Sacrifice

Maxine stood in the gas station and tapped the carton of cigarettes. There were three left. Without thinking too hard she pulled out one of them and lit it. She had smoked her entire life. At least she didn’t remember a time without these long pale friends.

The mood was not happy. After this pack was done there could be no more.

Her daughter had screamed at her, “If you never smoked again, we would all be better off.” There was a basement full, a shaft full, of people who would be better off.

The street rippled before her as she walked. She chanted, “light, last cigarette/ last light cigarette/ last light ever cigarette.”

On the ground in the gutter under the window behind the warehouse lay a little black shriveled thing on its back. Something had to die.

I Don’t Crash Parties

An example of comedy masking pain:

If you don’t look me in the eyes and tell me to be at your party I’m not going to show up. I don’t crash parties, even if my only alternative is stabbing myself repeatedly in the base of my skull with a loaded paintbrush, because my insecurity is this question, am I worth the bother? If I don’t think you want me around all that badly I’m not wasting my time.

If you do decide to invite me don’t be surprised if I don’t seem as excited as you want. Really I’m probably a little confused, I hardly get invited to important events and it’s scary to be wanted sometimes; especially if I don’t trust your motives but that’s another issue.

Make of this what you will. Still, have the time of your life without me. What does it matter if I get depressed? You’ll be distracted enough with those who do crash parties. I’ll just wilt in this corner behind this mask of indifference. I know this corner a little too well but it's comforting.

Rasing Sun

Now is a sensitive time. A Brother of mine has been called up to higher duty. My personal contact with him was limited but I know his work and it was good. The summon was sudden. No time to pack. The assignment keeps him from coming our way again.

I have not lost hope. I do not ask you to stop your petitions.

The grater miracle than his return would be our letting go and allowing the Light and Love he represents live vivid in our own selves. There will never be another Sunday we live through without knowing it's not a thing or a measure of time but a person who dances in the light of new rising.

Why cling to a body? In letting go the spirit can rise if we let it. My hope is in seeing him again in the fullness of the final healing. That will be the most glorious dance of all. I'm impatient for it.

Until the Day He Died

She assigned herself a place among the stars. No one else had. That was the problem, they saw a drudge, a shoe scrapper. Not to him. He was hopelessly madly in want of her attention. She was too busy creating artificial light until the day she died. His mother lust was never satisfied, it played out in a thousand situations, the most acutely shameful being in public. Panting, moaning, squirming about he would ask the world, anything, to touch him. But it, they, were too busy.

No, he wouldn't kill himself over it. There was no point to that. Instead, he would barter for it. The price was too much for him to hire it full time exclusive but he could steal it for a time or triad something for it. Before we knew it he had assigned himself a place among the stars. But all we saw was a drudge, a shoe scraper, until the day he died.