Not Today

It's hard to pinpoint when I became aware of it. I"m shamed to say that the majority of the time I'm just like every other human being: Self-centered. But I woke up one day with the realization that he wasn't here anymore.

Oh, don't get me wrong, he still lays beside me in our bed each night. He still sits across from me at our dinner table. He is there in every way that doesn't count.

That look in his eyes, the one that always reassured me, is absent. His kisses, his touch, they don't persuade anymore, don't tease or cajole. They simply are. But, worse, is the way his smiles and his laughter slowly fade until they are shadows of themselves. Memories of what was.

He'll tell you that he loves me. He'll shout it from rooftops like crazed stalkers, he'll stencil it on notebook covers like love-sick teenagers, he'll carve it into trees and engrave it into jewelry. If you ask him to. If you question him.

He'll always say that he loves me. He might even mean it. He probably does. But he's not in love with me anymore.

On the bad days, on the worst days, I wonder if he ever was.

So I lay here in our bed. Gazing at his face in the growing morning light. Feeling my heart swell and ache with an emotion that can't be defined with things as simple as four letter words and wedding bands. Knowing that one morning I will wake up and his side of the bed will be empty.

I'm just thankful it's not today.

Just Maybe

He stumbled over his words
Falling over his own thoughts
Repeating, reiterating
Refusing to admit that maybe
Just maybe
She wasn't listening to his windy soliloquy
His professed apologies
His promises to do better

He rambled until he was speechless
Breathing raggedly
Pausing, hoping
Thinking that maybe
Just maybe
She would believe his wasted words
His professed apologies
His promises to do better

He remained quiet
Attempting to make her break the silence
Waiting, Anticipating
Expecting that maybe
Just maybe
She would give weight to his pleas
His professed apologies
His promises to do better

She listened to all he said
Trying to hold hope in her hands
Praying, Begging
Pleading that maybe
Just maybe
He would mean all of it this time
His professed apologies
His promises to do better

But finally she'd learned from their past
Hanging up the phone
Crying, Hurting
Wishing that maybe
Just maybe
He would learn
His professed apologies
His promises to do better

Mean nothing without the actions to substantiate them

Prescribed Pills

Today’s Forecast: Partly Sarcastic with a slight chance of pessimism and a thirty percent chance of honesty.

If anyone were to ask, which they won’t, I would tell them that it wasn’t entirely unexpected. A surprise, yes, but certainly not unforseen. I had thought she’d needed something for years. Wellbutrin, Prozac, Lithium . . . at one point I was even convinced she needed an anti-psychotic like Clozapine. So, opening her purse and seeing the little white Rx page with an illegible signature and the word Seroquel written strongly and underlined twice didn’t throw me off balance. So, what did?

The list of doctors at the top of the page in off-black Bickley Script print.

She was seeing a psychiatrist. She’d always sworn she would never seek the care of a mental health professional. Come to think of it, just last weekend she’d pronounced to all who would listen: "I’m not crazy, I’m Southern. There are no crazies or psychotics down here; we’re called eccentrics or unusual. I don’t need drugs, I need a stiff drink. Now how bout you fetch me a mint julep, sugah."

I could have confronted her. Pulled her small white paper with it’s damning print out of her patent leather bag and waved it in her smug face. Called her a liar and a fruitcake and been justified in doing so. But I didn’t. Why?

So that maybe, just maybe, she would fill the prescription and get the help she seemed to finally realize she so desperately needed.

One and Two . . . . late, as usual

The field behind our house was never a field.

It was a castle with a draw bridge and a moat and dozens of armor clad soldiers coming to save me.

It was a baseball diamond where I played third, my brother played second and our cousin, Andrew, played catcher. You had to pitch the ball to yourself, but you never struck out.

It was a jungle where wild animals lurked and us hunters would hide with our bazookas and bows and arrows waiting for our dad to blow his old elk horn so our safari could begin.

It was a an old farm being overrun by indians during the American Revolution. Johnny Redcorn Laine would tie me up and rustle the cattle, but he wouldn't get away with it. My brother would tear off after him on our only horse and save the farm.

It was lots of things; mostly dreams. But it was never a parking lot . . . .until last summer.


--------------------------------------------------

I’m convinced, at times, that I’ve imagined him. Content to hide inside my own mind, conjuring the things I’ve always wanted but never found. Even in his arms I feel the need to experience everything at once.

