Jewels

Autumn is the scarves around necks and the boots on feet.

Autumn is the sapphire sky growing dimmer with each hour.

Autumn is the crunching of leaves and the snapping of twigs.

Autumn is the rosying cheeks and red-tipped ears.

Autumn is the beginning and the beginning of the end of a new year.

Autumn is the cinnamon and apple-picking without reaching too high.

Autumn is the morning diamonds, wet on webs and leaves and grass on the verge of dying.

Autumn is worn book pages under fingers beginning to tire.

Autumn is the warm dusting of colors on tree tops, the ombré from green to gold, orange to red.

Autumn is the jewels in eyes glittering with the rain.

Autumn is the steam from a mug held in chilled hands, not quite ready to yet 

fall 

off.

-Suzanne 

(So sorry this is late! I wrote it Thursday but for some reason it never posted.)

Pinwheel

There's a pinwheel in my head. 

Spin spin spinning. 

Its plastic panes a constant bane, slip-slapping upon the insides walls that compose the cavern that is my skull. 

No brain.

Just spin spin spinning. 

A wooden rod shoved down my throat, sprouting leaves and leaves of societal norms and from it came the wheel. 

Its logical home my head, of course. 

Cheery, colorful crushing.

And I can't get it out.

It's staying.

No, the wind's on.

It keeps me awake.

No rest to be had.

I think it hates me.

My spin spin spinning head.

It's shiny, strict hands, all over the walls.

Stress stress stressing.

Never going to sleep again.

-Suzanne

(For some reason, I had Ed Sheeran's "Don't" stuck in my head while writing this. Words are very different, but the rhythm is similar in some parts.)

My Not-So-Super Superpower of Invisiblity

    There are definitely perks to being invisible, but I wouldn't say this is one of them. This aching dreariness seeping through me in this packed hallway. This desperate need for connection, contact with a fellow human.

    I know you! I know you! You know me! You were suppose to be my friend--why can't you look at me?

    They're supposed to look at me, I tell myself. Church brothers and sisters. Junior high friends.

    What have a done? What about me makes you twist your neck when I'm coming down the hall? 

    Aren't such sorts of people supposed to love me? This transparent body of mine is crushing me. Weights in my heart sinking me, pulling pulling pulling me.

    You're cool, I'm not. You're a boy, I'm a girl. I'm a freshman, you're a junior. Am I too weird? Am I too awkward?

    The guy in my class says hello with a  smile. The girl in my club hugs me. The player on my team gives me a high five. Me. Me! They are looking at me not through me!

    WHY CAN'T YOU LOOK AT ME?

    I guess the people that care about me might not be the ones I think ought to be caring about me, but they are relevant nonetheless. Because they don't make me feel quite as invisible as

    you.

-Suzanne

Beethoven

My band class, two days old by the time you see this, had begun in a painful sort of way. Everyone was gripping their seats as if they were life rafts, instruments precariously perched on trembling knees. Nervous chatter filled the room, like the chatter of birds or chipmunks crying for help from a friend in a neighboring tree. There was no help to be had here. The director stood at the front with a marker in his hand, a baton absent, widening the eyes of his students. Then, he began to part the lips of his fuzzy, beard-clad mouth and

Speak!

And in moments of his voice being released, he had a room full of glassy-eyed teenagers rethinking all of their life decisions that had led them

Here.

Band was where you were supposed to pick up your instrument and play some notes on a page, preferably at the same time as everyone else. Well, at least

Potentially.

But potentially the purpose has more potential to be examined. Because it seems like music might just be more than those previously mentioned notes and baton slashes. Some players just make it look like

More.

When you look at many of the first chair players before class, you can see maybe of them joking around, laughing, being the crazy teenagers the rest of us are as well. But then, they come to class, they sit down in their seats, press their mouthpieces to their lips, stick their mallets in their palms, or touch their reeds to their tongues and

Transform.

