the smoldering that used to be

I have mastered the art of missing you.

I have lain in the fading sun of the day
Pink in the windows
Removing you from my mind.

I have sliced tomatoes with an
Uneventful regularity,
Shed no blood on the squash,
Declined to weep with the onions.

I have persisted with the
Seven-segment displays that color
The walls and appliances.
The audible clicks of numbers the
New soundtrack to routine.

I have confided with the
Disinterested creatures of the house -
An audience created by the exchange
Of kibble and promises of attention.

I have driven through the streets
With the windows down
So the air pulls out what is left of
My breath where you lived.
I am pacified by the double lines.

I have mastered the art of missing you.

He calls me good girl as if I earned it
As if I my feet are bound, toe to folded under toe
a hand placed in front of my smile all the while.
Still life with running mascara.

The gift of words fall from his lips like dirty pearls
some to my face,
some to the floor,
tap-tap-roll
seeking dark corners and safety amongst the dust mites

The smear of his thumb colors my chin
as I take his speech into my throat
and struggle to inhale over it

He sees just another visible art form of breasts and
breath.
A ripple through the skin of blood and bruises.
A place where he enters

I only lay down
I only close my eyes
The only rebellion I can muster.

it is said that a door closed is an opening elsewhere
that time moves forward and never back;
but here we are again at the gate
where once was closed, we can peek around the corner.
the letters we left are there, crumbling;
the flowers we strung together are there, browning.

her ghost lives there still
wrapped in veils of words and grey
she moves rhythmic and sways with the wind.

we look across the threshold
- do not to go into the yard again -
we were once happy and now no longer sit under those trees.

his engine is a long exhausted wind
the prairie grasses growing ever taller
the seat sinking low into the swamp and fog.

we carry them.
we build them shelter and offer no room for languid release.
we shuffle through the landscape
dry, dusty in the mouth
heads over our shoulders.

we miss the sunrise,
the quenching rain that is to come.

the sun sets beyond the horizon
and i am in the sands.
i’m uncomfortable with this
i do not want it
and yet i understand it, and once was there
this is not my hand
this is not my mind
and then where am i after all -
lost in the middle once more.
the beginning so far back,
just fog now
just tiny waves reaching the shore
washing over shells as they grow their cracks and
spit out fragmented pearls that never were.
i could wander this beach from end to end
crossing continents and latitudes
but you can only carry so much sand before it
seeps out past your flesh and drops
over the bones of the gulls.
even the crabs part for me,
dancing off screen and leaving an empty path.
all the better to move on,
all the better to dream of moonlight ,
the stars that never come.
purest empty fills the path of footprints behind -
no one claims the driftwood as it tumbles in the weeds.
still i go.
still i go.
locked up empty in the cage of this sea -
the chatter of the birds
is a sound that carries over the water to claim the souls of the
fishermen of no more.
i seek to join them
but cannot push past the breakers -
each tear falling off my fingers
nourishing the ocean.
i crawl back to shore
there is nowhere to go.

26MAY14

the intern arrived and swears up and down he's not sick. what choice have i but to believe him? its not like I'm 100% today after being sick yesterday. He's a little wild eyed and not saying much else so for now I'll just keep an eye on him.

things after that were quiet for a while. until my co-worker Lafe showed up.

Abhi the intern was still half dazed and let Lafe in the door. i should have kept a better eye on things. Lafe shambled in with gore just dripping off his jaw. he must have been on his way to work and then gotten ill. the muscle memory probably carried him from there.

it was chaos a bit there. its not like i have weapons around my desk. my best options were a pair of scissors and a heavy glass vase. great. Lafe seemed to catch our scent quickly and finally Abhi sprung to life trying to get away. but in the narrow hallway we only had a few options. i grabbed the ancient 20 pound laptop on the file cabinet and swung it at Lafe's head. i missed and he somehow grabbed hold of the intern and bit into his head. I've never seen anything like it. luckily Lafe was content with his kill and forgot about me. which is good because i had to pick my jaw up off the floor. i swung the laptop at him again and this time connected with his skull, which splattered all over the wall in an arc of decay. Abhi was a lost cause, but i sure as hell wasn't going to give him time to re-animate.

its time to go. I'm heading back to the burbs, where i know i have weaponry and food. this could be a long day. stay safe everyone. I'll post when i can!

It's one of those weird mornings again. Everything is quiet, the sky can't decide if it wants to be blue or grey so it mushes together into some kind of paste, like a painter's palette of all the colors. The birds weren't singing either.

On the way to work, there were cars abandoned, and at stoplights I could see furtive faces in the windows. Not sure what that's about, as our house doesn't get new channels anymore, and all I had in the car were pop song playlist radio stations.

In the office now, trying to catchup from yesterday's illness, and the parking lot is half empty....more silence rings the building in a shroud. No phones are ringing.

There is one....um, man, i guess....sort of wandering over in the whole foods parking lot. he looks lost. Maybe he's from the elder care place next door. I hope somebody inside the store will come out to help him.

oh god...everything is....terrible. its all kind of blurry, but i think i need to get it out.

we managed to get down the stairwell and out the lobby doors. the glass was all smashed out and there was one thing stumbling around down there, missing a foot. luckily we were able to swing bats at that mofo until it went down.