I breathe him, I draw him in closer, I open my eyes and absorb everything I’m seeing, I kiss his lips and drink him in all the while listening closely for his heartbeat. I need to know he’s not an apparition.

One second passes, then two, then twelve, I feel him pulling away - not because it’s uncomfortable, but because even the closest of couples need personal space - and I pull him closer to me for a moment more. The moment is brief, but it’s enough. I convince myself that he’s real. That he’s here. And I hope he always will be.

But time passes too quickly when we’re together and soon it’s time to leave. I drive past a small town, an empty field, a bustling metropolis, they’re all the same no matter how different. They’re not where he is and that’s where I need to be. Until then, I will spend my life in periods of disbelief and imagination broken by stolen moments with him.

Stubbornness

"What are you doing?"

He looked up from under the table. "I'm trying to help you look for your keys."

"Give it up. It's useless. I've searched this place from top to bottom, side to side and everywhere in between."

"They're here somewhere. You drove over here, so you obviously had them. I swear to God, Sarah, you'd lose your head if it wasn't attached."

"What?!?! I've misplaced one thing. One. How does this qualify me as someone who'd 'lose their head if it wasn't attached'? And why are you so . . .so . . . ill today? Male PMS?"

He stood up and dusted off his knees, "I've got things to do today and instead of doing them, I'm crawling around the dirty floor searching for your keys."

"Well, Mr. Important, go if you've got to go. No one told you to help me look for my keys. I'll find them myself, thank you very much."

"Go? Go? How would I go? You're-still-here!"

"I do know how to work a doorknob. I think, think mind you, that I can operate a door well enough to let myself out."

"And let you snoop around my house by yourself? Oh. I see. You haven't lost your keys at all. They're probably over there in your purse. You just want to sneak and snoop and see what I've been up to. Forget it. It's none of your business any more. Get over your jealousy, get over your nosiness and get over me!"

"You flatter yourself, really. I was over you the minute we broke up. You ended it and a millisecond later I realized I could do sooooooo much better. I give you another week before you're dating girls that still feather their bangs and tight roll their jeans. You'll be cruising trailer parks and high schools and I'll be laughing my ass off. I was the best thing that ever happened to you and deep down you know it."

He gritted his teeth before grabbing his gym bag and his keys. "Fine. Let yourself out. I don't care what you do or what you find." And with that, he was out the door and slammed it for emphasis.

She threw herself onto the empty couch that smelled of him and cried. Why couldn't she just say, "I love you. I will always love you. Please take me back."

But her pride was stronger than her love.

Fleetwood Mac

Eager to escape even the memory of her, he found himself running for hours. Led Zepplin and Pink Floyd screaming in his ears; the bands she would never listen to with him. His legs numb from the effort, his breath growing more shallow with every step, but his mind still determined to exhaust him past the point of dreaming. He couldn't take another night of smelling her perfume, being caught in her gaze, hearing her apologize and then waking to emptiness and the knowledge she would never be sorry.

The Name of the Game is "Late"

You know who I feel sorry for? The original members of Menudo. I mean, it's not like that racket they produced could be called music, but it was catchy in that wanna-shoot-yourself-in-the-head-cause-they-play-it-so-much kinda way, and those poor middle-aged men don't get credit for it anymore. All the new Menudo fans think the boy-group is just that . . a group of prepubescents who sing snazzy little Latin songs. The only possible thing keeping their fan base of today from skipping over the past members entirely is Ricky Martin. And, let's face it, he's not exactly in the news lately either. Poor past Menudo members. They're probably waiting tables in your local Mexican joint or selling bags of oranges along your beatiful highways and by-ways. They're definitely not Livin' La Vida Loca.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What've we got here?"

"Well, Dixie Ann, what you see here is the original Spam burger, hot off the grill."

"The original Spam-burger???? Ummm . . is there an unoriginal Spa . . . on second thought, I'd appreciate you skipping any explanations. I don't think I wanna know."

"Come on, Dixie Ann, give it a chance. You owe it to your Southern Heritage."

