Waking up to the waiting game
I've been playing
For seconds upon seconds
Drawn out.
Waking up
To sweet disappointments
A disease with one remedy

I dance away my attachment
Attachment to sorrow
Attachment to misunderstanding.

Instead I can laugh
And dance
Dance 'til I sweat
Dance till I laugh
Dance 'til the room smells of love
And water
And the basslines are left
Throbbing through my veins

And when that bittersweet disappointment settles back
On my shoulders
Drooping me down to the flat
Blank
Dreary
Computer screen
I can listen to the laughter
The birthday wishes
The terrible singing
Happy sixteenth, lady
Thanks for the cupcakes
Thanks for the freezing cold
Of our laughter
As we shove snow down our shirts
And frolick
Like rabbits

And the music continues to pump.

I Am Not Afraid Human Being

I am not a frayed human
Being
Not a shamed human
Being
I am a being human
Being
What I am
What I want to be
What I reflect from the world
Being
Around me.

I am not afraid
Human being
I am not ashamed
Human being
I can say
With no look of guilt
With no twitch
Of embarrassment
That I am human
That I have a body
That I have wants
Needs
Desires
Of food
Of drink
Of flesh
Earthy pleasurable desires
We all have them.

Why deny that we all desire something fleshy?
The ability to show our own flesh
Touch that of another
Human being.
The ability to run
Naked
Vulnerable
Pure
Through the forests
And streets
Of our towns
And not be insecure
Only fragile
As all life is fragile.

Who are we to deny ourselves the pleasures of being flesh?
Who are we to deny ourselves the pleasures of another's flesh?
Who are we to deny
Anything?
Human
Beings
Being
Human
Flesh
In
Love
And passion and fire and desire
And sighs and sweet wells of love
Things that spring up
From that vulnerable
Sacred
Place.
The one that only comes out
When we are naked
And sacred
And together.

So why deny it?
We all have bodies
After all
Human
Being
Bodies.
Of flesh
Passionate
Deep
Skin
With bones
And muscles
And tendons
So easy to touch
Stroke
Look at
With eyes that roam
Across the beauty of human
Beings
Being
Human
In the purest form.

So.
I am not afraid
Frayed human being
I am not ashamed
Shamed human being
I am being
Human.

Free Verse #6: Puppeteer of Soldiers

Puppeteer of soldiers
I am disturbed.
Gone is free will
Because of the choice to have no free will.
You are a puppeteer of soldiers.
I am disturbed.

I am a disturbed young woman.
I am the disturbance you feel as you tell them to fire.
Because,
As you look at me,
You can see that I am a disturbed young woman,
Walking toward your puppet soldiers.

Little do you know,
They can see that I am a disturbance.
They can see that tiny hesitation.
And it makes them hesitate.
Your puppet soldiers,
Puppeteer of soldiers,
Have hesitated despite you.

And I am the disturbance
Growing stronger.
Cutting puppet strings.
Ripping puppet minds.
Destroying puppet faces.
Walking toward the puppets and the puppeteer.
And when you shoot me,
Because you will shoot me,
They will drop their guns.

Because they are no longer puppets.
So shoot me.

Free Verse: Harvest

We have sown the seeds
We have watched these fields
For many years
We have tended these fields.
We have worked the ground
The course clay
The sands
The dirt.
We have been through all of it.
We have sown all of it.

We have sown the seeds
Through the minds of the masses
The fields of the masses
The fields of imagination.
We have watched these fields
Worked these fields.

Soon, we will come to the harvest
Soon, we will see the wonders of the thoughts we have sown.

The Journey of a Lion: Chapter One

Withta nestled in at her nursemaids teats with her brothers and sister, squeaking and rolling about until she grabbed hold. Somewhere in the outer realms the Uprights were clanging around and banging things, but she hardly noticed. Her parents and older siblings and nursemaid and, well, everyone, had told her that they were always noisy. She had gotten used to it.

