A year without change

Change did not exist in 1973. The people and things I cherished would last forever, as is, without alteration. Time stretched infinitely into the distance, a conveyor belt to nowhere, carrying our faces, mom’s milkshakes, dad’s store, my orange chopper and blue sparkle drums, and all those “feel good” tunes playing continuously on big sister’s turntable – our endless theme for 1973.

My childhood at sea

Often, I stood waist deep, threatening to hold my ground against her tall waves, taunting them with laughter as their grandeur climbed upward like a tsunami before my innocent eyes, believing it was all in good fun.

And as always, I finally surrendered to the imposition of her will, which dragged me under and tossed my childish body around for a bit, like a flimsy blanket in a laundry machine, before gently depositing me on the warmth of dry sand.

Breathe

Early spring is a GIRL
with leafy green dresses
and yellow haired willows.
Her delicate, woody limbs
stretching in the wind,
plucking WILD BLUE ROSES.
The happy girl restored to us!

Earthy smells adorn her:
herbal washed hair,
blue cotton candy and
private musty spaces.
The wind soaked with HER –
carried to wide open nostrils.
Our happy girl inhaled!

Breathe deeply!

Have faith my friends. We will breathe deeply again! The happy girl will return.

Drips

Hey babe, I like playing armchair shrink, but these new revelations are killing me, coming a little too late for my comfort. You stagger the truth in small, unpredictable increments, like the haunting sound of slow, erratic drips from our leaky faucet. A kind of water torture for me, but with drips of truth, not water; each drip reverberating more ominously, more painfully than the last; always catching me off guard despite the anticipation, and piling up, one on top of the other – an acid wash of drips corroding away your sweet sugarcoating.

Drip Drip Drip Drip Drip Drip

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Imaginary reader

The writer imagines a reader, the one who desires to know the story, and the story behind the story, which is the writer’s own story. This imaginary reader, the one to whom the writer writes, is the writer reversed and inside out, reaching into the world, searching for one real reader, a living and breathing human being who wants to know the story, and the story behind the story – the writer’s story. Human connection!