"No, no. I think not. I owe a great many things to my Southern Heritage, Jim Bob. My unladylike cheering at sporting events - including tractor pulls, my desire to slather everything in gravy, even my ability at age 6 to shoot a .22 and a 12 gauge with spot-on accuracy. But one thing I do not owe to my Southern Heritage is tasting SPAM. Possibly RC Cola, or Moon Pies, or even *bleck* Vienna Sausages. But not, I repeat not Spam. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not in a box. Not with a Fox. I will not try your grilled up Spam, I will not try it, no way man."

"Awww, Dixie Ann, why'd you have to go and make such a racket?!?! Now the young'uns'll know it's not really hamburgers. There ain't no way Bobbi Sue's gonna eat this now."

"As well she shouldn't. It's my right as an aunt to warn her away from such atrocities."

Late Again, Oh Bother

It was one of those bright summer days that seemed to blind you with it's brilliance. The sunglasses he wore were twice the size of his face, but he didn't care 'cause they were cool. The combination of high speed and a convertible top had produced a hair style that could best be defined as "wild", but it went well with his eyewear. And though he was a pound shy of the legal limit for the front seat, I didn't suppose the police carried around scales in their cruisers. When he said "Momma, go faster!!!" as he laughed uncontrollably, my heart swelled in my chest until it was painful.

"Baby, can momma have her sunglasses back?" He giggled and clutched them tighter to his face as he yelled above the roar of the wind, "NU UH!" Suddenly, the glare of the sun didn't seem to matter.

Silver Threads and Golden Needles

She had hoped that the cheap blinds in the dusty hotel room would be adequate enough to hide her. However, when she saw his view dart quickly to her exact window and then remain there as though he could feel her watching him, she knew they weren’t any protection. Who was she kidding? Bulletproof layered steel could be there and he would still feel her . . . just as she would still see him.

She didn’t know what she was doing down some forgotten dirt road, in a small obscure town, hundreds of miles from a place either of them called home. He’d said it would be easier this way. A place where neither of them knew anyone but each other. She’d picked the state. North Carolina. She just liked the sound of it. He picked the town a few nights later. He said he’d bought a map, closed his eyes and pointed; but she had her doubts. Maps of North Carolina were probably hard to come by in Ohio.

She’d said she wouldn’t come. She had no intentions of meeting a strange man, whose last name she didn’t even know, in a place neither of them felt safe. He said he’d make her feel safe. And she knew he would. He already had in so many ways.

She dropped below the windowsill and hugged her knees. He looked just as she thought he would. Devastating in a non-obvious way. Someone that anyone else would pass by without a second glance, but she was destroyed inside just from the brief meeting of their eyes. She wondered if he’d knock on the door, then laughed at herself because it wasn’t his way. He would wait in the parking lot, leaning against his rental, waiting for her to come to him. Certain that she would.

She contorted her body to glance out the window again. He hadn’t moved. His stance just as it was. His gaze still focused on her window. He felt her looking again. She could tell by the way his lips lifted just slightly at the corners. This was crazy. She couldn’t go out there. She didn’t even know why she’d come this far. She’d spent eleven hours driving to cower on the stale carpet of a dingy hotel room. "I just want to look at him," she’d told herself. "Just know we’re in the same state, the same city, at the same time. That should be enough." She watched as his smile grew wider, as though he could read her thoughts.

She pulled herself off of her knees into a crouching position, her eyes still fixed on him. He mouthed something she couldn’t quite catch, then he mouthed it again. "I’m waiting." She inched her hand towards the door and placed it on the cold, brass knob. Her heart waged war with her mind as her fingers tried to decide if they were going to grasp and turn. He took one step towards her room and she let her hand drop back to her side and turned away from the window.

She slept soundly that night and two more after, then she drove home. Alone.

. . .You Don't Know What You Got Til It's Gone . . .

As the taxi sped hurriedly from the curb, she quietly wondered at the emptiness that engulfed her. Something was missing, something that had just been there moments before.

Her mind had been racing in the cab, her pen scribbling ideas slower than her mind could produce them. The ride through the dark city streets had lit a fire of inspiration that was burning through her fingertips and onto the scraps of paper she could gather from the littered floorboards.

But in the near-silent hum of the streetlamp above her, she heard something more ominous. She was beginning to panic. She felt her pockets quickly; apartment keys, lipstick, Blackberry . . What else could be gone? What could have struck her numb with fear?

When the taillights of the taxi blinked out of sight, it all became clear: Her creativity had vanished with the taxi.

