Black Bird

A black bird perches upon a branch, waiting for his darkened chance. His chance to warn me with his darkened stares, the bad omen, that this black bird bears. A warning of a shadow to come, a shadow that will block out the sun. As black as its wings, a black bird as dark as the omen it brings. So watch for the black birds stares and glares, looks that are so scorning, just remember it serves as a gentle warning. A warning of what is to come, a warning that will black out the sun. So when you meet the ravens eyes its just a warning in disguise. When you see the shadows of the crow its time for you to know, that its time to be scared, so you need to be prepared, prepared for the darkness that is brings, a darkness as black as the raven's wings.

Promise of tomorrow.

You didnt call me today, but the promise of tomorrow still hangs in the air. There is still a chance, so i will not despair. Today your eyes did not look at me, but the promise of tomorrow i still see. A glance of love you did not steal, but the promise of tomorrow i still feel. You didnt tell me you loved me today but i will not fear, for the promise of tomorrow i still hear. I will sit here and wait, for the intervention of fate, but i will not wait with sorrow, because there is always tomorrow. I didnt feel your passionate touch, but i will not think defeat, for the promise of tomorrow is still sweet.

Sisters

When you suffered, i cried your tears. When you were afraid i fought your fears. For we are 2 sisters, whose love is bonded by pain, for ones loss and the other ones shame. So, together we are one in the same. Every feeling you have felt inside me is where is dwelt. I cried for you, lied for you, dies inside for you. When the fires had been fanned, it was I who held your hand. For we are 2 sisters whose love is bonded by pain, for ones loss and the other ones pain, for we are one in the same. I know you felt pain all these broken years, and i shared your tear. Your dirt my dirt, your hurt my hurt. We held hands, and weathered the storms, we stuck together even when the family was torn. I was your stone, you were my rock through all we battles we have fought, for we are 2 sisters whose love is bonded by pain for ones loss and the other ones shame. Together we will always band, us two, hand in hand, together we will bare the blisters...for we are 2 sisters, whose love is bonded by pain for ones loss and the other ones shame.