They pull the notes off the page with their fingers on their keys and oxygen in their lungs they've sucked out of the air. They take themselves to another place and leave everything else

Behind.

But these impressive musicians are students right now, and we are all uncomfortable. There are kids on their phones, whispering to their neighbors and staring off into space. I am still clutching the edges of my seat, trying not to pass out from boredom and exhaustion and desperately trying to remove my mins from thoughts of the physics class I am required to attend next. And to do so, I begin to look at the board my director is writing on and start to catch what he is saying. He is talking about

Beethoven.

As he speaks, talking with such vigor about this passed composer and his works and his oddities and his differences, I begin to really like Beethoven. I had nothing against him before this lecture, but I didn't really feel like I knew him before. Now, I know

Him.

Beethoven wasn't like the other composers and metaphorically speaking, wasn't allowed to join in the reindeer games for quite some time. Because people try to judge the composer before they are 

Dead.

In the music world, that just isn't right. Beethoven was different. He didn't want to write about circuses or parties or dogs or toys or anything else like the others did. As my director said, "He chose not to write about what was earthly." He wrote about

Emotions.

Beethoven was a poet with notes. He cannot be described any other way. He wasn't a composer who likes rigid markings or strict notations. He wrote to express and he expected it to be played how he felt:

Emotive.

That's what those first chair players wanted to be doing right now (and at this point many of the others in the room who could no longer stand the blank staring and urging to talk): expressing. But instead, here we were listening to the director speak for 60 of the 90 minutes instead of conducting like we felt he was supposed to. It seemed as if only two people in the room were listening. And then I realized, I was one of them. I was listening because I was listening to Beethoven. I was listening to his anger and his love an his tears and his heart in the music I had heard before but never really understood.

I was listening to poetry without actual words. And I found myself loving it. Me! The last chair flutist growing a first chair

Heart.

-Suzanne

 

Music Box

Music box chimes

Whirring gears

A faint little melody

Falls on deaf ears

She rises from beneath

A fair maiden in of glass

Her crinoline skirt

Less childish, more class

She takes to the room

With all ease, all grace

Floating about

Not feeling out of place

Among dry, soggy faces

And coarse, rough eyes

Gray, dank people with

Pain, undisguised

She should feel weird

She should feel wrong

She should feel down

She shouldn't feel strong

It's not fair, her talent

Her faith, her joy

She has perfection

Not some trick or ploy

"She mustn't be around here

While we crumble down

It's only fair she leave us

To drown"

The faces murmur

Anger stirred from within

And pick up the ballerina

Throwing her back in

Into the prison

Of dissonant notes

and untuned bells, she's stuck 

Beyond too far a moat

Crossing is unattainable

She is forced to give in

Tossed off her toes

Thrown from her peak

Ballerina gone

Tutu beside

Now all that is left

Is a pain she can't hide

-Suzanne

(Sorry for the super cheesy rhyming poem but it was all I could come up with today. I'm still really sick. :P Hopefully by next week I'll feel better and you guys won't have to suffer along with my  horrible poetry. Oh, and the second picture is of a music box. Sorry it's dark!)

Flutter

Opening eyes

with eyelashes that flutter as wings,

lifting off to new pedals,

revealing irises and morning glories,

are without reason to see.

 

Listening ears

tunneling deep,

twitching at echoes

too far gone and too muddy

are materialistic without purpose to sound.

 

Lithe fingertips

that can only feel the patterns

full of icicles in the air.

freezing shoots before they grow

are useless if only numb.

 

Tasting tongue

full of eager buds

that sprout and bloom

when ignited

means nothing if nutrients are void.

 

Curious nose

with caverns for flurries

of petunia pollen and

thick, woody maple syrup

could care less with only rancid scents abroad.

 

Heart beats

that pulse rivers through a body

to jar awakening senses and

pull at thin soul strings

don’t matter unless they’re wanted.