And a One, And a Two . . .

Submission I

Scattered clothing on the lawn. A sea of boxers, sports jerseys and that pair of pajamas I bought but you never wore. Determined this time. You'll leave, and this time, you'll stay gone. I won't ask you back. You'll send flowers and play my favorite songs on long voice-mail messages that I won't listen to. But I won't yield. You're wrong for me in all the right ways. And I have to let you go just to prove. . . I love myself more than you.

Submission II

She has a pair of pajamas she keeps in the bottom drawer of her nightstand. She remembers when they swam on her; the drawstring of the bottoms pulled so tightly that yards of fabric were ruffled together, the cuffs of the sleeves rolled to the shoulder seam. She fools herself sometimes. Holding them up to her cheek, smothering her nose in the folds. She would swear to you she smells Old Spice and pipe tobacco. Though the fabric ceased to yield such scents long ago.

She had worn them every night after he left. Refusing to let her mother wash them. Refusing to believe that he was really gone. He’d left them here. The pajamas he’d worn every night since she was born. He wouldn’t leave them. He would have to come back. And when he did, she’d be there. Waiting. Daddies don’t leave their pajamas. And they don’t leave their little girls.

But she hadn’t been that scared little girl in 22 years and she hadn’t worn the pajamas in almost 15. It was time to let them, and everything they stood for, go. She opened the drawer, determined to throw them in the trash, more certain than ever that she could. But, as she pulled them from the drawer, that old scent wafted up. Old Spice and pipe tobacco.

Closing her eyes, she folded them carefully back in their place.

How Do You People Title These Things??

He felt like he was drowning in the humidity surrounding him. Jesus, if he didn’t love his job so much he would never be subjecting himself to this. Promotion. Promotion, my ass. This was punishment. Exile to the South. Surrounded by rednecks and good ole’ boys and females whose mating call consists of "I’m sooooooo drunk."

What he needed was a cold beer, a lounge chair, a pool filled with Playboy models and two young things standing above him. One with a large palm-leaf fan and another willing to acquiesce to his every demand.

What he had was a tepid glass of water, an uncomfortable office chair, a broken air conditioner and three "trainees" who probably couldn’t be trusted to go to the bathroom alone. He wondered if he should paint a bulls-eye on the bottom of the toilet bowl - - just in case.

He still didn’t understand why they were setting up satellite offices in the South. It would be just as cost effective to fly potential clients up to their offices in New York, Chicago or D.C. and put them up for a week. Though, he admitted those ideas could stem from his complete hatred of the South. Everything down here seems so slow and dragging, not to mention archaic. He actually heard a man use "the N word" in public the other day. Other than in rap lyrics, he hadn’t known the word still existed. But the terms "South" and "Reality" are mutually exclusive, right? These people don’t even seem to realize that they lost the civil war.

Old Mrs. Beauchamp, who he only tolerated because she had more money than God, had come in twice this week and complained endlessly about the lack of cool air while she waited on her "Negro driver" to come back and "collect her from her appointments." Who talks like that? Moneyed women in the heart of Georgia. That’s who.

He’d give his right arm for a decent bagel, a cup of real coffee, a woman who could say the word "Yes" in only one syllable and a conversation that didn’t revolve around race or religion. He’d give his left pinkie for an employee that wasn’t out of his damn mind. Jimmy - trainee number one - had asked for grievance leave because his "best huntin’ dog had to be put down." Trevor had just sat there, mouth agape, blinking in confusion. "You need grievance leave. For a dog. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?" Jimmy had looked up with tears running down his face and said, "Yeah. For the fune’ral. We’re gonna send him off right proper."

He’d called his boss in New York, convinced this was a joke that corporate was pulling on him. A clever ruse to get back at him for all his complaining the past few weeks. Sadly, he was mistaken. In the end, he’d had to give Jimmy three days PAID leave and, AND, he’d had to send the family flowers - - to make up for the fact that he’d laughed him out of the office when he’d asked for the leave to begin with. All in all, he was out $373.62 when you factored in the paid time off, the flower arrangement and the new shirt he’d had to buy to replace the one he’d spit coffee down when Matt had told him that none of this was a joke.

He tried to remind himself this was only temporary. But, it didn’t stop him from wondering if this was Hell. It certainly seemed like it. And it was definitely hot enough. But, they don’t have "huntin’ dogs" in Hell, do they?

