Desert Knight

city lives and canyon eyes, the blue of distant skies,
crystal air and pinon scent compete with smog and lies.
through city traffic, city noise, he walks as if alone,
his mind awash with starfields, and the scent of cooling stone.
the smell of burning refuse fills his clothing and his hair,
the flames that warm the icy night reflected in his stare.
the city teems with tortured souls, a million silent howls,
a beast that grinds the spirit fine within its slavering jowls.
he walks alone within its jaws, and dreams a different night,
cold and clear, the stars so near they fill his mind with light.
and as he walks, the starlight gleams, a shimmering silver glow,
it spreads its wings behind him through the dirty sleeting snow.
and everywhere it fills the air, the scent of pine and sage,
it stirs the stagnant city smog, and cools the sullen rage.
and in his wake, the city’s ache, the all-pervasive pain,
is smothered to a fitful glow, an ember in the rain.

Sour Grapes

I really am nuts, y’know? Not a little bit, not relatively, just…nuts. Not “insane”, I don’t think. Well, technically, I suppose, but that’s -such- a broad spectrum, honestly. Just vague and diffuse…like the law…a net spread to catch the biggest fish, but tight enough to catch the tiddlers as well…when the Fishers want them. *shrugs*

But that’s beside the point. Back to “nuts”. I like that better. It’s perjorative, and offensive…unless you are, and you use it about yourself. Well, in -my- rules, anyway. Such as they are. Normal. Silly word, silly place, let’s not go there. *nodnod* Most people (“most”…another nonsense word) want to be normal. Correct? People want to fit in wherever they are, in whatever living environment they find themselves in, this time around. But some people don’t. Some people feel that it’s impossible to ever fit in, so in a sort of sour-grapes scenario they decide that being “normal” isn’t anything worth striving for. Just the opposite, they decide. Let’s be as -abnormal- as possible, and revel in that…in our separate uniqueness…just like everyone else.

Then there are the nuts. They…we?…just live. Well, try, anyway. It’s really very difficult to swim downstream in a world of spawning salmon. When the race is to be uniquely different but in a way that fits in with ones chosen social group in such a way as to not outlaw the possibilities of being fertile within said grouping…people who for whatever reason don’t have/want/use that drive can be easily lost in the crowd and drowned.

One of the horrors of being…asexual? ish?…is the absence of touch. People were designed to need touch. Physical contact of even the simplest kind…a hand on a hand, a touch on the back…people without these things will become ill, and can even be driven insane, or become so depressed that they die. Not suicide…just die. Most people don’t think of these things because for them, they are touched every day. One way or another. A quick “snack” during the day. A handshake, a quick hug between friends, even a bump from a stranger on a bus or subway. And a full meal, at home. The loving touch of family, birth or found. The surety of knowing that you have permission…you have the right…to touch and be touched. That you will not be winced away from, or avoided, or rejected, dismissed, or reviled.

However, when people touch, something is transmitted, from skin to skin. A basic assumption, a sort of signal, that no matter the relationship, age, or physical condition, says the same thing. “This person is capable of physical love…this person is normal.” You’ve seen what happens when someone in whom that signal is missing or corrupted touches someone…or attempts to. There is an almost automatic repulsion, an anger that borders on fear…because they feel “wrong”. Instinct says “This person is an evolutionary dead-end…a thing to be avoided”.

Of course this is all hooey…straight out of the “Sour Grapes” file that lives in my twisted little mind. I mean, really. I told you I was nuts! But think about it. Watch for it. And if any of that hits home to you…don’t let it. Fight it. Work for what you need…or what another needs. Thank you.

The Nutter

 

Song

what good are words when I can’t even tell that the mind in my head has gone numb, I can’t taste the world, I can’t feel the pain, I sing while I sleep, and they come.

