8:15 and 2:02

Red oleander blossoms, Hiroshima’s fruit after devastation burns shadows into stone. Petals eradicate hopelessness amid heaps of charred obliteration. Mercenary fingers pushed down the button sending Little Boy to do the work of playground bullies. Three days later Fat Man would send the message that war isn’t for the squeamish, and children must burn. Today, it is the same. Children die faceless and unknown. Pawns and prey are preyed upon and prayed upon. Babies suckled with blood and tears. Remnants remain forever scarred. Ghostly figures limp. Breathe. Howl. Agonies erupt on blistered skin. A blue hole where a mouth should be begs for soup. Sockets, which once housed eyes, envision untouched landscapes. While ears ring with the echo of Enola Gay as she streaked the cloudless sky.

 

The Good Wife

Marla’s final descent began five years ago. That was the night Jonah told her he’d been cheating. She remembered how he said he still loved her and wanted to work it out. The other woman hadn’t meant anything to him, but had only served as a rest stop from the same grey paved road he’d traveled everyday with her.

Things would be better now. Amazingly, he’d realized that love was more getting sex whenever he wanted it, and that Marla was indeed, a good wife.

She remembered how surreal it had felt hearing his confession, along with all of his words of reclaimed love and devotion. The day had begun so differently with a more lingering good morning kiss from him than was usual and a day full of errands. Now it had turned into a soup of betrayal, begging and burnt chicken.

Jonah said he’d be waiting for her upstairs, presumably to physically show her how sorry he was. Marla smiled through fierce tears. How stupid could he be to think that sex was the way to heal her from the deathblow he’d dealt only a few hours ago?

She didn’t want to follow him. She didn’t want anything, but to lose herself in the awful mall painting his mother had given them on their last anniversary. It was a wash of muddy colors that perfectly depicted the murkiness of their relationship.

Marla remembered how she’d stood at the bottom of the staircase before ascending. Now she had reached the bottom of that same staircase again. She looked at Jonah remembering how the realization had come in that moment, five years ago. The many ways of dying and death can come in slow easy steps until you’re so completely removed from yourself that you don’t recognize yourself anymore. Words can kill.

“You killed me Jonah,” her eyes said even as she smiled in silence. “You killed me and you don’t’ even know it.”

“What shall we do today?” asked Jonah absentmindedly.

“I have no idea,” she replied. “I have no idea about anything at all.”

Osyei

Hope is not a harmless thing. It can move mountains of trouble, pulverizing them to bits at the moment of its birth. Joyous tears, moist with anticipation, trickle down like sparking reaching fingers, yearning and hungry to replenish the soul. You are the gift hope gave to me. I leap with elation. I yelp like a wolf eagerly calling her comrade. Join me in joyousness until sorrow turns to dust.

Osyei (pronounced ooh-dew-gee-guh-dee in English) is the word for hope in the Cherokee (Tsalagi) language.

A Bird Lies Sleeping (Ghazel)

There’s an inside of me and an outside of me.

  A bird lies sleeping in the driveway.

My dreams live in-between, beyond the taint of truth’s caress.

  It is not willingly there, but was snatched by an unseen hand.

Sometimes I pretend I’m someone else when no one is looking.

  Looking at it, you’d never guess it was once able to fly.

My hands reach out hoping to touch more than mist.

  Its body is skeletal, but it’s wings remain.

Walking on pavement makes my feet long for softer things.

  It looks peaceful, even though it’s a crumpled heap.

The sun is so bright that it burns my eyes, yet I continue to stare.

  What made if fall? Was it the wind or did death catch it in midair?

A more plausible version of myself would understand.

  The bones aren’t white, but red. Its talons point like Pavlova’s toes.

When I smile, it’s always because I’m happy.

  Did something so wonderful ever realize that it was so carelessly free?

This Morning There Was Hope

For three-word Wednesday

buckle, evade, wedge

He was trying to wedge himself next to her, but the subway was full and there wasn’t even room enough for that. A nearby drunk belched fouled air, momentarily polluting the mood. She coughed, trying to evade the kindness of his smile, before returning one of her own. He would stand next to her tomorrow and perhaps find the courage to finally say “hello.” For now, there was nothing in the world but the hope that his knees wouldn’t buckle when he saw her again, and that she would say “hello” back to him before the doors of the subway opened up to rush her away.