Episode 129 – Conversations With Dead People

Dancing
the bossa nova
in the kitchen,
studying
in the library,
she comes to me,
the one who died,
the poet.

Not my love,
but one who says
she knows my love
now that she’s 
left this world.
It is her voice 
I hear singing 
in my ear
late at night.

Darkness blows 
through the door,
knocks out lights.
Only black and 
white remains.

Are you here?
She knocks.
Are you okay?
She’s not.

I smash the radio,
but it keeps playing.
I smash the microwave,
but it explodes.
I cut my feet on the glass
and she speaks to me.

Her voice is clear,
then nothing.
My heart 
an ancient hole
she cries into.

I feel her again,
the pain larger
than a limb lost.
Not phantom pain,
but real,
penetrating pain.

All sounds return.
Her voice,
the bossa nova.
She stands before me
in white,
a goddess
to my troubled life
after all the storms,
the hurricanes 
that destroyed me.

But it was not
my love,
the poet,
my mother.
The dead are dead.

And I am on my own.

Episode 126 – Help

On Friday, I’ll die.
Before prom.
Before my poems are published 
or even read.
Don’t know how or why,
but I do know when.
On Friday, I’ll die.

I don’t want to leave life.
I want to graduate,
hike across the country,
become an aunt.
I want to dance to something
loud and drummy.
I want my best friend 
to be more.
Much more.

But it won’t happen,
because on Friday, I’ll die.
Don’t know how.
Don’t know why.
No one believes me, but I know.

In my bed, I write.
In my bed, I say goodbye.
In my bed, I feel safe.

But come Friday, 
I’ll die.

* * *

Seeing her for the first time
in the ground,
name etched in stone above,
makes me feel small.

Tracing the letters of her name
with my fingers
spells out the emptiness
of my life without her.

Episode 121 – Two to Go

girl fight 
between friends
both strong
who wins

* * *

A strawberry, ready to pop,
but instead of sweetness,
there is putrefaction,
threatening even friends.

For there are no friends
when love is dead,
only fading moments
when love told her 
she was beautiful.

Then death –
the great eraser.

If darkness disappears, 
she is left with nothing.
Love is dead 
and sorrow squeals
its hatred.

A naked throat 
is vulnerable
to a blade,
to a bullet.

And if the skin bleeds,
the pain escapes,
leaving behind
an empty shell.

Raise your swords, 
if you must.
There is no protection.

Episode 120 – Villains

Rage fills my heart where love once lived 
and fury moves into the room that housed the bullet.
So small the wedge that pierced her heart.

So complete my loss,
that humanity bails
leaving her behind,
still warm,

     (so warm)

a gift for the gods
though they don’t deserve her.

Like a demon hound, 
I track her killer through the woods.
He’s full of words, but no remorse,
not that it would matter.

I string him up between two trees,
silence the savagery of his voice. 
Then I strip him of his skin, 
like pa with a summer rabbit.

Nothing survives 
when rage moves in.

Episode 119 – Seeing Red

home at last
arms and feet
lips on lips
legs and sheets
sweat and sighs
tousled hair
no place to be
but here
and here 
and 
there

* * *

Back to bed 
without breakfast.
Hunger lies 
not in our bellies, 
but lower,
deeper within.

Sweat mingles,
parts tingle.
We disappear 
in rusty sheets.

Holding hands,
we rise
late afternoon.
You dress in blue
to match your eyes.
Me, in white, 
brand new 
now back with you.

A shot.

Your shirt 
(last words).

You fall.

Episode 118 – Entropy

She’s back 
with a vengeance
wishing misery
on his head,
on his heart,
on his intestines.

She loves him still,
but wants him dead.
She feels a fool
for believing
anything he said.

Over shots of whiskey
with a kindred heart,
she shares her grief.
Naked on a tabletop
they find release
if not relief.

The tryst 
is caught
on camera
for old lovers 
and others 
to see.

The man 
who left her 
at the altar
is quick to judge,
but who is he?

Who is he?

