From Red to Black

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.

Continue reading “From Red to Black”

The Butcher’s Bones

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.

It’s a new day, it’s a new site

Oh, my. It’s really been a minute since my last post, and by a minute, I mean 1,340,700 minutes. Geez, where does the time go? Right. Hello, crushing and life-altering worldwide pandemic. How could I forget thee? *widens eyes; smiles crazily*

The truth of it is, life is a constant pressure and if you’re an empath like me, our current climate can prove very challenging and even paralyzing when it comes to the flow of the creative juices. I appreciate people who can power through and create art while in a room on fire, but me? Not so much. Twenty-twenty saw a whole lot of me wasting away on the couch — too overwhelmed and terrified to complete some of the most basic tasks. I’m not kidding. Sometimes even mustering up the energy to take a shower last year was a monumental feat. So, never mind writing custom copy for a personal blog. Anyway, anything that I would have been likely to write satirically in the last 365 days would have probably been dark and bleak, and not exactly … right.

These things aside, I have found it within my ability to scrawl a few short lines of narrative copy in the past two years, as well as a smattering of romantic poetry and some haiku. Folks who follow me on social media aren’t strangers to my crowing about feeling as though I don’t have an appropriate outlet for my work. I consider myself a rather sensible realist, and yet, I will admit that I wasted more time complaining than exploring a solution to my problem, which was really under my nose the entire time.

This website started as a blog where I could post occasional rants about the challenges associated with the ongoing joys of adulthood, and although I think that effort was cathartic and amusing, the specific content I needed to create to keep it going was not reflective of me in my entirety. As are all humans, I am angled in many different ways and peppered with inspiration and feelings that are born of many sources, and therefore, it’s unfair for me to try to direct my creativity along one alley to a particular destination when it’s simply unnecessary.

This year felt like a good one to overhaul this site for it to function as my creative portfolio and personal website. So, instead of sticking purely with satire, I’m going to use this platform to share my poetry, vignettes, haiku, and romantic/historical fiction pieces (also, my resume – why not?). Everything will be tagged so that if you’re interested in poetry, you’ll be able to locate the posts easily; the same thing with vignettes, etc. I suspect I will conjure up a post or two that will feel on-brand for The Stumble is Real, but only time will tell.

Thanks a lot for visiting this site! I’d be grateful for some interaction, so if you’d like to leave a comment or two, please feel free.

Cheers. Stay jaunty.

Your best friends are not your biggest fans

ATTENTION WRITERS: Your best friends? They ain’t gonna read your sh@t, and it’s not because you’re a bad writer, no — they’re just … not gonna. Let me rewind and try to put this in perspective before I’m disowned/unfollowed/unfriended by everyone I have ever known.

Friendships, as they age, undergo growing pains. As an adult, you’re very lucky to retain your childhood friends. In fact, most adults (I’ve noticed) collect adult friends because circumstances with childhood friends change drastically over time. When you’re a kid, oh, boy, it is total emersion; you and your best friend are one unit! You wear the charms and obsess over the same things. You go to school with them, probably, and spend tons of time with them on the weekends because you’re not busy being an adult yet. You are completely awash with all things “best friend,” and this is often reciprocated, because what else is there socially when you’re – I don’t know – 12 years old? Continue reading “Your best friends are not your biggest fans”