3am wake-up to catch a 5am flight. Don’t want to wake him yet, so I trod to the bathroom in the dark.
The splash of cold water on my cheeks is bracing and I cuss waking him anyway.
“Crap! I know, sorry!” He yells.
“What do you know?”
“I left the toilet seat up again.”
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Just having a little fun with today’s Friday Flash 55
.
.
I can type in a cadence,
While I write some prose
Yet it is seen all in print or pixels,
What voice is given those?
I’m New York City born and raised,
Yet by southern women bred,
But rarely either of those things known
The first time my words are read
You don’t hear the rapid staccato
Of my native Harlem streets
Or when it’s breathy and drawled
Like a Carolina belle so sweet
But yet you hear me
No, my voice is then a rolling brogue
Or a clipped Queen’s English call
Or Any language that wants to be dVerse
Wait, do you know any Klingon at all?
Because for all my written verbiage
There is one major limitation
My voice is solely in province
Of you, the reader’s imagination
This when anger ravages, my throat’s rawness is real
When heartache tears my soul asunder, I choke then
Stillness brings my silence, while silliness peals laughter
And you know this, though not one word is spoken
Ah, but yet you hear me
Yes, you hear me
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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting The Bar ~ Hearth, Home and Common Speech
He hangs up the latest hand-me-down
Something else his brother has outgrown
Hating his brother’s favorite of ordinary brown
Grateful at least his underwear is his own
Mike dreams of the day of going uptown
And the price tag is for him alone
She steps into the enlarged paneled room
Where Manolo & Versace jumped to her call
She covers the self-loathing she consumes
Hating her reflection on the mirrored wall
Casting aside yet another custom-made plume
Victoria complains of nothing to wear at all
Crashing glass wakes Jenny from a dream so sweet
And knows Dad’s drunkenness is profound
The lumbering sobs signal her mother has just been beat
She won’t be protected from this newest round
Tears blur the pastel characters on her sheet
She takes the pain without making a sound
Knowing all his habits to the “T”
Leslie’s watches him undress as before
Patiently waiting, naked as you please
For the look of surprise when he opens the closet door
Even as his Uncle swears, this won’t continue to be
Leslie’s not stopped as he kneels on the floor
She cries out and bangs on the locked closet door
Desperate not to make Mommy sadder
Fearing a worse repercussion if she did it “once more”
The frustration makes Shelly madder
As she clutches Big Bunny and clears a spot on the floor
And finally loses control of her bladder
Prejudice is an injustice! Fight for Equality!
Public words Rick’s parents have always touted
Having lived in a home of hypocrisy
Their true feelings he’s never doubted
Hoping his loves endures the difficulty
Of his fear of being outed
The commissioner blinks hard as sweat gets in her eyes
But Marlene can’t stop to wipe them away
She will reappear in a few moments with refined lies
“Oh I’m just a little under today”
But right now she desperately feels for hidden supplies
Her jonesing having the ultimate say
To judge in this age is not for us to call
The clock ticks on our own souls’ debts
Whether made of the mind or a physical wall
The secrets who can say better yet
The susurrus to which we all befall
In smiling silence of our own closets
I was parsing out some advice to a friend a couple of days ago who then commented “Why do you always have just the right answer, Raivenne?”. Of course me, being me gave her a sarcastic and completely narcissistic, but humorous reply at the time, but it set me to thinking. It was not the first time I unintentionally found myself in the role of wizened advisor as of late and had a similar comment made regarding it. It made me wonder were my advisors, when I have questions?
I lost one set of grandparents before I was born. I lost the other set by my mid-twenties. I have no siblings. Other than my sons, I am estranged from everyone I am related to by blood by mutual apathy. My family is the one created from marriage and from those whose lives have intertwined with mine over the decades. Even so, my personal family is small and at this stage of my life, pretty much without elders.
Some things are irreplaceable. Recipes I never had a chance to learn, childhood pictures and family stories forever lost. Apologies that never had to chance to be given or perhaps received.
It started hitting home one day when a group of us peers were sitting around the dining room and realized we were now the ages of our parents, aunts, uncles et cetera when many of us met and become the tight-knit group we were. We are now the elders. Back then, none of us in our early thirties to early forties lives, were ready to embrace that title. Now at fifty and one of the youngest of that core group, and having already lost a few of them -including my husband- there’s no denying it.
