or how I just used to stare at him and adore him, this was when they were still married and she wanted to repair his and my relationship.  My mom was always trying to fix everything, yet another trait I inherited, but some things just aren’t fixable, some things are broken forever.

             I saw him again.  His eyes were black, not dark brown or anything but black like a night sky without stars.  They didn’t seem empty though, they seemed to burn.  It was late, around eight, I had been stalling at the waffle house across the street, but even a waffle and a glass of orange juice shouldn’t have taken two hours to eat.  I don’t know what I was waiting for or stalling from.  Something inside me was just holding me back.  When I finally realized how much time had passed I paid for my meal and walked across the street to my safe haven.  The smell of old well loved books once again permeated my system and without a word or movement my entire body seemed to relax.  He was sitting behind a row of books on the floor, his eyes were closed.  His skin so pale it brushed on translucence and I thought perhaps he had come to the book store to die.  I touched his cheek as softly as I could and whispered- as if I would break the still peaceful revere surrounding him otherwise- “Are you all right?”.  That was when his eyes flicked open and I saw the depths of darkness.  Then as quickly as the burning was there, it disappeared.  He smiled at me that breath taking smile and said “I wondered when you would come back, I was waiting for you”.

           One night when I was still young, eighteen and thinking I was an adult who knew everything, I woke up in the pitch black of my empty dorm.  I tried not to wake my roommate as I slipped into a robe and walked out the door.  The rain gently caressed the windows making almost shushing calming noises as it fell in torrents outside.  I couldn’t see any stars from the windows as I climbed down the stairs hoping no one would hear me. 
            I meandered without seeing, still caught up in the dream that was haunting me night after night, robbing me of sleep and serenity.  I didn’t try to analyze it or think about it, the cruel touch of it sullied me and made me want to shrivel up and slowly fade to nothing.  The rain became louder as I got closer to the side door.  There were no lights on outside as if the power had gone out, not just on campus but in the bleak night sky.  Not one star shone, and if the moon was out somewhere I couldn’t see it from here.
            I slipped out the door.  There was not porch or over hang to protect me, the rain fell in torrents around me and on me.  It quickly soaked me through.  As I stood outside the door, shivering in my shirt and robe, being soaked through and through I just wished it would wash everything away.  Clean me finally of the everlasting shame and grime I felt coating me.  I stared up at the sky, feeling the rain fill my eyes and we cried together the sky and me.  As if we were one and the same, she understood my pain and covered me with her blanket of tears.  Sobs racked my body- tears I had been holding in so long it felt as if my last wall broke down in there wake.  I cried till I was empty of everything and cried even after that.  The sky continued to cry with me as if she were trying to help me hide.  We cried for hours or perhaps minutes or maybe even lifetimes, crying till the tears were so many I drowned.

            I suppose it was hard for me to understand why all the packing was necessary.  Ivee and Jazz were with me today as we boxed up pictures we knew no one else would find value in and piled high more things to join our donations pile.  I guess it was really the pictures that surprised me most.  They were all over the front rooms of the house.  Me smiling out in my senior picture, my sisters and I in a group picture we took Christmas of my junior year at college. There were no pictures of me post-college, but pictures of my sisters in their older years were hanging.  A classic picture of Ivee and her family was cheap black frame I knew she hadn’t picked out and a small photo of Jazz and some friends out at a café.
        “I didn’t realize you guys were still talking to him so much” I said out loud.  I hadn’t meant to, it came out more accusation then thoughtful question.  As if I was betrayed in some way or their choices disgusted me.  When really I didn’t think I had cared that much, not really, not while he was alive anyway.  They looked at each other and passed some sort of silent mutual agreement.
        “You told us never to talk about him Char, so we didn’t, it doesn’t mean he stopped existing”, Ivee’s matter-of-fact tone scolded me as much as at placated me.  I guess it was true I hadn’t wanted to think about him.  This place, its memories.
        “He always asked about you” Jazz said as if she was trying to mollify me and redeem the conversation.  As if that made it better, I hadn’t talked to him in five years.  I hadn’t needed or wanted him it was the way it should be.  Our relationship at best had been rocky at worst destructive.  I shrugged my shoulders as if it was nothing more than weather we were talking about, “I just hadn’t realized I guess”.
    I let my mind wander to the bookstore and last night.  I had gone, meandered down that aisle.  He hadn’t been there, but I suppose I really wasn’t expecting him to be.  His smile, his face had been too surreal to be something I could find within the shelves of a small bookstore.  I had been happenstance and perhaps a small bit of miracle I had seen him the once anyway.  Maybe I’d go back tonight, not for him of course but to soak in the calming essence of old well-loved books, I needed peace.