I can’t feel at all, or maybe too much, an overload bearing me down, I try to distract, to make a new track, but I sing a sad song, just a clown.

the words come at night, at sleep and at play, they dance and they sing through my mind, I sleep all the day so I don’t have to hear all the people who try to be kind.

they can’t understand, they can’t feel the pull, the rhythm insistent and clear, they say write it out, just put it down, and they don’t know that’s just what I fear.

what good are words when I can’t even tell that the mind in my head has gone numb, I can’t taste the world, I can’t feel the pain, I sing while I sleep, and they come.

Fear

I need to make it clear,
the deadly way I feel,
that all the while I’m here,
this world is not quite real.

The floor beneath my feet,
the walls that box me in,
the voices on the street,
the screams beneath my skin.

My eyes within the glass,
my heart within my chest,
my too abundant mass,
a long unwelcomed guest.

I strain to breach the wall,
to shatter all the lies,
but still the wall stands tall,
and the world wears its disguise.

My fight will never end,
my dawn will never come,
my signal never send,
my voice is locked, and dumb.

The words come from my mind,
and from the deepest well,
and every line is signed,
with love, to you, from hell.

Letter to Lauren (personal journaling, not important)

This is the letter I just emailed to my caseworker to explain how I feel about my little Kia Soul, Firefly.  She is my life…and with all the haps recently, she is my biggest burden.  So, read if you want…I just wanted to get it down and saving it didn’t seem like enough.

I just want to try to help you understand what I feel about my car. I know you can’t fully understand, because to you, it’s just a thing. Like your phone, or your house, a thing you can (and recently did) get rid of, if it becomes inconvenient, or you just want/need a new one. I get that. I’ve never been there. Ever.

As a kid, oldest of 6 with a low-grade military salary to live on, if we got something it was something we’d better count as permanent until it broke or wore down so badly it wasn’t worth keeping. TV, car, toys…anything.

Then as an adult…first with only a fast-food worker/minimum wage salary that wasn’t enough to let me do more than sleep on my parents couch in their house full of bugs and so many rats I could listen to them war and mate in the walls all around me all night…no AC, in Florida, just a huge box fan with so little motor I had to have it in bed with me to get any relief from the heat…years of that.

Then on 4 yrs. of $25 a week welfare, living on -other- peoples couches, or in shelters (thank you YWCA) and going through disability applications and denials over and over and over again. Finally won, and bought my fondest dream…a little RV, for $7,000. I thought I could have a home and a vehicle in one, travel all over the country, sell things…live the freedom/nomad life I dreamed about. Only problem is, 7 miles to the gallon. Cost to park. Cost of utilities…including dumping the toilet. Ended up back at my parents, parked illegally in their driveway, sucking up their electricity and using their bathroom, until I managed to sell it, luckily for exactly what I paid for it. Minus the upkeep, obviously. (Gentleman that bought it paid in cash. $7,000 worth. In a baggie. >.<)

From there count 10 yrs. or so of living on less than minimum wage disability, in housing units or shelters, back and forth from across the country to “home” with my parents.

Then I met my one and only love, Sam, and moved to live with him and my best friend Becky in Sacramento for two of the best years of my life. Also two of the worst, as I was diagnosed with severe rheumatoid arthritis soon after meeting Sam, and went mostly untreated all through that time. I drove regularly during that time. Neither Sam nor Becky drove. Sam owned a 10 yr. old Suburban, huge clunky black thing, that I needed a step-stool to climb into, and had almost no power steering…lots of fun with RA swollen hands and shoulders.

Then I became insane enough that neither of them wanted me around anymore, and I ended up back with my parents…in the back room of their (manufactured home) trailer, half filled with my moms fabric collection and file cabinets and shelves.

And then I got my car. And alright, I was stupid to want/get a new car. I just thought that for once I wanted something new. Something mine. Something that I didn’t have to worry about it breaking every time I got in it, and worry what was going to fall off next. I thought I deserved this…and since I could have it…I got it. I was so insistent on getting it that I let them talk me into paying more than half of my disability paycheck every month for a payment. But I paid it. All but a very few times, for a year.

