The Teahouse Dance

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The rain drives down straight in a torrent, and there is no movement in the air. The humidity of the day threatens to devour a person whole. Everything swells and drips and sweats. The wet wood of the teahouse floor catches and shrieks under the soles of his feet despite his best efforts to honor the serenity of the space, but he is anomalous in this place — clumsy and fraught in his distraction and discord.

Alone, he settles onto a cushion at a low table next to a sliding shoji opened halfway to the falling rivers outside. In the distance, fog rises ethereally from the tall forest; everything is vibrant and verdant for miles. His eyes slip against the vast lushness, struggling to reflex and allow the wholeness of the environment to reach his mind to become experience.

He draws a deep breath, consuming what the environment offers — ions and lumber, damp earth, steam, and brewing leaves and spice. Slowly, the life in his chest steadies, and he allows himself to take in the distant roll of thunder and gentle beat of the rain; such balms for the crashing ocean of his thoughts, one stacked against the next like waves climbing atop waves, colossal and imminent.

Tea is poured; he cradles the petite porcelain cup in his hand and watches the heat drift and swirl into nothingness. The room is filled with similar ghosts, and ones less apparent, shrouded behind his eyes in the root of his memory. Discomfort descends as he tips the liquid against his lips. His body burns, not from the tea’s heat, but the flavor it deploys, crashing into his cheeks and down, coursing through channels to his very core, awakening in him vivid ruminations of their last time together and all the things that had gone so devastatingly wrong.

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We are Like Stags

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As she approaches the longhouse, she can feel his call pulsating in the earth — the vibrations of his musing push deeply under the frozen soil. His song and sound force roots beneath her feet, extending with such intent to reach and coil about the soul of their space and beat with relentless stomping — hooves hammering against the winter’s thickest ice.

Incantations and invocations. Music suspends in every corner; dripping from leaves and stems and breathing flurry and wonder into the settlement with its huts and straw roofs cast in sparkling snow, flashing light back to the sun in its celestial heaven.

Drawing nearer, she can feel his call shaking in the air — the exhalation of life in his lungs, pressed by his throat and fluttering on the inside of his cheeks; his tongue crafts words that deepen the colors of the season. Frost is indigo blue; evergreen needles sway on branches black as midnight — even the wind itself glows in shades of pink and yellow as blinding snow throws crystals down dirt paths and through cracks and dark doorways. Continue reading “We are Like Stags” →

Only Love Can Bind

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For Yara & The Elf

The world has fallen quiet; there’s a softness about its edges that brings a somber peace I am not yet ready to accept, and so I bury myself here in the reminiscence of you — in all that you made us — the delicate threads of our connection, woven densely and tightly over so much time, but severed in an instant; petals on the wind.

As always, the river runs faithfully — cool waters cascading over rocks and green life, reflecting the pink and blue-gray of the clouds. Sun washes its banks, and I lie back in tall grasses, fading flowers, and wild herbs. They frame my view and sway on dry, fragrant breezes that hint at the changing season, the turning tide. Lost in the warm touch of summer’s final moments, autumn will leave you behind, forever embraced in the lush gravity of this space. So much life and care in those years that brought us here. Toward the story’s end, I imagine they had become lost to the shadow behind your eyes, but I remember and remain fixed in the moments of tenderness that fastened the togetherness of our hearts; beating as one even longer than memory allows.

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Thrones & ghosts

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It is a late afternoon sleep that brings her to the cathedral once again, and he’s there, she knows. The winter wind blows relentlessly, touching the most hidden spaces. Frosty fingers like those of a thousand phantoms follow her through the structure’s heavy wooden doors; she shakes on the inside from a chill that originates in her heart and dances with the music of nature’s unkind bellowing.

The church is abandoned, but consistent; she knows every stone and unearthly whisper — every blasphemous thought that brought it into being. The cavernous interior is perfumed with the reminiscence of holy incense that still clings to the rafters. There are recessed niches on two sides of the space, inset with gothic-style glass panes, and at the far back of the structure, an altar is carved into the very rock of the foundation, framed in the chancel area by three slender oblong windows, and crowned with a simplistic rose window of clear flower petals that filter the sun’s rays with muted textures to give the sensation of a slowing of time that one could feel deep within the core of the chest. Misplaced in its perfection, the altar’s sentinel takes the shape of a bright white throne upholstered in black velvet. Its high back is flanked by two matching points topped by shimmering golden orbs that seem to sparkle from within as though stars are suspended there waiting on celestial cues from their creator.