And It's Not Even Thursday, Yet

He was screaming.
He didn’t mean to, he simply couldn’t control it.
His voice had slowly escalated from almost a whisper to a full-on shout.
" . . . and I can’t take it anymore. Everything’s this big secret. Everything’s so private. You can’t tell anyone anything. Not even your boyfriend. I am your boyfriend, aren’t I? I can’t really keep up. You run so hot and cold . . . "

She continued to ignore him.
Reason, she could manage.
Rationality, she could deal with.
But he was neither reasonable nor rational. He was a lunatic standing in her kitchen.
Her fingers tightened a little stronger on the handle of the sprayer. Had he been looking at her, he would have noticed the white in her knuckles. But it wasn’t about her, it never was. This was about him and his insecurities. His rant was about what he did, not her. She wondered if he even realized it. She began to rinse the last of the dinner dishes and tried to make her shaky breaths regain their natural rhythm. She told herself he wouldn’t end it. Not like this.

He saw it perfectly in his mind.
He crossed the kitchen floor, wrapped his hands around her shoulders, twisted her around and shook her until her teeth rattled.
The strength of the vision scared him. He’d never been violent. But something about the way she was standing, the casual way she ignored him, how she could continue to do the evening chores as though he wasn’t even there, let alone livid.
His blood was boiling with his anger. He was suddenly glad that he hadn’t proposed on their anniversary, though he’d had every intention to. Something stopped him. Now he knew what. He’d never known anyone so cold and unfeeling.

She blinked rapidly. Focusing her eyes on the children playing under the street lamp through the kitchen window. She wouldn’t let him see her cry. She was tired of being the only one that would cry for them. She was sick of being the only emotional one. They could never work. She’d been a fool to think that two people who were such complete opposites could come together and form anything but chaos around them. But beneath all of it, she was still praying. Don’t let him leave me. Please.

He couldn’t take it anymore. Her deaf act was the last straw. The neighbors had started banging on the apartment walls. Hell, people in the next town could hear him. He wouldn’t stand still a moment longer. He shouldn’t be held accountable for whatever happens after he gets within arms reach of her. She brought all of this on herself. She was destroying him. She was ruining them.

His strides were strong and hurried, quick but long. He reached her before she’d known he’d taken the first step. She dropped the last dish as he grabbed her shoulders and turned her. She hoped he mistook the wetness on her cheeks for back splash of the sprayer.

He saw the tears on her face and his anger dissolved as quickly as it had formed.

-- "I'm going crazy. I'm standing here, solidly, on my own two hands, and going crazy." Katherine Hepburn as Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story

Better Late Than Never?

Red Ragtop reminds me of him
The contents of my past
A shakily written letter
A sealed envelope
I’ve burned in my mind

But when that song plays
I resent who I was
And who I would have become
Had I kept holding on
Instead of burning my past

And blazing a new trail to my future
The damage that remains is negligible
I forget it’s even there
Until I hear the sad notes of the song start
And it rises to the surface
Lighting a fire in my chest
The ashes of the letter turning to embers once again.

I'm Consistent . . . In My Inconsistency

He looked up from the short manuscript I’d dropped in his lap just minutes before and said only, "That was certainly tongue in check."

I laughed so loudly that it startled him a bit from his seat. "Honey, I think the term is tongue in cheek."

Trying desperately to cover his small mistake, he replied with a smile, "I wasn’t trying to use that particular turn of phrase. I simply meant that there were lots of things you could have said in that piece that you didn’t. Like how "Sarah" is a raging bitch who thinks everyone envies and adores her. Or how "Mandy" pretends to be this doting mother and martyr for all, but in her spare time has phone sex with almost-strangers. So, I said what I meant . . . you managed to keep your tongue in CHECK."

"Oh," crestfallen, I looked to the floor, "so you recognized Carissa and Angela in the story? I thought I did a pretty good job disguising them in the characters."

"Anyone who knows them would recognize them in this story."

I sighed heavily then stamped my foot with child-like anger. "I just can’t write fiction! I try and I try, but everything I write ends up being about the people or the events in my life. Why does it seem to come so easily for everyone else in my writing group, yet I spend hours and days agonizing over one tiny piece and it still comes out horribly?"

