Written/Journalized/DUMP:

Start of Journal Entries Checkpoint #1

“Hope is a waking dream.”    -  Aristotle

Please God,

though I never truly believed in you-

and every time I say your name something in me screams-

take away her pain.

I lay on her back,

my hands folded over a shoulder blade

and with each terrified,

angry

shudder,

I wonder if these hands can hold her together.

What if your Faith is not enough?

And my hand are too weak?

And there is no one left to show her

that there is a God,

though I’ve never believed in you,

and that there is Light,

though I’ve never seen it,

and that there is Hope,

though I lie when I tell her that there is-

that at the end of the day,

there’s a way to be fixed.

Will you be there, God?

If she truly believes,

will her faith create you?

Will you be able to tell her what I couldn’t?

Oh, God let these shambles stay together,

patchworked and shaky,

for just a few more days-

Always a few more-

until I find the power

to strengthen these hands.

Far Fetched Idea from Childhood: (I made a story once about a different world called Aeryn. Here I explain some magical things about it. :X)

In the beginning, there were three dominant categories to the creatures in the world of Aeryn. As any world, these creatures shared in the powers that held the equilibrium; of inverse “substances” that balanced by way of constant rivalry.
Of these substances we can best describe them as “Light” and “Dark”, though not traditionally in the sense of the words. “Light” was the wild magic, the soul’s ultimate capabilities unleashed and molded into shapes and life, that in time took the form of the Fey. The creatures of light were not kind nor protectors by nature by any means, as is often misinterpreted by the assumptions of “Light” bearers. As forms of wild energy, they were wild. However the Fey were aware of the balance needed for equilibrium, and though they were constantly unpredictable, their presence alone maintained the “Life” for the “Death” residing in the Dark.
The Fey’s presence in Aeryn, as bearers of “Light”, effected the land and its inhabitants around it. Men and beasts, cut off from the wild magic by their attachment to the “Mother Elements”, were often changed by close contact with the Fey. In this spread of wild magic, many more species were born.
The Light Bearers are the strongest sources of magic in the land of Aeryn. Of these beings are Faeries, pure light and energy that can take most any form, though they prefer small human-like shapes. Dragons, power-houses of life-energy processed into imitations of the Mother Elements. Dragons often resemble their most favored element collected into the shape of a winged beast. There are Unicorns that grant wishes among women and toy with men… and many many others. Light Bearers are the vessels of life energy from the planet, but often grow bored or lonely and so use their wild powers to interact with the lesser creatures. They often imitate (as in the Dragons inclination towards elements, the Unicorns draw to men, etc…)Being “touched” by the Fey awoke a power within the afflicted, men and animals split into sub groups of tens of thousands of beings. Some of these were talking beasts, elves and dwarves, changelings- anything and everything you can imagine.
However, as the wild magic spread, so did the “Darkness”. The Light Bearers inverse relatives were terrible creatures; where the “Light” gave life, the “Dark” stole and ravaged it. Contrary to the Light as the source of wild magic, “Darkness” was similar to a void; crazed and perpetually hungry for the souls denied of them. They were hunters and scavengers of the wild magic in the creatures of Light and the Soul Elements. Afflicted similarly to the way the Fey were noted to “touch”, those who lived through their encounters with the Darkness were driven by the maddening need towards the “Dark” and lost to the Mother Elements and the “Light”. Blind to the reason behind worldly balance, the Darkness were ignorant of the equilibrium’s valuable scale and what it meant to tip it…
As time passed, the natural boundaries of Aeryn were breeched and the Darkness began to greatly outweighed the Soul Elements and the Light Bearers, casting shadows over men and the natural beasts and destroying one by one the innocently wild powers of the Light. Under such pressing times, the Mother Elements and their Brothers were forced to find a way to retrieve the balance for the sake of all life.
Unlike the “Light” or the “Dark”, the Mother Elements were born of the land; Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth were manifested into what today we call the Kigh, residing within the natural habitat of Aeryn. Seen only when they want to be, the Kigh have no real form though they are often mistaken to look similar to sprites or faeries. When looked upon in the chance that they are willing to be seen, the Kigh take on the form of what is expected in the eyes of its beholder. Kigh are simply the presence of force within the natural elements of the land. As was later uncovered, this presence also lies within the chambers of a human heart. Four chambers for each of the Mother Elements, the heart contained the soul, therefore creating Soul Elements.
“The power of life that maintains the world, maintains the man.” -Empedocles

