The Butterfly Effect

It rained.

From the sky...
a gabillion drops free falling, prancing like wild horses on my tin~can metal roof...
and  then leaping into sudden death...
or freedom...
flying face first into the muddy earth....
and tumbling wildly downhill
to the river....

Monsoons....

I took a shower.

Steadied my hand on the make-shift rail,  leaned up against the vintage vinyl and stood under the warm waterfall....
Crying.....

Maybe wailing.....

It 's the seven o'clock sadness....
It just happens...

Each new day is a gift...
and a Mountain....
and for just a moment,
I have weak knees...
the fleeting moment after you've been cold cocked, but just  before you stand up again,
spit blood,
and say "I'm OK".......

I should have known she'd be here...
     the encore after my hissy fit.....


The yellow Butterfly....
   

      reminding me

 to Believe.....

Poisen

I slept cast-footed and fully dressed. Piled on top of the covers, Georgia breathing, panting, protectively resting beside me. In the dark, I closed my eyes hard. Trying to block the noise out. Counting. Forwards. Backwards.

He's haunted. Night haunted. And when the spooky things come, he hunts me. His Mother. He comes to me to tell....to rant, to rave, to pull me into his suffering, to pay me back, to taunt me into saving him. To hand me the keys to his make believe grenade and dare me to breathe, to accidently set it off.

I've prayed. Spent every dime I've had. And borrowed more. I've loved unconditionally and tough loved. I've enabled him and disabled him in doing so. I've tried.

In the morning light, I watch for hope. For the slightest sign the storm has passed, again.

It's hurricane season.....
And I'm boarding up the house....

You put your right foot in.....

When you wake up and you are five and the sun is shining through the dirty venetian blinds in little exacto-knife slivers of light across your bedsheets, it's morning time. A new day, long as ever. The sun shines for half your life.

Your eyes pop open, a wide mouthed bottle slurping down the morning. The cereal bowl is good and cold, no matter what the flavor, and then the bowl is empty and you're and out the door, calico dress and bare feet flying.

Pedal the pink spider bike with the fluorescent streamers and poker carded spokes ninety to nothing down the hill. Dig in the dirt. Scratch your name in a tree. Scoop tadpoles from the birdbath. Hide in the trees and wallop "falling stuff " at passing cars. Catch a firefly with a hangover and poke him in a mayonaisse jar. Play so hard you forget to go tinkle and have to ride home, perched like a lady, cross legged, on the pink spider bike..... ninety to nothin'.....

When you are five, you live hard. You chase boys around the trees until your lungs are a boom-box and the breath choo-chooing from your mouth is cold. You forget to brush your velvet teeth. You wear knots in your hair. You have dirty feet. You clean up good in the morning.

When you are five, you are free.

And the price you pay for freedom is bed-time.


Thank you justme, for the title!

Scarlett O'Dare-Ya

I’ll worry about it tomorrow….

Ok, I could do it today. I could bite my fingernails, grit my teeth in the night….I could pace back and forth on the cat-hair- covered kitchen floor, taking deep moaning groaning emphysemic breaths. I could worry about it today.

I could sleep in purgatory, tossing and flailing, kicking the sheets off , mad dogs biting at my heels, and then yank them up around my neck again, cocooning in their cotton comfort, until it’s time to kick them off again…

I could suffer….

But I decided to live.

To laugh.

To be free, if even for only seconds….

So I banish you…
Gloom and doom,
Bill collectors,
Insurance agents,
Lawyers in your suits and ties with your billable moments,
Handsome doctors with your million dollar smiles and your million dollar
“the odds are a million to one, but don’t you want to try?” come-on lines ,
Sentimental Suitcases stuffed to the brim with black and white photographs of how it was meant to be,
Cryptic Karma, waiting to jump out of the closet and haunt me…

I banish you all until I look you in the eye and dare you to make me decide, to face your cheap little threats. Dare you to face me, facing you, and listen to yourself. It’s life man, live it….

You can’t wreck my world if I’m speeding, running faster than you can catch me. If I don’t look forward and don’t look back. You can’t rain on my tacky little Saturday morning parade, if I barricade you off, make you get in line behind Santa Claus and his 8 tiny reindeer….

Until then, I’m dancing.

Catch me if you can……

And then, guess what?…

Tag,
you’re it……


I'm going to the beach.....

Caged

I barely recognized you...
there with dangling legs,
darting mud-puddle eyes
flickering like a broken reel of film.

I watched as
you shifted
hummed
Flitted back and forth....
A dragonfly caught in a mayonnaise jar.

God, how you wanted out.

Your wings beat furiously at
the invisible cage -
Raging at the capture.

I would have smiled
If I
hadn't forgotten to breathe