Category: Nonfiction

What if I fall?

“What if I fall?” she said.

“Then you fall.”

She sighed, wiped the tears that were streaming down her face, looked up and took that first, unknown, terrifying step.

Nothing miraculous happened. No, she didn’t fall, but she also hadn’t made it across the white chasm.

“Will it be like this for all the steps?” she asked.

“Most of them.” the answers weren’t a voice, they weren’t really words, but feelings that she had translated in these expressed words.

She looked around at the expansive nothingness surrounding her. Standing on what felt like solid ground, but nothing underneath, breathing what must be air, but no feel of it. There were no sounds, no movements but her own.

It wasn’t an option to return to the comfortably numb place of sitting with her eyes closed, even though that still pulled at her. It beckoned her to return to the safety of stationary life, to the calm comfort being frozen. She had awakened, but she was so very afraid.

“You can go back, but it only gets harder each time you do.” the formless words filled her mind.

“Have I done this before?”

“Many times.”

“Then why don’t I remember?” this was said aloud, her voice was cracked with dryness, the sound a broken whisper that felt jagged in her throat.

“Because remembering is too painful.”

She swallowed painfully, her dry mouth unable to bless her throat with liquid comfort. “Do you tell me this every time?”

The answer felt like a warm, comforting hug wrapped around her entire body, filling her with compassion. Yes, every time.

Tears reemerged. She didn’t want to go back, but was so scared to move forward.

The comforting hug pulled her forward, urging her. She took another step in this nothingness and didn’t fall.

She wept with fear and hope mingled into a bittersweet cocktail and stepped again.

Arizona

The attack was over in seconds. The level of coordination it took would be studied for decades. No one believed an entire state could unite in such a way. Every city, small town, and nearly deserted space was coordinated. It helped that law enforcement and local military were in favor of the coup.

What baffled the US Government was how quickly they could build the wall. They realized too late that the wall had been started years earlier, in the unseen parts of the Arizona borders. Then with almost every adult citizen willing to help, they were able to build it completely encircling them.

That was so long ago now. No one thinks about it unless it’s a research assignment. We just know that Arizona is the country you can visit where with enough money, you can do literally anything. It started with a macabre sort of Fantasy Island travel concept. The folklore tells us it began with someone wanting to hunt a unicorn. True, they’re not real, but for enough money you can make something look real enough. This led to Arizona importing various endangered species to fuel their tourist trade.

Inevitably they had to know it would turn to humans. And now, Arizona’s number one import and industry is humans. In the beginning they tell us these activities were banned, and Arizona was chastised by the international community, until the international leaders started getting caught taking their own dark vacations there. It didn’t take long for the world to become quiet about it.

And now? Now, people as young as 16 can visit any of Arizona’s 51 theme parks, ranging from Westworld, the purge, thunderdome, or death race. Apparently all of them were inspired by stories from long ago.

Arizona – more deaths than people.

Nonfiction Writing

The fantasy

I clutched my side of the bed, partially falling off; the nightly lifeboat to save me from him. Maybe if he can’t feel me there he won’t touch me again. As I scooch closer to the edge, a foot off the side, then a leg, I fantasize about a world where I’m able to slide out of that prison, glide silently through the creaky house, gather the kids who have magically become mute, and flee on a chariot into the sky, leaving Hades to burn alone below.

Tears stung my eyes again. How many times would I dream and fantasize before I snap? Before I pick up that hammer and crack his skull open? I’ve had that lovely fantasy countless times, the look of shock on his face as his blood and brains pour out of that vacant head, like a miniature volcano seeping lava. The image keeps me warm as he’s rolled over taking the covers once more.

I fill up with violent thoughts of ways he could die. No, not of ways he could die, but of ways I could kill him. Maybe I could become a vigilante against abusers. Swathed in black leather and some ridiculous fedora, seeking out dropped domestic violence charges or too many falls down the stairs. Appearing before these weak and desperate men to show them what real power is. Seeing the light in their eyes fade with each stroke of pain, each drop of blood, or slice of a knife.

The smile on my face threatens to become a delirious giggle, but it must be suppressed. He can’t wake up. I don’t want him to remember I’m there. Because in truth, I’m not a vigilante, I’m not the heroine of this story, I’m not even the heroine of my own story, much less anyone else’s. I am meek and frightened.