And then all the new stuff happened…and it’s all gone pear-shaped, and I have no idea how it’s all going to work out…but it is. It has to. Because stupid or not, it’s my car. And everytime I hear you say “You are going to have sell the car!” I hear “Wow, shame you had that kid when you couldn’t afford it…well, you better sell it, and get a dog or something that costs less.” Ummm…no.

So all that is to say that she, Firefly, my car…is my freedom. I know everyone says that…but everyone hasn’t been deprived of that freedom their whole lives. Everyone hasn’t been dependent on someone or something else, tied to someone or something, powerless and broken, for all their life. I have. And now I have my freedom. I have my other half. I feel whole and safe and yes, sane, when I’m behind that wheel. I feel like a real person, not some fake adult, but me. Just me. My music, my decorations, my life is in that car. (Now if only she had a bathroom, she’d be perfect…;p)

I know you’re worried. It’s your job to be, and you do a very good job. You’re a great caseworker, and I can tell you I’ve had many. *hugs* All I can say is I’m worried too…but I am apparently not going to let this break me. It’s going to be a -long-, -long- year…but I can do it. With help, I can do it. And yes, I’m depressed…and stressed…and all the physical mess that goes with the above…but I’m handling it. I promise. No more talk about pills or other self-destructive things. Apparently those won’t work for me anymore. Not sure why not…maybe it’s just that I finally hit my worst nightmare, Authority Figures hostile toward me for nothing I did and nothing I can do to fix it…and now that I’m here, I find that it’s only horrible…not world-ending. I guess that’s it. So yeah, that’s what I wanted to say. *hugs again* Oh, and thanks.

KC/Meg/Jessica

Falling

the walls are filled with pretty things,
bleeding hearts and diamond rings,
tables floating in the air,
and no tea pouring everywhere,
and marmosets with crumpet heads,
and queens that grow in flower beds,
pictures of the world I pass,
reflections of my looking glass,
a single chair rocks all alone,
and still I fall, a tumbling stone,
polished surface clean and slick,
so nothing thrown can ever stick,
and no one holds me as I fall,
I slip away, I hear them call,
and yet the walls grow longer still,
why does it take so long until
I fall onto the ground below,
to watch the tables shrink and grow,
and see the doors that come to play,
and laugh at me and fade away,
as the floor fades into mist,
I spit at them and shake my fist,
but still I fall into the hole
that seems to have no final goal,
except to fall and fall and fall,
and never reach the end at all,
the walls are filled with pretty things,
bleeding hearts and diamond rings,
tables floating in the air,
and no tea pouring everywhere,
and marmosets with crumpet heads,
and queens that grow in flower beds…

 

Fiction Relay #27: The Suzi Saga

This is part 27 of the Fiction Relay serial story, following the adventures and misadventures of Suzi and those she impacts.  To read the rest of the story, or just see a summary so far, go here.  To see who is crazy enough to play this game, and see how you might join the insanity, go here.

Ok…keep in mind that I’m writing this late, and a bit…distracted, so be patient with it.  There’s a -teeny- bit of backtracking, but not that much, promise.  ;p

Melissa is strangely subdued as Sam and Ephraim wrestle her into Ephraims cuffs and drag her back up the hill to the lab to put her in one of the cells for safekeeping. Keeping herself contained, whats left of her sanity curled around the secret held deep inside…the treasure she stole from the bitch’s daughter. In her mind, deep inside, the voice whispers old commands, old orders, and she takes dark joy in squashing them, silencing the whispers with a slash of thought, a whip of power. Now she is the one in charge…the one with the power of life and death. Now they will all see. They’ll find out who the important one is. The one who should have been. As she hears the footsteps fade into the distance, crossing from the stone floor of the cavern to the soft earth outside, the impulse breaks free, and she begins to laugh…a mad, manic laugh, on the close side of hysteria, that rings in the stone-walled cell like a bell.