Human Interest Story: Laari’s Persecution (Made a Biography)

In Old Bohol, before the times of Cebu, there were many unwanted children born. Many ailments to the people. Many battles that had and would ravaged the land and steal lives. The city was large, dirty, and and inhabited solely by like men. Weaselly men who had fed their fortunes by ways of theft or murder- gambling or whoring. Dark things. Needless to say, the city was no place to live for anyone with a shred of honor or good will.
Outside the city, skirting it’s edges, were the farmlands. Though they once were the main source of Old Bohol’s income and trade, they had become nothing burnt, mangled remains of infecund mud. Laarni was born to a widowed woman on a meager bit of land. Her mother spoke very little of her father, though when she did it was with the such great love and longing that Laarni was comfortable knowing the little she did about him, as long as her mother would never cry like she did at his mention. Her older brother, on the other hand, with his contagiously optimistic way about him, told her all the tales she would ever need to know… on their own time. Mires, who, though only 7 years her senior, cared for her with all the protectiveness and love of what she would expect of her father, and so Laarni grew never to want. Her mother was kind and lovely; And Mire’s had once said that her father had compared her to the Wilting Blooms known to twine round the loose rocks and fencing; cradled in it’s leaves were the most vibrant, beautiful amber buds that rose with the morning sun in brilliance.

However, after Laarni’s birth, her mother grew weak and Laarni couldn’t remember a time when her mother wasn’t ill. For this, Mire’s worried and fussed over most of all. In times when she was the sickest, Mires would tell her that he though her heart was sick from loosing his father; like the Wilting Bloom without the sun, in the duskiness of the coming night would shrivel up, it’s petals would fall, it’s cradle of leaves would dry and blow away.. and Laarni would care for him much like Mire’s cared for their mother, just for a time. And so, together, they did the best they could to grow and live. It wasn’t a bad life, though they had to work hard, and often Mires would come home from his jobs in the city with some wild-willed injury, and Laarni would have to come inside, all frowns and mud, without a thing from their field. But her mother would coddle her and Mire would muss her hair and pull for his bag a hodgepodge of a dinner from what he’d been given through his day of work. Always Mire’s would grin away his hurts and return the following day. And Laarni, having lost the majority of hope she’d had their barren soil, soon begun following him into the city and in time, with a stern, albeit wary disposition, found herself her first set of odd-end jobs.

( I didn’t finish. Are we allowed to do journal entries that continue a story?)

Describe a Far Fetched Idea: (I read a sci-fi book as a kid, and used to wonder what it would be like if all the weird creatures in books were sold in a market in the middle of some space station. I know, I’m goofy. :/)

The dome was bursting with life. Today was the-

“ANN-ual    IN-ter-PL-anetary    UN-SP-eakably    RA-re    AN-imal   MAR-ket!

For your    BUY-ing,    SPEND-ing,    MONEY-THROWING    PLEA-sure!”

- full of smoke, grime, and bodies. Thousands of bodies. Wall to wall in the stinking pit of gray. Along the outer rim of the building were lines and stacks and crooked rows of suffocatingly close seating, filled and moving in sickening unison. Every color, shape, and grotesque form of creature with the ability to carry a currency.

Over head were what looked to be gaping mouths, snaggle-toothed, with rows of dripping pipeline for transference god knows what to where. Four sagging light fixtures casted blindingly florescent lighting over screaming faces, flailing extremities, and greedy, hungry eyes. In the center of the dome was the stage, a patchwork of metal sheets, thrown carelessly- stapled and fussed together, leaking light from where beneath shown through a thousand spotlights.

The stage was high and uneven, the railing built with no method, no real purpose as the beasts inside were chained, drugged,or otherwise taken care of so that they were immobile, broken remains of what they once were.

Someone started chanting, and the mob grew restless with noise.

