Time

A friend recently wrote that he did not want to fool himself into thinking he was a writer, that is the same way I feel. What I do think is that I have something to say, I just am not articulate enough to say it and make it a full length book. I can only hope to achieve getting my thoughts and points across in 500 words or less.

When I wrote this short piece, I honestly believed there was a story here. I still like the concept, but by the second paragraph I knew Stephen King I was not. Oh well, I know I have no grand big American novel in me, but I enjoy what is inside my own head. Who knows there might still be a story here, I might find its voice somewhere here in the Asylum, one of the inmates may provide some inspiration and insight to the loss of ......

TIME....

Through the steam of my cup I could see a miniature set of shiny red shoes swinging back and forth underneath the counter at the diner. A little girl had been sitting atop the red stool since I had arrived, just sitting watching the cook flip pancakes all morning long with a mature sense of fascination. Up and down, and up and down, over and over again, the batter always formed into delicious solid creations, some with blueberries, some with chocolate, some just plain and simple. The cook sported a wonderful apron that looked like it had been around forever, cooked a million pancakes, and still lived to tell its tale of the oils and toppings and syrups it had seen in its day. The old man’s red shirt could be seen through the burn holes in the apron, as if they were war wounds. The cook didn’t seem to mind the heat of the stove, or stir at all when the burning oil from the pan spat at his flesh. He was caked in a film of grease, butter and batter, and only occasionally broke from his cooking rituals to wipe his forehead with the sopping wet rag that was slung over his left shoulder. Each pancake was a delicate creation that the old man prepared with great consideration and effort, making each one perfect, but none the same. Never would the man be compared to any machine- every one was original, every one special.

The special of the day was peanut butter pancakes, although I didn’t see anybody order that one. The little girl with the shiny shoes, who had been there since I had come in at 8;20, kept watching the cook flip his pancakes over and over again. I like people watching and tried to figure out whom the little girl belonged to. There was a young couple sitting in the booth to the back of me sipping on coffee and discussing family issues, from what I could hear. There was also a businessman in the corner eating chocolate pancakes while engaging in stock talk on a black cell phone. He was dressed in a dark suit and dark shirt but wore a wonderful bright red tie, perfect for the Christmas season I thought. Although it seemed too hot to wear an additional jacket on top of a suit, the man didn’t seem bothered. I glanced around the diner and noticed the lack of decorations; it was abnormal for a little diner not to dress up the place.

The little girl was still a mystery to me. The couple had just recently come in so I knew they weren't the little girl’s parents, and the businessman was obviously not associated with the child. There had been a boy in his twenties tending the counter, but he had disappeared into the back long ago when his service wasn't needed anymore. I wondered if he was busy in the middle of a brilliant game of solitaire back there, or perhaps that he was still in school and was studying for a mid-term exam. Maybe the boy hadn’t gone to college at all and his future was running this small diner on the corner here. Or then again, maybe the boy was just a boy.

The old man would make piles of about nine or ten pancakes tall on a plate to the side of the stove, and then he would let the stove cool down for a few minutes while he prepared more batter. I didn’t know why he continued to make pancakes when there were no new customers. It was already 9:48 then, according to the clock above the entrance. Most people would have been on their way to work or been at work by then, so nobody else was due to enter the diner now that the morning rush had ceased. The entrance to the diner was at the front and only a door blocked my view to the street; the wall to the street of the diner was glass and I could see cars inching past the glass to the right. The diner seemed very still although the cook was still working steadily at his pancake business, the girl’s shiny shoes still swung back and forth, and the sizzling of the oil and the buzz of the business man and the conversation of the couple were all quite real. I looked down into my bowl of coffee in all its glory.

There were several rims of dried up coffee lining the interior of the checkered bowl from which I had subconsciously sipped. I used the long shafted spoon with the small head to resuscitate life in my once steaming and lively cup of Jo. I stirred the coffee to the left in small hope that I would undo time and its effect by churning counter-clockwise. I managed to squeeze a woof of smell out of the dying bowl of coffee but I couldn't reclaim the steam that had once thrived. With a dead bowl of coffee sitting in front of me I decided it was time to give up the spoon. I stopped stirring and tapped the spoon on the side of the bowl as if to prevent the death from spreading beyond the bowl’s parameters. I looked up at the clock above the entrance and it read 9:48.

