Untitled... Prologue

 The dark had long descended over the quaint Bradshaw house and the owners had long retired to their bed. One, however, a Mrs. Cecelia Bradshaw tossed and turned, her aging limbs seeming to resist the thought of sleep although her eye lids fell temptingly heavy over her eyes. So when the first noise sounded she jolted from her half sleep, a sense of fear traveling through her blue veins, winding its way to her heart.

            She looked around the shadowy room and out into the hallway. Nothing seemed to be amiss so she lied back down next to her husband and let her eyes begin to close. It was the creaking of an old house, she told herself. It happens all the time, she reasoned.

            And then it happened again, the pounding reverberating through the halls.

            No, that was definitely not an old house sound.

            “Robert, did you hear that?” Cecelia whispered to the man lying beside her. He snorted and turned his back to her.

            “Robert,” Her tone was pleading now as she nudged at his shoulder.

            “Did I hear what?” He grumbled, only wanting to get back to sleep.

            “That bang bang-bang.” She attempted to imitate the sound.

            “Cece, please, this an old house and I’m an old man who needs his sleep. I didn’t hear a thing.” He sighed and fluffed his pillow before sinking back into it.

            The silence between the aging husband and wife stretched through the dark for moments that could have been minutes or possibly seconds, Cecelia couldn’t tell but as just as her eyes threatened to close once more the sound echoed through the halls to their small bedroom, more urgent sounding than either of the times before.

            “Robert,” she urged once more. Cecelia was a woman who followed her gut and right now that pounding sound was turning her stomach into a knot, and that knot was telling her something was wrong.

            Robert Bradshaw sat up in his bed, listening intently; he wasn’t going to deny that he had heard it the last time, and the sound left a cold feeling creeping through his bones. Cecelia followed him as he stumbled through the black hallways, switching on every light they passed; she held an old baseball bat gripped in her frail hands. They both jumped as the beating sound began again, the front door shaking from the force causing the noise.

            As they reached the end of the hallway the harsh sound stopped at once but was followed by a single hollow sounding thud.

            The two shared confused and slightly fearful glances before Robert reached for the doorknob.

            “Step back, Cecelia,” her husband’s voice was so sharp. He had never used that tone before, never, and frankly, it scared her. She took two steps back, gripping the baseball bat so tight her knuckles turned ghostly white. Robert turned to his wife once more and took a deep breath. Quicker than she had thought possible for her grey-haired spouse, he threw the front door open.

            Immediately the two were struck dumb. There in the shadows just outside the door a body swayed, moonlight warred with the lights from the house, causing only part of the body to show, and that part alone was gruesome enough to nearly give the two elderly a pair of matching heart attacks. Mud caked feet led to crisscrossed slashes marring thin legs; blood seemed to trickle from everywhere.

            Cecelia and Robert stood there for seconds cleverly disguised as minutes staring at the young girl. She took one swaying step out of the shadows and into the house, revealing even more unsightly incisions and bruises. The bruises were like beautiful splashes of paint on her ivory skinned face that clashed with the blood of a wound hidden on her hairline. Her hair was matted with soil and blood.

            Her eyes, glazed with fear, traveled over the plump woman and the scrawny, balding man before following their gazes to her own body. Rivulets of scarlet blood traveled down her legs and arms, landing on the snow-white carpet.

            “I-I’m s-sorry—“ Just as the final syllable escaped her lips, her legs gave out and her body crumpled into the old man’s shaking arms.

New Beginnings

I'm not going to paste my entire short story on here because the format always gets screwed up but here is the link to this story i wrote the other day.
It might not seem like it at first but it's about being brave enough to accept the things you cannot change and to change the things you can.

http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/Destinee/487309/

also, the writing style is a lot "braver" i suppose you could say with the words i use.

keep in mind please, that i was writing this for a school assignment and was supposed to keep it to 6 pages at the maximum. That proved to be impossible so i splurged for 9 (oh, the bravery!)
it's still not how i imagined it because i had to cut it so short but oh well. one day i will return to it.