Through the welded bars of asymmetric fencing, a wallowing, greasy,multilayer shape of a man pulled with think arms the shackles of a creature. Sweat in his eyes, and grit in his teeth, the unfortunate victim of obesity and infrequent bathing habits hefted the chains in his sausage link hands. “Git a move on, Gwenivere- times a-wastin`!”,he hacked. Gwenivere was a 12 square-foot hunk of scaly, toothy, seven eyed flub. A single, phallic spike flapped off her head in rhythm to the jerking, labored walk of her captor. Beneath her 4 tons of weight were four pathetic excuses for legs, 8 toed and off-putting.

“Put on a smile.”

And as the crowd erupted in delight and flailing and sweaty money-grubbing mits, Gwenivere turned 3 of her 7 eyes to the fat cesspool to her right. And in a high sweet voice she spat,

“Fuck you.”

Fill in the blank poem:

Mr. Carney was a good man,

true as crocodile tears

his toothless smile like sour milk

kind as death, terrible in its slowness

his minions like Paris Hilton’s

dumbed and whipped and brainwashed by his anger

heels ground in the spine

their wretched smiles are comically hot pink

He has no sorrow

managed like his other human qualities

snuffed out and replace

the perfect partner for him would be-

blind, unshakable fear

the rivers are littered with mothers, one

holding tightly to her child, hatred drowns her

and her soul is added to the marrow of his bones

crumbling layers of stony, graying, yellowing white

he emits an odd smell, a mix of sweat and starving

We huddled together and watched

the fragile flutter of hope

envy and greed his racket

the child’s toy that caught the fly

snatched it from the air where plucked the wings and observed

burning like embers, his eyes glowing like fire

the carnival smell of desperation

as he scans the horizon for our heads.

We wait for Mr. Carney to go.

There is no end to his journey, and we in the hazy smell of summer,

lie in wait for the fear and him to pass

motionless inside the flat green of the water reserve.

(This is about the Aboriginal children in the movie Australia, in case you were wondering. :/)

“Love takes up where knowledge leaves off”-St. Thomas Aquinas

The wind chilled my back,

brought the alarming sense of awareness up my spin,

to the tips of my fingers.

Opened my eyes to where beyond what I could see,

could hear,

could touch was something so pure,

so indescribably alluring that my heart lurched,

wanted to leave my chest and chase whatever power had captivated my senses.

It’s that very feeling that stole my soul that day.

Knowing that I had no real way to tell you,

I had left behind my former life.

I took my meager scraps of memorabilia,

paused a moment outside of the places we had been,

and then set towards what I knew,

somehow, that I’d never find.

So, Megan, I feel that I can tell you at least this.

That when the time comes that you walk down our path and feel,

truly feel beyond your skin and ears and eyes

that pressure on your heart,

the chill along your back,

and somehow your eyes follow something unseeable,

you fingers create a face in front of yours,

your throat pulls from you words your unable to say or understand, you’ll know I’m there.

In the evanescent light,

outside the world we know,

I’ve taken your hand.

Let the bird brush it’s wing on your cheek.

Let the sunlight kiss your brow.

Let the river waters drown out the sound

and know Megan,

I’ll never let go.

Start of Journal Entries Checkpoint #2

I had a dream once when I was very young about the subway in New York. I was myself in the dream, but somehow I had slipped away from my parents. There was nothing odd about the fact that I was on my own at age 6 or 7 (I’m not really sure of the actual year, it was more so just a memory). Actually, the only strange part was that I was walking the city streets and there was no one around. No cars or people of any kind. The lights were all still on, the signs still blinking and in the night sky were the tall lit windows that stretch high, high above. I remember feeling sort of awed by the scene, because I was young, for one, and for two because on my first visit of the city just months before the event of this dream, I had very little time to look around at the amazing architecture and culture and lived-in look of it all.

It was inspiring, even as a child. I had always been curious as a kid, and so naturally was my dream-self. I moseyed around for a bit and then found myself heading down into the underground railways for the subway. I remember being slightly afraid then. It wasn’t because I was alone, but more because I had fears of being enclosed in places where there were shadows. I’ve always had night terrors about things that hid or things that crept in the dark, or things that waited for your feet to touch the floor before snatching at ankles and what not. So I think it was just a reflection of that fear, being that the tunnels were something like mouths that hid everything beyond a foot or so of the light cast down by the overhead fixtures. I waited there for a little bit.

