Filed under: Think-filled Semi-Narratives | Tags: blade of grass, boiling, passion, Real, reason to live, screeching, true
There’s a screeching in my soul, clawing, biting, writhing, and fighting. Like a newborn child, it wakes without warning to demand my every attention, while I struggle endlessly even to know how to pacify this strange and raging beast. I have passion welling up inside my chest. Burning, boiling passion is rising up to flow out of me. But I choke. My passion was the clawing, screeching in my soul. It was aching for a release, but I was afraid. And I didn’t know why.
I think I was afraid of wasting passion. I cherished my passion so fiercely. I guarded it as a mother bear fights the very gates of hell in defense of her lone little cub. The passion of my soul, the blood of my heart. But each drop of passion I sew leaves me with less joy to reap. Surely, there must be something in this infinite universe worthy of receiving my passion and capable of shaping it into something worthwhile. The cry echoes and vibrates in my chest. There must be something real. There must be something true. There must be a reason to live.
But I searched until my soul bled. I pushed and molded my heart trying to fit it into some shape that would accept it. Somewhere, I knew, was a place in the perfect shape of my heart. Something I could lock into and be one with. It ran from me, though. I chased it throught the corridors of theology, history, and science. I chased it and listened and waited. I was beaten and aching. The passion was seeping from my veins and I had not the energy to catch it.
With my face in the dirt, I saw something. Something so new and old all at once. The little blade wavered in the wind. It looked up at me, though I was at my lowest point. Startled, I drew back. The grass seemed to have its own life. It was looking at me – no. It wasn’t looking at me at all. It was looking past me, as I should have been doing all along. The little blade pierced my soul on its way to something greater. My soul tingled. I didn’t fully understand, but at least now I had something to try to understand, and for once the aggravated chaffing of my soul was repaced with an excited jitter. There was hope. Something was true, and I would find it.
Filed under: Think-filled Semi-Narratives | Tags: arcane, eyes, fog, gray skies, language, selfless, thin lips
We both have cold hands and fine hair. My lips are thick and hers are thin, but we speak the same language. My mother and I speak in the language of sarcasm and sapphire. Sarcasm is never on the tip of our tongue. It is the tip of our tongue. We are a lot alike and a lot not, but our sincerity struggles to bypass this silver tip without getting a venomous lick. It does though. Oh how it does. No silver tipped-tongue has ever spoken sweeter words than hers. No sincerity has ever been more sincere. She speaks her own, magical language that has never been spoken by any other tongue. It is a confusing language. Sometimes her words get lost in translation and turn brown. Not many people know the language of sarcasm and sapphire. It is arcane and addictive. She has taught me this language. I used to speak it through my thick lips. Nothing ever came out right. Somehow, no one ever heard my sapphire. Perhaps my silver tongue was just born thirstier than hers. Perhaps my silver tongue licked up every trace of the sweet sapphire before it could be felt by any but me. Perhaps sapphire is not meant to be spoken through thick lips, I thought. But I discovered I had it all wrong. Sapphire is much too grand to be spoken through any lips at all. Sapphire is spoken through the eyes. When she speaks sapphire with her eyes it comes in rolling waves of sunlight. My mother has small, plain eyes that crackle with boiling sapphire. I wonder where all of her sapphire comes from. My eyes have had jade and emerald. These are gems of greed. These gems speak only green. Green sarcasm is a terrible thing to speak so I closed my eyes until I felt the boiling color change. My boiling color did not change. It did not change at all until I became enraged that it would not change. Then my boiling color changed to scarlet steam. This scarlet steam swirled in my eyes. I felt the scarlet. I felt it too clearly so I still did not open my eyes.
No one deserves to be spoken to with scarlet steam. Only a monster would create it, I realized. My eyes turned gray. Grey with my disappointment. My mother spoke sapphire so fluently. All took notice of her sapphire and my gray. Grey indifference. Grey resignation.
Sapphire cannot be spoken by gray impish girls. Then I met one. This gray girl looked so much like me that I cried. She was swallowed in gray and had never heard sapphire. She needed me to speak sapphire to her. I dared not use my tongue for fear that my eyes might turn sarcasm in the confusion. She needed neither sarcasm nor gray. She needed sapphire. If only my gray cloud eyes would clear to show the sky lenses. I looked through my gray cloud, trying to fan away the fog from her. My tear fell for her. My grayish-bluish tear. My next tear fell for her. My clear blue tear. Then I understood. Sapphire cannot be spoken for the love of speaking it. Sapphire must be spoken for the love of the one to whom it is being spoken. Then came the rolling waves of sunlight carrying my sapphire to her desperate gray. Her gray had rescued me. Finally I felt the boiling sapphire, and finally, I didn’t care. I didn’t care that I had sapphire. I cared that this not-so-gray-anymore girl heard it. That is where sapphire comes from. Sapphire is selflessness. Sarcasm and sapphire. Yes, that is a good mix. While the tongue may lick playful venom to another through thick or thin lips, the receiving heart will always hear the sapphire spoken through the eyes and know that they are sincerely loved. Sapphire is sincerity. My mother is sincerely sapphire. I learned this arcane and addictive language from my mother with the cold hands and thin lips. I think our hands are cold to remind others that theirs are warm, while we bathe them in boiling sapphire. I think we have small, plain eyes to show others that even the bland eyes can make sunlight and sapphire when they stop looking at themselves. This is the gift my mother leaves for me.
