The other side of the desk

            Looking out at her classroom, she paused as she looked at the faces before her.  Their eyes did not carry the weight of the painful years ahead or the mistakes that would haunt them.  The faces before her were clean, bright, and smiling at each other as they joked about things she could not hear and could not know.  She hoped things for their future, but she knew it would not be the things most people expected them to learn in freshman English.  She hoped they would learn to be kind, and to look outside of themselves to the things that matter. She hoped they would learn to be brave enough to fight for the things they are passionate about.  She hoped they would be fearless or maybe foolish enough to be recklessly passionate about helping others find peace and help in a dark world.  She hopes some will lose that hard shell that separates them from what they could be in another person’s life, and that some will never lose such an amazingly sweet spirit.  Looking out at her classroom, she paused and smiled thinking about doing this for years.

After the Rain

Why does the world seem so much clearer after the rain? 

It’s like we’ve momentarily shook off the dust. 

It’s as if we’ve almost caught a better world

By the heel.  Sitting in the gentle moss,

Surrounded by trees that smell like rain I can hear

The drizzling drops peck the leaves and limbs around me

With the pitter patter of calm. 

A cricket begins to sing her song for a captive audience,

Belting it out as if it’s her last chance. 

For a moment the world disappears. 

I wonder how God could make a world so complicated

Still radiate with such a simple beauty. 

In our awkwardly beautiful humanity

It bleeds through the seams every day

In the most complicated pursuits of happiness

Like our job, our money, and our friends

Finally boiling down to the simplest joys like

Family, home, and love. 

I’m not sure if we are ever supposed to feel as if we fit,

To be sure we have a handle on things after all this time. 

Maybe we are just supposed to jump in feet first

And sing our hearts out, no matter the song. 

I once heard that many people will die

With their music still trapped within them. 

I pray God will help us teach each other to hum,

To catch that better world by the heel,

Shake the storm from our shoulders

And sing as if it’s our very last chance.

A Memory To Be

    One day I'll look back at the memories of this house, these days, I'll smile at what I remember was fun or hard.  I'll see this was the moment I realized I didn't know anything, and when my gut made me think my choice was absolute and right I realized every choice was chance and every absolute was merely a guess.  I'll remember this time and place with friends and fights as my lesson that I can't and won't be the hero in everyone's story.  This was the place and moment I began to grow up.

The Anatomy of a Dear

     “Damn, I broke my finger,” she exclaimed.  She grips her hand both firmly and gingerly as she tries to inspect the once working hand now both stiff and aching.

     “Here, let me see,” he said.  He bent over her hand tenderly caressing the disfigured ring finger on the left hand.  “Well I guess that settles it, you won’t ever get married will you?”

      She looks up at him shocked at his blunt accusation.  “Why would you say that?” 

     “No ring I get you will fit over that break; you’ll do anything to keep me from marrying you even if it means breaking the finger that would hold us together.”

To Dance

“Prom, who needs it?” Michael claimed.  Molly looked at him and smiled as she turned her attention back to the tv.  “All we need is Molly Ringwald, you know you guys have more in common than just a name. An eighties marathon is all we need.”

            “Sixteen candles, Pretty in Pink,” Molly said.  She sat there thinking.  “Hey Michael, do you believe in past lives?”

            “Um, Molly, what’s wrong,” Michael said.  He looked at her and watched as a single tear slid down her porcelain cheek.

            “If there is I hope that in some place in time I was brave enough to dance, at least once.”

Creation Myth (written for a class)

How Man Found His Strength

Before the stars found their home among the skies, and before the oceans and lands agreed on their boundaries, the gods filled the heavens. Powerful yet foolish, they spent thousands of years merely reveling in vain beauty, but the king of the gods, Enago, wanted more in the cosmos to rule over than his body. He declared that every god and goddess create a galaxy to bring more glory to the heavens. The universe exploded into action, but two gods struggled to meet the king’s demands: Ulani and Fuzu.

Ulani’s mesmerizing presence struck Fuzu. He chased her across the entire universe trying to set traps among the blooming stars and planets. However, Ulani’s independent nature refused to be caged by his love. She set out into the void searching for an empty galaxy to avoid Fuzu’s relentless pursuit. She mocked his efforts, and a laughing trail of comets went swirling through the heavens, mocking him at every chance. Fuzu begged for Ulani’s love, but nothing worked. Her heart remained unconquered.