Larry forgot his keys upstairs and we werent willing to risk our luck to go back in so we took my car. for now this part of rt 9 was quiet even though i could see i'd need some creative driving skills ahead. there were cars in random places everywhere wo i ended up using a lot of back roads. not sure that was the best choice. there were dead and half dead bodies all around. half dead because they would start to wake up after we drove by like they had caught scent of fresh meat.

about 3 miles out from the home depot i got a flat tire hopping a curb around a car. the coast was clear so Larry and i decided to huff it over to the depot to supply up and maybe find the keys to their rental trucks.

and then everything went to hell.

Larry couldnt keep up. and out of nowhere this...horde....started creeping out of the side of the road. i tried to help him but i couldnt. he tripped over a curb and went down hard, busting his knee. the smell of blood in the air whipped up the horde into a frenzy...i tried to pull Larry along but one of them got a hold of him and i had to keep running. i mean, i only just met the guy right? its ok, right? crap. i couldnt even save him from his slow death because i still didnt have a gun. my last sight of him was him struggling against them all but he soon was torn apart, hi cries ceasing.

i resolved to make his sacrifice count. i ran like hell (thank you 5K training).

managed to get to the store and pry open the doors and shut them again. how is there nobody here? i thought for sure i'd find other folks hiding out, stocking up.

wireless still working here somehow, and now i'm going to go fortify the doors and find better weapons.

about 15 minutes ago there was all this commotion outside the office door. the one that leads into the stairwell is locked all the time, thank god, because someone, or someTHING was trying really damn hard to get in. i had to sneak over to the other door and relock it, as its usually open during business hours.

just as the door clicked shut again, this....this, thing...stumbled around the corner. caught site of me in the window and somehow tried to go faster to get to me. i'm normally one to help, but this female thing was not looking normal, you know?

out of nowhere, her head snaps forward, and she collapses. the guy who delivers the soda and coffee to the office is out of the elevator. (apparently he's been hurling 12 ounces of aluminum pressurized ammo at these things.) we make eye contact and realize neither of us is infected. i unlock the door and tell him to get in.

he tells me that he's been doing corporate beverage service up and down route 9 all morning. that it wasn't until the last hour that people started stumbling out of doors and wandering around aimlessly. the last half hour, the aimlessness began to focus with intensity, and these people, if you can call them that anymore, began to attack other humans. i can see his truck from my window, its covered in blood and bits and pieces. he says his name is Larry.

At this point i start to wish i'd stayed at the viking's house last night, where i know theres a few rifles and a shiny S&W just itching to be used. *sigh* no time to waste on those kind of thoughts. Time to inventory the office and see what i can use for defense.

all is not quiet tonight
underneath my feet the washing machine
in its last rotations
shuddering the water out
knowing it has little life left
rumbles the floor
while in my room the fan
not yet retired from summer
spins and spins and
spins

and my bloodstream is
thick with the incoming possibilities
of
knowledge and new rules
the swollen red cells uncertain in their
fight for love
and some kind of semi-definable future
trapped in a lazy river
dreaming of rapids
and the niagara that never comes

the night outside my window
peering in
wanting me to be undressing
but i am
instead
illuminated by the glow of the screen
that once upon a time told me your stories

in between the purrs of my second hand cat
i drown in the noise of the wind in the trees
and the leaves that gently hand down
the cacophony of rain drops
from branch to limb
to the bed of earth to
tuck away inside of...
a siren's lure to the centimeter soles of my feet
a song of mud and gravity

all is not quiet tonight
between the inhale and the exhale
and the things i cannot say are the loudest words of all.

There are no miracles today.
We think so hard to make it happen
But you slowly fade anyway
(As if you meant it
As if you were still a little Loki playing tricks)
Your dreams letting out
Each tiny breath at a time

For you I wonder
How the last moments taste
What words danced on your tongue
Unable to escape
Trapped in dark saliva
And under your eyelids too.

I see you ascend
Lighter with every once of pain
That pours out of your blood
I wonder if you instead saw God
Where you did not expect
The way we saw him in you.

some will say you were too young
but the best warriors are.
some will say unfair
but secretly we know the way of it.
we whisper our prayers anyway
scared to shout them for fear
we offer more a dare.

For you I am certain
There is a throne in valhalla
And if I am questioned of my certainty
I will tell them of your battle
Of the words you left unsaid.
You are the leaf skimming
through the molecules of sky
crisp and crackling
your laughter setting you aloft.
If I speak it...it is truth

Some will say it is a shame
But they did not see how you were
made of light.
some will say you will be missed
but they do not understand that now
you are energy unbound
disseminating into the air we breathe
your ghost arms still embracing
still reaching out.

for your sisters
who feel they have lost the right to walk
who have no third leg to cap the triangle
and now move off the page
parallel and full of tears
for them I build this room
as if my heart might contain the infinite sorrow they have mustered
as if my gravity could help to hold them here.

some will say your poor family
but they are rich beyond knowing
seeded with the gold of every smile from your brilliant face,
kept safely in cupped hands.
Some will say how you suffered
but a warrior knows no other way
and fights tooth and nail for every scar.

But what I say
is that you were beautiful in every way;
that you lived like a cat in a sunbeam;
that if ever it can be said about
anything at all
you were loved.

*******************

actually looking for some feed back on this one, please.
thx!