 

The bubble that is built around

our wispy-walled worlds,

isolating feelings

from actions,

makes stony faces acceptable.

 

It means that

kissing eyelashes closed

and cutting off sound, touch,

tongue and smell

positively alleviate life away.

 

Here are my rising goose bumps,

and gritted teeth

seeing bodies turned to ash

with their wonderful, beautiful

spirits trapped inside.

 

Bubbles are the

pulsing enclosures,

keeping out the oxygen

those fragile soul strings

so need to breathe.

 

They thought that the

terrified fluttering of their

heart beats, trapped in cages

didn’t matter,

and that shatters the heart inside my chest.

 

Every word you say,

every breath you take

has meaning!

I want to shout.

Maybe a few will listen.

 

But many have

turned blind eyes, deaf ears,

numb fingers, tasteless tongues

and senseless noses

so soon.

 

Bubbles close in,

boa constrictors around their necks,

with no yield, they feel, leaving them

suffocating.  They turn to the ash

because where else can they go?

 

Pop!

 

One is too many to lose.

-Suzanne
(To be honest, I wrote this a while ago but I don't feel so good and couldn't get my brain to function properly. Sorry!)

Blacks and Blues

Mommy says that boys and girls handle stuff differently, like ‘emotional’ stuff.  (Emotional stuff is the stuff that makes you feel happy and sad and angry, if you didn’t know.  That’s what Mommy told me, and Mommy’s always right.)  She says the boys try to punch away the emotional stuff and the girls try and torture it out of themselves.  I asked her what torture is.  She says torture is being covered by blacks and blues on your skin and underneath it.  I asked her how she knows that blacks and blues on the inside are actually black and blue if you can’t see them.  She says they hurt the same, just different.  (It didn’t make sense, but I nodded all the same because Mommy’s smart and if I’m a smart, nice, and good girl, I get to eat dessert and I don’t want Mommy to think I’m not a smart, nice, and good girl.)  She says Kaden won’t get better until he learns to ‘talk’ (which confuses me because he’s fourteen and clearly already knows how to talk).  She says his blacks and blues won’t go away until he learns to ‘talk’ instead of punch.

            I asked her if Kaden’s sick.  She says that Kaden’s sad.  I asked her why Kaden’s sad.  She says there are lots of things that make Kaden sad.  (Then my brain made the frowny face it makes when the colors get all mixed up, but this time it was because I don’t understand why Kaden’s sad and he has blacks and blues but when I’m sad I don’t have blacks and blues.)  Mommy says that it’s because when Kaden feels sad, he gets into trouble and hits people when he’s not supposed to.  (This was very bad news because Mommy told me to never hit my friends even when I really want to.)  Mommy says one day I’ll be able to understand why Kaden doesn’t play with me anymore and I’ll be able to understand what it’s like to torture myself every day in front of the mirror and torture myself about what my friends things and torture myself when I feel all by myself.  (That does not sound fun, but I don’t tell Mommy that because it sounds like very grown-up stuff and I want to show Mommy that I can understand the grown-up talk, too.)

            Sesame Street was on, so I told Mommy that we could finish our grown-up talk later.  Cookie Monster was waiting to show me all the cookies I could eat and more if I was a smart, nice and good girl.  Sesame Street is very important.  Grown-up talks will have to wait.

            Mommy got up off her knees and began to walk towards the kitchen (hopefully to start making some cookies).  Then, I thought of something.

            “Mommy,” I asked, “is Henry coming over?”  Henry always gave me candy.  He’d sneak it past my mom so then I’d get to have two desserts!  Mommy stopped.  She turned around.  She looked at me.  She walked back over and got back on her knees so the top of her head reached the top of my head.

            “Do you know how it feels when you fall off your tricycle and scrape your knee?”  Mommy says.

            “Ouchie,” I said.