When my husband died, the few elders I had loved, trusted, would turn to for advice were no longer among us. Luckily among my peers in real life and one or two from the Internet a wellspring of information and inspiration was found and I happily get by and for the most part thrive on it.
Mine is an interesting sort of elder-hood at this moment. I have no grandchildren, no nieces or nephews. No immediate young family to look up me with their expectant eyes while I bake pies and look oh so wise over my bi-focal glasses. My late-husband and I somehow raised two very self-contained men who at this point in their lives are even less ready to see me as crone than I am. Most of my motherly advice, worldly wisdom -such as it’s not- goes to my younger peers. The twenties and thirties among my friends who are where I once stood 20 -30 years ago. And you know what?-that works for me.
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Slice of Life – Two Writing Teachers – Write, share, give: SOLS time
.
.
In obeisance
Head raised
Breath
Moistened
Through the lungs
Heated
From the pulse
Slips
Slides
Sighs
Across parted lips
Lucky
In reverence of
The beauty
Spread before him
For the first time
Seen
For the first time
Tasted
Deeply
Her head
Thrown back
Mouth agape
Calling
His name
In rapture
Enraptured
By
The Lord’s Kiss
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A 55 word poem for dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Form For All: Fifty-Five Shades of Grey
.
.
Smoke filled rooms stage the plays
Gyrating bodies form a human maze
The next face may be for always
Looking for true love through the haze
Words barley audible through the din
As if what’s wanted is conversation
And if it doesn’t work tonight, tomorrow try again
It doesn’t take much persuasion
Another night of pretext, a major pretension
A small piece of latex, the true intention
Variations on a theme standing still
The titles change, the players remains
Clubhouse, disco, honky talk, bar & grill
And the morning’s desperation of remembering names
Another night, another chance to explore
Last night found what you were looking for
Hung out, now hung over the cool white throne
This morning finds you still all alone
Smelling of cheap everything, feeling cheaper all the more
Playing a game, that guarantees a losing score
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Think about this for a moment: Yes, we all know what we look like smiling and laughing, there are pictures galore of such, especially in this modern age of cell phones capturing our lives in vivid pixelation. We see ourselves disappointed, sad, depressed and even crying because we lock ourselves away for a private moment in our bedrooms / bathrooms and a mirror shows us our hurt. We may even see ourselves in various states of tumescence.
However, we almost never see ourselves truly scared or really angry or outright furious because we are generally facing that which has made us truly scared or really angry or outright furious and rarely is a camera there to capture the moment. If you’re about to go postal do you think anyone would want to flash a camera directly in front of you? Don’t think so. Yes, we can imagine what we may look like from what we’re told after the fact. However, when such strong emotions occur we are rarely in front of a mirror and by the time we reach one, we are no longer at the height of that emotion to really know.
Except I now know what that type of fury looks like for myself…
Today started as your normal Tuesday morning. I was up, my bed made; I was showered and dressed for work. I made a quick call to a friend to confirm a detail on plans for later this week. As usual between her and me it was not quite the quick call expected.
Our conversation meandered and somehow touched on an erstwhile family member I had not laid eyes on since 1991. Let me just say, point-blank, it was under very bad circumstances when we parted ways. If I never lay eyes on that person again, it is because even the deities know it would not be good thing, especially after this morning.
So I had her on speaker phone as I stood in the mirror applying make-up. I was looking at my eyes, giving them a final check before I close the eye shadow case, when she dropped the following what if on me:
“Yes, but he doesn’t know where you work. What if your boss called you into his office one day and he was sitting there a new employee?”
Only because I was looking dead into my own eyes at that exact moment did I see it. I felt my whole being react to the thought of the scenario proposed and in a split second went from apathetic to apoplectic before my very eyes.
My pupils dilated fully and something in them… around them… behind them…
Flashed.
…And scared the shit out of me.
I scared myself so badly that the eye shadow case slipped from my fingers as I took a step back.
The sound of the crash as today’s colors hit the floor and flung out in all directions, along with my friend wanting to know was that noise, snapped me back to reality.
There was so much strength, so much power, so much rage in that one glance of myself, I shudder now as I type this thinking of it.
What there was not, was absolution. None. Whatsoever.
But what frightened me the most of the experience was the fact that my reaction was from a mere hypothetical “what if…?”
How much worse would the reality be should the deities change their minds and let it occur?
I have actually seen the evil within me start to emerge.