I remember sitting on a bench that had no place in the subway. It was a sort of faded red with blue in random areas- and crackly, where paint was chipping off. It looked like it should be a bus stop bench for people who live far out in the country, where the sun baked at the wood until it splintered and expanded. It was nice to sit on, for some reason, and until the subway came, my dream-self seemed pretty content to sit there for a spell.

When the subway finally came, it was so perfectly a part of my memory from the trip we had had. The breaks skretched in a pleasant way, and the train itself breathed and sighed until it got to the point of stillness, where a rush and a “poooooooouuusssshhhhh” sound marked it was time for the doors to open. I’ve always loved that sound, for some reason. I got up and waited for the doors to slide all the way open, and walked inside.

There was a very old man with a giant mustache in the front of the car, standing and looking towards the door that led to the car ahead of us. I couldn’t see his face, but he was comically tall and thin, and dressed in dusky colors, with a rusty hued vest, and an off white shirt that sort of floated on his stretched frame. And as if the exact opposite, a very large, chubby, and impeccably dressed woman sat in the middle of the car, facing where the doors I had enter were. She had on of those old Russian muff-hats that were all fur and just sat on top of your head. Underneath must have been some variation of those 60s barrettes that had netting that draped over a portion of the face. One of the hats you always saw the mobster wives wearing or the mystery women who had information to tell the detective in the back of the smoky bar. She even had the beauty mark above her lip. She had a shawl and a sleek dress, but honestly, they were all such satiny midnight colors, that they ran into each other as a mess of fine fabrics and such. She was a real sight.

I sat in front of her, because the train was beginning to move. The woman made no move to look at me, and so, after glancing at the two figures, I grew (as children do) bored and resigned to waiting out the ride. After the train was set to its normal chugging speed,the  skinny old man left the car into the one ahead. The woman, I never could tell, was either asleep or very very still. She always had a look of superiority and snooty indifference, so I never said anything to question her.

My dream-self was about to fall asleep as the outside sky was changing and shifting into morning (it was almost like the subway was   taking us into daylight as a sort of destination. It was like a panorama outside of the very thought, instead of the normal sunrise).

I glanced over at the woman, who was rocking with the movements of the train, and the hat on her head, all of a sudden, moved in a wave. It was like a stirring in the hat that drew in intensity until pieces of it parted and became legs and a little peeking face that, without any interest in me whatsoever, readjusted itself on top of the womans head. It must have been in some resemblance to a fox, because it was very very graceful, and it’s limbs and eyes were very much like a foxes. It made a little circle, settled back down, winked it’s eyes and then  quite literally melted back into a normal, fur-muff hat. It was one of the most fascinating images my little-girl head could have ever come up with. In recalling this dream, I remember real me  wanting desperately to have told the woman her hat was alive, or ask her if she knew it was, in fact, living, or find out what kind of crazy hat it was (and get one), but my dream-self was very calm about the situation. It was as if it was just a something to look at on a long ride to somewhere. Only a simple curiosity, and not an absurdly mystical encounter. I think I woke up at that point, because I don’t remember much else – and that was the end of my very exciting dream.

Ponyo’s Diary, Her encounter with Shame:

(This is for the two characters from different sources meeting with each other. Ponyo E. is from a story by Hayao Miyazaki about a quiet, dark girl and her only friend: a goldfish (they actually made it into a movie recently). She is an amazingly evasive introvert. Miss Coblin is also from Ponyo’s story- she is a mean teacher that tries to force Ponyo to be more social. I’ve given her a more normal role in my account. :/ And Shame is from a side story of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman Chronicles. He is wild and tends to cause a lot of trouble. Just some extra info.)