Ephraim shivers as they leave the lab, a flash of vision crossing his mind. Again, the triumphant gaze of a dead man leers at him before morphing into the figure of a desperately weeping Melissa…curled at the feet of a humongous statue of Suzi/Meghan. Shaking it off, he continues toward the house with Sam.

Meanwhile, miles down the road, Suzi…no, Meghan…leans her forehead against the cool glass of the rigs backseat window. The driver, having noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the slumped posture of exhaustion, suggested that she take a nap in the back, on the small bed/seating area. So far, however, sleep has eluded her…so she stares out the window into the distance, although the scenery does not impact her view. Her mind is full of memories…thoughts of her little girl…her little Samantha…Sammy. It’s been years since she thought of her, since the memory wipe she’d performed on herself to protect the child. Now she stares out the window, into the deepening dusk of the mountain road, and sees instead a pair of brilliant blue eyes in a pixie-like face…blond curls she inherited from her father, and tiny size from her mother. She wonders what happened, how she is doing…what she looks like…and whether she could ever forgive her for abandoning her, so long ago.

Further down the same road, a slim figure hunches over her motorcycle, to cut wind resistance, all senses alert for a taste of her mother. For that elusive feeling that is Meghan…the arrogance of the truly powerful, accompanied by sheer competence and grace. But as at the lab, she gets no trace. Only a fleeting glimpse, a whiff, of the mask willingly put on, the face she lives behind…Suzi. All sweetness and light, confused innocence…Blue shakes her head in disgust. Once she finds her, once they are together again, she will make sure that the Suzi personality is shattered, stripped away, leaving only Meghan…only the one person more powerful than herself. Once she rejoins her mother, and they are able to work together…she shakes her head. What can’t they do? Certainly not bow down to the Club any longer. Maybe they’ll just take it over…or destroy it entirely. And Ephraim…and Sam, her father? Well, they’d be useful, in a weak sort of way. Their powers are nothing, compared to Meghan at full capacity. Let alone Blue and Meghan working together…these thoughts comfort her, and accompany her down the winding road, as she moves unknowingly farther and farther away from from her goal.

Back in the lab, Melissa sits on the floor of the cell, making herself as comfortable as possible on the cold stone. What she is about to do will require her full concentration for success, so clearing away all distracting bodily messages is essential. Prepared, finally, she bows her head, reaching deep deep inside, reaching for the flickering spark that is her newly borrowed treasure. Carefully, she pictures herself holding the tiny spark, and mentally “blowing” on it until it blooms into full strength, a white-hot fireball in her mental “hands”. Gritting her teeth against the pain of the fire, feeling her mind scorched and battered by the strength of the power…but her desperate concentration holds, and she is able to shape the fire into what she needs. The tiny white phoenix sits in her “hands”, sparks flying off it in all directions, egg shell bits made of pure white stone all around. Grinning, she leans down and whispers to it, giving it concise directions…and as it glows a bit brighter, a bit hotter, burning sparks flying and alighting on her skin…it lifts off and flies away, through the door and down the hall, searching. Riding with it, mentally, Melissa directs the creature until it reaches its destination…the recently deceased body of Raj.

Melissa laughs in triumph…a strange sound that seems to come from two throats at once. Giving the little phoenix a mental push, she watches as it sinks into the dead mans chest…and gloats as it begins to rise and fall, despite the bubbling of the blood at his slit throat. After an endless period of waiting, she laughs again, a much more normal sound, as his eyes open, a look of confusion in them. Tugging an invisible cord, she watches as the corpse stands, and makes its slow shuffling way toward her cell.