And now I wish I could go back to when the only thing I could do was imagine it…
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Two Writing Teachers | Tuesday Slice of Life December 2, 2013
While (im)patiently waiting for my Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte to be made, a barista calls out for Jack. When Jack retrieves his purchase, he grins with pride as he hoists the drink in salute to the female friend/colleague/whatever standing beside him.
“I came faster.”
No, I sincerely did not know the man at all.
No, I sincerely could not resist.
No, I sincerely did not care.
“You know most guys do not admit that out loud or with pride.” I grinned.
Thankfully yes, he and his female friend/colleague/whatever had a sense of humor and laughed.
.
.
Please, don’t look too close
Ambiguity is all I ask
Can’t allow society to see
The woman behind the mask
And I have many facades
It depends on who I see
each person expecting
a different face from me
A professional face for work
Maquillage done to perfection
Spending just a moment in the mirror
Not looking in the eyes of my reflection
But I wonder are we truly fooled
Do we believe the faces we see
Or do we fall into the easier role
Choosing just to let it be
For to look behind the mask means
To acknowledge the silent tears
And to admit all that hurts
Means we’re forced to face our fears
Looking at a life of uncertainty
Despair undermining dreams
Clouded by rejection and strife
My smile is not all it seems
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Theme Thursday | Faces
Most football fans have finally stopped cheering/grumbling/talking/ about the New York Jets win over the New England Patriots due to the enforcement of a new rule in the NFL that went against the Pats. However, an incident after the game may very well eclipse all the brouhaha over the controversial call.
Videos of a male Jets fan punching a female New England fan have gone viral over the past couple of days. One of the videos of the altercation starts with the alleged attacker, wearing a Wayne Chrebet (No. 80) Jets jersey, is being pulled away from a fight in progress. It is not clear how the initial altercation began, but a woman, wearing a Patriots T-shirt in the videos, steps forward to confront the alleged attacker and tries to push him, before he responds with a punch to the left side of her head.
If you’re interested in more details of the event, you can Google it. This post is not about the above incident in and of itself, but about the adage that “it is NEVER okay for a man to hit a woman”.
First, let me preface all else I am about to say with the following: It is not acceptable for anyone to hit anyone. Regardless of gender, there should never be an acceptable time for someone to use violence to solve a problem. And please note that I said should. Unfortunately, we do not live in a white knight world and there are certainly exceptions to that rule.
As a mother of two sons (now adults), I am well aware some women, safely cocooned in the belief that the man will always be considered at fault should he physically hurt her, will use that to their advantage and push, goad, provoke and/or physically attack a man. Knowing such, I fully admit I could not teach my sons such a hard and fast absolute.
I’ll refer to men/women here because it is easier to use the hetero standard, but this applies regardless of orientation. People have to realize not all women are defenseless and not all men are necessarily stronger than their partner. On the flip side, the physically smaller partner is not necessarily the weaker one, especially when there is any sort of weapon involved.
If the woman is yelling and screaming – let her. You know what’s reasonable and what’s not.
If it’s starting to piss you off that you’re even thinking of doing something physical, it’s time for you to either a) leave for an hour or so to call down or b) leave temporarily and consider whether or not it is time to c) leave permanently.
However, if she’s coming at you with a cast iron skillet or a pot of hot cooked grits (some of you will get that reference), and you by that look in her eyes that tells you she means business – what you both did so wrong that it got to that extreme point and what should be done to fix it, if it can be fixed – can be figured out later – you very much have the right to knock her on her ass, but ONLY ENOUGH FOR YOU TO GET TO SAFETY.
If your partner/significant other/spouse is beating the crap out of you, you should be able to defend yourself enough to get to safety, until the police arrive if necessary, regardless of gender.
When it comes to my sons, the only person allowed to even attempt to take them off this earth is the one who brought them into it, and I have told them as much.
Swinging this back around to the incident on Sunday…
The controversial call that that cost the Patriots the game/gave the Jets was likely the first spark to heated words between the fans. I’m sure once all the investigation comes out; there likely were copious amount of beer involved on both sides further kindling an already contentious rivalry between both teams and their respective fans. He (the alleged attacker) is just wrong.
She had no weapons and posed no physical threat to him as he was nearly twice her size. Were this between two men, 1) this would not come up for discussion and 2) he would still be just as wrong.
As all parents tell their offspring at some point while raising them – which many seem to forget upon reaching adulthood:
KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF.
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Slice of Life Story Challenge
Raivenne-lations 