Wild and Free
She grasps ribbons from air
and weaves them into life.
Spirit exhales nomadic echo
like a thousand birds on a wire
taking shameless flight at her will.
Wild gypsy woman whizzes past
unforeseen curves in the road,
speeding so fast, leaving only
remnants of her shadow.
Tucks sun in her bosom
to light life’s adventures,
sets the moon askance
on head as mock halo.
Quaffs freedom
in the cup of her hand,
running barefoot
untamed and wild.
Dances in savage abandon
in raindrops of passion
answering only to herself
as she rounds
the endless loops
of tomorrow,
feral and free.
The Secrets of Trees
"Away from the fog, away from the mist,
away from the cry of what you most miss.
Away from temptation, away from the wall,
away from the senseless desire to fall.
Tread carefully, my child, walk away from the shore,
stay here, with me, think of yonder nevermore."
---------
Elijah chokes on his dreams. He thrashes upright, eyes flashing open as he wakes, blinking until the shadows clear and light enters his vision. The front of his thin shirt is soaked through with sweat.
The limbs of a honey locust tree hush in the wind above his head, pale green sunlight filtering down to dapple the backs of Elijah’s hands, the bare length of his legs, the tanned skin over his arms.
It’s disorienting — the breeze, the cry of birds, the sun on his face — until he remembers. He had collapsed here last night, sheltered under the curve of this tree. He had run from the cries of his mother, the curses of his father, the tightened fists and harsh words and empty beer bottles in the sink.
As his breathing slows down, as his chest stops rising and falling with a rapid desperateness, Elijah reaches for the dregs of the nightmare that had woken him.
He had been running. Running across soft ground unlike the hardness beneath him, soft ground that gave way so easily beneath his feet, making each stride a battle. It had been dark, and cold, the sun missing from the sky, the wind howling in his ears like a wounded animal. Whatever had been chasing him had caught up. Elijah had become one of the shadows, swallowed and buried until he had forgotten who he was.
Elijah shivers despite the heat. He remembers the very end of his dream, the lilting rhyme he knew so well that had filled up the empty spaces of himself, that had made the darkness seem that much more real as it had crept into his lungs and heart and mind.
"Tread carefully, my child, walk away from the shore…"
The same rhyme that the younger children sing on the playground as they jump rope. The same rhyme that his mother hums on good days when she’s got the windows open and her hair up, stroking the piano keys she loves so much. The same rhyme that is inscribed anywhere it is necessary — in the hospital, at the beginning of every book, hanging in a friend’s kitchen on a custom-made plaque.
Elijah swallows past the terrible dryness of his throat. Around him a forest of honey locusts and white oaks and red maples sway and dance, their branches tangling together above him like fingers interlocking over bowed heads during Sanctuary.
"Sanctuary."
The thought hits him suddenly, panic shooting straight and true through his heart. He scrambles to his feet. Today is Sanctuary and he can’t be late, no matter the cost.
Elijah begins to run, his sneakers finding hard, unforgiving soil this time as he flies through the trees.
---------
Elijah’s mother is a porcelain doll beside him. Her face is powder smooth, her lips a beautiful red, her golden hair coiled and piled on her head with practiced ease, a few curls escaping and framing the elegant lines of her face.
To anyone sitting around them, Elijah thinks, she must look like a queen.
To him, her son, she looks like a woman who’s been dragged from her throne, locked up in a tower surrounded by chains and thorns and hard fists. A queen without her crown, enshrouded in lies and pretense as she covers her bruises and cuts with makeup, as she keeps her frail shoulders straight even though Elijah sees the flinch in her eyes every time his father shifts beside her.
Elijah bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood, hates himself for how perfectly still he has become over the years, a prince of silence. He’s still just the little boy cowering behind his mother’s legs, running to the trees for comfort while his mother braves the storm on her own.
"Coward," his brain whispers. "You deserve this life."
Elijah jerks himself away from the poison of his thoughts as the crowd around them rustles and shifts, a low murmur going through the room like the sigh of the wind in the treetops. The Provider has arrived right on time, her crimson skirts rustling around her ankles as she moves to the front of the room, turning until she is facing the rest of the village. The sunlight streaming in from the windows behind her throws her features into shadow, casts a reddish glow at her feet.
