[x]

Twenty: I'm afraid I'm growing oldi.
Coupons and sales magazines
have become more than just junk mail
and the holes in my pants
seem more patchable
and I wonder just how much
my sparse jewelry would fetch
if I said I saw the face of Jesus
in the glimmer of my pearls.

ii.
I am beginning to miss the sea I grew up on
so much that I will read bad poetry
just for the mention of a salty ocean breeze.
I feel landlocked and sometimes I'm afraid
that I will never see the world
until I have retired from it.

iii.
Faith says her life is full of asking.
I wish mine were full of answers,
but I too have many questions
and only Time will answer them for me.

iv.
My mothe

A Night at Pinetop's TavernSomewhere in the back alleys of the city's older section there was a crumbling brick building that had been around since before ragtime music was popular. Hanging above a faded green door that led down to the building's cellar was a wooden sign, and despite the peeling paint, you could still make out the bar's name: Pinetop's Tavern. Nobody really knew when Pinetop's first opened; local folks would tell you it had been there since time began, and the world had grown up around it. It was one of those places where the lighting was always dim and the cigarette smoke never dissipated and the cloud you were breathing now had probably been around

DreamersShe reminds me that she's a dreamer

Her right hand delicately grips a pencil
as she's working equations on a TI-89 with her left
She looks up at me and smiles,
and there are stars, meteors,
spanning across the cosmos of her expression

her countenance reminds me to look up at the chalkboard
that's attempting to teach me how
to make verses sing from pages in a plain 8 by 11 notebook
and I am only armed with
a .7 pencil and a purple pen,
stolen from my older sister's pencil pouch

My hands are inches away from hers
from the desks side by side
like cars parallel parked on a side road
her equations confuse me

until she flips the

mutethings have been easier
without words &
we pretend neither of us care;

we stutter
splutter
laughing and choking
on puns &

when you bend me over nouns
i scream

louder
growl
more fluent.

the words are there waiting to be spoken

me . you . love

my dear, we've been mute
for so long

speak to me.

starspunobserving the romanticism
of hooded cemetery kids,
smoking cigarettes pretending
they are not dead.

you were always so sure
about my uncertainty,
you watched
all my pick up lines
drop things.

we built the heat
of the evening from the solidity
of starlight,

pretended
that two teens at the park
at midnight
is the stuff of teen novels
(cliches dim on
our leaf-gold horizon)

your eyes darted
from the gray expanse
of the churchyard & wandered
in thoughtful
paths.

i wanted to ask you
if i could follow. shove
the words aside &
remember that i came here alone.

i remember our innocence
in the static b e t w e e n
stars

PlowIt's finally snowing again,
blankets of peace falling
with a freshness that lacks innocence.

Nearly forgotten, they're here as expected,
clearing the streets,
trying to push aside all the worry
that makes things unsafe, but

the steel mouth askew grates against my heart;
its thick bass scrape pushing more than piles of white aside,
it pushes my blood aside too,
piling it up in the corner of this pumping vessel that falters,
ice-caked and bitten, stiffened,
and keeps faltering,
again,
and again,
and again,
until the air is silent
and the street no longer shivers in torture.

The only evidence is the blanket of white
that keeps

bitter hug of mortalityso you sit there,
your awkward little hands folding awkward little birds,
as if you could inhale your own paper wings.
so you sit there,
and you think
about you watching the people and the people
not watching you.
and i whisper darling,
darling the only thing you're good for
is reading walt whitman out loud
to your used-to-be-white walls
until your throat chips, and your eyes dust over.
and you just shift your weight
and shake your head
like something
buzzed in your ear.

carouselwe laughed like children high on m&ms,
danced like we were carousel horses,
and jump-roped our way through obstacle courses.

I saved our footsteps in mason jars,
in case we ever needed to follow yellow brick roads
to get home.

home was an illusion:
honesty without truth,
apologies without forgiveness,
I kept home sandwiched between
"never" and "have to."

caroline, they'd say. caroline,
stop being such a dreamer. stop taking
us for granted.

