She feels it, like an itch beneath the breast bone, slowly digging in and making it hard to breathe. The lights, though dim, are to bright on her tear swollen eyes, and she knows the sound of the hymns being piped softly into the drab room will drive her mad if the itching inside her does not.

To her right Aunt Lucinda is wailing like a banshee, and the large woman is heaving up the aisle of chairs towards her. The sight is making the feeling in her chest almost unbearable, and she tries to stand and hurry outside into the freedom of the sun, but a bony-gnarled hand reaches out and grabs her wrist before she can move.

Some ancient man, she's sure she's seen before,-probably in her childhood nightmares, is looking into her eyes and stroking her wrist with his frail fingers. He's telling her something, she can't make out the words that spill over his pink gums and fall from his sunken lips, but she knows it one of the five phrases she's heard repeated to no end this day. It seems no one can think of anything to say in the face of death.

She nods and gently pulls away from the mummified relative. Ahead of her is the door, and she races towards it feeling the itching in her throat now, threatining to choke her. Of all the places, and of all the times to have the giggles, she is horrified to find them taking over her here, at the funeral for her own father, but they are rasping the back fo her throat now, rushing toward her lips and tumbling just as she shoves through the door to the world outside. She collapses against the wall, overcome with the laughter that has no mirth, until they turn to lonely, angry sobs that bring her to her knees.

They say you can't go home again..
but I never understood,
for if home is where the heart is,
how could you ever leave?
I feel it in my being,
carry each drafty room in my heart,
each hurt and healing comfort
have layed their foundations in my psyche.
So many faces reflect in the mirrors
of my mind and echo back through
the halls of my conciousness
awakening dusty memories
draped in cloth and hidden
in locked up rooms,
I don't fear not being able to return,
but dread eternally never leaving.

Nothing the same, from yesterday to tomorrow, it all slips by and
I never had the time to grasp the first instant.

School yard romance meets reality

Bubble gum wishes
and holding hands
lose to groping kisses
and one night stands
sweet first kisses-
soft as a breeze
become casual misses
with arrogant ease.

Ramblin' Hoosier~

The trees are in full bloom and the fur is so soft to touch, soft as the tickle of whiskers on my cheek. I wish with all my might to be this kittens mother, but I'm not, and little brother is screaming that I won't share, I won't let him hold it. Big sister takes it from me, which is what she does best in the world and I mentally wish her into a scarecrow forever stuck in a moldy field being laughed at by the birds and giggled at by the nosy cows.

She coos sweetly in little brothers ear, stroking the kitty and breathing deep it's fresh from- mothers-milk-scent that still lingers on my clothes and in my nose. I want to reach out and pinch them both but sit in the nook of the joining brick walls, staring out of my shadow waiting until I can hold it again.

A car honks and I see daddy pulling up the drive in his big old loud car. Maybe I can get him to give me the kitten back and ha, won't that make big sister mad! He runs into the house and back out again shaking his head clutching the forgotten wallet in his hand and hurrying back to the car before all of the kids can spy him and keep him there with their questions and crying for him to stay and he misses all of his classes this day. I know better when I see him than to ask him for the kitten so keep my seat against the cool brick wall.

Little brother is poking his head through the window of the car, crying for daddy to take him with him. Daddy says no, little brothers aren't allowed to go to Mommy and Daddy schools, but that he should wait for him here where he can play with his pretty kitten and later won't they have fun together playing ball or maybe going down to the woods to play in the creek. Little brother begins to wail and clutch the door and big sister runs to help.

I sit in my corner and am scared that little brother will drop my baby kitten which he is holding loosely by one little paw. Big sister catches his hand and pulls him back away from the car so daddy can leave. Daddy smiles at her and I feel bad I have doomed her to a lifetime of watching over musty corn fields. He tells little brother as he begins to back the car down the drive that when they get home they will play, won't that be fun and little brother's wails turn to angry screams and they don't see until to late what I watch with horror from my cold little corner; my sweet little kitten hurling to the ground, hurling under daddy's big old heavy car and I can't think anymore over the sound that must be my scream at the sight of the delicate fur crushed and dirtied. I can't think over the sound of the painful noises that have replaced the little soft mewings coming from my little one.

Daddy's face is white like a sheet and big sister is standing frozen with little brothers hand in hers, crying. My teenaged awkward cousin runs up to help and they talk together in whispers.
Poor thing..nothing to do...vet's too far away..it's for the best..now..be quick.

I take back my bratty ways, I apologise to god that I cursed big sister and wanted to pinch little brother and all I want is for daddy to fix him; straighten the little back and legs and I wonder what they are doing going to the woods, is there some magic in the woods..in my fairy tree maybe, but no--I know even before I hear, what is going to happen and I learn that day, sitting in my cold corner looking into little brothers pouting unrepentent face, more lessons about life than I have in all the days since.

Ramblin' Hoosier~

Evening conversations...

"There is a bend there, just over the horizon, where eternity kisses yesterday and all the past is forgiven." He says between puffs of exhaled smoke, waving a work and tobacco stained finger down the road at the burning sun that is quickly sinking from view. His hand wearily rubs his tired eyes and she sits quietly, not speaking for fear of causing his words to dry up and fade back into himself.

It is at moments like this, when his long built fortress of quiet slips unannounced, that she can begin to know this person she loves with all her being who sits a mystery beside her. His hair catching the evening breeze, his eyes distant and looking at she knows not what. He utters words, somewhere between statement and hope she thinks looking at the longing glances he cast into his own memory.

"The hardest amends to make in this world are the ones we have to make with ourselves."
"Why?"
He looks down at her, half startled that she's there, as if he thought he were communing with no one but the night and the past. He smiles and puts his large warm hand on her knee for a moment before continuing on, "I dunno. Maybe it's because when you hold to a grief for so long, it becomes a part of who you are and to give it up, well, .." He shakes his head and is silent. She tries to make sense of his words, but is lost to the world of adults. All she knows is that she relishes this moment beside him- this moment of sharing even though she can see his pain below the surface.
She looks up again and finds his eyes, "Maybe you should remember who you were before you found your grief, then it might not be so hard."

He smiles again and hugs her. "Maybe I should darlin', maybe I should."

Ramblin' Hoosier~

A Lazy Philosophy on Life

I love the ideal of life and love more than the reality of it.

I love to sit and dream of what might be if only, if only.....

I intoxicate myself on hope, all the while knowing I will wake in the morning hung-over and miserable, lying in a puddle of my own drab reality, unable or unwilling to make any changes.

My God! What sort of tumbled, jumbled, backwards fool am I? I see possibilities of the future, yet cannot take a step towards any of them. I balk at the alternate realities of my life tomorrow, all the while fantasizing what they could be.

I'm in a dull little world of my own making and am too cowardly and lazy to move away.


Ramblin' Hoosier~