In a situation like this, it couldn’t be called love. It couldn’t be called a relationship, honestly. And to be perfectly clear, I myself had no part in arranging the way me and Shame came to be. To preface, we had been a part of the same school, Shame and I, a part of two, actually, as I was in high school as well as an Academy for the Arts. We were both in these schools, and shared a class together. But it was not a “shared” business where we were always by each other sides, or that we were friends. Or atleast, as far as I thought. The first time we interacted was forced upon me much like all the other situations of our “shared” times: it was the classroom that we both had in last block, the high school. Our teacher, Miss Coblin was a batty one. She had neurotic tendencies to get extremely happy about failure in her students, and also employed a terrifyingly syrupy- sweetness in her handling of the class. I really hated that teacher. And that was an immensely huge deal for someone like me, who dedicated herself to being a good student and had never done anything to attract negative attention. No, that was Shame’s job. So the first day I was forced to acknowledge him was the day that in the middle of class, he took a lighter to his sock, and lit it on fire. Never in my life had I ever seen someone do something like this! And as it burned and he grinned, I immediately jostled myself from my seat and beat the socked foot until the flame went out. Of course, in doing so the chair and I had made enough noise to bring the teacher from her writing on the board to stare at me dumbly with menace in her eyes and a smile. Shame seemed amused. I was terrified.

“Miss E.? It’s disrespectful to interrupt the class while I’m teaching.”, she lilted. And so I was forced out into the hall, with Shame, who Mrs. Coblin had never take a shine to due to his clowning and abnormal behavior, and so was allow forced out, on premise that he was sure to have had something to do with it, what with his leg sticking out like that. And so our first meeting began like that. Shame followed me out the door, and I, in a tizzy about my current state and his stupidity and, mind you, dangerous fire hazards, remained a twitching mess of nerves and unspoken rebellion when Shame grinned and said:

“Good, I was running out of ideas to force you to talk to me.”

From then on, I was forced time and again to be a part of his antics. Mrs. Coblin grew to hate me on premise of potential threat just as she had Shame, and I grew to not be bother, and at times, even enjoy it. Our “shared” time came more and more frequently. Once he had found that with pressure, I would say a few words,would write even more as it required much less interaction, he sought me out. Where the bus let me off, he would wait by the entrance to the school. We would sit together in the mornings. We would skip classes at the Academy to steal away into the attic and sift through old art from previous students and knick-knack supplies for projects that had yet to be given or never made it out. Shame always sought me out. And when I graduated, and we both moved, I rarely thought about him. But there were many times he would find a means to send a message, or to made a phone call. Something about the time we had together, mine so different than his, was like a creation of something that neither of us quite understood. It wasn’t love, and it wasn’t even friendship. It was something like a mutual understanding of each other’s lives. We were moving forward together, and though I avoided him, I was happy to see a message. He was adamant to find me. And always we would meet again.

The Mock Rejection:

I had always felt something for him.

But it was deep and complicated,

something like nervousness that turned my stomach

something like a quickening in my heart for each time I saw his name

I’ll never know what it is or was

only that I wanted more of it.

He always was the first to come to me,

and I, like a fish to bail, would rise up to his challenge

one of us would say we missed the other

but always with something behind it

some quirk or laugh or mediocrity

I knew how much I cared for him

and I also knew the game.

But I was only a child,

and I never really grew up

until the day he let me go.

It was like every other time he would call

I would retort to his missing me, his appraisal

with disinterest.

I timed my responses so that he would worry that I wouldn’t answer.

I would reciprocate just so,

only in that he knew I was a player

same as him.

From our time away from each other,

we would faint some dramatics

he would tell me that I grew more lovely

and I would call him names,

because if I told him that the curl of his smile

and his slightness

made me silly

and that when he ignored my skinned knees

and used his words to kiss away my dream-work flaws like missing eyes,

I fell farther and farther from the rules of the game

I spent more time contemplating my responses

forgot to weed out the longing

the ball was in his court.

And I had lost the ability to defend myself

without the chase,

the game was over.

His eager messages came less and less.

What we had, that fabricated story

unwove and became only what it was

a mess of insecurities and dillusion

He no longer needed a player

if the game had been won.

And so there were no more complications

and no more us.

Whatever it was we were.

