Page, Piper, Peter, the ant, the tree, and I

The sweat that had collected in the shallow canyon of her lower back was now cooling and slipping down Page’s ass crack. She shivered as the metal bleacher bench dropped ten degrees. The sun was running away and slurping all the day’s colors down its gullet. The only not-black thing left out there was the faint glimmer of a silver “12” that was rising and falling on Piper’s chest.

Piper licked her lips and gathered a tablespoon of salty mud on her tongue.  She hoped her crusty sweat would be good fertilizer, because she wasn’t sure how long she would be able to last out here, and the only way out, as far as she was concerned was down, swallowed by grass. Only then would she open her eyes. Till then the world would just have to suffer on without her as part of its audience. Till then she would amuse herself with the weird squares that appeared like geometric faeries when she pressed her finger against her eyelids.

No matter how hard he tried, Peter could not make his eyes focus on his sister, who would not move from the middle of the field.  No. He could not move the lenses of his mind around and instead was forced to ogle Page’s cracked heels from where he stay hidden under the bleachers. He hated himself, hated that he, beyond reason, wanted those heels in his mouth. He didn’t know why, but he did know that this was an un-shareable, unspeakable want. Maybe in his mouth, he could keep them warm. And then he knew something else. In a burst of moving from boy to man, he articulated what it was he wanted most in this wide wonderful world. He wanted to be able to take something small and keep it safely inside himself.

It had taken nearly the entire afternoon to journey from the end zone back to the sideline. It had been foolish to cling to the girl’s shoelace when she began thumping her way into the field, but it’s pinkness was so startlingly new, a color heretofore not seen by the ant who had spent his life in the company of only brown, green, and blue. Most spring afternoons he had lazed about in a sunflower seed shell lolling in a lake of jerky-flavored boy spit. But this crispity clean strand of sugar beckoned him. It promised yumminess. It promised sweets. It promised hope, and the ant clung to it until he and the shoelace and the shoe were ejected from her foot and sent spiraling into the sky.

The tree settled down like a stomach after riding a roller coaster. How odd, she thought, to know that sleep is on its way.  She rustled with curiosity having never once experienced the sensation in the entire 83 years in which she had been a tree.

My eyes paused here. Near the bottom of page 97, catching with fear the void halfway down page 98. My lungs paused in the middle of a breath and we hung there: Page, Piper, Peter, the ant, the tree, and I. Suspended. Attempting to control a story so intent on ending. It lay there open in my hands, perfect, so perfect this cessation. 

In the hairs between seconds, I wished something faster than thought. I wished that whomever was reading me would bookmark this page and

Photo by John Henry. Words by Stephanie Chavara.

I wanted wine and jazz

I wanted red wine and jazz:

You brought me (smoke) (glaze) and a (headache).

I took in all you had to offer.

The drip, wisps of your gold hair glinted in the shadows and tree light.

My lungs inhaled the honey scent of your neck

and I sweetly sat with you.

I wanted calm exhales, forgetting and Miles Davis:

you brought me (leaving-behinds) (pot) and some (frustrations).

I wanted all the good in you and none of the disaster you made me.

The weight of your back pressed my chest.

My heart tried beating its way toward you,

to place its little hands behind you and show you support.

(This is what I imagined as my eyes became glassy

and our world's delicacy shown itself see-through)

The lights blurred and danced and faded and I started to hum the Kind of Blue I wanted.

You told me the low base buzz of my chest lulled your senses and made you a child.

I starred at the tree and the lights till the world became perfectly clear.

I wanted red wine and jazz.

I did not want you.

But I loved this golden, quiet moment.

But I did not love you. 

Photo by John Henry. Words by Jordan Shappell.

Domesticated Dog

 

satin-red lead constrains him
he watches
squirrel taunting

canine eyes
reflect image, process
id festers

wooden deck
sun descends, cold
shades of gray char

grade-e protein bowl
in-satiating, manufactured

he hunts
 

Photo by John Henry. Words by Ciara Brewer.

shoes...

*Skuh-chock. Skuh-chock.*
Tiny feet shuffle tiny paces in shoes too big.
"Keeping those warm for daddy?"

'Daddy.' I know few words, this being the first and foremost of them. I know these brightly colored things on my feet make me feel like he's with me. I know wha...
"whaaaaaaaaaaa!"
"Oh come here, did somebody trip on his shoe lac...

"...es are there so you can grip the ball better. Let's see you throw a spiral."
I look across the makeshift football field, glorified by my 10 year old imagination.
"blue 80," I call to the left, "blue 80." I repeat to the right. "hutt!"
As I drop back, using the feet cadence my father taught me, I look down the field at the man. He is wide open, having outrun mother by a good 5 yards. I heave the ball. Father seems to dive. Mother stops running. The ball lands far short, hitting the ground without once resembling a spiral.
"Father? Are you O...

"...K? You haven't said a word since you found those things?"
Sitting among the scattered memories of my past I look up at my future.
"Yeah, sorry darlin, I just never expected.. Well any of this."
"It's ok. I understand. I'm going to go downstairs. Call me if you need me."
Mother had saved these things. Father's things. These things. These shoes... They are worse for wear. Their vibrant color faded. Their humorously long laces long since gone. I wipe at the dirt and the grime but it has become as much a part of the shoe as the sole. This dirt is the soul of the shoe and so I leave it. Taking off my own shoe I slide my foot into father's. It fits. I put on the other and walk downstairs.
"Daddy, why are your shoes all dirty?" I look down at the bright blue eyes of my son and smile. I walk in my father's shoes...

Photo by John Henry.  Words by Fred Watford.

Oh bloody potential

***

What once was loaded with so much promise of pain

carries itself still and rested.

Abandoned by its own potential.

Because potential is not about what could be

but the risk of what may never happen.

***

I missed you.

Firing all the loving motivation I could,

pulled the trigger of my tongue

and let out all killing affects.

Somehow I missed you.

Glancing your glares, my words shot passed into emptiness.

Damn.

***

Potential is the equivalent of what could be lost.

'Could' trumping all certainty, the negative effect of doubt.

So we hope.

Hope with the grip of a gun that life can be different.

And that maybe we will miss ourselves to find each other.

***

I stand wanting to be targeted by you.

Set me between your eyes, sweet shooter

and may all aim be true and blazing.

Please, I need you to kill me.

I can't even take my own life.

I'm sick of it, I don't want it, so why would I take it myself.

Please have me.

***

Potential is the buzzing middle of greatness and let down.

The moment before the smolder and the after glory unwanted.

To outrun doubt we hope.

Potentially we could fail.

Potentially we could be left, alone, in the middle of a field,

missing out on all that we hoped to hit.

***

Bloodied up, my hand reaches out to shake hands in peaceful thanks.

I no longer want to play our deadly game.

I'd rather hold you wounded.

So take a step closer,

let's throw down our arms

and open our arms.

And for the love of all things good,

lets stop bleeding all over each other.

We cannot continue to push our fingers into the bullet holes.

These wounds are mine to tend

and hopefully yours to love, if you will have them.

***

So set potential free

and live in the hope that your doubt will not harm you.

Hope to kill doubt.

Hope to steep your hands in the blood of all you hate about yourself.

Take aim at the trueness inside and let it rip.

Potentially you will live.

Photo by John Henry.  Words by Jordan Shappell