Elsewhere

Don’t worry your pretty little head, little one

Daddy’s gone elsewhere tonight

You don’t have to worry about the

Look he gets in his eyes

When he’s had too much to drink

And when the liquor just wasn’t enough

To declaw the demon in his mind.

Don’t lose any sleep, little one,

Daddy’s gone elsewhere again tonight

And he’s taken his brown bottle with him

To the place where we wish he wouldn’t leave.

When he’s elsewhere we are safe

And when he’s elsewhere we’re okay

That is why we must leave.

Don’t be scared, little one.

We’re going elsewhere tonight.

So pack your bags and get dressed.

We’re leaving for the next train leaving town.

Don’t waste your time looking over your shoulder

He’s not here, he doesn’t know,

He’s gone elsewhere.

Where is elsewhere you ask?

Elsewhere is anywhere but here.

Elsewhere can be our safe haven

Elsewhere can be our hell on earth.

Elsewhere…

Elsewhere…

Safe Haven…

Hell.

We’ll find out when we get there.

I'll Sing (Sestina)

When you left, you took my breath with you

The longest hour and a lifetime away from home.

And now my lungs are tired and as dry as stone.

So I sit silent and alone, rocking the ruins of my heart to sleep.

From their shining diamond mouths like tears they sing,

And it is the most heart wrenching song you’ll ever hear.

If by chance the melody followed the air so you could hear

You wouldn’t care; the sound of death wouldn’t even phase you.

Apathy has sewn your mouth closed, never again will you sing

Never again will you’re heart allow yourself to call another home.

All you’ll know is loneliness, when you wake, when you sleep

You’ll be alone, you and your heart of stone.

Do you remember, when I would wake to the tapping of a stone

On my bedroom window? That was before you refused to hear

The world out; that was before you’d crawl in bed and sleep

Blocking out the cries and laughs that make up the world around you.

When the moon was stretching over the sky you’d find me at home

And together, in perfect harmony with the earth, we would sing.

But now you refuse to listen, you refuse to sing.

The world is too much for you; you think it’s only as cold as stone.

You don’t understand the precious balance upon which we find our home.

Negative, ugly things, that made your heart hurt was all you could hear.

So you gave up, shut yourself up, and refused to let anyone near you.

That is why your dreams are painted in pain and anguish when you sleep.

I tried to calm your dreams, to let you breathe easy in sleep

But you denied my deepest attempts, refused to listen to me sing.

And that is why when you left, even though my heart broke, I let you.

You became unreachable in your self-imposed silence, as stubborn as stone.

That is when my heart began to cry out the song you wouldn’t hear

The song that begged you to find yourself back in my arms, at home.

For the sake of my heart I wish you would come home

No matter how long I rock the broken pieces it can’t— it won’t sleep

In time I’ll learn another way to reason with it so it will hear

I’ll tell it you’re not the only reason to live, there are many other songs to sing.

Already my lungs are learning to breathe again, resurrecting from stone.

So, one day my heart will be whole, my lungs alive, and they will forget you.

I’ll find myself at home, and I’ll sing.

And while you sleep on your bed of stone,

You will weep as you hear me breathe without you.

Siren's Sonnet

There is a song that the siren sings

That dulls the pain and clouds the mind

Young sailors don’t yet know what evil it brings

Or that they’re about to leave their entire life behind.

The melody crawls along the waves to their waiting ship

To catch any unlucky man on deck alone

They don’t realize its claws seizing their heart in its cold grip,

Pulling them into the fog, into the dark unknown.

When their body washes up onto the sandy shore

She’ll fall to her knees and wail to the sea’s ebb and flow

They’re not the one she was calling to, the one she sung for

They’re not her lover lost to the dark waters so long ago

Their cold, colorless corpse mocks her suffering, her every sigh

And once again her soul tears open and begins the deadly cry.

-------

A different version of Siren Song.

Someone Knows

Have you ever had a secret?