I packed every apology possible
into my breath, left runaway plans lingering
in the silence between family.

when I found you dancing in the street,
I listened for merry-go-round music.

I

Sonnet 4 for my grandmother

Her flowers, softly pressed against her palm,
have lost their quiet gift of sunlit breath
in lieu of gentle summer's song, this psalm
hushed now by looming mute of living death.
The owl's lonely mating cry rings out
against the fjord today, and still I find
her shorn cloth adorning my clouded route
home. Roughly textured skin of night confined
my skin; however, the small trestles built
from earth to hidden light behind the moon
guide me to her in sleep. Her petals l

Whale Songs of the PacificListen, the girls swallowed by whales are the ones that grow up lucky.

Listen, no one will warn you about the little boys with the magpie eyes and the fists swinging splinters of glass. No one will warn you that their smiles are sweeter than their words are sweeter than their souls are sweeter than their intentions. No one will warn you of the sheer weight of the world.

Listen, sometimes girls are fragile. Sometimes girls are frothy. Sometimes girls let boys nuzzle "I love you"s into their necks and sometimes girls drink the wine of believing them.

Listen, sometimes the boys really are sweet, and little girls' tart puckered mouths can't ta

Moving: A YaduWe keep a home
Of unknown hums
And lonely cats.
The sky cracks but
He lacks a raincoat.

Fueled by smoke and
Words he lands on
A branded street,
Knows the sweet rage
Of meeting too soon and late.

This town belongs
To a song man
And wrongful ghost.
He is most sure
The coast will fade their remnants.

Davaothe equatorial sun
soft-etched on my skin,
there, del sur

islands away

the tan lines of shallow-bathing
in your eyes

there is so much time between

you
and
I

you spoil me, featherbreath
do i dare commit my memory
into dreams?

i laugh upon waking,
i did not realize--
i run when i go to you

my soul is leakingthe steady drip drip of it in the kitchen
sink has me grinding my teeth

what a waste you said, and in vain
tried to tighten the taps as I laughed—
a waste!—indeed I am.

you told me, pride is a virtue you seem to be lacking
and I said pride leaves the blinds open and you laughed
and left the the blinds open.

Shiny black patent shoes, I watched as you were
lowered into the ground and wondered if that's where life got you,
if that's where life always got you,

then,
what good is pride anyway?

Ode to my grocer...The grocery cart had old fruit smashed and dried to its grated floor.
"Someone really ought to hose that off," thought I.
I've had this cart before,
and thought the same thing then.

The parking lot was conspicuously short on cars.
Saturday morning is usually busier.
A corporate megamart has opened
just five minutes from here.

I pushed the cart into my familiar market,
defiantly devoted in the face of change
to my beloved grocer, unpolished, unrefined
and unapologetically human.

The Pinova apples are painted vibrant shades of yellow, pink and red.
Perfect in their imperfection. Better there be scars than a thick polish of wax.
An

i fold paper for a livingpeople think it's weird - that i fold paper for a living.

i sit by a park bench, chant numbers under my breath and bend each fiber of light, fragile paper just the way i want.
because it makes you feel powerful? you ask. and i sit there and smile at the words that twitch the sides of your lips.

i sit here and watch that simple square turn into a crane right before my eyes - with my hands - because i can make it happen. i imagine my next move, anticipate an outlook and create beauty out of the simplicity of what the bark of the tree next to the bench twisted into from the paper in front of me. because you've been ugly your whole life? you as

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More from ~TheLunaLily

The Darkness Comes CallingThe Darkness comes calling,
and it sounds so sweet.
To me it is saying,
"you're not alone, but not complete".

And the darkness is singing,

"Let go,
baby, just let go.
It's so easy, so easy,
come, my pretty baby.

Let go.
I can take you away.
Let go.
I will take you away.

Hush. Just come into me,
closer now, pretty baby.
I will end all your sorrows, make all the wrongs right,
release you from despair, just turn off the light.

Unspun,
and
done.
Oblivion.

Serenity is just that easy.
Nothing else will be this easy.

So come, my pretty baby,
and let me take you away."

