Short Stories & Poetry

Ever since I was young, I knew I wanted to write. This area of my website remains a creative outlet for my newer random short stories and poetry.

p.m. Commute (8/11/11)

Gayatri mantra hums as i move,
when i stop; a surreal, dazed commuter
scurrying about in a shiny, metallic bubble.
Why, exactly?

American Beauty-bizarre warnings
wail in the distance as i make room
for the dreadlocked waver from Connecticut.
Who’s hurt? asks this highway parking lot.

Passing sirens break our slow motion coasting
aggression bumping rubber over medians
in pursuit of a moment’s car length.
Who’s...dead?

My rearview tells one tale
cellphone talker animating hands at the unseeing, unknowing.
For what purpose? asks orange-white-stripped cylinders
as they wait on the sidelines.

Muffled blue light sounds reluctantly part
the crowded four-laned sea that opposes
an empty summer sky, taunting as we traverse the path
toward a never-obtainable horizon.

My exit shouts of free flow;
the Kappa Sigma-adopted highway ends--
it means I’m home...right?

Torn (7/26/11)

What, and where?
Too many clips of L.A. Ink,
and a corner of my mind hooks
on a formless idea.

Who, and how?
A year spent waiting to be embodied
Considering my passions,
lacking artistic inclinations and associations.

I find the Moon!, and we
apply collaborative design principles to my body--
meditiation, yoga and dancing merge
in penciled forms, colored next.

Working through self-defeating thoughts
needles scrape ink into my abdomen
two plus hours I’m breathing, breathing
yet not bleeding.

Bending, reaching facilities back
soreness subsiding without trace
yet I’m waiting, healing, fighting against summer’s heat
and cravings to act.

Oh, outward sign!
You convey the very things
you prevent with color peels
Making patience my (temporary) new practice.

Relax? (5/18/11)

Leaned against warmed acrylic
I watch,
I breathe, while water
tinted silk with Big Blue Bath Bomb
washes boorishly down.

My reflection in the silver orb ahead
is a small child --
head disturbingly small,
quads wildly bulky;
knobby-nosed valve overlaying my sacred.

Gurgling complete,
the brown shoots I hoped would liquefy
congregate in corners
and stolen indulgence is recast
as yet another chore.

Cage Match

A lofty voice sings: “Focus on the Now...!”
Resentment grinds: “Our history must be overcome,”
while loathing the dare of self work, imposed
by whom? the Universe? Karma?
Mother, father? (Unconscious both.)

Assemble piddling progress through battle
Or discover life -- extant joy -- in presence?
Inner child, teenager, Self, parts
wrestle in this corporeal chamber, sides
clawing against and amongst my-very-selves.

Decisions: therapy? self therapy? no therapy?
“Let go, be alive, be free.”
“Improve! Oust other- and self- grievances, all.”
“Just. Be....”

Which? Both endure.

Madness's Edges (5/18/11)

I didn’t expect to feel like the crazy lady in the attic
locked up by her husband, Jane Eyre-style.
But I could totally see how such a thing could happen, what,
with how I’ve been behaving lately.

It’s something like the 10th straight day of bone-chilling rain.
It’s eating everyone, not just me. But I feel things uniquely --
(or, at least that’s what I like to tell myself
when I’m listening).

I’m equal parts angry and listless, wanting things to change,
feeling choice-less as everything changes around me,
yet it all stays the same. Monotony interleaves new challenges,
making me throw my hands up in the air and cry over childish nothings.

These drops that cling to the screen, what do they stay for, exactly?
Do they desperately grasp, hold on,
or is it so natural an existence they think not of it?
Are they blank? Is it best to be so -- detached, unfettered; is that free?

It’s late May, yet the white-gray swirled afternoon sky defies seasons.
Should I emulate the freshly budded tree top swaying gently, damply in the distance?
Will such voluntary bending prevent the ever-dreaded breakage?
When there’s space to think, to be, I wonder:

Why would this room, filled with things, matter?
It’s intended to be my private, serene haven -- yet most times it’s empty.
Workouts and 15-minute meditation sessions squeezed into days
seemingly controlled by others’ demands or requests.

Is my life so choice-less?
Or are these choices made?
Parts resign themselves to this (on paper) fantastic life, grateful.
Others wretchedly thrash amidst a dream, unfulfilled.

The change, the challenge requiring such ultimate daring
that even *I* feel faceless, un-courageous, enough is too much.
It’s all possible, yet impassible --
I fathom because I can’t manage both (multi-tasker though I am).

I’ve fallen off my wagon. Spent my afternoon in fuzzy blue pants
under blankets with shots of B&B, potato chips, ice cream, dark chocolate.
Yet it doesn’t feel like depression. It feels like teen spirit. Like rebellion.
Like an inner fire burns, but just at my edges, patiently waiting to consume.