No. That’s not me. That’s him. Those are his lies. One day he’ll realize that I’ve been biding my time, waiting him out until he was too lazy, too tired, an inability to fight, and then it would be my hands around his neck, but I wouldn’t stop. I would destroy my hands to squeeze the last breath from him, and if I could. I’d bring him back to life to do it again if that was possible.

Each night the fantasy is the same. Each night I become closer and closer to making it real. One day I’ll be wearing an orange and finally be happy.

Nonfiction Writing

The last time

The lump in his pocket I felt when waking him make my skin go cold.

The hard, roundness, the unmistakable feeling of a glass pipe. Another glass pipe.

It was the last time. It had to be. My heart hardened. My spirit became numb.

There was no room in my life for glass pipes. For sleepless nights. For the lies.

There was no room in my life for him. Not anymore. It was the last time.

The last time I’d sleep with him beside me. The last time I’d wake him

The last time we’d share a home.

That single lump sealed our sarcophagus, leaving it to the relics of memory

Memory of love. Of lies. Of betrayal. Of dysfunction.

It was the last time I’d be second place to a substance.

The last time I’d experience love, as untrue as it might have been

It was the last time for him. The call from the ICU. The medivac emergency.

It was the last time.

Nonfiction Poetry

I keep thinking – a poem

I keep thinking about before

About the before that was good

But mostly about the before that was bad.

I keep thinking that it’s become a part of me

That the bad has morphed and taken a hold

That I am no longer me, merely the bad, a tangle of pain

I keep thinking that it doesn’t matter

That nothing matters, the geniuses of the world are nihilists

As we are all matter, that’s the only matter we get

I keep thinking we should be more than that

Or should we? We can’t be more than we are.

We are just we. Or I. Or you. Or her. Or him. Or they.

I keep thinking of the end

Not the end of me, or even of you. Just the end.

The end when we’re supposed to understand, but

I keep thinking we’ll never know

We live lives that have no meaning

So we force meaning into it. Onto one another.

I keep thinking about freedom.

About liberty. About things I’ll never understand.

About things no one will ever understand.

I keep thinking I want to understand

But I know I never will.

It’s beyond my capacity. Maybe it’s beyond everyone’s capacity.

I keep thinking of going back to school.

Will that help me to understand?

Will that provide meaning?

I keep thinking that’s a stupid idea.

That the world is built upon stupid ideas

That we are a stupid idea

I keep thinking I’m wrong.

Wrong to despair. No.

Despair is my glue.

I keep thinking without that glue I’ll fall apart

Maybe we’re all glued together like Frankenstein’s

monsters with despair and loneliness

I keep thinking I should keep my mouth shut

No one wants to hear the ramblings of a lunatic

No one needs to hear the sadness seeping out.

I keep thinking I’m wrong.

No.

I keep knowing I’m wrong.

I know I’m wrong.

Even if we force meaning by making it,

Does that make it less meaningful? No.

Tags Nonfiction, Poetry, Writing

Nonfiction Writing

Returning to L.A.

Returning to L.A. is bittersweet, sure I have In n Out and the ocean again, after an endless stream of “bless your hearts” and country music, but everywhere I look I see reminders of my failure. Failure as a wife, mother, perhaps woman or human being.

The gas station where he first threatened me, the mountain drive where I almost forced us off the road. The chapel where we got married. The hospital our children were born at. But now I was free from the man, if my mind would allow it, if I could only escape the memories, blind my mind to the past that scarred me. The hate still fills me.

He’s now ashes strewn next to some fucking tree his sister liked. But dead or alive, I’m still trapped in the prison of the memories. His critical voice is still the one I hear when I’m consumed with doubt.

Each landmark of this city is filled with memory, dipped in pain, and then rolled in remorse. And yet returning is all I’ve wanted to do for the last year. Even better to return a widow. Is that horrible to say? It doesn’t matter, it’s true. It’s how I feel.

Single in the city. This my new life. The Hollywood sign will drain of his judgement, Los Feliz won’t be streets of scorn, and traffic on the 10 will be just that – traffic, innocuous and uncaring. This is my return to L.A. This is my return to life.