Rachel’s Pen

Life’s promise scares me
Sweet words caressing over me
Haunted by the broken, useless intentions

A child’s cry, an adult’s regret, or nothing at all
An empty shrug without an apology to follow
Sorrow ignored in favor of tomorrow,
The day that never comes

Heartbroken by the spoiled future
Lost hope hanging on a fragile maybe
Forgotten agreements swallowed up by time
The maker none the wiser to their caused pain

Shake off the proffered hand held out in space
Deny the entry of soft, precious pacts
Keep acceptance a secret in a shattered soul
Say no to anothers yes to avoid the thoughtless lie.

When I was small

I wasn’t supposed to hear

But I did hear it all

Hate settles in all the tiny spaces

Making a home

Forgetting all manners and graces

A raised brow in consternation

Pointed down at me

Sending this child into emotional hibernation

Scorn rolling off a tattered tongue

Harsh and unforgiving

Imbued with enough force to puncture a lung

Steely, unflinching, hateful stare

Silent yet screaming

There cannot and will not be any love there

A broken mind, a shattered spirit

A lonely, sad child

Wishes love away, she won’t go near it

Scar tissue layered from decades of abuse

Who is she now

With that drug called love of no more use?

Downcast eyes in a world of distrust

Invisible at the surface

Head sinking below the surface, lost in disgust

There’s no such thing as heaven above

To a damned daughter

Third one born, last in line, over looked for love

No sheltering arms from that unstable aggressor

Warmth, stability denied

I pay for being born guilty as a trespasser

She’s alone and old refusing to bare her own guilt

No more scores to settle

Her storm proof house falling, the one she alone built.

My mind wanders in and out of this world,

A stranger in strange lands I’ve become these days,

Once a resident in a town known as Sadness,

I have become but a tourist.

The land known as Empty beckons,

Only to find the hollow grounds upon once I did tread,

Now remain in want of me,

As I turn my back to its waste.

Hope invites me into its fold,

A sweeter calling I’ve never had.

Your spirit touched mine in an intimate way.

I wanted to be the one to take all your pain away.

I wanted to be the one to catch all your tears and wipe them away.

I wanted to be the one to erase the bad memories.

I wanted to be the one to hold you when your world fell apart.

I wanted to be the one to chase all the monsters away.

I wanted to be the one to cover you eyes when the bad things showed up.

I wanted to be the one to help you up when you fell down.

I wanted to be the one to stop the bullies from raising a hand to you.

I wanted to be the one to shelter you from the storms that rose up against you.

I wanted to be the one to see the sadness and make it not so bad.

I wanted to be the one to carry your burdens when they became too heavy.

I wanted to be the one to warm your hands in my jacket pocket in the winter.

I wanted to be the one to feed you when the hunger pains hit in the night.

I wanted to be the one to offer a shoulder when you grew weary.

I wanted to be the one to show you how beautiful you’ve always been.

I wanted to be the one to bring that light back to your eyes.

I wanted to be the one to mend the broken heart and fill the hole in your soul.

I wanted to be the one to love you.

I stared at the photograph of the young girl with her unsmiling eyes and her down turned mouth and tried to picture her in the old woman I knew as my grandmother. As a kid I would thumb through the myriad of photo albums my grandmother maintained for years as the family historian. Each face in the pictures had a story, a history, a reason and a place and she knew them all. Although I appreciated her knowledge of all the people frozen in place in the photo albums, I preferred to let my own imagination be my guide in telling me who they all were.

There seemed something sacred between each clear coated page. The faces resting there were old friends even though I couldn’t have told you their names. If they were smiling, I would smile back. If they were somber, I was too. It felt like there was a silent trust between us all. They shared a tiny scrap of their history with me and I honored them by visiting regularly.

The ritual of viewing began with me laying out the photo albums first by color, then by thickness, and then by year. The year wasn’t so important because the actual pictures weren’t arranged that way. There were pictures from the 1920’s lined up next to pictures from the 1960’s, for instance. My grandmother’s historical accuracy had nothing to do with the date. She organized the albums just by how well the shapes of each picture fit on the page. In her vision of things old friends lived next to distant cousins. Grandparents posed next to old classmates. Skyscrapers were neighbors of the family mule. And rigid immigrants stood by as a younger brother performed some death defying stunt off of the roof of the old barn. I would try to imagine the kinds of conversations that must have taken place between all these people when the covers of the albums were closed and they were tucked safely away in a dark cupboard.

I heard the sounds of crumbling brick as the family mule kicked at the skyscraper that was in its way of a green pasture just one field over. A heavily accented man and woman would be screaming at the young boy to be careful as he pretended to be a tight rope walker along the top of the roof of the barn. I could see the foreign couple racing around, trapped in their tiny frame waving their hands in distress as the boy, with arms held out like birds wings, would stumble and lose his balance for a moment. He’d grin and wave at them and continue on his way from one end of the roof and back. It’s funny how he never managed to get really good at that with as many times as he had to pace back and forth.