Undying love...literally

The sun has finally set, so I make the trek to a spot that holds every fond memory I have ever held in my long life. I feel sharp sticks cracking and breaking beneath my feet and leaves from the trees gently brush across my face as I walk toward the only light I can see in the vast darkness around me.
The light ahead of me is a dim, a yellow electric light and I feel a sense of joy come over me as I watch the tiny square window get closer to me.
I move the last bit of branch in front of me out of the way, so the window is now in full view. I look around and sense no one outside, so I decide to take a step closer; but not out of the protection of the trees and darkness.
Night after night I come to this window in hopes to spend a small portion of the night with the girl i was once willing to devote all of my eternity with.
It is dark and the area is deserted so I know she doesn’t know I am here, and it is better that she doesn’t, for if she saw me and discovered what I was, the consequences of such a discovery would be catastrophic.
The moonlight hits the side of my face and if I had a beating heart it would be thrumming joyously at the anticipation of finally seeing my beloved.
I can’t tell you the exact date I started coming here, but it was around the time I had died; 254 years ago. So, every night, without fail, I come here to visit my love and just catch a glimpse of her swaying in front of the window, even if it is only for an hour.
She was my Jane, my beautiful Jane. With her honey blond hair and her milky white skin; the loveliest girl you ever did see. God promised us a land flowing with milk and honey and I had it; here with me I had the everlasting promise from the deity himself. But our love was cut short by the plague and my good fortune and my promised land left me all too soon.
A problem that had always struggled with as a youth was the love for gambling. Well, one night in town I met a stranger who wanted me to try my hand at poker, and naturally the stranger won, naturally. My game was a good game of Whist, I wasn’t much of a poker man. Toward the end I got careless and bet more then I had, so naturally when the game was over the gentleman was very upset that I couldn’t pay my debt, but I made a promise, which I meant, to pay him back in a fortnight. He seemed very agreeable to the alternative and we had a gentleman’s agreement, or so I thought.
On the walk home from town I decided to take my horse through a short cut through the woods, and I soon realized that was a terrible idea. Something, that felt like the weight of 6 horses, came at my from the side, completely throwing me off my horse. This creature, which I took to be a wild cat, ripped and tore at me and soon my over coat and my skin were all shredded.
I finally got a look at my assailant, and it was the man from the poker table. I begged for mercy, for I thought his intention was to rob me and kill me, all over the money I owed him. I was wrong; he wanted a higher price, something worth more than money. My mortality.
This gentleman drained me of my blood and for 2 days I was rolling over in agony in a cave hidden deep in the forest. I never saw him after he had eaten his fill, and I was sure I was going to die of what I was suffering from.
The pain was excruciating; it felt as if my own body was rejecting itself, and I was begging for death, just some kind of relief from the pain; when the relief came I realized the agony was much better.
I awoke extremely thirsty, but not for water or any kind of drink, but for something I couldn’t quite understand; I wanted blood.
I will not tell the details of the first few weeks of being a vampire, for it is far to gruesome to recall or speak of. All I can convey is how much I wished for death, how much I wished to leave this world, how much I wished for it all to end.
After a few weeks I remembered my Jane and realized…I can never come into contact with her again; for she was a human, in my mind all she was, was a meal, and I could not bear the thought of hurting poor Jane. I knew I was too weak to resist her; for who can resist milk and honey.
I took solitude in the vast forests and kept myself hidden away from the world. My life was over and what was worse, my life with Jane was over…I had nothing. If I couldn’t have my Jane what was to live for.
I couldn’t be with Jane but when I thought I had enough self restraint I decided to start visiting this very window.
The first night I came to see her she was crying and weeping for me, and I couldn’t care the sight of seeing my dear beloved in agony. Oh, how I wanted to tell her I was alive but I knew it would not end well. Either I would frighten her to death or she would die at my hands. So I kept my distance, and every night when the sun went down I came to visit my sweet Jane.
I watched a new man wipe the tears from her eyes and soon after that I watched her marry. I felt the despair strike me even harder after that; I watched another man move in on my Jane and I hated him for living the life that was rightfully mine; that was supposed to be me in that house, not him.
Despite her new nuptials I still came to see her in the window; I didn’t care if I could not touch her, if I could not feel her embrace then seeing her would have to suffice and I was content with that, plus what could I do from the distance of the trees. I could kill the man and drain his blood, but even if it wasn’t me making Jane happy I thought at least one of us should have the chance.
I watched them have children; then I watched my beautiful Jane grow old; then she finally withered and died. Then, I was left to roam the lonely nights…alone. For the first time I felt truly alone, it really dawned on me that I had nothing and that I was nothing. I was nothing but a thirsty vampire on the brink of being a savage like the rest of my kind.
Out of habit I still came to the house, for it still held precious memories for me, and when you have nothing to live for you try to sum up whatever happiness you have experienced in your life, and this was the spot that never failed me. Although I couldn’t be to fanciful in my fantasies because at some point I would remember my hopes could not come into fruition, so I always had to keep my fantasies at bay or at least tame, or else reality would strike with a thousand blows to my heart.
When I was staring into the lonely window trying to imagine my Jane dancing back and forth I saw the most peculiar figure in the window…it was my Jane!. She was young healthy and vibrant again. How could this be? How could I have my jane back? Were the Gods sorry for my fate and they revitalized her just to appease my longing and sorrow? Then I realized, it was her daughter, Clare; and my heart broke again. How can a still heart break when it never beat to begin with?
The similarities between Jane and Clare were so profound that I felt like I was seeing my Jane again. So from then on I visited with the next best thing, Clare.
When Clare died I would come to see her daughter Caroline. Every time one of Jane’s grandchildren died, there was always another to take her place; yet another gift from the Gods.
What was odd, to me, was no matter how many generations ago Jane had lived, her grand daughters always looked just like her, right up to the very last detail. So, in 254 years it has been like I have been looking at the same girl, my lovely Jane.
After a half an hour of waiting I come to see what I have been waiting for, A beautiful blond woman, with a wide pink smile sways back and forth in front of the window. She wears a white cotton night gown and her beautiful hair is twisted in a gentle braid at her side. She is smiling her beautiful smile down at something in her arms, but I am too taken with her beautiful face to noticed what she holding. I feel my tight vampire skin stretch in my face and a smile that I only smile at this spot is finally here.
I know in my heart it is not Jane but I know in my sight it is my Jane. There is no difference between now and 1754. It all looks the same; the forest, the house, and my Jane. I feel alive once more, and I feel the same fulfillment as I didn’t 254 years ago. I no longer feel idle and dead, I feel like a real person again, and my happiness is restored….until tomorrow that is. If this is the only happiness I can find it will suffice, if all I can get is an hour after sunset, then I will take it. All I need is one hour to look at my Jane and I am alive again, and if that’s all I can get then I will take it, and I will be happy.
SO year after year, century after century I come to these trees and hide myself from sight, and watch my beautiful Jane through an illuminated window; and when this one dies I will come to see the little daughter that this figure now rocks to sleep. For it is the only thing I have left in this cruel world; even if it is only for an hour, I will see my beautiful Jane.
I can’t live without my Jane, but I cannot die either. SO I do with what I have and wait, night after night, to see her granddaughter sway in the darkness, completely ignorant of my existence.
Oh beautiful Jane, die my dear love, for I cannot. Go in your peace and leave me here in this world, for if anyone should have calm and happiness it is you my love.