He didn’t need to rise from the chair and pull me to his chest. It wasn’t necessary for him to stroke my back with the lightest of touches. I just wanted it.

But it wasn’t his way.

He didn’t use touch to soothe. And though I am loathe to admit it, sometimes the reach of his words strikes deeper than the caress of his hands.

"You can write fiction. Only a handful of people would ever know this was based in truth. Your writing is flawless, the flow uninterrupted, the words carefully chosen and exact in their placing. Hemingway, himself, would be jealous. What you think you lack in creativity you make up for in sheer ability. Submit this for publication - under a pseudonym, of course - and it will be picked up immediately. Or just present it to your writing group next Tuesday and watch shock, awe and thinly veiled jealousy rise to color their faces."

I rolled my eyes and kept my petulant stance, but deep inside I was glowing. He wasn’t a man who used words lightly, he knew the weight that they held, particularly with me. And though I'm not deluded enough to believe what he said; I know that he thinks every word he said was true.

I wonder, again, if I write only for his praise. I stopped writing for myself long ago . . .

I'm a Joiner. Sue Me.

And below, you shall behold, my Three Word Wednesday.
A close friend of mine expressed a new found love of the word Marionette and an odd fascination with the word Horticulture last night, so my Three Word Wednesday is actually a Five Worder. :)

She knew she ought to be listening to the droning voice of the professor standing before her, but her attention was shot for the day. Summer classes were the worst. Four weeks of cramming in material that is normally discussed over the course of four months. Who'd come up with that bright idea? Just thinking about it made her groan. Uh oh. Had she done that aloud?? She looked quickly around her but her classmates seemed absorbed in whatever Professor Mackaby was saying. She wondered for the thousandth time that hour if she should change her major. Something exciting like zoology or criminal justice, something enticing like creative writing or romance languages, or even something just plain strange like horticulture . . . anything but accounting.

The endless clicking of the clock on the wall drew her eye to it's hands. She was certain it was her mind playing tricks on her, but she could swear that the minute hand just ticked backwards. Another groan escaped her lips. "This class is never gonna end." She thought she'd said it internally, but the shadow falling heavily over her desk made her wonder. She glanced up and Professor Mackaby was there. "Miss Toney, do you have something to add to the discussion of Adams's theory of economics?" Somehow, she successfully stifled the need to roll her eyes heavenward. "No, Professor Mackaby." He bent his lanky frame so that his face was within inches of her own, "That's odd because I could have sworn I heard you mumble something over here. I assumed, since we're so pressed for time in this class, that anything worth interrupting the class for was important and relevant to the course." Focusing entirely on keeping her eyes still, she couldn't quite stop her foot from tapping impatiently. "I didn't say anything, Professor." He cocked one eyebrow quizzically and she was struck, not for the first time, by the desire to hit him. He rotated quickly on one foot and began to amble back to the podium.

Watching him, she noticed how he more danced than walked. Each leg moving independently of the other, knees raising high. His arms, alternately, following suit. It was as though he was a marionette controlled by the strings of God instead of a man moving of his own accord. She wondered if she slapped him, would her hand come back to her with a splinter embedded in the skin?

She looked back at the clock and sighed. Still another hour and a half to go. She wasn't sure she could make it without entertaining herself with thoughts of Professor Mackaby as Pinocchio and herself as Gepetto. If she squinted tightly enough, she could almost see the bright rouge circles of color that would grace his cheeks. The things she would make him do, if only she controlled his strings. She smiled a bit wider than was necessary and felt the Professor's eyes on her again. She just couldn't have any fun.

The Three Word Wednesday I Will Probably Take Down

I can’t sleep. 2:13 in the morning and I’m not the least bit tired.
I can hear him breathing; sometimes mumbling in his sleep.
It makes me smile and sigh at the same time.

In my mind, I pitch ideas to him:

“Why don’t you quit your job and move into my place so you can chase your dreams. You deserve to have everything you want, not just what you need.”

“I know we’ve chosen girls names, but I’ve been thinking a bit harder. What about Ella; it’s beautiful and a tribute to my grandmother.”

“I want to change my job so I’ll have more time and energy for us, so that we might be closer.”

But I know in the cold light of morning, I’ll just hold my tongue.

I’ve said such things before. Jokingly, so as not to scare him. Not to push him. I’m worried he’d feel trapped and start looking for the nearest exit. A green sign pulsing with “Your freedom starts here.”