Hundreds of years passed and Fuzu’s chase for Ulani continued, but in his haste, Fuzu began destroying the worlds created by other gods. Furious, the other gods tried to destroy Fuzu, and war almost broke out among the heavens. King Enago tired of trying to stop the fighting with demand that Fuzu stop his foolishness, but instead of agreeing, Fuzu pleaded with the king to help him capture Ulani. Fuzu’s heart seethed with bitterness at Ulani’s constant mockery, and he wanted to destroy her. In hopes of creating peace and finally receiving a new galaxy from Fuzu, King Enago agreed to help trap Ulani.

King Enago went to Ulani’s empty galaxy and pricked his finger. A single drop of his blood created a planet without form, and Enago told Fuzu this was where he could trap Ulani. Laying in wait, Fuzu hid in the void waiting for Ulani’s return. As she streamed into the galaxy unaware of Fuzu’s presence, the existence of the formless planet startled her. As she examined the depths of the planet, Fuzu pounced and forced her body down onto the planet’s surface. Her eyes filled with terror, and she screamed out with such force that the galaxy began to spin. Her breath whipped across the surface of the land, the winds screaming to be freed. Fuzu, full of rage, ripped Ulani’s limbs from her body and forced them into the soil. All manner of plant life sprang forth on these new lands. Ulani pleaded for her freedom and cried the rivers into existence. The blood from her body mixed with her tears, becoming the waters of the earth. Ulani’s blood still dances in the waters at sunset. Fuzu ripped out her tongue and set fire to it. He tossed the burning tongue over his shoulder and it rested in the galaxy, creating light for the earth. Her hair and organs became creatures that roamed the world, mute of speech and intelligence. Fuzu’s bitter heart would not stop until he had completely destroyed Ulani’s freedom.

So, he plucked her right eye from its place and formed women to inhabit the world. He created a weak creature with all the cleverness of Ulani. And in true revenge, he tried to strip Ulani’s strength of will from her daughters. Ulani’s heart began to break as Fuzu’s plan took form. Fuzu plucked his left eye from his face and formed mankind to rule over Ulani and her daughters. He made their strength unquestionable, but his sour nature concerning the goddess also transferred into man. Lastly, Fuzu plunged his hand into Ulani and ripped her heart from her chest. Holding the heart above his head in victory, Ulani’s blood fell upon his face and seeped into his eye. With the union of Ulani’s blood, he realized what he had done. He looked on his sons and their mimicking actions inspired horror in him. Fuzu’s sons found their strength intoxicating and bore down hard upon the earth and its daughters.

Crying out, Fuzu raised his hand to strike down his sons, but King Enago shackled Fuzu’s hands, already loving Fuzu’s world. Fuzu realized he would have to watch Ulani’s daughters forever suffer under the wrath of his sons, and Fuzu in his sorrow began to cry with an attempt to flood the earth below. But man survived. After he failed to destroy the strength and cruelty of man, Fuzu ripped his own heart from his chest, and in agony, took up Ulani’s heart once more, burying his and Ulani’s heart in the earth. The hearts transformed into a seedling in a barren land that men had not found yet. 

Fuzu hoped one day that a daughter of Ulani would discover Ulani’s independence and seek the tree of conjoined hearts. If Ulani’s daughter found their tree and cut it down, he knew Enago would not be able to hold Ulani captive anymore and the prison walls of earth would crumble around them. Then Ulani would have her freedom. Now whenever the earth quakes or the seas roar beyond their bounds, men say that it’s Ulani trying to break free from her prison of Fuzu’s earthly grip. Fuzu’s tears still water the earth as his sons destroy the earth created of Ulani and her daughters that inhabit it. When the massive tree of freedom grows into fullness, and a daughter of Ulani treks across the barren land to find it, the chains will be broken and both mother and daughter will be free again.

Home Cookin'

     I cooked today.  It always reminds me of the kitchen where I learned to cook, and the woman who taught me.  It makes me sad sometimes when I cook to know she’s so far away now, but it’s that good kind of sad.  The kind of sad that you are grateful for because it means you had someone to care about and who cares about you.  And for just a moment you can catch a glance of those days in the corner of your eye.  I catch my breath and try to hold on to that warm Colorado sunshine lightly falling through the window; the dust dancing along the air.  I strain to hear the kids who are as close as brothers and sister out in the yard laughing and fighting like we all do as kids.  The dry air was perfect for baking, and I was honored to be there.  I smile as I remember my friends, my family, my home.