            “That’s right,” she said, giving me a small smile.  “Now, if a car was going faster than a tricycle--”

            “Faster than a tricycle?” I asked.  I was the fastest tricycler around.  Nobody was faster than me on a tricycle!

            “Yes, honey, faster than a tricycle.  Like I was saying, if a car was going very, very fast and something happened to the car that made it fall over like a tricycle, you could get a lot more blacks and blues than if you fell off your tricycle.”

            “Even more blacks and blues than Kaden?”

            “Even more blacks and blues than Kaden.”

            “Ouchie,” I said.

            “Double ouchie,” she agreed.  “Well, honey, Henry got in a triple ouchie accident and he had so many blacks and blues that he fell asleep.”

            “Fell asleep?”

            “Yes, sweetheart, he fell asleep.  Do you remember when we went to the church and Kaden was very, very sad?”

            “Yeah, I had to wear the black dress.  It was so so so itchy.”

            “Good memory; you’re a smart girl.”  I beamed.  “But Kaden was very sad because Henry was asleep.”

            “Why didn’t he just wake Henry up?”

            “Henry didn’t want to be woken up.  He had too many blacks and blues.  Can you imagine having lots and lots scrapes on your knees from falling off your tricycle?”

            “Million billion trillion ouchie!”

            “Yes, a million billion trillion ouchie.  You’re getting quite good at your numbers.”

            “I know!  I can count to a million billion trillion for you!  1...2...4...3...6…”

            “Very good!  You’re quite the big girl, now.  But can you just think about how Henry not waking up would make Kaden very sad?”

            “Henry is Kaden’s best friend.”

            “That’s right.  Now what if one day you wanted to watch Sesame Street on the TV and the TV didn’t work.  Would you be sad?”

            “No Cookie Monster?”  The thought made tears come to my eyes.

            “No Cookie Monster.  That is how sad Kaden feels times a million billion trillion.”

            I was in awe.  Kaden must have a lot of emotional stuff to “punch out” if he feels sad times a million billion trillion.  I couldn’t imagine life without Cookie Monster.

            I looked at the floor.  “So, Henry’s not coming over today?”

            “No.”

            “And he’s not bringing candy?”

            “No.”

            “I think I miss Henry.”

            “Your brother does, too.  He doesn’t know what to do when he feels so sad and that’s why he comes home with blacks and blues.  He doesn’t know what to do with all of his emotional stuff.”

Then, I heard the rumble that says the big yellow bumblebee bus is here with Kaden on it.  A long while later (Kaden’s very slow--I’m faster than him), Kaden came in the door and Mommy went to take off his coat.

“Mommy?” I asked.

“Hm?” she replied.

“Are you going to make cookies?”

“Yes, I suppose I can.”

Then, I went up to Kaden and looked up at his face with his black and blues.

“Kaden,” I said.

“Yeah, sis?” he said, his voice a weird mix between Kaden and the Grouch (Mommy says

that’s because Kaden’s growing up).

“After dinner, for dessert, you can have my cookie.”

He smiled a little down at me, “Oh?  Why’s that?  You going to try and get me to do your chores for you again?”

“No,” I said very matter-of-factly, “Because you’re sad and have blacks and blues because of Henry and I don’t want you to be sad and have blacks and blues because of Henry so I’m going to give you my cookie so you will be happy and not have to punch out your emotional stuff.”

Kaden looked at me, kind of stunned.  Then, he wrapped me in a hug.  “Mommy says you’re a smart, nice and good girl.  Mommy’s always right.”

-Suzanne

 

 

 

Inevitable

Funny how death really gets you thinking about life.  Well, only funny in a sick twisted way.  Even though I’ve always been a fan of sick and twisted.  Okay, not always a fan.  I was a watcher of horror films and I was the kid with the scary mask on Halloween, freaking out the little ones, and sometimes big ones.  I was a strange child.  For the longest time I refused to wear white, and pink was simply out of the question.  I remember asking my parents to paint my room black, get me black lights, and blot out the sun.  Mom thought I was crazy.  Dad thought I was cool.  Yes, a Goth preschooler probably made him giddy.