It’s 2:29 now. I’m rambling incoherently in my mind. A million feelings and thoughts all centered on him. Things I hide, things I tell him, they’re all jumbling together and I want to scream them to him just to let them all out. Instead I stay silent, not wanting to wake him, until they build so inside me that I’ll burst soon, I know it.

I can’t keep holding it back, not tonight of all nights. So in a low voice I whisper a small prayer above: “Please give me more strength. Please give me more patience. Please help us to be what you intended us to be. I’m thankful, dear Lord, every minute, every second, for this man that you brought into my life. Please help me . . . just help me . . . to be what he needs me to be.”

Medgar Evers once said “When you hate, the only one who suffers is you, because most of the people you hate don’t know you hate them and the rest, don’t care.”

Though I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, I’m shamed to admit that I still hold hatred in my heart. I attempt daily to redirect this hatred or to transfer it into a different emotion, but it seems an impossible feat.

Holding on to this hatred is futile, and I’m aware of this fact. It’s futility is even more confounding because my hatred is for someone whom I don’t personally know. This person and I have never exchanged words of any kind. We’ve never even laid eyes upon one another. But my hatred for them burns bright within me. I suffer for this and I’m the only one that does.

I’ve contemplated on several occasions contacting this person whom I hate so viciously. A phone conversation, an email, a handwritten letter, something, anything to express my questions and anger towards them. But in the end, I internalize it instead. Feeling that my expressions would fall on deaf and ignorant ears. Also, I’m not the type of person to attack someone without cause.

I need to learn to redirect this emotion of hatred. I must force myself to let go of my anger and confusion. But learning to do so is proving harder every day. Particularly when their offenses continue to compound.

Lounged - Slice - Knot

Thanks to Bone for making me write. Even when I hate to and I hate the feelings it brings. Including my jealousy of his works.

She tried to appear as casual as possible. Nonchalant, even. She lounged delicately on the cheap plastic chaise purchased for $3.99 at the local Dollar General. She’d covered it with a towel, hoping he wouldn’t notice. She wasn’t in his league, but he didn’t need to know that. She could pull off sophistication and class. Just watch.

The ice in her drink had long since melted away in the hot summer sun, thwarting her plans of a seductress type enchantment. She’d had visions of him walking near her, noticing her not noticing him, hooking him on that alone. Men were so easy. Then, when she started to become an after thought, she’d reel him in. Lightly pinching a piece of ice from her glass and running it around her neck, slowly, then drawing his view to her moderate cleavage by directing the ice ever closer. Damn. Why had he picked today to be an hour late?

She opted for the next best thing. Removing the single lemon slice from the edge of the glass and nipping gently at it’s peel. It wouldn’t take his eyes to her best asset, but making a man think about your mouth was never a bad plan.

But he kept walking. As though she was invisible. How could he not have seen . . . ? But, didn’t he know that she . . . A lesser woman would have stamped her foot in frustration. But not Alaina. She continued to nibble at the slice as she thought of what to do next. If only Sherri had come with her, she always had a back-up plan that could work magic. But Alaina never thought that far ahead. Or, rather, she never believed her first plan could ever fail. She was always so sure of herself. But her confidence and bravado were starting to slip. She had to act now. S omething brazen, something brash; since subtle obviously didn’t work.

She leapt quickly from her seat and padded to the lifeguard’s chair. "Umm, excuse me, this is soooo embarassing, but my friend had to leave and I don’t know anyone else here to ask, and, umm, well, since you work here, I mean, it’s your job to help me, right?" She continued in a rush of words, as though she were scared his interrupting would serve to banish the small remainder of her confidence. "But, umm, well, my top is just the slightest bit too tight and I can’t reach the knot by myself and if you could just, well, just loosen up the teeniest, tiniest bit, I would like be sooooo thankful."

He simply nodded shortly and set his fingers deftly to the knot, loosening it in milliseconds. She never even felt him touch her skin! How disappointing. Her cheeks brightened to a dark shade of red and she hurried back to her chair by the pool.

He schooled his face not to show even the slightest of smiles, but couldn’t stop his eyes from laughing behind the dark sunglasses or his mind from thinking, "These poor Junior high girls, what will they come up with next? I could be her father!"