Passivity

It is better to be violent if there is violence in our hearts than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover our impotence. –Mahatma Ghandi

I have been sitting here thinking about the meaning. Without an outlet I sit here. Four walls stare at me as I do my best not to stare back. There is no window. Nothing to remind me of the world outside. Nothing to peer out of and see change. The only change given to me is my own.

My growing hair, my growing nails, my growing hate and impotent rage.

Just me.

And my cell.

There is a light. A simple bare bulb hanging above me. It is like an unwavering sun and I am hovering to close. I think my wings will melt if I reach up to touch it. It is bright and my eyes have a hard time adjusting to the naked brightness of it.

I have a hard time adjusting.

The forced futility. The forced impotence.

I find I reflect on the purpose of my solitude and imprisonment. I reflect on this because I have nothing else to think about. Nothing else that my mind is willing to turn to.

I am here for my violent heart.

My heart so full of rage and heat and passion. My angry, bitter heart that kept the world at arm's length.

My years of solitude are compounded by the actual solitude.

This is my punishment for my fiery heart. A heart that drove me to act. My heart that drove me to kill and rage and scream my voice out in idle bitterness. My oppression, my life led me to this forced passivity.

I am villain after all. It is only fair that I should be secluded. I am a villain.

But a villain with purpose.

And my purpose is freedom.

Autumn

I did write yesterday, but I used this crazy thing called a pen. I know, I know. Very odd, yes? But it was handy and I wasn't at my computer all day. But, here is what I wrote. I even back dated it. (Transcribed from my pitiful chicken scratch that I call handwriting.)

Writing Prompt: Sainted


Hung upon the cross
A remnant of fiery dawn
Summer slips away

In the firmament
Sublime in its sainted glow
The wind speaks of fall

Orange Punk Rock Hair

Freewriting (Seeing a girl walking down the street with dyed orange hair.)


She.

She.

She.

She the girl with the orange punk rock hair. Orange hair pulled back into ponytail. Thin, wispy, but not stringy or dirty as one might expect. it looks light and fluffy. Wisps sitting pulled back on her hair. Not like fire. Fire is full and wild. Hers is baby fine. Too bright to be real.

Girl with the orange punk rock hair.

Her left leg is covered in tattoos from anklet to hip. Mary Magdalene, Jesus, snakes and symbols. Is she being ironic with her punk rock hair and punk rock clothes and religious iconography? Cut off jeans and a old punk rock shirt, right leg bare and white and smooth. Left leg covered in green and blue art, contrasting the orange punk rock hair.

She is mismatched.

She is chaos and punk and edge. Edge, how I hate that word. Like Holden Caulfield ranting about the word Grand. For our day, the word is Edgy. Such a fake word, phony.

She is the girl with the orange punk rock hair. She is fake and I cannot make her real. Just a sight to be seen walking down the street.

She.

She.

She.

She the girl with orange punk rock hair.

The girl who is just a figment of my imagination and my world.

Fake to everyone but me.

Aphrodite

Writing Prompt: Dreams of Aphrodite

I have never dreamt of Aphrodite. The perfect woman, the perfect dream. Flawless, the culmination of love presented on a clam shell flowing out of sea foam like the mermaid who wish herself away for the sake of love.

I have never dreamt of Aphrodite. Or Eros. Or Freya. Or Ishtar. Or Venus. Or Kadesh. Or Rati.

The idea of flawless love does not appeal to me. The sea overflowing, giving, destroying wantonly- love. The perfect hold no sway within my mind, within my heart. Aphrodite is not my Goddess, not my dream- either to be or to hold.

If I had to dream, I would take solace with Hephaestus. The lame God, hidden away within the fires, devoted, working, revered and reviled for who he is and what he does. I would sit within the heat and fire of the volcano- far away from the tormented sea of love and bend down to the anvil.

Beating and beaten.

His focus is also love. His creation also beauty.

Imperfect and flawed and beautiful. A beauty that calls to perfection with its flaws. Aphrodite swoons for his fault. Yet she falters, drawn to destruction instead of creation.

No. I do not dream of Aphrodite. She is torn by perfection. Stuck in between of creation and destruction.

This is where perfection has no choice but to reside. For it is ethereal. Caught between being and unbeing.

It can never be caught.