Elijah is reminded of his nightmare, of the shadows curling inky fingers around his throat.
His mother turns to him slightly, as if she can feel it, the sudden renewal of fear in his bloodstream. But Elijah doesn’t meet her eyes. She bears enough weight on her shoulders and Elijah can smell the faint scent of rum on her breath.
She only ever smells like that when the pain is too much, when it needs to be dulled.
Instead Elijah stands with the others on shaking knees as the Provider raises her gloved hands.
"Away from the fog, away from the mist…" The voice of the crowd rises up to the rafters — solid, firm, unwavering. From here Elijah imagines he can see the lips of the Provider curve with satisfaction, pleased with her children and their obedience.
The words of their ancestors ring up to the high ceilings. They are the truth they all live by. They are the key to the ongoing success and happiness of this village, of the towns and villages and cities that surround it, of the small nation they all belong to. Every child is raised with this truth, spoon-fed the stories that are there to warn and protect them.
There are monsters out there, past the rolling fog that encompasses the edges of The Boundary. The crash and roar of them is forever present if you dare to go close enough to the towering, ivory wall of swirling mist to listen.
There are people out there too, Elijah has been told. People who are unlike others, who are different and wrong and frightening. People who try to send their mothers and children across The Boundary with the pretense of needing aid when they are really just trying to encroach and feed off of the livelihood this village has worked so hard to build. Dangerous people who would not hesitate to murder.
Elijah believes in monsters. One of them sleeps under his roof. One of them lives side-by-side with him. One of them leaves empty glass bottles of whiskey and rum in his wake, leaves blood and blooms of bruises in his fury, leaves intimidation and fear and persuasion sitting guard at their doorstep.
His Provider preaches of the freedom they are all so lucky to have, here within their walls of smoke. But Elijah knows only of the entrapment of his father, of the shackles that he wraps around his mother’s wrists, of the sticky-sweet alcohol on his breath when his eyes are wild and crazy and filled with a fury that Elijah doesn’t know how to put out.
And how is he supposed to escape? How is his mother supposed to seek help when the Provider and their neighbors expect his family to plaster on plastic smiles and cover wounds with blush and nod and act as if everything is perfect?
"… stay here, with me, think of yonder nevermore."
Elijah sits back down. The Provider begins to talk. He doesn’t hear the words.
If him and his mother tried to ask for help — if they threw away all pretense of being perfect and put together the way a proper, obedient family like theirs should be — what would happen? He has lied awake and stared at the cracks in his ceiling for hours before, trying to find a way out.
Would his father be held accountable or would the Court find his mother responsible, a woman inciting the rightful wrath of her husband, bringing it on herself?
Elijah has seen it happen before, when he had been too young to fully understand. He knows what would happen if they failed in their pleas. If they lost, Elijah’s mother would be sent to the other side of The Boundary, exiled to live with the monsters and with the crippling fear of the unknown. Elijah would be left with his father and his punches.
Cool fingers wrap around Elijah’s, breaking him from his thoughts. The soft voice of the Provider filters back into his ears. His mother’s hand is strong and steady around his own.
Elijah holds tight.
He thinks he can hear the rage of monsters from here and their growls match the tempo of his heart.
---------
The boy and woman hidden in the shadows of the white oak do not see Elijah.
He stops dead in his tracks, a palm still cradling the bruised and swollen skin of his jaw as if his fingers can hold in all of the pain in his bones — as if they can hold back all of the fury and shamefulness that burn through his bloodstream and bloom in his stomach, growing up and up and up until he chokes on it all.
Elijah recognizes both figures immediately, despite the shadows thrown by the trees in the late-night, muggy air.
Adrian and Adalie Baldred, adopted son and adopting mother.
Adrian, the boy who had lost both of his parents so young. Adalie, who had immediately stepped forward to take in the orphan even though her hair had turned white long ago, even though time had begun taking its toll on her body.
Adrian, the boy who loves his books. Adalie, who could almost always be found out in her garden at the back of her house — back near where her two stillborn children were buried.