Oh,
when the darkness comes calling
it sounds

LimboMy jaded heart struggles to beat,
Everything feels so bittersweet.
My numb emotions are fading fast,
How much longer can I last?
I am going numb.
Why do I feel so numb?

My careless soul expels its last breath,
I look around, it feels like death,
And it just doesn't matter anymore,
I can't care for things not here anymore.
Goodbye, Careless Soul,
Fly away Careless Soul.

There it goes, my sympathy,
It left with my empathy.
It didn't want to stick around,
The noise of its absence is profound.
Oh, Sympathy,
Don't leave me.

I am nothing but an empty vessel,
I feel just like a vacant shell.
When did I become hollowed out?
I hav

Bitter FruitYour eyes leave stains, though you look and do not touch.
The intent ravages my clothes; but I'm not yet in your clutch.
You smell like bitter fruit, and you're throwing it at me.
One seed will bind me to you and to that land called hell,
But just as a whore to throw away, unlike Queen Persephone.
Keep your fruit away from me, and from all else as well.
I saw in you the deterioration of the lost art of seduction,
Where Loneliness, Resentment, Lust and Pain collide;
Gave birth to a man like an undertow current, harvesting ammunition
To throw at unsuspecting women standing cold-eyed on the road side.
You keep your dreams, and I will k

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The Importance of Gold Flecks

by ~TheLunaLily, Oct 27, 2012, 6:31:22 PM
Literature / Prose / Non-Fiction / Biography & Memoir / Stories & Vignettes

Hereditary.

        I learned the meaning of the word when I was young on a summer afternoon. Too hot to play outside, I was sitting with my dad on our blue couch with the small white polka dot fabric. In retrospect, it was probably a tacky piece of furniture, but love is unconditional when you are small, and I sure did love that couch. I remember my dad watching Winnie the Pooh with me every Saturday morning on its spotted cushions. That day, though, we had a conversation about eyes that I never forgot, and even then, its deeper meaning was not lost on me.

        "Daddy, your eyes are green like a cat's," I said.
He smiled, and told me that mine were also green, but unlike his, they changed colors. "Sometimes they are blue. Your eyes were so blue when you were a baby! Big and blue.... Sometimes they are green and blue and gray mixed together, and sometimes they are blue-green; but they are never just one steady green like mine. The shade of your eyes varies."

        I frowned; disappointed I didn't have cat's eyes and wanting to be like my dad. I asked why it was they changed color and he joked that my eyes were like mood rings. That made me laugh and it became a running joke. He always knew how to make everything better.

        Then, I pointed out the gold flecks in his eyes near the pupils. He pointed right back at me. I went and looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and saw that I had them too.

        He said, "like hair color and skin color it is hereditary, a family trait. It is something that is passed down from parents to children when they are born. My mother told me that the gold flecks that sparkle in a person's eyes are a sign of wisdom."

        He smiled his loving dad smile as we sat on that blue couch with the white polka dots that summer day, his hand resting on my shoulder. Looking up into his green eyes with those sparkling gold flecks that gazed warmly down at me; I believed him. I would always look up to him. I still do.

        Now that years have gone by many things have changed, but I still look in the mirror, {s}crying for the past. My eyes are changeable things, like mood rings, as my father told me long ago, so I wait for the right conditions and search until I see. And through my irises, colored deep green and layered like forests, near the black nights of my pupils, I find him winking at me like golden stars, telling me it's all right.

        "I've been here all along, and I always will be."

The Importance of Gold Flecksby ~TheLunaLily

Literature / Prose / Non-Fiction / Biography & Memoir / Stories & Vignettes

The smallest things can be the most important.

----------------------------------------------------

Thank you so much for the Daily Deviation! I am touched to have such a personal and special piece to me featured.

Daily Deviation

Given 2013-02-27

The Importance of Gold Flecks by *TheLunaLily The suggester writes, "The eyes are more than 'windows to the soul.' This very fine vignette shows in a few precise words what a deep look into a person's eyes, even our own, can really tell us." ( Suggested by *xlntwtch and Featured by `thorns )