I loved eavesdropping on the arguments that took place between different family members who shared the same pages. Someone didn’t like the color of someone else’s hair while that other someone would ask what color that was exactly. Did I mention that there were black and white photographs and colored photographs next to each other at times? I could imagine a lot of things but the one thing I couldn’t was not being able to see in color. I pitied the colorless people. I would try to explain to them what color was but they never seemed to hear me. Besides, I felt guilty for trying to interfere with their reality which was that only people in rectangular frames were real. I doubted that they would have believed I was as real as they were anyway.

Listening to the stories those old photographs told was my favorite way of spending a rainy day indoors. I miss my old friends from time to time. All those photo albums my grandmother kept so diligently were passed along to other relatives after she died. I somehow doubt that the occupants who still live inside have stopped arguing or worrying or gossiping about their neighbors. My only wish is that I could still hear them.

I squatted down as low as I could go with my butt sitting on top of my heels. Springing up with all my might, I pushed off with my toes. Without a notion of anything but leaving the ground I was suddenly flying upward. I thought, “How Strange. I’m not at all in Superman pose with my arms out in front of me and my belly horizontal to the ground.” As birds flew past me they had to veer to the left or to the right to avoid crashing into me.

I was flying like a cardboard cutout, stiff and flat with my arms straight down at my sides. No sooner had I lamented my lack of flying technique when I suddenly began to sink back down until my feet were planted in the exact spot I had started from. It was the doubts that had brought me back. Or was it the sound of my alarm clock? Don’t you hate it when your dreams have to end?

There’s a monster knocking at my door

“Go away,” I shout. “Don’t come here anymore!”

What did I do to deserve this fate?

Steal the last meatball from somebody’s’ plate?

Did I forget to look both ways before crossing the street?

Or skip over dinner in favor of something sweet?

The monster is huge and hairy and smells of dead fish.

Is there a genii who’d grant me just one final wish?

I close my eyes and begin to hiss,

“Please put that meatball back on the dish.”

“Make traffic stop as I step foot in the street.”

“Please make chocolate not so tempting and sweet.”

I open one eye, careful as can be,

Only to find the monster still there staring at me.

“Oh, please, monster, dear, what do you want?”

Why do you insist on making my front porch your favorite haunt?”

The creature looks down as its furry cheeks begin to burn,

It smiles shyly showing teeth the color of my hanging fern.

I stood there amazed at the monsters’ transformation.

It looked childlike, to my great consternation.

“Beg pardon for this rude interruption today,”

I come here with an empty hand and something to say.”

The monster went on to tell me a story,

One that made me feel genuinely sorry.

“I have a great friend whose name I cannot mention,

For he comes here from a different dimension.

He travels far just to come for a stay,

He will be shortly. He is coming today!”

The poor monster before me was nearly in tears

As he told me he hadn’t seen his dear friend in five and a quarter years.

“Well, what do you need, you poor frazzled creature?

A discreet head doctor or a friendly pulpit preacher?”

“Oh help me do for this is tricky. I’m getting so nervous my palms are all sticky!”

Again I asked if I could be of some service,

This great, quaking monster was now making me nervous!

“I need a sweet recipe for cookies or a cake.”

I wasn’t aware that giant monsters knew how to bake.

To get this great beast to leave my front door,

I asked what specifically he, or she, was looking for.

“Have you a recipe for hot apple strudel?”

I shook my head and felt like a wet noodle.

“Well, have you the know how for scrumptious cherry pie?”

“I don’t much care for cherries in any form. No lie.”

The monster frowned and sadly turned away.

“This is the fifth house I’ve had to leave behind today.”

I took in my hands the monster fate

As I stepped a little forward and asked it to wait.

As fast as I could, I ran to my kitchen.

I grabbed a recipe book without even flinchin’.

“Monster, dear, I have a present to give to you.”

With this book you can create desserts or fancy beef stew.”

The monster beamed with joy from one lopsided ear to the other.

“I wish to hug you, young lady, as if you were in fact my very own mother.”

I smiled then laughed at that odd little request,

And the monster hugged me ever so gently. It was the best!

The monster stuck out its tongue in the westerly direction,

Then whisked out a mirror and observed its own reflection.

It raised one mammoth foot into the air,

Made a squawking noise then was no longer there.

Not a day goes by when I don’t often ponder,

About that great, hulking, sweet, anxious monster.

You will go to your grave grasping your secrets,

I’ll go to mine smiling at those YOU never knew.