But then the sick and twisted ruined my life.

Father.  God is Father, but Dad, you’re on the other end of the spectrum.  You tried to destroy our family.  What about unity was so revolting you needed to squash it into the floor boards?  What was it about the woman you married that suddenly made you think her a demon?  That sweet woman, always smiling, even with gold strands sticking out of a bun as she bent over a sudsy sink full of your mess.  She’d help me with my schoolwork when you never would.  She hid everything you did from me.  And now look where we’ve all ended up because of her shield, her goal of protection.

                Wife beater.  Child abuser.  Psychopath.  Killer.  Murderer.  Dad.

                I hope they give you what you deserve in prison.  Rot in that hell on earth.

                It’s been six months since I saw felt your blows for the first time.  Mom always stopped you before you came too close.  But she wasn’t there.  I thought she was home.  I’d heard you fighting.  I didn’t expect you to come in my room, throw papers around, swept into a whirlwind by the ceiling fan.  I didn’t expect the hands of a work man pulling the hair along with the skin from my scalp.  I didn’t expect the knuckles on my cheeks or the boot toes in my guts.  I didn’t expect your anger.  Your rage.  Your uncontrollability.  You were hate.  You were fire.  You were insanity.

                I didn’t expect to crawl to the living room and find Mother’s body on the floor.  Limp.  Unmoving.  Dead.

                They took you away that night and I’ve only seen you once: at Grand Jury.  I will not visit you.  I never want to see you again.  You don’t deserve the woman whose heart you stole nineteen years ago.  You don’t deserve the daughter who you played a part in bringing into the world seventeen years ago. 

You don’t deserve life, but I plead you off the death penalty.

I don’t need two dead parents, even though I already feel as though I am an orphan with only one.

I still refuse to wear white, but I also refuse to watch horror films anymore.  The fake blood and guts on screen seemed too real anymore.

I was in the hospital the night of Mother’s passing because of you.  But I am in the hospital tonight because of me.

My heart stopped twice on the table.

One more pill, the doctors say, and I wouldn’t have come back after the first time.  I shouldn’t be alive, they say.  I’ve been given a blessing from God, a miracle, they say.

Perhaps I was wrong last night when I chugged half a pill bottle down with two sips of water.  Life isn’t about what is going to happen.  It isn’t about the inevitable.  It isn’t about the ‘maybes’ and ‘what if’s’.  Life is about enjoying what is happening right now.  Living life as if it is fragile is a mistake.  You only have one.  Live it as if each moment is precious.  Because they are.

It is true that there are inevitable things in this world.  Life’s opposite would be one.  It’s always the ‘when’ and the ‘how’ that get people.  We become so wrapped up in the details of the inevitable.  But it’s going to happen at some point, in some way.  So, get over it.

I probably sound harsh, maybe even morbid.  Go ahead and call me those, but don’t you dare call me hypocritical.  I have experienced death first-hand; you cannot tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about.  Death is a part of life that we have to live through.  You cannot avoid death.  It will always be looming right around the corner, biding its time and waiting for the moment when it can take someone home.

Of all people I should know this.  And I must live with it, as well.  Because we are all in the process of dying.  I am just reaching those final steps.

Yet I find myself quaking in my boots.

I keep telling myself that it’s not my fault that the hospital bed is white.  But maybe it’s a sign that heaven’s laying out the white, puffy stairs upwards for me to start climbing from here.  Now.

The only reason I can come up with as to why I wasn’t afraid last night was the alcohol already in me.  The drugs seemed like a good idea.  Like they would ease the pain of being parentless.

But now I know one thing for sure: I won’t be leaving this hospital with a white sheet over my head.  I’ve been given a new life.  I don’t have to go down Dad’s road.  I can pave my own way.  I can live for today and let God worry about tomorrow.