 

And with that, it’s on to Dawn!  Have fun!  *insert evil laugh #34, the “Evil Dictator”*

Blue and Grey #2 (Prose, WIP, constructive criticism appreciated)

The rest was almost laughable in its anticlimax…at least, someday she’d laugh about it. For now, she simply relished the relative ease of making the careful stretch and scrabble to the next few rungs, then slipping sinously up onto the roof to look down on the milling, furious pack below. Sighing softly, she called down toward the street, couching her voice in as casual and concise a way as she could, considering her condition. “Here, boys…it’s over. Just go home now, like nice doggies…and maybe next time we’ll find time to play.” This had the expected effect of stirring them to frenzies of scrabbling and leaping after her, and she simply shook her head and turned to head home over the rooftops. The path was clear from here, and with the pack occupied below, as safe as any she’d find on street level.

It was a very tired and dirty Blue that slipped in through the gate at the back of The Mall that morning…not that anyone there would’ve recognized her in her current condition. She padded slowly down the cool floor with its tile pattern of blue and green waves, hearing the soft stirrings of morning in the stores as she passed. Head hanging low, she slipped under the curtain and into her current home, tossing a soft smile up at the ever-smiling head of the stores mascot/angel, above. Careful to find her way to the spot that she’d prepped behind a pile of boxes in the back storeroom, she collapsed on the cool cement floor, and fell asleep licking her wounds…

The sound of The Mall opening for business woke her several hours later, and she stretched, wincing as her elbows hit the sharp edges of the boxes, and her knee came unstuck from the floor, reluctantly. Sighing, she reached for the clothes she’d left here before heading out the night before and slipped them on, taking the time to examine herself from head to toe as she did. Apart from the long scrape on her side, and the cut on her knee, and the usual wicked headache, she seemed to have once more slipped through without taking any serious injury. How long this state of grace would last was unknown and unknowable, but for now she’d settle for being grateful it existed, instead of whining about it.

Tying her hair back in a loose messy knot, she made her way down the hall and out into the main store, carefully not meeting the accusing eyes of her “boss”, and the resigned pair belonging to her best friend. They sat curled up with each other in the soft corner, Jamie with one hand on Spikes head, stroking him like a pet. Jamie obviously felt that Blue was hiding something from her, (which to be fair, she was), and when Jamie was upset, Spike felt it as well, even though he had no real clue what. Blue sighed, already seeing the loss of yet another “family” and home in her near future.

Ann, our key (poem)

I’m going cynically insane,
the more I try to use my brain,
the more I see the lies and pain,
my mind runs’round like a wagon train!

Cognitive diffidence, I really don’t care,
if my mind is here or there,
or hiding from the truths dark glare,
in a special sort of anywhere.

Lazy fair, the rides are free,
as long as you don’t mind the fee,
most will pay it happily,
to buy their couch and their t.v.

Free dumb, as the people glare,
at all the folks who take the dare,
to learn to live, and to take care,
not live in castles in the air.

Ann, our key, I turn the lock,
and stop the ever ticking clock,
that pushes businessman and jock,
and dare the laws of man to mock!

This one is dedicated to TRG, who has done more for my writing bug than I have, simply by being, as his name suggests, a helpful, amusing, appreciative and above all supporting…gentleman.  ;p  Thanks, Boss!

Teaser

Meanwhile, down on the winding road that leads to the cabin, a slim figure zips quietly on a sleek, dark motorcycle that seems to purr, rather than roar. Suddenly the rider begins to veer, dangerously, and quickly pulls to the side of the road. Thumbing a toggle switch in the helmet, she speaks urgently into the mouthpiece. “Get me Sanderson…one of Them is gone.”

( This is a teaser for the chapter I’m doing for the great folks over at the Fiction Relay (currently living, at least the summary and chapter links, at TheRecliningGentleman’s blog. I don’t know how to link from my phone and don’t have the energy to find out right now, but once I get home I will) and is only a teeny bit of the fun in store…

Sorry it’s not more, I’m kinda stuck in hospital right now being annoyingly sick. Meh. Have the story well in hand, in Notes and such, but don’t want to write that much on the phone. So here you go.