Adrian, the boy who has always been… different. The boy who had used to wear pretty skirts and dresses around the village. The boy who had grown his raven-colored hair out before the Provider and the others had forced him to cut it — before they had turned him into a public humiliation and had burned the clothes he clutched so close.
He had been too young to be exiled, but he hadn’t been enough of a child in the eyes of the law to avoid the shackles in the center square, or the days of being chained up out in the open — exposed to the rain and the biting wind and the harsher, sharper words and sneers of the people who passed him by.
Adalie had watched on in silence, had let Adrian suffer the consequences without a trace of regret on her wrinkled face, hand-in-hand with the Provider.
But now… Elijah inhales quietly at the sight before him.
Adalie sits with her back to the oak tree, a book in her hands, reading with a content smile on her face. And Adrian…
Adrian lies sprawled out in the grass at her feet, gazing up at the burning, star-filled sky, a beautiful yellow dress pooling around his figure.
They’ve both aged over the four years that have passed since those days of torture, the days that Elijah has tried to forget because his heart had ached strangely back then for the bowed head in the center square, for the broken lines of Adrian’s shoulders that had looked so much like the broken eyes of Elijah’s mother.
Adrian is now eighteen, just like Elijah. He performs his duties like the rest of them, goes to school, keeps his eyes downturned. Elijah hasn’t seen him in any pretty silks or patterned cloths in years. Ever since those days four years ago Adrian has seemed watered down, muted, a boy built of shadows and paper and the quiet hush of raindrops.
And yet here he is now, suddenly much clearer in Elijah’s eyes, more vivid and alive than he’s ever been.
Elijah holds his breath, heart racing in his chest. He watches, unsure of what else to do, watches as Adrian says something to Adalie that Elijah can’t make out, watches as she lowers her book to tip her head back to look at the spot in the sky that Adrian is raising a hand to point to. Elijah watches her smile widen, watches her laugh and say something and then watches as she turns a look of such blatant adoration and love and kindness onto the child before her that Elijah’s heart wrenches almost agonizingly in the cage of his ribs.
Gone is the woman who had watched in silence. Gone is the woman who had listened to Adrian’s pleas without mercy. Here is the woman who had maybe been protecting the child she loved like her own in the only way she could.
Elijah clutches his battered face in the shadows and can’t help but think that Adrian is free out here in the trees, shielded away from the cruelty of his own people and surrounded by nothing but the ancient silence of the oaks and maples and honey locusts, exposed to nothing but love and kindness, a step towards an acceptance of differences.
Elijah steps back, melting away into the shadows. He steps back towards the imprisonment of his father and his hatred.
And he wonders how free any of them truly are, trapped here in their walls of fog.
---------
Elijah has bitten his nails down until his fingers bleed. His hands, dug into the hard soil to break his fall, are stained at the fingertips with the same color of the Provider’s robes.
The Provider with her ruby-red lips and cold gray eyes and a voice that scares Elijah more than the crash and roar of the monsters beyond The Boundary.
The Provider who had cost Elijah his mother.
Elijah had tried — and he had lost. His mother had been exiled. His father’s fists had tightened. And now, a year later, Elijah runs.
He wrenches himself up from the ground from where he had tripped and fallen over a tree root, the air in his lungs burning with the saltiness of the wind this close to the edge of the line none of them are ever supposed to cross. This close, Elijah can hear the gigantic rumble of what lies beyond, can see the wall of mist and smoke rising before him through the gaps in the trees.
He throws himself forward with the echoes of a poem in his ears.
"Away from the fog, away from the mist…"
The ground is growing softer beneath his shoes, giving way. Elijah remembers a nightmare from before, of shadows swallowing him up until he faded away — but the darkness does not reach for him here. Instead the sky above him is turning pale gold, lightening as the sun rises from the horizon.
"Away from the cry of what you most miss…"
"Mother," Elijah thinks, stumbling again and righting himself, pushing forward.
"Away from temptation, away from the wall…"
The trees begin to thin out, growing farther and farther apart. Elijah’s breath runs ragged in his throat, his battered ribs ache. For some reason Adrian and Adalie’s faces flash before his eyes as bright yellow sunlight begins to spread its rays across the ground.