Shell Shock

Its 3:30 in the morning, long since the sun has gone down, and like clock work I am awake and sleep is far out of reach for me, most likely till the sun peeks in the sky again.
My wife sleeps next to me, and her gentle breathing and raising of her chest makes me feel envious, for I will not reach that kind of peace tonight. Old memories are reminding my they are still there and they are still angry.
I push the covers off of me and I swing my legs to the floor, and I feel the rouch fibers of the carpet scrape my bare feet. I feel tired but not the kind of tired that can lure you back to bed; its kind of a mentally exhausted tired, and that kind never, really, goes away.
I place my elbows on my knees and rub my slightly balding head, hoping I can rub this feeling away, or at least sooth myself to some degree.
I look about my room, which is illuminated from the moon and stars outside and casts a blue hue about the room.
I hate nights like these, honestly; when the world is so quiet, I feel like the only person alive in the world, and it is a painful lonely feeling; the kind that pulls on your heart and leaves you feeling desperate and terrified at the cold silence
But these memories, these things that echo in the dark hallways and rooms of my mind; they torment me when I am at my weakest, and it looks like I am at my weakest, tonight.
Since the war ended in 1945, and I was sent home from my tour in the European theater, I have always woken up in middle of the night covered in cold sweats, shaking, hot, wet tears moistening my eyes and cheeks; feeling on the verge of balling my eyes out and unleashing unsaid sadness and rage on my lonely bedroom, in my blue light.
My old memories wake from their slumber and attack my mind with a vengeance and I am left trying to make logic out that illogical experience, but I can never seem to make it make sense, not to me, not for them, not for anyone.
59 years I have lived with the painful memories of my service in the army, and shell shock has long since passed, but for some reason the exhaustion and the pain from the experience seems to never have left me.
So, some nights when I am in the right, or wrong, frame of mind my body dozes and my haunting memories awaken and let me know they are still here with me, like an old friend, always here to comfort me always there when I need it. But this friend is neither a real friend nor a comfort to me; instead it is the reason I have always had a hard time returning to who I was before the war.
I look to my bedside and reach for the half full cup of water that my wife places there every night before she goes to sleep, and I take a sip, hoping the cold wet liquid will shock me back to the present, instead of sending me back to Bastogne.
I remember the cold winter nights of Bastogne, and the memory itself is enough to send shivers up and down my spine and make me feel like I have traveled back 59 years to the foxholes of Belgium, those damned, lonely foxholes. Where there was no line, no separation from life and death. It was all right there, the dead the living, the living dead, everywhere. I feel like I am still there.
The random shellings that made the trees that concealed and protected us were blowing up around me; men were getting shot and hit with the 88’s. All those men, some of which were my good friends, gone in the blink of an eye, no so long, no fare well, just gone. I lost my best friend in the Bois Jacque, and a number of other men I had become close with; and no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to forget their faces. I still see them, looking at me for help, looking at me in agony, but I sit there, frightened and helpless; until the life is out of their eyes.
I still cry for those men, and on some nights I still cry for me. I look at the wounds I had procured from that time, and they have all healed; scar tissue has since grown over and all you can see is a small reminisce of a bullet hole and some shrapnel. Those wounds have long since healed, but the pain remains the same, and it shows no signs of going away anytime soon.
I have always prayed for amnesia, I pray to not have a single memory; I would trade in the dearest memories I have just to forget the painful ones of those days. It has never happened, so I must try and cope with all the things I have seen and been through, but by golly, it never gets better. The tanks are still patrolling, the bombs are still going off, the guns are still cutting people down, and it just never goes away. So, at night, from time to time, I dream about the things I don’t let my mind think of when I am conscious, and I wake up in middle of the night, shaking and covered in cold sweat, and I remember the war.

My wife is still snoring, I don’t think I can sleep but I want to be close to her, I want the comfort of her warm body close to mine; she is the only thing that can keep me in the present and keep me from going back to the cold unforgiving winters of Bastogne.
I lay back down and I am happy to find that my pillow Is very welcoming to my throbbing head. I grab Marie around the waste and I pull her close to me and let her body warmth envelope me.
Some nights I am still there. I am cold and hungry, scared and exhausted; talking to a man I won’t see till I die. I feel the same emotions I felt while I was there, but its hard for an 82 year old man to handle it the same way.

