The Drunk Girl

Do you remember drinking too much, lady?

I don't know if I can call you lady. You were young. Perhaps you were my age, and so drunk I want to just call you girl.

Poor thing, stretched out like Jesus on the cross as your team mates hauled you up those stairs. Too drunk to stand. To drunk to know. Sick from one end of the building to another Your eyes went left. They went right. They went everywhere. Mostly, they slumped shut. You wanted to be shut. And no where.

Clutching at seconds to retain your dignity, you begged, with that fine gloss of slobber on your lip, to use the bathroom.

There was no girl there, not one woman. Not one, to lift you. Give you security.

Just me. The stranger.

Sick, but in need of help we became sisters for a moment. Your weight on mine as we made our way into the cramped bathroom. You wont remember, but you were hardly more than a child; I helped you sit on the toilet. Murmuring for things like water, like a dying woman. Murmuring things I don't remember.

But I remember you. You were hardly more than a baby as I helped you dress again.

A stranger, but your sister.

Passing you on to those deemed responsible for you.

Then I went to sleep and dreamed my dreams, ate my days until this one.

I remember you, wonder if you are okay. Good luck.

Life in the Bush

In Light of Failure

I didn't make it.

I failed the contest I've always managed to get in on the first round.

Here, I thought, was one of the really great pieces I wrote in the last year. It was vivid, to me. Full of direction and motion. Capturing movement and hinting at more, I loved the piece. Two reasons for that. One, it was from a dream. So those actions and descriptions were written, in a way, from experience.

Two, its one of the few things I've written since 2013 I've been particularly pleased with.

Its writers block.

Chronic, coupling with that realization as I hit my late 20s that I'm not as successful at teenage me would have liked to be. I've gone on about my career before but mostly it was bolstering the idea that career is not the main focus in life but I never thought of my writing as a career. It was just a part of me.

Frantically, I glance about the internet for a career I could jump into with out breaking the financial bank with reeducation, whilst still in the midst of moving across the ocean where international rates of learning are astoundingly high.

Where should I be now? Why am I not where I thought I should be and why do the words not come so easily.

I proposed to my Oma, who is always a source of encouragement with my writing, on the idea of taking some creative writing courses. Her reaction of "You should do it with out all that.", stung.

Stung because it struck at the reality of what was happening. Self doubt. Its seeped in me. Of course I can string words together as an adult, better than I ever could in my fervent writing years. But as nothing has come of it, confidence in my ideas and ability not just to string the words together but to contruct a foundation, the plot! began to waiver until I'm betting on old horses, and fires from before.

Really, its my first 'no' I've ever gotten, this contest failure. The 'no' from the outside world really was as loud as the 'no' I've been telling myself for so much longer, amplifying the self doubt.

Aspen Valley: A Lovely Excursion

For a donation upon entrance, Hailey and I got a good look around the place, seeing lots of animals.

Monty the Bobcat, the only one I recall the name of.

Two Sisters

When you leave

When you leave the house,


Will you take your hat and coat?

And will you take your paddle and boat?


Will you remember to kiss your girls,

And tell your son well done?

Before the light grows dim

Before the moon sets in.

When you leave the house?

When you leave the house,


Will you remember which road you took,

Or will you remember the pocket book?


Will you recall the friends and calls,

Or the black dog who loved you, despite it all,

Before the light grows dim

Before the moon sets in.

When you leave the house?

When you leave the house,


Will you recall the spills and falls?

Or will you recall them not at all?

Will you recall your mothers love

And mind that your sister is alright?

Before the light grows dim

Before the night sets in,

When you leave the house?


When you leave the house,


Will you remember the time you had?

When you ran the river, wild and mad?


Will you recall the sweet words your wife said,

Did you kiss her before the door?

Before the light grows dim

Before the night sets in,

When you leave the house?

When you leave the house,

Will you turn out the light?

And please remember to say good night?


- For Opa

Insides

Can you hear it? The empty sound coming from inside me? Can you hear the terror? The small creature filled with fear, scrabbling at the walls for a way out! There is none. Its trapped. Stuck. Fucked. Didn't do enough in life. Made the wrong choices. Picked a wrong path.

Not good enough. Not good enough.

The words won't even work right. Stumbling over each one. Why do I keep yammering over nothing? One liners just to fill a little void in me. I sound like a stranger to others and I'm left in the shadow of my own words feeling a fool. Feeling alone.

But I work so damn hard! I, this small creature feel like I work so hard. Never enough. Not enough fuel for the fire.

You'll starve!

I let it all sink in, like a sponge. All I want is for the world to be happy, so that perhaps then, I can be happy. 

Perhaps then ....

I Wore Your Shirt Today

I wore your shirt today, the one you toiled in.

Your smell has faded, but I know you were here.

It doesn't fit. It hangs off my bones.

But it looks better than all the gowns, finer than my own clothes. Rags.

Anything a designer could lash together pales against your shirt.

No Gucci for me.


It renders the body

I become glamorous in one breath, and in another closer to you.

I am where you stood. The thousands of miles do not ebb.

There is no vanishing distance. I can see it plain.

But for a brief time in the agony of early morning,

where I cannot find you, or your smell in the warm covers,

my pains are eased.



I wore your shirt today, my love.