The kind of secret you’re always thinking about?

The kind that keep you up at night as it

Gnaws on your cerebrum like some disgruntled lapdog?

The kind that keep you from staring too long into people’s eyes

Cause you’re afraid they’ll see it deep down in your corneas?

If you say no, we’ll know you’re lying.

Everyone has had a secret and

Everyone’s scared that someone knows.

I know, it's a bit different from what i usually write...

Me?

I’m not perfect, you’ll soon figure that out

I’m human, a potential pillar of salt, like Lot’s wife

I worry about what might happen next

And wonder “what if” as I get older

My mind must think it’s training for a marathon

Because in all my years it’s never stopped running

Paranoia slips in and out of my thoughts

And Melancholy has found itself a home

When you talk to me and I don’t answer

My eyes are focused on something else

And my thoughts are too.

Some call it being spacey- a regular astronaut

Some call it being ditzy- your dumb blonde stereotype.

I call it being lost in your own thoughts

Having so much to think about

That each train of thought fights for your attention

Until it’s like a battlefield, bloody brain waves strewn about.

So like I said, I’m not perfect,

A galaxy or two away perhaps,

If I’m lucky.

we were supposed to write something about "personal identity", only, everything i wrote was waaaay too personal. So this is what i turned in. I'm not happy with it. At all.

Fire Dancers

Deep in the jungle

In a dance as old as time—

They soar over fires.

Sound of Silence

Sound

Faint, Thunderous

Buzzing, Singing, Speaking

Wail, Shriek, Peace, Tranquility

Muting, Smothering, Deafening

Stony, Soft

Silence

Silver Screens

Silver screens and technological spawn

Hundreds of choices but good nothing on

And yet you’re all up watching until dawn.

Eyes glued to that damned lighted square

Pants stitched to your favorite chair

Lost in a trance, a half-crazed stare.

It’s more addictive than crack cocaine.

It’s rotting what is left of your brain,

But do I here any of you complain?

The Perfect Weapon

It looks sharp and exact,

A snow-white dagger

The perfect weapon.

Press your finger to the edge

You’ll expect a rivulet of blood

To ruin the stark perfection

But it bends under the pressure,

Caresses your skin like a dream.

Satin slivers held together tightly

By an unseen thread of whispers.

You can feel the murmurs course

Under your skin, leaving a little piece

Of the unimaginable places it’s been.

It hums of the oceans, and sings of the tides

It pulls you through deserts of white-silver sand

Scorches you with the fire of the sun

And soothes you with the brush of twilight.

If it softly kisses your sleeping eyelids

Then you’ve felt a piece of heaven

An angel’s feather fallen from the skies

Anxiety is My Song and Dance

The room is a carousel

Spinning round and round in my mind

Air rushes into my lungs— too much too fast

And I’m lost in the familiar song and dance.

The voices are raging in a thunderous backbeat,

Culminating into one ominous roar.

It’s deafening it’s unbearable

It reverberates into my veins as

Blood rushes through the body

And darkens the mind, inflaming my sight.

The room is a violent shade of suffocating red

And my breath is quickening

My body is convulsing

My mind is racing

But not one sideways glance notices

The ferocious spirit taking me over

Everyone is lost in their own song and dance.

A Fated Darkness

It’s a war of worlds between the heavens and earth

As wind rips at the trees ruthlessly tearing them apart

Up from the roots they fly through the angry blue-black sky

And land in a gnarled defeated mess on the quaking ground

Rain falls in never-ending torrents, sheet music for a soulless dirge

Lightning shoots across the vast expanse, a warning from Zeus

Today is the day we call to the deep azure raging above us

To hear our cries and ready promises of reform

But each desperate plea is to no avail;

They have decided our fate.

Darkness.

Write On It A Tune

I’ll make you a paper airplane
To lift you from the depths of pain,
To wrench your soul from the frozen grips
Of the tundra that frosted your heart and lips.