After a few minutes of drinking she felt as though she might burst, so she lay down with her brother, Whistar. They cuddled together in the luxurious nest that had been created as a sort of getaway space for members of the royal family. All around them the fruits of late night raids were spread out to be eaten at leisure. It took only a moment for Withta to fall into a half sleep and she no longer noticed her surroundings, only the thump of her brother's heart. Tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump tha- CRASH!!!

Bright light streaked into the haven and a silhouette loomed above them. Withta could feel her heart and her brother's beating rapidly, her breath coming in shallow spurts. Their nursemaid had sprung up as soon as the crash sounded, scampering away with Wathna and Wuther still attached to her. Whiddur fell off as she leaped and was laying beside them, staying as still as possible, just like they had been taught, just like their instincts told them to be.

The Upright, a massive creature with a hairy face and an enormous body, examined them for a moment and Withta was certain that it would scoop them up with one of those giant hands and pop them like grain into its gaping mouth. It seemed like hours before it finally moved away from the opening, but still the three of them couldn't move. Then it returned and really did scoop them up. But it didn't eat them, as she had feared. Instead, it dropped them into a container where they lay, shivering with fear and adrenaline.

She had the sensation of being forced downward, into the bottom of the thing, and when she looked up ever so slightly, everything seemed to get shorter. The Upright focused its eyes, which were probably bigger then herself, on the siblings and made some sort of rumbling noise. It scared her so much that she whimpered quietly, clinging to Whistar and Whiddur.

Then they were moving and the world passed by them faster than anything she could have imagined. She had watched the fighters in the yards racing back and forth, building up their strength for the raids, but even they weren't as fast as this. They were set down somewhere and the Upright left again. She took a moment to shut her eyes and resolved not to open them again until her brothers shifted. Soon, she fell into a light sleep, comforted by their familiarity. They were lifted again, after a while, and sll three of them tensed up, but Withta left her eyes clamped shut. Above her, she cold hear the grumblings of Uprights, she thought three of them, and Whistar was lifted from her. She opened her eyes to see her brother moving through the air into the hand of a different Upright. This one had less hair than the first and seemed to be somewhat smaller. Then Whiddur was lifted away from her and put into a different container. She could see him through the clear walls of it, nestled uncomfortably between the wall and whatever was inside of it.

Then she felt her tail being lifted and was suddenly up in the air. The Upright who had her was murmuring something at her and quickly put her into the container with her brother. They nestled together, hoping that they would put Whistar in with them. Eventually they did, but he ended up on the other side of the container. Withta smelled his fear and realized that it was less than her own. She wondered what the Uprights had done to him, to make him less afraid, or if he was just naturally more brave than she.

Outside, the creatures were still grumbling and moving about and after a long while their container was picked up again and they were carried. She looked up and saw that it was the second Upright, this time, and that it was taking them out over the open green space that their nursemaid told them about in legends and stories. They were all still for the length of that journey, until the Upright set them down, grumbled something, and walked away. After a few minutes, they cuddled up together and shivered as one.

~*+*~

Ilsta, who had been nursemaid for the royal family for three generations and was reputedly unshakable, was in an unheard of panic as she scurried into the throne room. The king and queen were conversing with courtiers and other noble mice, settling disputes and hearing pleas. But all conversation stopped as she squeaked to a stop, breathing hard and chattering rapidly.

"...and then it was looming over us and I ran away and now three of the little ones are lost and..." Deep breath. "...we're never going to see them ever again!" The maid collapsed on the floor in heaving sobs.

"Ilsta!" the queen cried, rushing down to the nurse. "Ilsta, what on earth are you babbling about? I couldn't understand a word you said. Something about the children? Was that it?"

"Yes! Yes! A giant Upright has stolen them away!" There was a shocked silence in which no one even seemed to breathe except the distraught Ilsta. Then, all at once, the room erupted in noise as people began to understand what had happened. The king began calling out for a search team to check all the hiding places that the children had been shown and the queen consoled the various noblemice who were sobbing along with the nursemaid. Eventually she managed to find out that Wuther and Withna were both safe in their beds there at the palace but that Whiddur, Withta and Whistar, the crown prince, had all been left behind in her panic.