She pulls her coat around herself more tightly and paces cautiously into the nave — the soles of her boots connecting with the granite floor, each step like a slow heartbeat reverberating into the bones of the old structure, threatening to waken it from sleep. There is no warmth in the space, but her palms sweat, and her face feels hot. She is anxious and a bit afraid. Consuming the air here feels like sinning; the scene represents legions of noisemakers in her mind, only some of which are rooted in the real world.

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Never give up … except when you should: A love letter to the quitters

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I’m going to offer up an unpopular and perhaps controversial take: sometimes, giving up is the best thing you can do for yourself. Of course, I don’t mean this in a general, overarching sense — I wholeheartedly subscribe to the idea that you should try to put your best foot forward in everything you do. However, pushing oneself to the point of risk, pain, or suffering is counterintuitive. I believe many of us semi-regularly find ourselves in unintentionally precarious positions, teetering on the brink of outstanding achievement and complete mental and spiritual breakdown.

We undertake new projects, commitments, and life goals with positive aims (at least, we should). Still, when we begin a new journey, it’s impossible to know how unknown challenges will affect us and what other obstacles might present themselves along the way. In today’s competition culture – spurred on largely by social media’s stranglehold on us – it’s easy to compare ourselves against our friends, associates, family, and idols and feel a sense of insecurity, jealously, or unworthiness. In some cases, we bite off more than we can chew because we feel guilty or poorly about our current situations, as though our present load isn’t enough, or isn’t as impressive or important as someone else’s. We become ensnared by the idea that suffering is good for the soul when, in fact, suffering is hindering our ability to alleviate stress and rebalance our mental and physical health. Continue reading “Never give up … except when you should: A love letter to the quitters” →

From Red to Black

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In the camp of the undead soldier, torches blaze with great fury as though an anger hides on the wind, whipping embers and dragging flames into the air with great points that swirl in funnels toward the blackness of night.

The air is dense with the fire’s heat, but the ground grows cold and there is a damp chill in the air that makes mortal flesh yearn for shelter and comforts. There is nothing like that in this camp, however — no relief or fellowship, at least not for her. She pauses in the distance and takes a last look at the velvet blanket of sky above and beyond, speckled with celestial diamonds. She must force her heart to stone. As much as she wishes to recall their time in the pale caress of the star-cast glow, she leeches the feelings from her very bones. The sun and moon have danced across the sky many times since that time, and he has changed from light to dark; from red to black.

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The Butcher’s Bones

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Crushing, bleak and break,
the mechanisms of my matter
are corroded by salt —
they are choked with sand.

Ripping, tear and rake,
the solutions of my mind
are dry from wind —
they are thieved by sun.

River, ocean and lake,
the brittle hull of my bones
arches for touch —
it is weathered by surf.

Yet I am tethered by the gull’s cry,
a wrinkled goodbye —
you are terrible in ropes and weaves and cuffs.

Hope pleads the darkness from the butcher’s eye,
lips feed a thousand lies —
I cannot conjure love enough or trust
      before time turns our hearts to dust.

string lights on a skylight backdrop

1994

Posted on by RDP

If you need me, I’ll be right here,
right where you left me,
in ’94.

Familiar voices within,
somewhere stuffy, smokey, dim,
splashed with string lights,
right, they blink pink and red and white.

Incense and oil,
your breath in toil, the scream,
my ears ring, and rings cling,
and my lips shudder right.

Love … I’m right here,
right where you left me,
in ’94.

Dewy face, hyperspace,
curls and a joker’s grin,
the palms, throat, and thighs,
trapped right in the well of those eyes.

Melted ice and sweat,
the pulse and beat a threat,
such frenzy and heat,
and secrets to keep, but we’re right.

Alright.

Right here,
right where you left us,
in ’94.

The Song

Posted on by RDP

You can’t live on it — the feeling.
The contraction of a guitar string,
Such anticipation.
The tankard’s dark, swirling abyss,
Pulse softening.

You can’t live on it —
The flowering of the voice,
Mighty introduction.
The kaleidoscope of colors,
Primal attraction.

You can’t live on it —
The pained pleading chorus,
Lingering mourning.
The ear’s consumption,
Desirous firing.

You can’t live on it —
The final note’s breaking,
Grappling desperation.
The ghostly vibrations of silence,
Deafening denial.

You can’t, you can’t —
Not but for those moments of song,
Pitch pointed, perfect and pure,
Magnetic and hypnotizing in its way.

In those moments you can, you can.
You can live on it.