I’ll sing you songs to calm your dreams
To lay you down next to rippling streams,
To banish the shadows that lie in your mind
And fill them with a love bright and undefined.

I’ll carve you a sea’s shell of stone
To carry the sea’s secrets to you alone
To make you see that you’re not the only one
Whose seams of life are coming undone

I’ll paint you a second moon in the sky
To reflect every child’s laugh and broken cry
To remind you that you need the dark to value light
And guide you through your most wearisome plight

I will take that paper and write on it the tune
To teach the shell to sing and serenade the moon
That moon controls the tides of effervescent blue
That I trust to bring me across this sea and back to you

Sequoias (2)

Remember when you took me to see the Sequoias,
And when you told me you could tell how old it was
By counting the myriad of spirals twining through its heart,
You said our love would live that long—never would we part.
You said our love would put the ancient Sequoias to shame
Like the mighty redwood it would grow wild and never tame.
We stood at opposite ends and stretched our arms around
Until our hands clasped and we were once again love bound.

Time has passed; the Sequoias continue to grow tall and free.
But all I can think of is how we might as well plant our own tree
In the space growing between us, isolating you from me.


Had to turn it into a couplet for LOGOS.

Flame and Dreams

Leaves the color of flame and dreams
Mimic the carefree laughter of our children
But when our backs are turned and the sun fades
Their impersonations turn to incantations
That whisper through our minds
As we walk the streets as dark as sin.

As we walk the streets as dark as sin
Wayward spirits wander over our graves.
As they trail their razor sharp nails as cold as ice
Down the valleys of our stiff spines they beseech us
Hurry home darlings and whatever you do pay no heed
To the leaves the color of flame and dreams

Blame It On the Rain

I blame it on the rain
It makes my skin come alive
It makes my tongue loose
And my eyes wander

You blame it on the rain
It makes your mind go blank
It makes your anger flair
And your fists hunger

We blame it on the rain
These things we’ve done
Because it’s the only way
We can love one another

Why Do You Wear A Mask?

We wear masks of onyx and sapphire
To hide the shadowed moons under our eyes
But they can’t hide the bruises marring our skin
Over arms and legs emaciated by time and lies

They judge us even as their masks slip to reveal
What they truly are— something much more vindictive
Voices of satin weave the sweetest symphony of death and destruction
Hearts of ice cover their lies make them all the more addictive

Behind our veils of impervious truth our blackened gaze
Springs forth tears of diamonds for all those caught
In their snare of fixation and deceit that refuses to release
Their souls of lead and sand that are forever more good for naught

And so we wear the masks of onyx and sapphires
That hide the shadowed moons under our eyes
To protect us from this world that turns our wings
To dust and ignores our soul shattering cries

Belly of the Beast

I am
Sick of this pain
And of this cyclical sorrow.

I am
Sick of the unfamiliar voices with no faces.
And of this hospital room, stark and lifeless.

But most of all I am sick of this beeping machine
rising and falling like a monster's
razor sharp teeth, chewing my soul to pieces.

As I watch the bright strand rise and fall
I wonder what will happen when the teeth still,
When they transpire to nothing but a thin line.

Would I fall from the mouth
into the belly of the beast?

The Siren's Song

Do you hear the lover’s cries
from rose petals parted and trembling?
The bittersweet tears as they run into the ocean,
Become a heart-wrenching melody that crawls
Along the waves to where your ship lies,
Waiting for nothing, yet waiting nonetheless.
It calls to you.
It entrances you.
It’s claws sink into your chest,
Seizing your heart in its cold grip,
Pulling you into the fog,
Into the unknown.

And as your body washes up onto the shore,
She screams in outrage; wails in despair.
You are not the one she sung for,
You are not her lover lost to the waters so long ago.
Your cold colorless body mocks her anguish.
Sinking to her knees, her hands graze the pristine sand.
And once again
Her soul tears open.
The deadly melody, pale and soft,
Whispers of death and a love lost
Against her blue lips, as cold as the corpse.
The Siren’s song.