"I'll never be forgiven for leaving them behind!" the maid wailed. "I'll be damned forever, and if I'm not I'll be disappointed in the justice system! I can never be forgiven!" The queen, being a kindly mouse who loved easily, naturally forgave her immediately, knowing that she may never have gotten away with even two of her precious children. But still, a terrible blankness filled her heart where her three babies used to reside.

All throughout that day parties were sent out, again and again, searching for any sign that the crown prince and his siblings had survived. One scout eventually came back with some vague information about an Upright walking across the green spaces with a jar.

"I'm not completely certain," the young mouse said, "but the princes and princess may have been inside. At least, I think I might have seen one of them stick their head up. I can't be certain, of course, and there's still hope that..." He trailed off, waiting for the king's reply. King Yustaf was becoming an elderly mouse. He knew that soon enough someone would be succeeding him on the throne and he had hoped that it would be Whistar. The young mouse was bright and quick to learn and promised to be quite strong. And he was blessed with a mark upon his face, the white star for which he was named. It was seen as a sign upon his birth that he should be the next in line. After all, all the males from earlier litters had either died, left or become Lunatics. Wistar, being the eldest of the youngest and marked in such a peculiar way, was the obvious choice for kingship. Yustaf sighed.

"Thank you, Orille, you said your name was?" The scout nodded. "Thank you, Orille. The news that you've brought, though grave, indeed, will be a help to us. The most we can do, now, is to hope for the safe return of my children and post watches at all the entrances." He sighed again. "You may continue with whatever duties you must attend to. Thank you." The scout bowed and left the throne room, leaving the older mouse alone. After a moment, Yustaf called for his attendant and asked for a quill and paper. He wrote four letters, one to his military general, one to the High Priest of the church and one to a professor at the university. Those first three were summons to a council to discuss what should be done. The last one he addressed to the crier council, so the news of the kidnapping would be spread around the city.

He sighed again, and left the throne room to see the two young ones who had survived.

Dream Sight: Prologue

Ba-bump.









...Ba-bump.








Ba-bump.
Ba-bump.
Ba-bump.

My drowsy night thoughts suddenly sprang into action at this new sensation, whatever it was.

Ba-bump.

Something in the very core of me pulsed and I honed all my consciousness in on it. There was something taking form in the middle of my trunk. Then, almost against my will (because how could a tree will itself to do this?) my branches moved and my roots writhed in the dirt. Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bumpba-bumpba-bump. The pulse increased and my sap and liquids were caught up in it, swirling through me. My limbs flailed about, twining together and taking on a new form. The changes were drastic, I knew that, yet somehow I wasn't afraid. Only curious. Until my sensations all changed. First came feeling.

One moment I sensed my roots in the dirt, I was vaguely aware of the wind through my leaves, the next I felt them. A worm wriggled over my rapidly shortening roots, leaving a small amount of slime behind it. A small breeze blew through the meadow, pushing my now thin upper boughs in a tangle.

I panicked, for a small moment, as that change occurred, but soon got control of myself. Only to be overwhelmed by the combined senses of taste and smell. I sell-tasted the old trees that surrounded the small grove where I grew, the water that flowed through the nearby stream, all the wildlife that surrounded me in the forest. I found myself breathing, an act that was sort of like the breathing I did with my leaves, of which I only had a few left at that point. As I breathed, more smells and tastes found their way into me. I breathed steadily, telling myself that it wasn't so different, that perhaps the changes would stop there and I could go back to being docile with night. Not so. Instead I was suddenly more acutely aware of the thumping from my middle.

Then I was completely taken over by a wave of sounds. I heard the breeze across my newly founded ear canals, the stream through the trees, burbling like a hundred voices. And, oddest of all, I heard the sound of real voices chanting. At first I couldn't make sense of it, but gradually I grew more accustomed to hearing and I began to discern individual sounds.

