“Allow me to speak candidly,” she said with earnestness to no one in particular before finding herself poised halfway between the kitchen and the veranda staring out the window.
And just like that, the realization that had prompted the remark in the first place drifted out of her consciousness and on to wherever such realizations go when unattended.
And so it was that she sat down once again to a cup of camomile tea and a romance novel to while away a long day’s afternoon.
Broaden my horizons
Been looking for the same old things so long
From the views of this self-made prison I call my life
If I close my eyes and hold your hand
Can we leap into a whole new world
I want to stretch to see new sights
My heart is pounding, my body, so alive
I’m ready – let’s jump – and see where we land
A tiny world of experience
A blink of the eye
A split-second connection
Like breath, but different
Connects me to my innerscape
Reinforces my sense of self
In the often-overwhelm
Of being in the world
When the shock wears off
No more necessary actions to take
Arrangements made and fulfilled
Relatives come and gone
Friends no longer call
Even cards have been sent
“The family of — thanks you
For your expression of sympathy
The last casserole dish’s been returned
Back into life again
Then the real pain seeps through
That’s the time for a card or call
A lifeline through the bitter woe
A reminder that someone
Else remembers your loss
And cares
Take care not to waken
the pain of this world
in a child with an agile heart.
Or she’ll learn way too soon
to hide all her shine.
Take care of her fragile heart.
“I’m still looking for that loophole,” she said to no one in particular, as she lit up another Marlboro to replace the one she’d just smoked down to a nubbin before tamping it out in the Hellman’s jar top she used as an ashtray.
As the cat rubbed her ankles, she paused a moment to reflect on the fact that she’d probably never find one, but she said it again anyway, with a tiny, grim little laugh, “Yep, I’m still looking for the loophole.”
And with that, she went back to cutting coupons out of the Post, shaking her head at the price of milk these days.
“I’m a slow study,”
she said with apologetic eyes.
“It takes me awhile to get a thing.
But when I get it,
it’s in the vault.”
I smiled, knowing she knows plenty.
Maybe someday she’ll know what I do:
She’s as bright as they come.
A slow study is only slow in someone else’s opinion.
I’d like to see that knowing in her eyes.
“As if,” she said to no one in particular, never entertaining for one second that she would try even one of Bitsy Devoe’s shortbread sweets as they were passed by on delicately-doilied silver trays by somber, tight-lipped staff in impossibly-starched black uniforms.
Bitsy had conveniently forgotten that the recipe that she was now widely known for had actually been hers once upon a time, given innocently and generously on loan, for goodness sakes, for an event for which Bitsy’s originally-planned recipe had miserably failed, and for which Bitsy had since become quite famous for making.
As if to punctuate her resentment, she put her cigarette out in vase of delphiniums that sat on the foyer table, and with a wry smile of self-approval, proceeded back to the bar area to partake of a third Gin Gimlet.
Drains the last of the bottle
Looking out into the blue-black bruise of night
No trains coming through ’til morning
In a blackout he meets his own dark soul
But he won’t remember it in the morning
He listens with Jack Daniels’ ears
For something, for anything
He watches the static of the old tv
Waiting for God to speak to him again
And just before he passes out
He has an epiphany, which is then lost
Too many voices within
An unwelcome cacophony
Disparate threads collide
Influence my life strategy
Others’ conversations
Nag and berate, then subside
Get still, they said, and listen
You will hear your Self inside
It’s the quiet one underneath
Just make some space within
So I tried to push the static aside
I didn’t value what it had to say
Tried to drown out those others’ voices
That had somehow become a part of mine
And in doing so, I lost my way
But now I know their message is important
They just need to be heard and known
Like a feeling just wants to be felt
They need to not feel all alone
So now I listen to the threads
One by one, I unravel each song
I give back those not mine to those who sang them first
Tell them I’ll always carry their song in mine
No longer at odds, there is now harmony
My voice resonates with many voices as one
And the music of my soul makes perfect sense to me
Beyond the Skinny Branches 