The secrets of Ms. Jackson, and the library.

Ms. Jackson worked at the library.  She always wore green.  She had naturally black, smooth hair, and her lips were soft like baked cinnamon apples.  She always came to work exactly five minutes early.  She was quiet and kind.  On the surface, everything about Ms. Jackson was perfectly normal.  She brushed her teeth regularly.  She attended the gym most every night.  She enjoyed eating ice cream.  There was one thing about Ms. Jackson, though, that was mysterious.  She had an unusual ritual that she would perform each night as she closed the library.  She would dance up and down each row of books and sing a song to them.  A lullaby.  She imagined the books sighing, their spines relaxing.  She imagined her voice to be a magical mist that would fall in shimmering layers onto the books, preparing them to sleep until the next morning.  There was nothing extraordinary about Ms. Jackson's voice, but the books looked forward to hearing it.  Their pages would hum, and their words would wiggle impatiently.  As soon as her song began, every book in that dusty, cool library would exhale and their minds would quickly stop whirring.  When each book was asleep, Ms. Jackson would pick up her worn, leather purse and silently exit the library.              

Showers of green and gold glitter fall off the trees, as the sun speckles the solid soil.
The sky is a reliable blue, brimming with buoyant, bright, clean clouds, that boil
across the horizon.  Happy dandelions dot and dazzle the verdantly inviting, vivacious lawn.
Lazy, little lungfuls of air waft warmly into our reading room.  I yawn,
and you toss me a listless smile.  The smell of fresh laundry floats
to my nose; I feel serenity inside my chest. I can see that you feel peaceful too. 

      

Everything in my mouth,
observing the world like a baby.
Green.
That's what it is.
The grass tips inch up
my belly.
It feels warm,
like mint tea.
One time,
I remember singing
and gathering petals.
It was good.
Mostly.
Clouds shadowed even
the spring. 

You scream like you have something left.
The only thing left is an echo.
There is no hope,
so don't pretend.
You look down the path,
but it ends in impossible.
I suppose you can keep
on screaming. 
It doesn't matter, either way.
Let your throat go raw.
I like it.  The screaming.
It sounds exactly like what
I hear on the inside.
So, please, even if it's
futile, continue shredding
your vocal chords.
It's so much easier to give up.
You coward.
I like it. The screaming.

You taste like a catacomb. 
Yes, you. 
Dull. 
Dull.
Dull.
Dull.
Dull. 
Dull. 
Monotonous.
Is today yesterday.
And is tomorrow
today?
Well, for you it is,
because every day is
the same.
When I look at you,
I feel like someone is
throwing flour in my
eyes.
There is so much potential,
but you leave the scraps
untouched.
Stop it.
Stop.
Mirrors are useless, anyways.
 

Shook for two seconds,
but that was too long for me.
Now my neck hurts bad.

Stuck in these too tight shoes, makes it hard to walk.  Can't even dance with them on, and all I want to do is dance.  Bound to this stake waiting to be burned.  Slow. Slow. Slowly now.  Waiting.  My teeth are falling out, before I get to bite that apple.  I don't care if it's poisonous.  I want to taste this would, even if it's rotting.  I want to skip down a street in London.  I want to skip, skip, trot, run, fall, and skip again.  But my big toe is cut off, and when I try to crawl I see that my arms are broken.  Stuck.  Stuck in these too tight shoes. 

The raspberry juice sloshed up my soul, and I soon found myself at the edge of a crimson lake of sour and sweet.  I allowed myself to jump into the delicate nectar, and I swam.  The sparkling, spiky liquid prickled its way down my throat, and I jumped out of the pool. 

Today, I went swimming at Target.  I let the colors of the blouses and the dresses splash my face and the darks of the levis wash over my legs. The rush of shopping clenses my soul. 

A Fight.

Close my ears.  Close my ears.  Close my ears.  Eavesdrop.  Never.  Do it.  Ok.  Never.  Listen.  I try, but the noise in my head is already so loud.  Try harder.  I am!  Well, it's not good enough! I know.  What is that rasping hum?  Whispers?  I know not.  Strain your senses.  Work them.  Notice the details! No!  I refuse!   Try!  Be more.  I'm not.  Be more!  I'm not! Listen! What do you hear?  I hear fluttering, quick and harsh chiming, clanging, liquid hissing, lungs, scraping, distant rumbling.  Voices.  I hear voices.  What do they say?  I don't know.  I don't know.  But.  Maybe I'm starting to. . .  Maybe I can try.  I think that a sizzling has dripped out of my ears.  I can hear.

Frozen February

I walk across the concrete hard snow.  My shoes make an odd "carvep" as they come to the cold ground, almost like the sound of cutting cardboard.  As I trudge along, my shoe crashes through the  ice.  It cuts at my ankles.  Well, I guess the snow isn't quite so solid as I thought.  Dusk has washed everything in blue, so that even the characteristically white drifts are almost light cobalt.  The world is silent.  A faint hint of burning wood clings to my nose.  I find myself infront of the swing in my backyard. I sit on its rough, wooden seat and clench my fingers around its bitter, metal chains.  Wildly, I start to jerk back and forth.  My eyes start to leak.  I suppose February isn't quite so frozen as I thought.

Thanks, but I'm fine.

She takes another chocolate out.  She eats it.  Just eats it.  No savoring or appreciating, because her tongue is dull from having so many.  She rests on the suede, plum colored sofa.  Her eyes mingle over the gray sky and the branches that form a broken-egg shell pattern across her vision.  Her face is relaxed, almost comfortable.  She reaches into the plastic bag again.  A second passes before her fingers find a tin foil wrapped morsel, because she has already almost depleted the bag's contents.  She eats the chocolate.  Another pound accumulates to her hips, and another layer of misery (this one denial) is added to her soul, her onion of hurt.