Captivity

Once a woman who had lain naked and terrified in the house of her captor managed to escape. She ran away through the forest behind her prison, though her hands remained bound by the last, unbreakable, chain. At first the trees were wicked, perverted from their natural grace by the evil that emanated from the house. They reached out with thorns and branches to bar her way, ripping a thousand angry wounds in the woman’s tender flesh, but she would not be slowed nor turned aside. As she left the influence of her captor the forest mellowed and directed her to a stream which merged into a creek and then a river that flowed into the sea.

Dream House

Most houses reaching this point of decay await only the wrecking crew, though one I have seen resurrected as shrine to our patchwork, violated, seductive, wondrous bodies. I have come in search of my first crush, a relic of the times when familiarity was the only ingredient needed for backyard weddings, and the family cat stood in as witness, maid of honor, and priest. I find the one I seek by following the pointed instructions of cracks slashing across the ceiling like the hand of death come to claim this place. She is kissing another boy.

She was always quick to kiss the other boys.
She was even quicker to dump them.

I help her take out the trash and things are just as they should be: only her, and me, and the dusty jukebox that is the only evidence this house was ever fit for human inhabitants. We dance in the feeble glare of flickering neon lights. This, at last, is paradise.

But peace is fleeting and jealousy always lurking, and I am dogged by the kiss I walked in on – the kiss that wasn’t mine. Never mind that if it had been mine I would’ve been dumped as quick as he, for the touch of our lips would have pulled us forever out of childhood; I wanted her as I had always wanted her.
And as she, apparently, had wanted me, for quicker than thought we are sharing our first kiss, at once tender and hungry.

The cat chose this moment to tear through the room, hissing and spitting at the dog right on his tail, before flying out the door and down the stairs. My first crush and I are quick to give chase. We must rescue our priest if we are to ever have our wedding.

three or one

This is the worst time of night.

Papers are due. When I try to write them, all I think is—

SLEEEEEEEEEP!

When I close computer, curtains, eyes, I cannot sleep but am besieged by thoughts of home. Where I will be. Wednesday. Where the battle is brewing. Where Father is finding daily new and creative and vile ways of making life miserable for Mother. With his HR smiles and puppydog eyes and lifelong practice in the arts of blaming others for every despicable deed done; ever and always turning his back on those who need him to be someone else.

On me.

I had a dream.

I was picked up at the airport by Mother and Father. We were in the car: Father driving, Mother in the passenger’s seat, and I in the rear. Mother and Father had no details to them; they were silhouettes within the bound of windshield frame, shadows cast upon the background of C-470 – the road not yet Home but close, the gateway between wherever-I-have-been and where-I-belong. Of course, it is a toll road. You can never go home without paying the toll.

Mother: We’re so glad you’re here, Tom.
Now that the three of us are all together, there are Things we must discuss.

Father: Three? There’s no three here. There’s One, and one, and a therapist – and now he’s going to fix you.

I raged, in the dream. My heart was left behind, dropped from the car, skidding on asphalt, pulped beneath tires of passing cars. All that was left was hate. My words spit like acid, demanding to be known by Father as anything but a tool for controlling Mother. Possibly even as myself.

Awake, I don’t even have that much.

I am a stone. Push me from this mountain peak; I will crash into the valley, there to lie and never be moved again.

stand out

Never have I had such an intimate knowledge of how cheap words can be.

Thus, a pact: my words will be significant, if for no other reason than their rarity. I will count the cost of every syllable uttered.

I am intimate with the words of others. I am consumed by them, making love to their uses and missuses. I am tickled by a turn of phrase. I laugh and weep and cry and hate the countless thousands I turn passed and into.

Their stories no longer make an adequate stand-in for my own.

Safety Asparagus

I’ve been watching the show Terra Nova lately. It’s not the greatest storytelling ever, but it has dinosaurs. RAWR!

This week they surprised me with a simple – but remarkably well written – segment on safety planning in the family (one of many topics that has skyrocketed in importance to me after the Domestic Violence Advocacy class I attended a few weeks ago). I want to recreate some of that scene here, both to celebrate a rare instance where primetime television encouraged positive family dynamics and to inspire myself in my current project: writing a children’s book that would be of value to a child after witnessing violence in the home.

Jessie, tell me a story…

The scene:

Breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe (where Michael and Heather and Jacquie work) with family: mom, sister, sister, adopted brothers. The place is full, and loud. I ask youngest sister to tell me a story, and she asks “about what?” This is what I say to her..

The Parameters:

I want zombies, and I want them to be the good guys. I want to root for them to eat all the brains. I want them to be so good that, when the story is over, I want to BE a zombie. This is the tale she told..

The Story:

Amanda Barbee is a zombie.

This makes Tom really upset, because he was starting to think he really liked her. He is not at all happy about having to kill her this early in the relationship. Furious, in fact. In order to blow off some steam before the mercy-killing he knows must come, Tom runs out into the streets of Seattle to slaughter some zombies. He bashes in heads by the Space Needle and squishes faces at Gas Works. He chops off legs at Golden Gardens just to watch them crawl through the sand–and laughs. Eventually he wears himself out, returns home, and collapses into bed.

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning Tom awakens to find Amanda looming over his bed. “Oh no,” he thinks, “now I really do have to kill her, or she’ll turn me too!”

“Wait!” Amanda cries. “Don’t you see, this is the next step in our evolution. We must become zombies to be freed from our chauvinistic ways!”

This makes perfect sense to Tom. Of course zombies would be freed from the scourges of kyriarchy! Is that not what we’ve been working toward all along? He reaches out to Amanda and she tenderly chews off a hunk of his flesh, infecting him with the virus that will bring equality to all of humanity.

The End.

He Who Walks Behind

i enter in peaces

filled and emptied

filled and emptied

emptied and

filled

with strength

she comes as

a child.

He

follows.

tall, dark, and

sinister

never seen

–always felt

His weight does

not bend her

but makes her

rigid.

for a moment

i stand

between

my shoulder

blades

the rents from

His wrath

fester.