"Away from the senseless desire to fall…"
Soil no longer meets Elijah’s footfalls. He’s running across something lighter and looser, something that threatens to give way beneath him and leave him falling forever. He pays it no heed, not now — now when the wall is right before him, rising and rising, curling and coiling into the pale blue air.
"Tread carefully, my child, walk away from the shore,
stay here, with me, think of yonder nevermore."
Elijah skids to a stop right before it, his chest heaving. His dark hair curls in the mist, in the odd, salty, muggy air. His shoes sink through the ground. His ribs ache with the weight of his father’s blows and his heart throbs for his mother’s face.
The wall is forever moving, changing, shifting and Elijah looks at it with something akin to wonder instead of fear.
He doesn’t know what lies beyond. He doesn’t know if there are monsters with their sharp teeth bared or people who are just as dangerous. He doesn’t know a lot of things — whether his mother is still alive, if his father will ever look for him, if the Provider will send out a team to bring him back.
Elijah doesn’t even know if Adrian will ever find the three words he had carved into the trunk of a honey locust in the forest a few weeks ago — his farewell parting to a boy who also asked the trees to protect his secrets.
But Elijah knows he has to leave.
He reaches out, threads his fingers through the coils of fog, watches his skin disappear behind it and holds tight to himself.
As the mist encompasses him, as the strange air fills his lungs and dampens the anger in his stomach, the poem in Elijah’s head fades away, sucked back into the darkness of the tree line behind him.
Three words take its place. Three words that he had left for Adrian and all of the others who would need them.
Freedom is kindness.
Elijah steps forward.
When Freedom Smelled like the Lake
I walked the streets barefoot
When freedom smelled like the lake
And watermelon never tasted so fresh.
I spent my days half-naked
And rode my bike wherever it would take me
When freedom smelled like the fire
I roasted my marshmallows with.
I made a home in the trees
To converse with the wilderness
When freedom smelled like the grass
Where the rattlesnakes would hide.
I slept for hours on the beach
When freedom smelled like the sun
and burnt my skin.
The wet sand squished between my toes
With each step I took
When freedom smelled like the approaching storm
And rain was a beautiful nuisance we joyed in.
We watched the sunset from the boat
Ignoring the reprimands from our mothers
When freedom smelled like the vodka slushie
We drank in secret.
My legs pumped as the swings went higher
My eyes transfixed on the color explosions above me
When freedom smelled like the biggest firework show on Earth.
The car slid along the gravel
And I looked out at the glistening water
Disappear over the horizon
When freedom smelled like it was fading away.
unchained
my muse is one who tore me
ripped out my counterfeit years
upon a bed of razor blades
pulled starlight from my tears
my spirit was flayed, bleeding
he worried none and smiled
stitched me up with moonbeam thread
pulled through a million miles
when I healed, my psyche woke
a sun inside me shone
dear muse had sewn inside
my truest self I’d failed to own
freedom is a soul unchained
a mind on astral flight
awareness earthly life shall not
suppress creative might
Dreaming of Freedom
I’m in the pit again.
It’s not completely dark down here, not anymore. I’m used to getting dragged down there, it was beyond my control, but now I’m wise to those wretched hands. I see them before they can grab my ankles - young, pale, but covered with broken skin, black dirt, chipped, sharp nails etruding from the swollen fingertips, drawing blood from my unscarred skin like secrets from a willing snitch.
My own body betrays me.
I see these hands now, and stamp on them. It’s not a permanent solution, but it gives me time to grab some things - books, fairy lights, a soft chair, some blankets, so I can decorate the pit a little and make it less dark.
The fairy lights, and a lamp with a flickering light bulb that needs changing, illuminate this area a little. My eyes are unfocused by shortsightedness, slightly blinded by tears, so the lights seem blurry and far away. I’m feeling more than geographical distance from you today...
I’m comfortable down here, but I can’t stay here for ever. But I can’t get out without asking for help. But I can’t ask for help.
