| Free Fall (Images, 1999) Rain drains through Heaven's sewers as two cold fronts cross paths. One droplet, escaping from fog, darts toward the terrestrial soil below. Passing snapped temperate forecasts and loyalties lost in capricious winds, the outcast descends. Loss of faith accompanies the gain of intertia: Gravity becomes an unwelcome constant. Disillusioned and disdained, she gropes for a sympathetic breeze or the stability of a familiar cloud. Upon streaking the atmosphere, the splash is accosted with solemnity, left to ponder the uncertainty of the upcoming seconds, minutes...years. No puddle nor evaporative promise to cushion the impact - just regret. For the fall itself is quite climatic. But the vulnerability and betrayal of the plunge, to which the droplet unexpectedly consented, can stifle and blur even the brightest of rainbows. Commencement The first cut may be the deepest, but the succeeding carvings of the heart still slice into its tenderness. A violated trust by lying truth, flirtatious eyes that blink deceit: The eternal friendship that ended when the blood ceased to flow yet the heart continued to beat. The culmination of apathetic glares and frigid frowns, tears that drown reason, and spitefulness that knows no boundaries stimulate an eager hesitation to start anew. Freedom is bondage. Although limbs are unbound, the heart remains held hostage of its own accord until time scars the wounds and a new love stitches a smile onto the scorned lips of a lover who has lost and found again. The Space Between Us As I walked through the most sand that the tide left behind, I watched as the sun kissed the horizon farewell and began its descent. The sea hit at my ankles, drowning my footprints as I continued along the coast. The firmament was a fusion of crimson and plum, with not one clouded blemish. The stars pierced through the atmosphere speckling the summer sky. I absorbed the scene with every breath. But somehow, although I had never traveled to Mallorca before, it all seemed familiar. Millions of miles away from home, I still saw the same sun that sets in Cleveland, the same constellations that design a blueprint over the industrial skyline of Tower City and the Flats� �You�re not going to college out of state and that�s final!� my mother declared triumphantly. No matter how much I pleaded, mom�s staunch position could not be budged. I was eighteen-years-old, and drunk with the possibility of running away to a university. �Distance is a state of mind,� she said. I laughed, half in disbelief, and half in disrespect of my mother�s foolishness. She didn�t understand that the flame of freedom and independence was seducing me with smoky promises and igniting my passion to get as far away as I could and never look back. All I wanted was to ensconce myself behind the walls of an institution, which would allow me to forge new memories while erasing the old. It felt like my mother wanted to hinder my dreams and extinguish the spark of hope I clung to like a child� With the sun secure behind the mountains, the air had acquired a chilly tinge, which was only intensified by my realization that I was alone on the beach. I wondered what my mom was doing, if she was making her infamous chicken pot pie, or maybe baking a batch of decadent brownies. Maybe my brother was adhered to the screen as Power Rangers was broadcast in full stereo. And I was curious to know if my grandma missed having two grandchildren to spoil. From the middle of the Mediterranean sea, I wondered if my family was staring at the same spectacular sunset, sharing my thoughts, counting the number of crescent moons remaining until I returned. |
| "There's a letter on the desktop that I dug out of the drawer, the last truce we ever came to in our adolescent war. And I start to feel the fever from the warm wind through the trees, you come regular like seasons shadowing my dreams..." ~ Emily Saliers |
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