I once believed that if I picked the right bulrush stems, and lined them all up, tied them with strings, and measure them off- I would be able to fly. We had a backyard with wood all around and a patio with a pool, and a playhouse that my sister and I were always in. Towards the back, behind the pool where my mother’s grape vine grew were rows upon rows of bulrush. The stalks were thick and tall and hallow, and on the tops of them were fluffy, wispy things. My sister and I first discovered their power when we pluck one for a sword fight between us. The noise it made through the air was so loud and satisfying that we ended up with two each. Swinging turned to a synchronized sort of beating where the rush of air from the stalks the whirred and whisked  for ever downward swoop of our arms filled the day until we were both too tired to do it anymore. It because a new event that we both would wake up and do as we normally did with breakfast and make beleive until we were able to go outside a plot out an way to build ourselves some wings. We must of picked 30 or 40 stalks of bulrush outside. My sister was easily discouraged by manual labor, but I had my heart set- before dinner we had trimmed the ends and done our best to measure up the stalks. We had always had tons of crafts and tools, so twine was easy to come by out of our mess of colored pencils, glass bottles, glues and scissors and fabrics. We had just about anything for any idea we could of possibly come up with. Once we made the wings, we had dubbed the following day to be our first flight. Of course, our parents had no idea we were planning of jumping out of the playhouse window or planning to fly. The window was not very tall, and the house was made for children to play in, so we wouldn’t have been able to hurt ourselves as badly if it have been an actual story we were jumping from. It was just enough to seem like the perfect perch. We had the most horrible time of sleeping. On and off again we would tune in our walkie-talkies, as my sister had recently been given her own room with the arrival of my baby brother, and speak commando-language about our lift off tomorrow. I don’t think either of us knew exactly when it was we fell asleep, but both had the walkie-talkie in hand, with the button for reception pressed down firmly. The following day, after our routine and a very drowsy morning, we scrambled outside and set to work on putting on our wings. The design of them was incredibly flawed, and yet we were so very sure we would fly that once we had made it up the little ladder in the inside wall of the playhouse to the window looking out over the grape vine, We saluted each other and I dubbed myself first flyer. My sister waited eagerly to see me soar into the sky. To this day, I remember that feeling: I jumped from the edge, and truly believed, through the sound of the bulrush through the air, that I was going to fly. It was a very serious disappointment when I landed a fraction of a moment later with nothing but stalks tied to my arms and a twisted ankle. My sister told me that we should work harder on the design, and that I did seem to fall more slowly to lift some of the sadness, but in the end- we stuck to parading around the yard with the makeshift wings as grounded birds, instead of high flyers.

When I was a young girl and very well thought of

I dance through the crowds and was never denied.

I nibbled men’s hearts,wore a crown made of daisies,

And propose of a kingdom that I could reside.

I said to myself, “If just one of them knew

The loneliness of what this life’s come to be.

I wait for the one who will rise to my seeming,

I’ll know when I love by the way I behave.”

The years drifted by me, each day a new lover,

The men came and went like the ships off the bay.

I charmed and I cheated, deceived and disheveled;

And I danced away sorrows I’d never betray.

But I said to myself, “Not a one of them see

That my dance is but one of a girl and her slave.

My king may be late, but he’ll find me I’m certain;

And he’ll know that I love by the way I behave.”

At last came a man who could see through my lashes,

“The harlequin queen is but a masquerade.”

I danced round his figure, found the arms of the others.

And he left me alone to my court’s serenade.

And I say to myself, when I’ve time for a word

As I gracefully grow more haggard a maid:

“True love may be strong, but my habits were stronger;

and I knew that I loved by the way I behaved.”

(Above is not my own poem, but a revision of the poem by Peter S. Beagle copyright 1968 from The Last Unicorn.)

My first love is still unresolved. It’s one of those things that you feel uncomfortable in talking about with people you are close to, because they know by the look in your eyes that no matter how many times you say you are over it, you aren’t.

As of today, we still talk, and though I am sure of the uneasy feeling that was my first fluttering of love, I never have and never will tell him. If I did, I feel like it would shatter our relationship, and threaten my nearness to him, in whatever context that is. But on this page, I am free to say whatever I please.

He will never read it, and we will go on as friends who have known each other since grade school, watched the other grow up, date, and experience life.

It happened immediately. Because I was young and he was confident and wild to me. Where I was shy and afraid, he was resilient and imposing. He was loud and spoke whatever whenever, was able to command people through his charisma.