I was confused and felt disoriented for a few moments as I remembered how it had been that exact time a while ago. I looked to the businessman in hopes of asking the time, but there was no businessman. Instead, in his place, I found an old man with a worn out face dressed in casual attire that held a phone to his ear in silence. I looked across to where the couple should be and saw only an empty booth with a single salt or pepper (I could not tell which one) shaker on it. Where had the people gone to, I wondered. Everything seemed so different. I was relieved when I then recognized the familiar sizzling of the pancakes on the grill.

I turned and saw not the old man, but the young boy slopping batter into the pan carelessly. On the counter lay the old apron the old cook had been wearing, which the same little girl was cutting up with a rusty pair of scissors into childish Christmas tree shapes. Feeling completely distorted, I headed for the exit and pushed past the rusty door into the fresh cool winter air. Passing the fingerprinted window of the diner, I glanced inside and noticed that the once-shiny red shoes of the girl were dull. The bright warm Sun of the morning had given way to the dark full face of the moon.

Learning to Dance

This piece I wrote, again for a creative writing class. It still needs some work, but at the time I liked the flow and the direction it was going. Like anything I write I feel the emotion behind the prose.

I sit at my computer alone, dazed by the unfriendly glare of the 15-inch screen before me. My ears filled with the angst of a bittersweet classical piece, the orchestral movement jumping through my mind like an angry, awry child selfishly demanding my attention. The slip of a curious thumb strokes the dial, pulling it slowly, searching for a new song ... searching ... searching. I can't seem to find the music tonight. The clock ticks another minute. Another uncomfortably empty night in this aging, pale skin I call my body. Feeling like I'm waiting for something ... for nothing ... a change.
The clock just keeps on ticking, though, running past me as I fall behind, feeling uncertain and apprehensive of the future that awaits me. What future? I wonder. Will it be better than this?
Seven hours until dawn. Thumbing through the dial again, ah, yes, the music. My hand pauses at the echoing overtones of a hammer dulcimer ringing out a melancholic ballad. Beautiful.

I sip at the warming glass of milk that sits in a lonely corner on the desk. The nosy head of my cat rises to glance at me, his tail gently flipping back and forth against the bottom of the windowsill in which he peacefully rests, enjoying the somber, cool breeze that wafts in. Thoughtfully, I wander over to him, pouring a small puddle of milk onto the dry, white paint as he sniffs and dips his graying whiskers into it, lapping it up. My fingers slide across his furry, dark striped back.

"You're getting old, my friend." I smile at him. "My sweet, little friend." And I wonder if he'd be lonely without me. Would I be the lonely one?

The music finds me again. A new piece, more inspiring than the first. I crouch back in my chair, slightly swaying, back and forth. My mind drifts, dreaming of a lover - someone to share the music with - a partner that aches to dance as much as I. I imagine the smooth, silken lines in his warm smile, the tips of fingers, strong and slightly callused, melting into mine. His lips, full, red, and moist, and the taste of his kiss like seeping, drizzled honey pouring into my mouth. His are eyes of a man who holds strong, the spirit of the child, innocent, curious, daring, and free in his arms. I see this lover so clearly. I know his face well for I have dreamed of him many times. I wonder if this lover dances? Does he show his porcelain face to the moon, his bare feet playfully teasing the small patch of grass that sets his stage? Does he desire the freedom to be ... just be alive? No, alive! Setting the spirit free to wander, to feel, to experience everything that it is and everything that it aches to be. Does he know the dance the way I do? Maybe...

A tiring eye catches the clock once more. It's getting late. Hmm ... perhaps I should ... no. I don't want to go to sleep yet! Dreaming again ... this lover. I wonder if he knows? Can he sense the way I desire him? To touch him, feel the sacred embrace of that imagined body. To feel my tiny self wrapped in his strong, comfortable arms? I should never have told him of my dreams. I shouldn't want to have spoiled them with the defeat of reality.