Am I a coward? Perhaps. What scares me? Rejection? Being mocked, or dismissed? Or maybe I just don’t want to burden people with my problems anymore.
I feel trapped, not by the pit, but by all of you. I’m obligated to be your friend and include you in my life. If I’m not happy, then it affects you, which affects me, because I love you all so much. My personal god, Ganesha, the one I attempt to channel and embody successfully so that my soul grows towards him and eternal happiness, is the remover of obstacles. I may feel low, depressed, in a pit, but it’s counterproductive, it does not help me achieve my primary goal in life if I drag you down here with me. I’d rather stay stuck so that you can all be free.
Yet I want you here. With me.
I want all those compliments that I rejected before. I want you to tell me how much you love me, how much you value my existence, that you need me and want me to be happy. I want too much from you right now. It’s not fair.
Maybe I don’t want but need you, but you don’t need this. It’s depression without reason, it’s biological sadness, I am tired and this was probably something I could have prevented by sleeping more.
However, I couldn’t sleep last night. Or any night. Sleeping is not something I’m good at...but I could improve. I know how to, I know what I need to do, yet I don’t.
Why am I so irrational?
Why do you love me?
Why am I worth it?
I’m feeling a bit braver. I want to ask you these questions, I need to hear what follows your “because...”. I’m just scared I’ll annoy you so much that you’ll see the real me and will end this long distance relationship, as you should.
As you sit at your gloomy desk at work, unaware of the vicious cycle of thoughts running around in my head like lab rats on caffeine, you are rightfully undisturbed. I’ll sacrifice my chance for freedom today and I’ll stay in this pit. You are worth it. Today, I want you to be free of this burden. The burden of me. I hope you feel free, even though you aren’t.
I can deal with this on my own. I can process and eradicate this pain. I can and will liberate myself.
One day, I will have my freedom, and we will enjoy it. Together.
#challengeoftheweek #freedom #depression #mentalhealth #prosechallenge #prose
Uninhibited and Free: a Reminiscence of Childhood
An uninhibited child during the summer is free.
I remeber when I was a kid I would go up to my father and say, ”I’m bored” and he would scowl and tell me to read a book or something. When my child suffers from boredom, I’ll say, “Good, that means you‘re on the precipice of genius.” And, I was. My sister and I invented games we’d play for hours. My imagination boomed like fireworks on the 4th of July. I didn’t start feeling restricted until I was older, “wiser.” I had lost some of that imagination that fuled my childhood. The sweet, opulent fruits of my boredom shriveled away with each new responsibility. Sometimes I can still feel her spark of ingenuity, seeping through my fingers, grasping for that freedom of thought I once took for granted. I believe you know what freedom is when it’s lost. Freedom was the days I would spend at the beach where everything that mattered was the here and now. Shells shimmered under a translucent wave and I was in love with life which I swallowed in gulps after swimming for hours in the sea.
Fearless novices are free and children are the epitome of novice and if encouraged—fearless. I cringe when thinking of all the ways in which parents restrict their child’s freedom when they plan all their activities, shield them from failure, and hover too close. Imaginations’ embers stifled by a parent’s fear; it’s ironic how the best of intentions can produce the worst results.
I think freedom is relative for everyone and is best captured by a feeling, a feeling keenly missed when lost. Where there used to be seemingly endless amounts of freedom, now in adulthood, there are glympses. I work and I spend my freedom well. I saved for a year to venture to Ireland to be enchanted by her folklore and gaze upon rolling hills dotted with white sheep. I wait until the weekend to go hiking and lose myself among Douglas-Fir, Pine and Spruce trees. I wait until the end of each day to see my love come home and feel his arms around me. When we’re bound to the things that keep us alive and whole, is that freedom? I go back to the beach of my childhood, mostly in my mind, wherein I find the purest form of freedom.
Meaning of being FREE.
Allowed to run all around,
irrespective of your noise or sound.
Do whatever dreamt off,
without someone getting pissed off.
Jump really high,
and cry to the sky,
“I’m free,
of every chain,
and won’t be
in pain, again”.
There’s no problem which I can’t figure out,
because that’s what freedom is all about.
#Prose #Challenge