When she died
I cried,
and I
can’t explain the hurt inside.
I laid my head
Down on the bed
So much to say,
But in that silence, all was said.

Still, she looked into my eyes
after so many tries
said, “I
love
you.”

That was enough
her feelings
true
when she told me
“I love you.”

Minutes had turned to hours, and Martin was still stretched out on his cot in the corner of the little hospital room. Jules took a peek at him. He was sound asleep, his black hair making his face look even more pale than it already was. She noted the dark circles forming around his eyelids with a bit of concern. He had never been able to handle stress very well, and this was the worst she had seen him. If he wasn't careful to rest he'd need a caretaker, too. She heard a sigh from behind her, and turned her attention back towards the hospital bed. She spoke softly. "Margaret?"

1990
June
The form was perforated, and Suzanne plucked it out with glee. Lorna raised her hand from a frosted-flakes stupor. The room fell silent but for the scratch of her mother’s ballpoint pen against cardstock, and the grit of the last bite between Lorna’s molars.
“Momma,” she tried. Suzanne’s nose hovered a breath above the stream of her writing, her elbows cocked and crooked, like she always wrote. Then, “Momma.”
Suzanne glanced up. “You’ve got milk on your chin.”
Lorna swiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. “What’s that?”

Judy stared at her bedroom ceiling, just as she did every night. She admired the familiar crevices as she allowed her mind to drift freely. Normally this habit resulted in sleep, but this particular night her brain was wide-awake. Her eyes careened to her bookcase, as she thought of the many adventures that lurked inside each book, ready to be released into her imagination. She looked at her favorite, “Out of the dark and into the sky”, and thought of the brilliant adventure it took the reader on.

I call him my azure-eyed
melatonin-induced
dream
His thick metallic blood threads black ice
into my sleep
It's silver and it's priceless
and I'll wear it
as a ring
It fractures from my pillow
into cupid darts
of sleet
And come masticated morning he
melts opaque
at my feet.

I linger in the memory with each frigid breath I breathe.

Wherein humanity hath not stray’d
By the opening of the bay,
Shall be our home,
The gully’d gateway.

Where our parents shalt not seek
‘Neath the crooked cherry tree,
Shall be our parlor,
The dining, the nursery.

Where being live daren’t be,
Sporting driftwood fence weak,
Shall be the yard,
In whispers I speak.

Allow the wind, allow the free
Beginning become my
Reality!

In my family we called those little plastic army men “barricader guys”. Being an army man wasn’t what made a toy a “barricader guy”: being small, plastic, and having the little stand for your feet did. We also had cowboy and Indian “barricader guys.”

You might be wondering why we called them barricader guys. Well, it was because when I and my brothers would play with them, we would throw the other toys (Noah’s ark, Lincoln logs etc.) into haphazard barricades for the barricader guys to defend and attack.

In my hands I hold the world
A pot of gold I seek to find
My pathway: beams of sunlight, pearled
The rainbow’s end in light enshrined.

The night around me closes fast
Blue skies now deepen into black
I look up to the heavens, vast
For fear of unforeseen attack.

Look! Yonder, there a shadow road
To where it leads, I cannot say.
Dark silhouettes of creatures goad
A swifter flight by moonlit ray.

I have seen you
Upon the hillsides,
Hair blowing in the wind.
Seen your shadow
Pass by my window,
Colored silver-grey.

I have seen you
Brushing the winter
Snow marks all away,
Crystal breezes
Bringing the springtime,
Never a day the same.

The love of my heart
Will belong to you always.
The love of my life,
You always shall be.
I lean on my Father
To help me to wait for you,

Till the day
When you'll be
Here with me.

To be a writer is to be vulnerable. As soon as you admit to being one, you are faced with questions. Questions like "So what have you published?" I have not published anything, though I have written thousands of words.