Then I had the sensation of blackness in front of me, which, truth be told, wasn't actually as overwhelming as the sensation of having a front. My new senses soon dulled down, allowing me to experience the world without being blown apart, and I calmed myself by taking deep breaths. I didn't know exactly why this calmed me, but it did, so I kept doing it. My branches were still moving around of their own free will, but they had slowed down considerably in comparison to the beginning.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they settled down beside me, pointing in exactly the wrong direction. The thumping settled to a regular, steady pace and I continued breathing. In the back of my mind I realized that the chanting had stopped and I wondered, albeit briefly, about that. Moments passed.

"Open your eyes, cousin," I heard. I wondered about that, too, and suddenly the blackness in front of me lifted and I saw. Thankfully, it was the middle of the night, so there wasn't much to see, otherwise I might have screamed from over-loaded senses. As it was, I opened my eyes to see a dark, purple sky above me, speckled with the first stars of the evening. The sky faded away into deep, impending midnight in front of me and a radiant mix of gold and red behind me where the sun was falling behind the trees. I dropped my head, seeing the top edge of the moon peeking above the forest, a pale and delicate sliver that was a day away from being new.

I lowered it further and saw three figures standing before me, three young women. I instinctively felt a deep connection to them, a bond of family that made the thumping in me a little stronger. The one to my right was of medium height with deeply golden hair the color of wheat under the midday sun. She had bright blue eyes and evenly tanned skin. She smiled radiantly at me as I swept my eyes over them. The middle one was the tallest of the three. She had white hair, a delicately pale complexion and gray eyes. Right from the start she reminded me of the sensation of early morning that I had felt as a tree. She, too, smiled at me, though I could see worry and shock in her eyes and wondered why. The third came up to the middle's waist and had a shock of red hair, chocolate colored skin and deep green eyes. She wasn't smiling, but her eyes didn't contain the emotions of the taller, either. looking at the three of them inspired me to look at myself, to see how far I had changed.

I looked down at the ground, somehow lifting my branches in the process without realizing it. Only they weren't branches. Instead, they were ivory white arms. And below them, thrust into the ground, were pale legs. And above those was my torso, which was so pale it practically glowed in the faint moonlight. Hanging in front of my face was a strand of hair that was blacker than pitch, blacker than the sky in front of me. I ran my hands through my new hair, examining the various shades. Sometimes it seemed completely black, at others it was tinged with red and purple to match the sky. I looked up at the three women waiting for me after a moment of thorough examination and saw the looks of amusement that passed over their faces. I grinned, testing out my lips and jaw.

"Welcome, blessed cousin," the tallest intoned. "My name is Famella. I am the morning child, here to welcome you to our family."

"Welcome, dearest relation," the one with gold hair chanted. "My name is Sranti. I am the noon child, here to welcome you to our family."

"Welcome, newest child," the short one whispered. "My name is Palu. I am the afternoon child, here to welcome you to our family."

"What is your name?" they asked as one. Sudden understanding flashed through my mind, along with a single word.

"Drez. My name is Drez, the dusk child." They looked puzzled, but continued with the ritual.

"Welcome, Drez. We open our hearts and minds to you." They all smiled then.

"Come along, young cousin," Famella said. "We're happy you've come to join us." And with that they helped me to climb from the dirt and led me to the village.

On the far side of the forest, an old woman, the Eldest, woke from her trance. All day she had waited for the birth of the newest Dryad. All day she had been tapped in to the expanding worry of the whole community. Not for thousands of years had a child been born later than mid afternoon. Never before had a child been born as the moon rose. Never before had a child been born this close to the new moon.

Never before had a child been born with the totem of this child. Nor with the destiny.

Poem#2: The Coming of the Snows

There are no flowers in my garden now.
They’ve wilted with the coming of the snow.
Their petals lie upon the freezing ground.
They wait for spring so they, again, can grow.

Blue irises stand covered in white frost
And marigolds are curled and turning brown.
Their colors fade and soon they will be lost.
No life streaks through the flower’s once bright crown.

Leaves shrivel, curl and fall in barren waste
As stems grow brittle, bent in submission.
For us this death is nothing but a taste
Of winter’s cold, hard and deadly lesson.

But look how delicate the petals are
Encapsulated in a lay’r of ice.
Their beauty is that of a dying star.
Fading, they try the winter to entice.