-Suzanne

 

 

The Mondays of our Lives

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: if goes on." ~ (the Amazingly Wonderful) Robert Frost

Hello blog-readers, blog-browsers and bored people of the Internet!

How's your Monday going?  Mine are usually clouded Garfield-like pouts, but it's crazy how one little piece of good news can brighten your day...even a Monday.

That's why I picked out this quote from the fantastical Mr. Frost (I'm a poetry lover and particularly a fan of his, if you couldn't tell).  The weeks are strange in that one day it feels over, and the next it's just beginning.  Fridays, we're all like, "WE MADE IT!  YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!"  And hardly three days later we feel like the race to the end of the week is just beginning again.  Why do we live our lives in weeks?  Perpetual, seven-day déjà vu’s.  Maybe it's because humans secretly like to start over because, let's face it, we mess up a lot.  Sometimes Monday can feel like a restart button has been pressed and weights are lifted from our minds.  Other times, that do-over is a burden.  You win some, you lose some, they say.  (Or, at least my mother does.  Probably because I lose...a lot.)

Right on, Mr. Frost, life does go on, whether we like it or not.  And we just have to keep plodding along, even through all of the Mondays of our lives.

(If you enjoyed this Monday musing, have things to add or have anything to say at all, PLEASE comment!  We looooove comments and want to interact with our readers through this blog.  :)  Have a great Monday!  Or at least as great as any Monday can be.)

-Suzanne

Flashing Nomad

            Breathe.  Just breathe.  Slow, simple breaths.  They will sustain me for now.

            With my breathing controlled, the bubble around me stops closing in.  The steady exhalations cause the bubble to start to expand, and now I’m floating.

            Panic.  What’s happening?  Where am I going?  How do I get down?

            I place my fingertips on the sides of the bubble.  It was not soapy as I had assumed, but soft, warm and pulsing.  Now I could feel it reverberating through me as I touched it, like the heartbeat of a kitten curled on my chest.

            Warmth.  I feel it spreading through me.  Like a blanket.  Covering me.

            Perhaps it is my now closer proximity to the sun, perhaps it is the heat of the adrenaline in my cheeks, or maybe it is this bubble, carrying me above the world.

            Beautiful.  The meadows and forests beneath me.  Rivers and mountains.

            They are beckoning me, begging me to explore them.  To find them out and to see inside.  I reach out to touch them, and the bubble tugs me the other direction.  I run towards these fields of waves, these oceans of gold.  The sun is shining.

            Farther.  Drifting farther away.  Reaching.  Hot tears running down stone cold cheeks.

            I am above the clouds now, no longer gazing up at their bellies, but facing their dark sides, flatter than I had imagined.  Harder, too.  If I feel onto one, would I bounce or splat?  Even the tallest mountains are hidden beneath.

            Gone. 

Are the puffy, fluffy whites. Are the green and gold and blue.  Is the shining sun.

All is dark and my bubble’s gone cold, sending shivers through the roots of my hair.

Am I alone?  Where is the earth?  The clouds?  Am I still in the sky?

Flash.  Of lightening.  Flash.  Of fear.  I’m clinging to the walls now gone slippery.

Eyes open or closed, there is no difference.  Except for that behind my lids I can see bright lilies, smiles on faces, glittering waters.

Flash.

A shrieking fills my throat and all memories of light disappear.  There I am, just outside the bubble.  I am pale and wispy and empty.  Transparent.

Flash.

My image is gone.  Was that a reflection?  A dream? A vision?

WHERE AM I?

I am falling.

The bubble dissolves into suds around me.  It’s like falling through the floor.

Where are the bouncy-castle-esque clouds from my childhood?  They are no longer drifting above my head, but looming below me.  I can feel them sucking the heat in my blood away from me as I approach.

But instead of the splat that was expected, I was only a CRASH and another mundane

flash.


-Suzanne