I grab a smoke from the crumbled, half-empty pack lying on the desk. A thin flame leaps up from a red lighter, seducing the end of my cigarette as I listen to the short, whispering crackles as it burns. Inhale ... exhale ... pause ... A rambling thought ... Returning to the music ... pause ... inhale ... breathe.

My mind enters the springtime. The plush yellows and greens of tall, fresh-sunburned grass and wild, flowery groves of lilacs laughing out over winding hills and white birch. My toes tread lightly through, careful not to crush the flowers. I skip along with the breeze, wishing I could become it. Becoming the breeze ... hmm ... invisible, powerful, and empty of all but air. How I'd pass through everything with such grace and ease. The freedom - a freedom I'll never touch with my human skin. Imagining. My lover calls for me from a wide cluster of forest pines in the distance. Yes lover, I'm coming. Full speed and light feet, I dash, greeting him with the exuberance of a child's embrace. "I have so missed my handsome prince." He smiles at me.

Enter reality. Damn! I lose my vision, calculating the hours I've wasted in these fantasies. Foolish, foolish, foolish! I curse. Or is it? I don't know anymore. I have done everything to escape the bland, unfulfilling existence of a world that denies its dreams. Good job. Nice car. With Suburban home and the customary white picket fence, 2.5 (or have the statistics changed?) children and a dog. Social gatherings, career networking, the droning, repetitive days and nights, working, homework, eating, bathing, TV, a kiss goodnight, and sleep, over and over and over again. Am I due for a paid week's vacation yet? Always fearful of gray, thinning hair and wrinkle creams. Four prescriptions, forty years, a retirement fund, the faded, chipped, white picket fence.

"I'm getting old, my friend." My hand strokes the prickly, soft spikes of a playful old cat’s fur. My future? It’s going to be better than that.

I snap back in fear of such thoughts. Who said I had to follow the rules? Who said I had to be like everyone else? Who made the rules, anyway? I just want to dance. Just want to dance! Slipping into the careless rhythms and whispers of the music, humming through my body, rattling my aching bones. I wait for it to gush through my winding veins like a crimson thunder; sounding and crashing within me, breaking me of my inhibitions and the many fears I've deceived myself with for so long. I stumble on bare knees to the floor. I can feel it - the emptiness that aches to be filled, the waves of my pain rolling through me like a relentless, ripping tide - these merciless waters of my soul. Set me free! Damn you world! Damn you for the way I ache! Damn you for your hatred! Damn me for hating your hate! I crumble - a shaken, frightened, little girl. I am broken.

Then, the music comes. I look up through the blur of teary, stinging eyes to see my lover's hand, extending.

"Stand up, Princess. Tonight, we dance."

I reach for the care of his gentle arms, slowly pulling my body up to him. Aware of the anxious tremble in my knees, I follow him out into the pitch, empty darkness outside. Stepping out ... our bare feet taking the moonlit stage, the charcoal black silhouettes of trees applauding our courage. His fingers brush over my eyes, softly closing them. I imagine the music, fading in, growing louder, filling my head, and stirring my soul.

"Enter me." A long, breathless sigh escapes. "Every part of me." My eyes open, catching his curious stare as it wanders all over me. His feet move closer. His eyes fixed, penetrating me. My eyes slip to a soft squint. I feel the trace of light fingertips across my cheek as my body releases itself to him - to the music - to the freedom of my open stage. Like a feather floating through a whistling breeze, my limbs lift through the air, pulled by the tugs of rhythms and sounds and the flooding emotions that cleanse and roam through my blood. Experiencing ... him. Experiencing ... me.

"I am not afraid." I've found the music. In a careless, courageous spin, I take my lover's hand. "Inhale ... exhale ... breathe..." Learning to dance

My Handsome Prince

When I wrote this piece it was for a creative writing class I was taking while going to nursing school. It took me several rewrites, when it was finished I was quite pleased with it. I only got a B grade, as my sentence structure was very fragmented. i have more red on that paper then Victoria Secret has red panties. My instructor did add however that the fragmented sentences added charm and character to the prose.

