Push

Never once did you utter,
A shout or a whisper,
Until I was already gone.
Laying next to you and paralyzed.
I was a thousand miles away,
But only I could reach you,
And still be shoved away.

Who opened the door,
For the voices in my head,
Or the hand that grips my throat?
I was dragged from you,
Kicking and screaming,
And all the while, silent and still,
You laid with your eyes closed.

Yet I hear your voice,
Calling me back home.
To make a journey of several years,
To be travelled in just one night,
To a place where I ran from.
In my head, I'm still afraid
Of a push that will drag me away.

Fallen Tree

He regarded the tree with an ax in his hand.

Once the blade bit into the wood, there would be no turning back. Still, he was sure it needed to be done, and with feet set, he swung the ax around in a fluid motion and buried it's blade into the wood with a smack. Yellow, moist wood could be seen through the smooth, dark bark once he yanked the blade from the trunk, and the smell of it filled his nostrils. He then took another swing...

To some, it seemed such a crime to hack down something that took years to nurture and grow. By all appearances, it was a healthy tree, but it bore very little fruit. Some years seemed to yield more than others, but even then, the numbers were modest compared to others in the orchard. Another tree would take it's place and maybe, produce a better harvest.

Groans could be heard as the wind pushed against the weakend tree. The farmer, catching his breath, surmised a couple more swings would finish the job; however, after delivering just one more blow, the snapping of the fibrous trunk announced that the tree had succumbed.

The farmer stood for a moment to regard the fallen tree with the ax still in his hand before burying its blade into the stump. After wiping his brow with a saw-dusted forearm, he joined those carrying saws to butcher the tree for the burn pile.

Sweet Sixteen

Once in a while, a song will pop into my head and refuse to leave. When this happens, its usually a tune I really liked at one time, but haven't heard in decades. Memories of where I first heard it, who I was dating, and whatever issues were afflicting me at that time will haunt me until I look up the song on Youtube or Spotify and listen to it a million times until I'm finally sick of it.

This week, Billy Idol's "Sweet Sixteen" has been on loop in my brain. I've looked it up, listened to it, but the crooning voice over the chiming guitar is still on continuous replay. I think the song originally came out while I was dating a girl born without knee caps (true story). She liked George Michael and subjected me to every song he ever recorded from his Wham days to his first solo effort. I remember thinking he looked a bit gay and telling this to my girlfriend. She aggressively defended his masculinity and said all male singers of the time looked feminine.

I don't remember Mr. Idol ever looking all that feminine.

Almost twenty-five years later, times have changed. Billy Idol spends more of his time being a dad and less of it being a rock star, George Michael came out of the closet, and I married a girl with knee caps.

The Resurrection of Austin Frye

Distracted by thoughts of death, Austin left his desk and made for the long, dark corridor - leading to the brightness of the lounge at its end. Once there, he rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands as he sat in a plush, leather chair where he could look several stories down to the people making their way up and down the street.

The idea of death occurring slowly through lost thoughts placed him in one of those peculiar moods where he felt transcendent and detached from the world around him. It was the remembrance of some philosopher, then a blogger that had him thinking this way. The former discussed the impact of forgetting past experiences on one’s identity and how it led to the construction of the reality around them. The latter wrote a confessional entry about her indecisiveness and confusion over morality and faith.

It was obvious, at least to him, memories leak out over time and disappear - not locked away in some dark corner of the mind - but gone. However, he was unsure how the experiences remembered had a different effect on one’s identity than those forgotten.

Austin thought of the picture of the young blogger who amazed him with her talent and wisdom. Sure, she was the typical young writer posting pictures of herself staring off into the distance with a wise yet wistful expression (and would probably appreciate the use of those adjectives), but there was an age to the words she wrote; describing her quest for the assurances she somehow lost, and a longing for the past when she was untroubled by the search for truth.

The irony with this quest, he mused, would be that she would have to forget the path between where she was and where she is presently. She would have to kill who she is now; throw away her new experiences and ultimately forget them, to resurrect the identity - that she used to have - from the dead.

Either way, she could not hope to escape death. Perhaps the real conflict wasn't just a moral one or about faith, but which identity to nurture and which to let die.

"There you are!" Saul, a close colleague and friend, emerged from the dark hallway and found his place across the coffee table and on the couch. "Did you finish the proposal for Dr. Simon?"

"Just about finished. I had to take a little break from staring at the computer screen."

"You should bring your lap-top out here. Looks like the sun came out after all."

"I might have to do that."

"Is everything alright? You seem a bit preoccupied." Saul, having been his mentor for some time, seemed to take on a fatherly role in Austin's life.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Just in one of those deep thought modes," Austin said with a chuckle.

Saul smiled, "Alright, shoot."

"Do you remember who said that forgetting was a form of death?"

Saul thought for a moment; squinting his eyes. "Derrida? Kant? Most likely someone in that area. Maybe even Freud. Why?"

"Just thinking about that statement in the context of something someone wrote about trying finding herself in the midst of confusion over what is truth and longing for her carefree past."

"Well, I don't think her struggle is necessarily the result of something forgotten, unless she is to the point of finding the ideals she once held irrelevant. Then she may cast them aside and ultimately forget them as she embraces something new or, at least, begins a new search for truth."

"Causing the death of one identity in favor for another."

"Sure," Saul sat back, "Any form of change is, in a sense, death. Many consider dreams where death occurs a reprocessing of feelings associated with change and the unknowns coming with it."