She's Never Been to Graceland

Writing Prompt: Graceland


My momma named me Elvis. Elvis King to be exact. Little bit of irony in that name. Especially since I look nothing like the man. If there was an opposite of what Elvis looked like, I would be that man.

Yet, perhaps because my momma was a fan, I am too.

The two of us are going to Graceland, driving up there just the two of us. Pa is staying home. He doesn't really understand the whole Elvis thing- apparently he was into the Stones. I don't see how one has to exclude the other, but apparently it does. Perhaps I'm just too young to understand.

My momma and I are going to Graceland to celebrate. She just got cleared by her doctor. No signs of that pesky cancer in her body any more. She is finally strong enough from all the chemo and the drugs and the radiation to go on a road trip with me.

I've been planning this for a long time now. I want everything to be perfect for her.

She is my momma and she's done for me for a long time. I figure it is my turn.

She's never been to Graceland.

I've rented a big luxury car that we can cruise down the highway in. I've got all the hotels booked so we don't have to make a rush of things. We'll take a slow easy trip from California to the home of The King.

I've heard that I shouldn't expect too much. It is a small house by today's standards and dated. That's fine by me.

When my momma was at the height of her treatments she asked me to go. I'm pretty sure she didn't think she would make it at that point. Being sick from medicine has to be more discouraging than being sick from simply being sick. When poison is the cure, things have to take on a bleak shade of green in your mind. When her long blond hair fell out, she cried- though not as hard as she did when her eyebrows and eyelashes fell out.

I bought her a big blond wig and a ton of silk scarves. I tried to get every color of the rainbow for her so she would never have to worry about finding one that matches. When she lost 40 pounds from the treatments, I got her that little red dress she'd been wanting but couldn't fit into.

She's so happy now that even though her hair hasn't grown back and she could stand to put on 20 pounds that her smile can light up any room. I want to take her to do the things that she never thought about or put off. The things she told me to do for her when she was in the deepest, darkest pit during the worst of it.

Now, we're going to go cruising. She'll put on her big blond wig and her little red dress, some fake eyelashes and fire engine red lipstick and we'll cruise across the country to find Graceland.

One Moment at Night

Writing Prompt: Night Vision

It is night.

Is that too cheesy to start out? It is night. It is a statement of a fact. It is not day or dusk or mid-afternoon. It is night. It is not dark, nor stormy, not even overly humid and breezy. It is just night. Nothing particularly strange about that as really night tends to occur on a regular basis and for several hours of the regular 24 hour rotation of this little ball of dust we travel about on through the universe.

I can't tell you what time it is because I don't wear a watch. Nor do I think I could see it if I did. Unless it was one of those new fangled back light watches. If I did wear a watch, I don't think that would be the sort I would wear- but you never know. I am a cheap ass bastard after all. Gadgets tend to be cheaper than class.

It is night and I am sitting outside on my porch watching the trees across the way. No particular reason, but if there was something to watch, I may as well watch the trees across the way instead of the pavement at my feet or the front of my house. The trees are dark- not really foreboding, but dark. Shadows cast in the dark are always the strangest- just a few shades darker than everything else, like ghosts.

In the trees across the way there are stray cats. I know they are there, I have seen them during the day and now, I sense them. I can hear them moving and playing and doing whatever it is that cats do at night. Every now and again I can just catch a glint of their eyes in the dark. Reflecting the small amount of light around them in a yellow, glassy glare.

I sip my tea- it is luke warm. Not really iced tea nor hot tea, just a glass of tea. In the trees across the way I can see one of the smaller stray cats edging its way toward the edge of the tree line. I follow the glare of its eyes and make out the dark shadow in the night as it moves toward me. After a time, it gets to the edge.

We stare at each other. He (or maybe she) looks at me and I look at him. Neither of us move. It is a moment of exploration. Not really curiosity, but a simple understanding that we share as we look at each other. He knows I am not a cat and I know he is not a human. Neither one of us seems to have anything better to do that to sit and stare at each other across the way that separates us. I sip my tea and he twitches his tail. We're not really still or intense.

We just are.

It is not an overly special moment, but it is something that is happening. Here and now.

Then, it is over.

The cat dashes back into the trees and I am left on my porch staring into the darkness and into the night watching the shadows play and move and sipping luke warm tea.