Hell, he still can. He was friends with everyone, and yet entirely one-sided.

He was allowed to take the prettiest girls and pretend to like them and then toss them aside. He was allowed to pick fights and cause trouble, because he was himself, whole and present; you got what you saw.

But deeply rooted in the allure of him, and the constant show that was the stage of his life, he felt lonely.

My shyness hide my admiration, and it lured him to conquer whatever mysterious shield I had lifted in defense of him.

He was so foolhardy. It was accidental that he himself lost his defenses. Having seen his weakened state, I had been marked his only real friend. I know I loved him by his blind faith in me. In his neediness, despite himself, I loved him.

It may have been adoration, at first. What with his extreme, rude confidence; I had fallen to him just like the other girls, I was just too afraid to show him.

I was mysterious in my fear and coy reluctance.

I didn’t fawn over him like they had, because I was witty enough to know that he did it for the rise, not for the girl. I knew him.

When he spoke to me, it was as the child he was, not the boisterous wild-thing. Not the heart-breaker.

He lost his wolfish grin and allowed himself to fear.

He told me secrets, and I listen, fondly, of his weaknesses.

Together we battled through what no one else was allowed to see.

When, year after year, we grew up, there were still those moments when he would need me. And always I would listen. Kids around us had never had the problems we had, we thought. Broken homes. Broken lives.

He found refuge in me. But the longer we were friends, the less easy it was to be by his side. Not for my feelings, but for our own lives ,tearing us apart.

It wasn’t long before graduation and room-mates and part-time jobs put miles between us.

I was content to nurse my own wounded heart, having never told what secrets rested there.

It was a long time before I saw him again.

I played off my painful longing for him and weighed out the loss of a friend to the loss of my ongoing struggle.

My friends were content to hear the story guarded and simplified. I stomped out the brilliance of him.

But he sought me out. Still with his cat-mouthed smile. Still with enough confidence to battle armies with. He was older, bigger, full of stories he wanted to tell me.

Again my heart swelled and beat out a rhythm to my easy going welcome of him. In the time we had apart, he was even more charismatic, if it was possible.

And now, he plays on our relationship like a mockery of his high school endeavors. In silliness, I’ve grown into myself.

He’ll say he’s sweet on me. I’m cute. I’m one of a kind. I’m the only one who understands.

Always on occasion, and we are still the same two children from our old lives. And I take it in stride- I pass him off with crooked humor. His heart is in the right place. Only, it just isn’t with mine. We will continue to be the friends that I’ve preserved in my memory. It’s the story of my life, and the whispers, between you and I, of my first love.

(Below is a recipe and a song I turned into a poem. The recipe is for a Love Spell [silly, huh!?] and the song is Charming Spell by Splashdown.)

Recipe For A Spell:

The salt and the matches,

the red tipped matches,

burn and cleanses the master

by the light of the moon

with a knife from the lover,

(it’s the thorn in the other,)

by the spell is discovered

as a woman’s taboo.

Tie the knife with a ribbon,

with a red, red, ribbon.

Book and candle

is natural

to those pure and simple.

Tie the knife with a ribbon,

with a red, red, ribbon.

Cut a stem from the roses,

from the white, white roses.

Dress in similar fashion

by the light of the moon

with the salt and matches

(as the door unlatches,)

the night-hour hatches

a spell to pursue.

Book and candle

is natural

to those pure and simple.

Tie the knife with a ribbon,

with a red, red, ribbon
Bring a hand-held mirror

to the light of the moon
With a secret garden

(and a heart unhardened,)

strike a specter’s bargain

with a ritual brew.

Book and candle is natural

to those pure and simple
Tie a knife with a ribbon,

with a red, red, ribbon
Tie a knife with a ribbon,

with a red, red, ribbon.

