DFA Writes

start of a possible short story February 15, 2007

To be sure, he really didn’t know. Didn’t know if things were going to work out this time, if she was going to come back. He didn’t want to think about it; not now, when there was the game to be watched, and the beer to be drunk. She’d done this before, said she was leaving to go live with her mama because she couldn’t take his lying ways anymore. But then she’d come home a few days later, needing some money for some cigarettes and beer. And he’d take her in, they’d make up, only to hate each other by the end of the next week. Once upon a time, they had been in love; he could remember their wedding day like it was yesterday: the beautiful woman walking down the aisle to meet him, the way she had looked when they left the reception, the way it felt to wake up next to her. That was before the miscarriage, the loss that ripped them apart faster than a steak knife through bread. When they found out they’d lost baby, things would never be the same. She quit her job at the hospital, couldn’t bear to see any other women having babies, taking classes on pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding when she should be taking those classes herself. She told herself she would get another job, but slowly the lazy days at home became weeks, which in turn became months. Her husband knew she wouldn’t ever work again; not with the emotional scars she was dealing with. And so she turned to alcohol, the only thing that could take her mind off the baby. . .

What I learned today February 15, 2007

Today I can see what real women are:

women who

iron Sunday clothes

scrub kitchen floors

have babies

women who

hold a shotgun in one hand and a Bible in the other

wear gold-plated cross necklaces around sturdy necks

women who know how to master the feminine and masculine arts with no more than the deep red lipstick on their perfectly-pursed lips

In the glass picture frame I see a woman who could live life to the fullest without fearing death

And when I focus closely in the soft yellow lights

I can see myself in there, too.

Pulses February 12, 2007

I always hated taking pulses
Hated the feeling of warm blood pumping beneath two fingers
Hated that section in Anatomy
I was sickened by the
Blue rivers running under translucent skin

Until last night
When she said she couldn’t feel a pulse and I jumped in
Tempted to say
“Let me!” “I studied this in anatomy!” and “You’re doing it wrong!”
Then I saw and I knew that
No amount of practice in anatomy labs could bring you back
Could provide the feeling of warm blood pumping beneath my two fingers
Could make those little rivers run again

Dear Anne of Green Gables, a kindred spirit is hard to find/ i’m tortured by Scarlet O’Hara’s nightmare November 5, 2006

sunday afternoons

– never felt so lonely in my life

lips pursed to form a “shhhh” against the cold winter winds and people laughing together:

me still

alone

they forgot to invite me inside

their secrets too much for me to know
i was

handed a daisy
but oh!! how it tortured me so in the palm of my hand

seeing bouquets of tulips and roses in all the others

would a hand full of dirt have been better could we have had that in common!

closed fist- fingers wrapped tightly around the stem,

one hand plucking:

they like me, they like me not , they like me, they like me not. . . .

i look up from my solitary thoughts

and i am left standing alone with nothing but a naked flower stem in my left hand.

eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches together/ maybe we should have played more games of hide and go seek November 4, 2006

here from my bed of purple and white flowers

i Watch you

my Eyes linger on your face

a portrait painted with sheer innocence.

Watching from atop my mountain

where i alone exist

i Laugh at you

lackadaisical

running through your backyard: a safari

your curly-blonde hair:

spaghetti

crazy as you.

as i lie here

Seeing you stumble: (glass shatters into a thousand pieces against a cement floor)

“watch out!!!. . . my tongue and lips form words that can not be uttered

can not be Heard

sometimes i Wish you were a checkers game

and i could jump over the things that get in your way

removing obstacles

but

here i am

tied down to wishes and hopes of things

that can never happen

helpless.

maybe you don’t need me anymore

me: Wanting to guide you

i can Forget you and cherry red cheeks from play, and sweat dripping down from your head, and the time i tried to explain the concept of aunts to you and you did an “ant dance”, and robot walks across an unpolished wooden floor

but sometimes i’ll think of the laughter and steal a glance at you:

a face hardened by too much of reality

and then i’ll remember the laidback days and

how you made me smile.

Juxtaposition of a farmer and a ballerina November 3, 2006

Dirty landscapes

twirling seas of dry grass and dead leaves

a tornado of emotions

seeping in and out of their

imaginations

meandering through the back alleys

of their minds

their own ballet

a dance of life and

freedom and individuality

They wait with a pitchfork in one hand

Fingers curved around it

imitating the ballerina

Ms. Havisham’s suffering November 3, 2006

Delicate

lines of loneliness and age

invading her soft white skin

Scars of a love

sacredly guarded

an enduring obsession with the mere idea of

him

she saves his toothpick from years before

and the wine glass half-sipped before his departure

Love letters void of real substance she keeps

expectations of forever

She is trapped inside an eternity of yesteryear

A sort of Death that does not kill

yet mask and hides the

realization of lost love.

Where I’m from November 3, 2006

10:00 on a Tuesday morning

lazy dreamers awaken to the soft

pit-pat

of a little boy playing

his imagination running on bare feet

Not much excitement in

This house

placed in an empty city

that has nothing but a dusty streetlight or two

filled with the salty smell of bacon

breakfast is almost ready

Across a small field

the whistling of a train echoes

as the train keeps its schedule

passing through

twice a day

A reminder that life continues

Stretched out on a second-time-around pumpkin orange couch

soothing voices of family fall gently on the ears of the children

an embracing peace

Soft chirps of birds outside

hanging from green-yellow trees by the Methodist church

invite the children to a new day.

Outside

cool raindrops fall on their hair and their lips

sweet kisses of time linger on their tongues

held out with which to catch the water

These memories

call to me

beckoning me back to that old house

Where I belong

Where I’m from