and five- another flashback woot

            I was desperate the first time that I dated a guy, I mean really dated.  Not necessarily desperate for a guy, but for that deep connection you often feel when you look into someone’s eyes and see that they adore you just as much as you adore them.  Perhaps I was so desperate I began seeing things that weren’t really there.  Or maybe I was fooled.
           He said my name deep in his chest as if he were trying to hold all the sounds that defined me within himself.  I loved it. It thrilled every part of me that wanted to be possessed and owned.  And that perhaps was my downfall.  Possessive and controlling behavior can only hold tight to someone so long before it breaks them down.  I think a small part of it was he was my first- my first kiss, my first thrill, my first desire.  The one thing he wasn’t was my first love.  He used to throw it out there all the time.  I love you Char he would say.  At first I didn’t know how to respond, I felt the words meant something- perhaps giving them more credit than they are due.  And I couldn’t just say them to respond to a sentiment, like it was nothing more than words that meant I like you or I’m mildly fond of you.  Love inferred some deeper soul connection something- more.
           The first time I sensed something was wrong was on a night when the moon were so big I felt it would swallow me whole.  He held me a bit longer than usual on the front steps to my door.  While he held me he whispered in his deep voice “I love you”.  I held him tighter, not knowing how to respond.  Suddenly he held me away from him, looking into my eyes he clenched my arms and repeated “I love you Char”- slowly as if I were challenged or stupid.  I looked in his eyes and what I saw there frightened me, though I had no reason to be afraid.  Nothing he had ever done before had hinted at violence or aggression, I shouldn’t have been afraid.  Besides his hands clenched tight on my arms, there was nothing to fear, but some small part of me cried out in alarm.  As the silence stretched on his hands almost seemed to close in tighter.  The vulnerable part of me shied away from aggression and in a small voice I whispered “I love you too”.  It was that night the first part of me died a little bit and I began breaking apart.

I think it is silly to look for answers when you don’t really know the question you’re asking.  So I guess it made no sense that I was here packing up a house full of belongings I didn’t want looking for the answers to questions I didn’t have about my father.  While I am sorting through messes of clothing, Folding and separating what can be donated and what will be thrown away I let my mind wander.  I am thinking of returning to the book store tomorrow.  It’s been a few days and I can’t get that smile out of my head.  It’s as if it has become the face I see in the mirror, blocking out my own reflection.  I wonder if he is a regular, perhaps I will see him again.  Or perhaps in all his glorious perfection he wasn’t even real, a figment of my over exerted imagination or my first impression and angel visiting the world to report back to heaven.  It seems almost wrong in a way to be thinking of this one living man who owned a moment of my time when a man who owned a lifetime worth of moments is dead.  It isn’t hard to think of him in terms of past tense, its how I always though of my dad.  He was this or he had done that, he really wasn’t a part of my present till now- till he was forced to be by death and responsibility. 
          I wish Jazz or Ivee were here.  They wouldn’t mind remembering the past.  They found it easy to recall good times that included my father over bad times, or at least they seemed to have an easy enough time of it at the funeral.  They cried when they were supposed to, and reminisced about funny stories that included Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons and our dad’s warped sense of humor when they were supposed to.  And I stood a cool unemotional rock in the midst of there emotional exploration and honoring of Dad’s life.  I tried to cry during the funeral, I thought of all the things you’re supposed to, puppies dying, losing a friend, emotionally dramatic movies, but nothing; it was like there wasn’t anything left in me to cry even one tear.  If Ivee were here she would say something responsible and organize the cleaning, if Jazz were her she would say something philosophical about a life half lived and avoid work at all cost.  Instead I am here alone, sitting in silence listening to the hushed whisper of fabric brushing against fabric as I slowly empty out a closet of someone I barely knew.
         When we got the ashes after the service all three of us discussed what we would do with them.  I suggested we flush them down the toilet; all I got for that comment was a droll stare from Ivee and a small smile hidden behind a hand from Jazz.  Instead they took them out to the lake.  I volunteered to stay behind and begin packing up the house.  I didn’t want to see the dust he had returned to. 
           I decided to go to the bookstore at eight tonight.  I was desperate to feel something and I was hoping I would be able to see my angel tonight.  Maybe he would be there, and maybe I could see his smile and be enchanted again.  Something good had to come of being back in this place where all my dark memories were hidden in dark corners.  I needed to breathe and release and let them go.

Too late words come easy
They flow out as if a sudden
Dam has broken along the
Lining of your heart.
The torrents of words you had wanted to say
Pouring forth like god’s great flood out upon the earth,
A waterfall of all the things you meant to say.
Though no one who matters hears,
To most you are a babbling brook
With no meaning and no destination
Behind the streaming flow of words.
But to that one, it would have been everything,
To you it is everything,
if only you had told them
Before it was too late.
But it is only too late that words come easy.

Silence’s embrace is cold
Her hold is cruel and quiet
Once wrapped within her grasp
It is hard to escape.
Her mouth on yours leaves you mute
If she wishes to instill her sister Quiet for a time.
Her breath in your ear causes deafness
That leaves Silence to reign forever.
The burden she gives is heavy,
Weighing down on you in the day.
But monks embrace her close
Buddhists worship her piety
Lovers celebrate her dark curves and hidden passages
Thieves pray at her alter and seek refuge in her depth
And Night, Night loves her above all others
Charging the Moon to shine down
Forever illuminating her dark beauty.