I wrote it as a letter to my husband as he and I were going through a very rough patch. I saved it for the perfect moment left it on his desk so that he could read it alone and when he was ready. I have to tell you that the making up after his read was spiritual. This is a very personal love letter and an apology. I hope you all enjoy the read. It is rather lenghty, but as far as I am concerned worth it.

My Handsome Prince,

Picture yourself on a boat. On a river, naked for your lover. Strong as Thor posing before his bath, you hover, no, float over the water, and yet drift among the reeds and lilies. Does the lover sigh over your handsomeness? Or is it merely the strain of bared muscles above the churning oars. Stroke. Stroke, stroke, along with the tiny glowing wake of them, froths in the river water.

Did I say naked? I lied. Around the neck, Mark, wear a velvet rib band. Pale as blushing flesh and tinted with, is it dusk or dawn? No matter. A peach of soft and silken nap, threads of nerve in the ripening pulses, the color of lover’s nipples.

The sun is nearly glaring; yet lost among the deep fronds along the silhouetting vista of the river’s flow. Is it any wonder, my Love, that the movement brings to mind that of love making? You know how deep my great and abiding affection is, no, I say it, love for you. Still. What can fantasy and imagination say to passion, I ask of you to answer.

Picture it, Mark. Every moment. Picture a cathedral in natural beauty. Living nature. What can a woman, like I, do but plunge in. Explore. Try to, my sweet Prince, so that you may understand.

In each woman there lies, like some perfect statue in a marble block from Beauty’s quarry. Goddess. Harlot. Sorceress. Bitch. Venus of love, the temptress no man can resist. Tell me, of whom should I ask forgiveness? Woman is a world. And I, a daring one, explore that often-unknown world, amid the fleeing shadow and the blinding passion. And I, a thinking woman, have learned there. And I, a sensual woman, have made love there. Of whom must I beg forgiveness, my Love?

What is the longing of the soft caress? Of the deep and hungry tastes of lover which lover gives, hour upon hour. Do I not give you, my Love, years? What is a jealousy of the joining of passion and beauty, beneath the straining moans, the sliding stroke of cock, the swollen smile of lips? Then, what of desire?

Tell me you do not remember, Lover, that ecstasy between us? Is it not unique? Inviolate? Honorable. Not yet filled with touch but with wanting, with heart-deep struggles, for both lovers. And yet, I have been denied the familiarity of your body. Have you no memory? Was it only dreams, Love; you throwing back your head and crying my name as inhibitions where abandoned? What conquest is your body, when our minds have writhed in passion, have driven out light and darkness in selves and experienced the, what is its name,…Mark,…what word? Can you define lovers better? Into that nameless thing. Together. Sometimes so passionately that constellations form, in new and lusty shinning in the dusking sky. Did you think that was a lie, My Precious Friend? To see the stars?

I’ve heard your many voices, my darling. The songs of your heart that cut my soul; your laughter, like that of a child. Your silences have schooled me in...In feeling of you. I can feel you when you breathe. But there is no originality in me, my Love. I am neither poet nor revealer of the deep-hearted tale. My articulation is in touch, is it not? You must know by now. No lover is blinded nor deaf, nor yet, insensitive. That’s what we learned, did we not?

Is it the scrawl on linen paper that cries, "Take me!”? Or the near silent whisper in the night of shadows? What cuts, me deepest are your small vanishings. The goings. Wordless. Shy. Bared and baring your lover. This Lover stumbles. She does.

And yet, you of all, know how graceful a lover I am, do you not? Not through ego, I say this to you; you understand that, I know. But. Is it not so? I have always been a dancer. Music glides into my blood. Well, we both know the twining of lovers in music’s deepest and richest throes. It is. Animal. Paradisaical. Beyond articulation of word, but the ballet of touch, of taste, of kiss, of sucking in, of taking again and again. That, Mark is how we have known it.

Have you seen me, I wonder, from my own eyes? I have seen me through yours. Your tenderness, gentle persistent persuasions, forgiveness of my inadequacies tenting our faces, or was it moonlight flitting through the softly moving strains, and painting my face with your shadow as your lips tasted mine. I saw me in yours then. For an instant only. You do understand, my prince? Tell me that much at least.