"You know, I've changed quite a bit over the years, and when I look back to some of the things I remember of the past, it seems as though it happened to someone else."

"It did happen to someone else," Saul said with a smile, "but they're dead now - aren't they?"

Austin returned the smile. "Yes. Long gone."

Pillow Talk

She sat up in bed, as she often does, and started talking in her sleep. Usually, her conversations are with her students, ranging anywhere from four to six years of age and just as unruly in her dreams as they must be during the day.

"Everyone has to get in line before we go out," she'll explain in the darkness. I simply lay there and watch her act out the entire scene with the invisible children running around her.

At times, Vicki will even get out of bed and continue to talk to the ghost-children, and I have to admit, there is an element of eeriness as the scene continues to develop with her walking across the room and arriving at the door. However, at that moment, she'll awake and stand still in the doorway; silhouetted by the light we leave on at the top of the stairs. Then, a sigh can be heard as she turns to the glass of water she left on her dresser and takes loud gulps from it before returning to bed.

But tonight, it was something new.

Neck pain was keeping me from falling into an easy sleep, and after a couple of hours, I simply gave up and began to consider making my bed on one of the recliners downstairs. That very moment, my wife sat up and looked at me with eyes wide and an expression on her face I hadn't seen since we first met - a look that one gives to another when they meet them for the first time and are happy to make the acquaintance.

"Hi! Here's the window; what were you thinking to put in it?"

"What window?" I answered looking into her eyes, but she wasn't looking into mine. I mean, she was, but in her dream, she saw another face.

"Over here," she looked over to the open window on her side and pulled back the curtain to reveal the nighttime sky. "You said that you had some interesting shapes you wanted to put in it."

"No, no shapes."

She turned and looked at me again, but this time her expression faded and resumed its tired look as the dream melted into reality. I instantly regretted not coming up with something for the window and maintaining her dream. Our interaction, as brief as it was, was amazing in its sense of freshness - like I had traveled back in time to a point where I was new to her again. But that moment was gone.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes." She reclined back onto the bed and fell back to sleep, facing the open window.

New Moon Rose

There's no gift in a rose
One chases in the dark
Or in the midst of its petals
Worth tripping over.

So dance if you want
But your spell won't bind
I am blind to the twists
That no longer seduce...

If we were ever one
It was when we were both
Sooted spirits running
Under a new moon - crying.

Rapeseed

"Okay, its your turn now."

"I spy something - yellow!"

"Mommy! That's too easy! It's the flowers!"

The woman looked down to see her daughter's expression of mock disappointment. "Right, you are!" She announced.

"Did the farmer plant all these flowers?"

"Yes he did."

"Did he plant them because they're pretty?"

The woman laughed. "No, silly, they make cooking oil from the seeds."

"Can I pick some?"

"I don't think he'd mind you taking just a sprig." The little girl released her mother's hand and ran with her long, brown hair tossing in the wind until she reached the edge of the rapeseed field. Reaching out, she plucked a stem containing several of the bright yellow flowers - and then another before running back to her mother.

"Why did you pick two after I said you could only have one?"

"I wanted to get one for you," she handed her mother one of the sprigs, "And the other is for daddy when he comes home."

A darkness briefly crossed the mother's face. "What if daddy never comes?"

"Well, maybe we can press it in one of your dictionaries - so it will stay nice longer." The little girl paused for a moment; twirling the flowers in her hands while seeming preoccupied by a thought. "Why doesn't Grandma like daddy?"

The woman knelt before her daughter and brought her close. "Why do you ask?"

"She called him a bad name when she was talking to Grandpa one time. It starts with a 'B'."

Her daughter's question was not unexpected. She suspected, sooner or later, the question would surface and she would have to give account to the child about the absence of her father. After some careful thought, she answered, "Your daddy hurt a lot of people, including me. That's why he'll never be allowed to come back."

"What if he says he's sorry?"

"There isn't much chance of that happening, sweetie." The little girl stopped twirling the flowers with her fingers and her hands dropped to her sides before releasing the sprig, meant for her father, to the dust.

The woman gathered her daughter into her arms, buried the child's face into her chest and held her close to her heart. With deep long breaths, she looked over the yellow fields and battled against the flood of emotion that came over her until it finally ebbed. It was at that moment, she was reminded of the history of the plants that dominated the countryside.

"Did you know that there was a time the oil made from the rapeseed was too poisonous for us to cook with?"

Her daughter leaned back and wiped a tear from her eye as she shook her head.

"It's true. The farmers had to work with the plant until they were finally able to get rid of all the poison so we could cook with it. And you know what else?"

"What?" the little girl asked in a hushed voice.

"The bees use the nectar from the flowers to make the honey we get from the bee keepers."

"I like to eat the honey combs."

The woman laughed as she stood to her feet. "Me too!" She bent over and recovered the flowers her daughter dropped in the dust and handed them back to her. "So, like the farmers, we have to learn how to take something bad and turn it into something good. Okay?"

"Okay."

As the two continued down the lane, the woman was glad to see her daughter's countenance brighten as she looked over the fields of rapeseed undulating in the wind. The girl was unusually silent; however, the woman could tell her daughter appreciated the lesson of the rapeseed and the peace that came with it.

Finally, her daughter broke her silence as they arrived at their gate and passed through it to the red brick walk that led to their front door. "Can I have some honeycomb when we get in the house?"