The house is the same one from the girl’s childhood. If you were to walk in, there are stairs to the second floor where a loft and a banister overlook the living room. The living room itself has a round of chairs and sofas, all encompassing a semi-circle around the entertainment center. The fireplace makes up the greater portion of the left-hand wall. The windows at the top of the high ceiling and large, in arrays of 4 on either side, and flood the house with sunlight. The kitchen, behind the stairs, can be reached by either side of the staircase, to the left is the living room walkway, and to the right is the hall where in lies the entrance her mother’s room. Beyond what you can see of loft upstairs is the room over the entrance of the house, her room. It is fairly large and upon entering by the loft hall, a window to the left leads to the roof. Straight ahead is another window, overlooking the front yard. Farther to the right is the closet; it is long and shallow, but could fit a person and allow him or her four steps of walking room, at normal stride front-ways and back. The house in it’s entirety is lived in, but well-kept. The structure is sound, and it creaks only on occasion.

But that is in the real world. In the world this story is in, the house is of the same design, but it is empty. It is old and leaning, and the rooms are dark and misshaped. The girl, in this world, has no name. And when she wakes to see herself alone, she crawls from the bed to the closet where, in this world, the room has shifted to expands the small enclosure in disjointed swellings of the wall, swallowing the window and making it a part of the inside beyond the closet’s doors.

No-name looks out of the window where the roof from the left-hand side of the room had relocated to serve as a perch above the entrance of her otherworldly home. She crawls out in time to see a collection of people out in the dustiness of the out side. No-name is unable to hear the exchange. Beyond the group, there is nothing but fog and broken slabs of concrete. She had slept through some apocalypse, and couldn’t remember a time before, only know it couldn’t have been this. As she stares, someone from below catches sight of her, and enters the house. In fear she struggles to find a place to hide away and can only jump from the rafters and land with a thud to the dirt below. Scrambling, and instinctively knowing to run, she picks herself up and pumps her legs as quickly as she can. She is past the people, she is ignoring their outcries. One of the people, now she can see, is shackled and hungry looking. Confusion and some rooted terror propels her forward, into the fog, over uneven grounds. She can’t see.

No-name plummets down an steep encampment of rock and debris where her footing is lost and she clips a knee and falls like a tangled mess.

When she is able, she slowly lifts her head, where before her, far enough away and yet much too close is a terrible figure. Is mouth is wide and its eyeless head swivels on a neck that is long and thin and plated. It’s body is green and wiry, clawed and sinewy. From is jaws, the long rigid shards of its teeth glisten in yellow, rotting wetness. It is watching her, she knows, even without the eyes to see. It hisses long and loud, it’s body scraping against the disheveled ground as it prowls with sick lurching, towards her.

Before she can think, her arms are stiff and unyielding, her legs shaking and weak; the only thing responding to her mental pleas to move are her eyes, wildly searching the beast, following its jerky steps like a sputtering machine. It screeches; something soul-wrenching and and piercingly shrill. It is upon her-

and then like bird-flight a shape is before her, shielding her and bringing violent bursts of light, the figure itself a black mass where the blazing brilliance forces her eyes to close, unable to take the brightness any longer. She can hear only a pulsing and the screeching of the beast, a bellowing squeeze off and slowly drown out by the ringing in her ears.

When all was silent, No-name opens her eyes. Adjusting, the dustiness and gray scape before her returned, and where the creature had been was only a empty depression within the brittle stone.

A person knelt by her, without a distinguishable gender, curiously beautiful and yet immediately strange. Its hair is endlessly dark, long and sleek. Its eyes are like diamonds, without real color and yet a prism of them all.

When it spoke, it was in a tongue she didn’t know. The sound was a vibration of harmony in the back of its throat, pleasant and alarming. No-name is unable to respond.

The figure reaches behind its neck, underneath the night-time hair and pulls a leather thong on which a pendant is laced. The size of one of her hands, it is made of glassy amber stone, curling around itself in a long, woven emblem. It offers it to her, with dark, large hands.

No-name takes the pendant in her own. It is cool and heavy. As they stand, it helps her loop in over her head, and they walk towards the outside edge of the encampment. It holds by the shoulders, to guide her shaky limbs.

She notices the fear is gone, though she was numbed and stupefied by her surroundings, by the person or thing that saved her. Its frame is so much larger than her own, and yet the calmness in its grip chills the burning desire to run. The pendent lay in the center of her chest, and like a hand of water, calms the turmoil in her heart.

She could only wonder where she was, and what was to become of her.

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