Episode 117 – Normal Again

In a corner
on the floor.
Am I real?
Tell me more.
My mom is here,
but no, she’s gone.
I know she died.
It feels so wrong.

I’m dressed in white,
my arms are tied.
I know the truth.
They say I’ve lied.
That I am not 
the chosen one.
No vampires fought.
No battles won.

A life created
in my mind.
I must believe,
they seem so kind.
My friends aren’t real.
My sister’s fake.
Destroy them all
and then I’ll wake.

My mom and dad
will take me home.
But she is dead
and he is gone.
Believe in you,
she says to me,
and as I go
her face I see.

I choose my world,
fake sis and friends.
Full of vamps
to fight again.
And if it’s not reality,
real or not,
I think it’s me.

Episode 116 – Hell’s Bells

Waiting for the ceremony on his wedding day, he thinks of what their life might be – comfort and kids and time to play.  

They met at a revenge party.  She was making some man pay for his indiscretions (she was a demon back then).  

Later, when she was forced to give it all up and become human, she saw valor in masculinity for the first time in over a thousand years, because while he was flawed, he was a good man.  

He found her quirky and blunt and sometimes overly attached, but he fell in love with her charm and her honesty and the way she felt in his arms.  

Despite her powerful past, she was ordinary now, and that matched how he saw himself. So he asked her to join him for a life removed from heroics and hell dimensions – at least as much as any marriage can avoid such pitfalls.

They planned a beautiful wedding, filled with family and friends.  Her family had horns and flippers, but were a pleasant enough lot.  His were misogynists and drunkards and he remembered how they made him feel less than human.  

Just before the ceremony on his wedding day, a man appears with visions of his future – a wife who resents him, children who hate him.  He sees his bride grow old and sad as he becomes bitter and mean, drinking more and more, working less and less.

He sees none of the good parts, only how it goes wrong – how he’ll cause her much pain, how she’ll wish she never met him.  How her face will reflect a canvas of misery that, on one brutal day, he’ll slam with a frying pan.  

His beautiful bride!  How can he marry her knowing what a hideous husband he’ll become? So he flees into the rain to wash away his sins, but they stick to him like genetic material, birthed deep inside, as much a part of him as the dark of his hair or his love of cartoons.  

When he returns to tell her he’s no good, she comforts him, explaining that his visions weren’t real, but rather payback from one she’d wronged in her demon days, come back to spoil her beautiful day. 

But the groom cannot be comforted, believing the only way to save her is to never marry her at all.  To leave her now will cause a pain less savage than sixty years of togetherness. 

He drops her hand and backs away.  He leaves her on her wedding day.  Beautiful and bleeding, she strolls the aisle alone, her heart spilling out in tendrils, her beauty stained and torn. 

Weary of her own unhappiness, she returns to her vengeance career, bringing misery to men who break women’s hearts – something she was good at and knew would never leave her feeling so alone.

Episode 115 – As You Were

She’d said it so many times before.
It’s over.
But she always came back.
To his door.
To his bed.
Drawn to him
like stake to heart.

The fact that she despised him
only fueled the passion.
The fact that he loved her
only fueled the passion.

He’d memorized the barbs
she used to hurt him.
Sure, they hit home sometimes,
but he’d learned to think of them
as endearments.
It was, after all,
what she had to give.

But when she came today,
soft, in lavender,
and spoke his name.
The name given to the man,
not the monster.

I’m sorry William.

He knew
he’d lost her.

Episode 114 – Older and Far Away

I’m lonely.
So 
    many
         in
               my
                   life
                         have
                              disappeared.

I collect trinkets
to keep me company,
stolen from those who ignore me,
presents for those who should care.

Stay up all night with friends.
No one wants to leave.
I wish it were for love of my company,
but it’s secrets
        lurking 
               inside
                     the walls,
locking all the doors to keep us in.

In the light, we grow hungry.
Day beckons,
but the doors won’t budge.
Trapped we are,
together, battling demons.

If only you could hear my screams.