It has been a struggle, sometimes I don’t think about the war at all, and some days, its all I can think of. Some days I cry, some days I don’t. Its funny, I left the war 59 years ago, but the war never left me. So I carry not only the physical scars of the war, but the mental ones as well. The war ended for some, but it has never ended for me. I am still there and I am still scared, fighting for my life, and it has never ended, not for me.

Letter to Mother

Letter to Mother.


Dear Mother, June 11th 1948

Hello mother. Upon my last letter I suppose you have heard that I have lost my sight, and the doctors have determined that I will never see again. It is just as well. I figure I can wallow around this world feeling a sense of self pity or bitterness toward the world, but I have realized that that will do me no good. Instead, it seems that my other senses have come to life, and the world seems different somehow. All my life, mother, I have heard the birds sing, but oddly I never really heard them sing. The sound of their song always seemed to be back ground noise something that you heard but did not notice, but now that I have to rely on my hearing the chirping is exponentially more beautiful, and I think I can honestly say I can hear them all day long and not fret a bit. It is almost like I am hearing for the first time, for the first time I am hearing the world around me.
Also, I started a garden in the front yard and it is filled with roses and honey suckle, and mother I have realized I have never really stopped to enjoy the soft fragrance of flowers before. Oh losing my sight seems like a joy almost. I can smell the flowers and hear the birds now! The songs and smells seem so much more alive then they did before, and it is such a joy!
What is better news my dear Mother is I have finally met a boy that I believe may be the person I want to spend my life with. I cannot see his face and draw on all his physical imperfections so in a way I feel free; free from the superficiality of relying on a persons outer beauty, and I am lucky to be able to rely on inner beauty. I hear his voice, the deep husky tones, the soft southern draw, and oh mother he is soo amazing. What’s best is he doesn’t mind a bit that I am blind, or get annoyed when I bump into something. He is ever so patient and ever so kind about my inability to be self sufficient. He really is a sweet man and his heart is so kind, I can almost hear it in his voice. My favorite characteristic about his is his scent. I know that may sound odd but I have to use what senses I have, and this has to be my favorite. He smells of clean linen and rich soap and to tell you the truth I can’t get enough of it, as odd as it may seem.
Other than my new founded beau and senses I am happy to tell you I have a hired a nurse to help me learn new ways to get around. Her name is Etta, and she is a tough broad, but very kind at the same time. She has arranged my home in such a way I can learn how to get around without her. 13 steps to the kitchen, 5 steps to the sink and, from the living room, 15 steps to the bathroom; she taught me that and it only took a week! I love Etta, it seems that she is my only companion through this change, but it is just as well. When I first met Dear Etta she was stern with me. She told me that she would show me something once and I would have to figure it out on my own after that; that was the best way for her to teach me. She has taught me to be more self sufficient and I don’t need her as much as I used to. When I would cry or moan that I could not take care of myself she would scold me like a child, but she knew it was for the best and mother she was right. The only time I need her is when we go for our afternoon walk. I can hear the cars but I cannot see road signs and I can’t tell directions, so I need her to lead me. But the good news is down at the hospital they train dogs to help people, can you believe it! A dog will be helping me day to day, with seeing and keeping me from running into things. Who would have though mans best friend would also be our best caregivers.
In all mother, I am permanently blind but the world seems more beautiful somehow. Oh what it is like not to rely on the outer appearance of people and to see who they really and truly are, not to see the cruelty of the world but pay attention to all the little things that we have taken for granted for so long. I know when the world looks at me they feel nothing but pity for my circumstances, but, to tell you the truth, I feel sorry for them. They cannot feel the sun, smell the rich grass, and hear the laughter of brooks and the deep song of the sea, so I feel sorry for them. Oh I don’t hate this life so much anymore, as a matter of fact, I think I am the lucky one. How Lucky I am to see the world with blind eyes. I wish you could hear it and feel it as I do, it is such a beautiful thing.
But I have rambled on enough. I hope this letter finds you well and I miss you and love you so!

Love always and forever,
Donna

To thee Addicts

Here is to the addicts here is to the addicted
here's to the ones whose ideas of love are contradicted
here's to the ones who found another solution
but the true nature of those fixes were just a delusion
Our addictions are all on a different level
but we have all done our dance with the devil
Here's to the ones who dont like the word wait, but need the word now
here's to the ones who want to stop but dont know how
Here's to the ones who can't avoid the need
here's to the ones to can't kill the beast that needs to feed
here's to the ones whose lives have been
destroyed
all because they found something to fill the void
here's to the ones who had to pay the toll
because we all lost the control
here's to thee addict and here is to thee addicted
for the pains that are self inflicted
heres to the people who cover up the shame
here's to the ones who act out the pain