Understand the seduction of Sirens. Understand the passionate heedless flinging of man and woman together. Flamenco of desire, danced in faster steps, more bold caresses. Have I immunity? I cannot bolster my fortress with the mere, the mundane, no, I say it is noble, the bastion of poetry. Verses scribbled and sprawled dredged up like foam on the lips of a maddened, denied lover. Lifeless, sunless, graveyard, and is death, Mark, that is my heart without desire.

But how to describe the lover’s touch? I know no words for it, Lover mine. Divine? No. It simply is. Does the hunger die because the appetite is a bit starved? No, Mark. I do not accept that. Oh, well, Lover, of course, you will swiftly say Stop! Oh, yes, I know. The deep, the ethereal, the impossibility of love, you will show me. Worn like a drying bloom in a locket that chains you in a past. Who does not wear them? And then some. Shall I name her to you? Bound down like Morley’s ghost, link upon link of hearts forged tightly and here and there among the chains, a strongbox containing priceless shards, of shattered hearts, of ruined dreams. It makes me strong to bear such a weight, my Love. And still be a dancer, I mean.

The whirling touch of hand in hand; the brush of thighs: feels good. My Heart, you know it does. Yet because of a passion. Because of a hunger fed. Because I made love with you and let stones fall from my heart. Because of this, because of this… my heart cries in abandonment. That is of a certain cruelty. Byronic. Exiling. Beneath the nobility of your heart, as I have known it. Our often-blinding passion each for each other…. And the stuttering, here and there will-o-the-wisp rhythm, like the humming glow of fireflies in our own dark places. Our laughter. Our friendship. Our. How precious an "our" is.

I would to touch you, to take us both and let the slow fires flame. Fingers becoming feathers on blushing skin. The upward flight of nipples like doves seeking more sky. The yearning of cock and the sweet vase of woman holding the rose’s stem to blossom in sighs and silences. Put away what is not there and not asked for in some magician’s box. I surrender; it is true, on a boat, on a river. Lover naked and proud and I open as the water lily. Kissing breasts and laughing like ripples from the boat. Lifting my hand to take his cock as those lips that I dream of and long for find mine. It was not the heat of the day; it was not the lulling sway of the boat, but sharing and melding with one that I adore, the tasting and swirling kisses, the taking and giving of the dance.

Yet I am here. Writing to you, My Prince. I ask not forgiveness, but understanding. I am that woman, no more, but no less. Four more years could but pass, and the last stone fallen away from my heart, and still not to have touched your smile, you will find me open like that water lily.

Tammi

We have been talking about words on the lot, as of late. What words move you? What words send you into a heap of tissue, or into anger? How much that we say makes a difference to your life?

Your words burn me

like the hot, vivid laser

dry ice,

copper-etching acid on

the swelling nipples of a

forgotten woman.

they create storms of light

in my nervous system,

like molten lava, aurora,

moonlight reflected on snow

and the dawn.

Life resolves to a series

of identical variations

like orgasm-revelation.

God becomes intimate

like the spring rain

the light sparkling brook

the softness

of your inner thigh.

So what now?

So, I have a blog now. What is it I am going to do with this online diary thing? Who’s going to read it, or care what I have to write about or share? I have been thinking about blogging for some time, I want a place where I can share my prose, which is of an erotic nature, share my family or like everyone else that blogs have a place to rant and rave.

I have strong opinions that I for the most part tend to keep to myself in my favorite playground Mylot. I want a platform to state those opinions when I am moved to do so. As far as who is going to read it, well that is yet to be seen. I am sure my family and friends will have a read, and the few loved, and faithful friends in Mylot will visit and leave me their very strong opinionated comments. Who knows what groupies as they say I will gain. I am doing this to satisfy myself however, and I suppose that is what is important to begin with.

With that said, Welcome to the Asylum, be careful what corridor you take, you never know what inmates are on the prowl. Some floors are dangerous to tread upon; you might find the horrors to depraved even for your twisted minds my friends. Then again you might just belong here.