Filed under: Think-filled Semi-Narratives | Tags: crack, fit, grandmother, identity, ring
My grandmother’s ring fit. It fit perfectly on my right ring finger. Never had something fit me so simply before. My mother’s rings did not fit me. They were large and gold. Gold. Doesn’t fit me at all. Gold is too good for me and gold is too vain. When light tries to dance off of a golden ring, the gold cannot resist but to twist and tinker with its color. The gold insists that the light change its color in its reflection, always adding a twinge of gold to be broadcast back out to the world. Gold is too stubborn and I am too stubborn. I figure that if I were a light I would be very frustrated by having gold always demand that I change my majestic color to fit it’s hue. I would not stand for it. I would refuse to touch that selfish, vain gold ring. I suspect that some light must feel the way that I would and refuse to touch those gold rings. I would not want to wear a ring that light itself shuns. Gold is deep, dark, and heavy. It seems to carry with it all of the desperations and dirt of wherever it has been. Silver, though, silver is a blank canvas. Silver sits humbly doing what it is told and when. Silver takes no freedom from the violet lights that rub against it. Silver carries only white with it. Silver fits me well. My brother’s ring is simple and silver. That suits me but it is much too large. I wore it once I don’t think it liked me very much. Every chance it got it was running from me. Why would I wear a ring that does not want to wear me? Finally I got a ring of my own. It was silver and smooth and simple and fit me just fine. This was a wonderful day. I felt complete knowing that now my hand had its own personality. If this spoke about my personality, though, it didn’t speak well of it. That perfect ring broke. It cracked right down the middle. Still I wore the bending and chipping ring. I wore it because it fit. It fit me. Someone replaced my ring one day. My new ring certainly fit me well, too. It was silver, white, simple, and smooth. These were words for me. Then that ring broke too. I wear it still. Perhaps its crack makes it fit me even better than I know. Then I received this marvelous gift. It fit. My grandmother, who is gone from me now. Her ring fit me. It is silver and white and simple and smooth.
But it is elegant.I’ve never had Elegant before. Elegant has never been one of my words. It is more than a strip of fake silver. It is a memory. It is a legacy. For once I found something that fits me. My grandmother, I think, would have fit me. We could have been close friends had we known each other. As it is we didn’t and we don’t. But it fits me. I fit. Finally I can walk into the room and belong. Finally I can walk in with confidence. I have my ring, I have my place, and I fit.
My fingers are not large or long. They are simple fingers with dirt and mud. They may chafe in the bitter wind, but I know that they will hold their ground. The ring will hug them and keep them warm.
I fit now. I fit in this ring, this ring that I never knew could fit me.
Filed under: Think-filled Semi-Narratives | Tags: blisters, happy people, heels, hide, princess, scars, ugly
My friend is a princess. She floats down flights of stairs with humble ease. She smiles and waves and speaks yellow and orange with eloquence unmatched. No one sees her without a smile. Except for me. When she glides down the stairs with her royal grace and congeniality I see the chains of pain that trip her. When she looks them in the eyes with her shoulders straight and firm I see the black in her bright hazel eyes. When she spreads cheerful greetings to the people on the outside, I hear the fear rumbling in her voice. She is a prisoner of her own law. Her law demands perfection. Her law demands impossibility without grace. This princess in her fairy shoes. Her silly skinny fairy shoes. She wears them when they hurt because they hide the pain. Sad people don’t wear high heels. Only happy people wear high heels. Happy is who she should be. That is her law. So she wears the high heels even when they hurt. Each night she stares at her blisters until she can’t see them anymore. Each night she grits her teeth until she can’t feel them anymore. A single black tear falls and before she can hurt she puts on those painful pink shoes again. Happy people don’t cry. Happy is who she should be. That is the law. Each hour in snow and night and day and rain and pain. She walks in her blisters, pretending they’re not there until she sits alone on her pink pillows and grits her teeth and sheds a tear. This tear that I can hear from miles away. She is my princess. My aching pretty princess. I will always catch that pretty princess tear in my right hand. There will always be one pretty little red tear to match it in my left. The left tear is fed by my bleeding heart. My heart that bleeds a drop with each right tear I catch. When she trips down those glassy stairs I will catch this perfectly imperfect princess. When no hazel is left in her eyes, she can close them and rest on my shoulder. When her voice is choked by fear, she may borrow mine. I will wear her pretty pink blisters and I will show them to the world. “These are the blisters of a pretty princess,” I’ll say, “A princess whom I love, blisters and all.”
Then I will ask her, what good are pretty pink shoes if they never take you anywhere? Day by day you grit your teeth and hide from the world. When will you show your black tear to more than me and the pink pillows?
I don’t deserve to cry, she will say, with her eyes straight and solid and her heart crumbling in my arms. Only people who have pain have the right to cry.
You have blisters, I will say. Your pretty pink shoes cannot hide your blisters from me. You do cry. You cry a single black tear every night and I hear it. I catch it. I catch that single black tear every night in my right hand and I save it. I save all of those boiling black tears and I wish I could drink them so that you don’t have to. I wish I could drink that fear so that you don’t have to because you are my pretty imperfectly perfect princess and I love you, blisters and all.
She will look at me with black in her eyes and I will offer her the red in my heart. This red I have saved for her I will offer as I kneel to her feet, those aching blistered feet. Off will come those silly skinny pink fairy shoes. I will dangle them before her blackened eyes.
Those are my shoes, she will protest. Those are my shoes and I must wear them. If I do not wear those shoes they will see the blisters. Blisters are ugly. Happy people are not ugly.
Oh, but they are, I will say as I pour my pretty red tears over her scaly black blisters.
They are ugly and that, my Princess, is what makes them beautiful.
