Typical Conversations #20

ME: You know they make fake meat out of tofu.
JEREMY: Really?? I didn't know they could make fake chicken into tofu!
NATHAN: Of course! They call it 'Buddha'.
A pause. 
ME: What?
JEREMY: Yes.

Speed Poetry

As midnight drew nigh, two poets turned face-to-face and tested their hands and skill. Whizzing back and forth like two-minute bullets, they searched their souls and let words of love and pain spill unfettered onto the paper (or screen, as it were).

Sirenia Featherheart:
I look at you
and my pancreas just weeps
and hurts
because all of the insulin
in the world will never be able
to break down
your sweetness.
And so,
I cannot take it in.
It clogs my arteries like dead rivers.*
And I am so sad.


thoughts of. rivers of. tears:
In the middle of the day
at 12:03 P-M, I think of you
and you are like sugar in my heart
making me happy
like I was never happy before
Will you love me back
because at 12:03 P-M, I love you.


Sirenia Featherheart:
Sometimes I wait for you to
whiz by me
like a freight train
with wheels
and love for me like a big silver bullet on a steel track.
My suitcase
is by my foot.
My foot
is by my face
because
every time I see you
speeding by,
all I can think to do is stuff
my foot
in
my face
and wish that you
would slow down
just a little bit
for me,
just a little for me.

Dang,
I missed the train again.


thoughts of. rivers of. tears:
I wish you would look at me
the way you look at your dog
and your pet turtle
and your dinner
and even
her
but you will never feel
this same way for
me
because your dog is loud
and your turtle swims
and you are hungry
and she is your girlfriend
and I will never be.

--
* Phrase "dead rivers" © Sirenia Featherheart 2013.

Blessing

Something about the dimness of a rainy sky has its fingers rooted in my spirit, so that when the rain comes cold and trembling to the thirsty ground, it comes singing like a blessing. It draws me irresistibly outside to hold me close, to hold me shivering and happy, bare-foot in the muddy grass and face tilted to the sky-born water, calling out:

Oh wash my eyes and make me see!
Wash my lips and make them clean,
run down my chin and through my teeth
until I thirst no more!

Beneath me, the earth drinks deep until its pores are full and overflowing in cool streams between my toes. I am too small to do the same: this body cannot hold enough of anything to satisfy my heaven-reaching soul.

Someone’s voice is in the rain and echoes in my brain. It is a love song. It cries:

I love you, I love you,
I will quench your thirst both today and tomorrow,
when the sun returns to wither the grass,
and the earth’s wells run dry.

These words, falling heavy on my chest, steal the breath from my throat.
With my tiny voice drowning in all this thunder, how can I sing my reply?

The Nautimander!!

Digging through my old picture files recently, I stumbled upon this treasure that I drew in Paint one day when I had nothing better to do. Enjoy.

the horror! the monstrosity! (... the best pet ever?)

Typical Conversations #19

ME: Dad, rinsing dishes is not the same as actually washing them.
DAD: (indignant) Do you know how Jesus washed His disciples' feet?
MOM: ...I don't think he rinsed them.

Mirror

Back then, my days were black and dim, and my sky was a canopy of murky leaves.

I would stumble through that thick, dark forest and try to keep myself from tripping over the tangled roots that blanketed the ground. Sometimes I fell anyway--never hard enough to shatter completely, but painful breaks all the same. When that happened, I learned to kindle a smoky fire and press the smoldering branches to the broken pieces, clenching my jaw against the searing pain until the glass was whole again.
The fire could burn away a bit--just a little--of the mold covering me. I remember once, after fixing my left hand, how my fingers glinted dully in the fire's tiny flickering glow. It didn't last long. The mold always grew back quickly.
The angles were never quite right after I put myself back together. I stumbled on and on, crooked toes scraping at the dirt and knees cracking in the cold.

One day, unexpectedly, my darkness splintered and fled.

I met a woman who shone so brightly that I could see her coming for a long time. Her glass was new and clear, her face hidden in brightness. I thought I might go blind from looking at her.
"Where did you get your light?" I asked, staring though my eyes burned--because it was beautiful, because I had never seen anything like it.

"Oh," she said with something rapturous in her voice, straightening and sparkling even brighter. She lifted her clean hands like mirrors and pointed up. "Let me tell you about the sun."