The most dangerous thing is the action
  in the most dangerous time.

Love is dangerous.

  It can make,

    but it can render hopeless.

Love is so powerful,
  "Love is as strong as death," they say.
 Could a love that powerful, that strong,
   exist in my heart, so estranged?

I *know* I have loved her, I *know* I love her.
  Is she going to love me?

  Do I need to fight to keep her, or
    do I need to fight just to get her?

Dangerous times, desperation clamours in
    my head...

My tongue lost its dexterity when
  I looked into her eyes.

  I wanted to keep looking, but
    for some reason I couldn't.

I wanted to burst out with a declaration.

  How dangerous these feelings are, strong and powerful.
    They would undo me, given half of half of half a chance.

Nothing binds tighter than blood,
  so they say.

But what binds a blood relative to another
  except that they share microscopic resemblances?
'Tis the love of the family.

Well, my family...
You see, my family...

...my
      family...?

I don't know what a family is, not really.
I can't go home--I feel out of place there.
I can't ignore--I do want to keep in touch.

Is a family rich?
Is a family poor?
Is a family wealthy?
Is a family destitute?
Is a family black?
Is a family white?
Is a family in-between?
Is a family on the fringe?
Is a family lukewarm?
Is a family hot?
Is a family cold?
Is a family loving?
Is a family abusive?

A family is none of those things.

Heaven help me if I know what it is, though.

If any of y’all were wondering, we’ve arrived, are unloaded.

Our headboard did not survive the journey. It would appear that the loaders did not load it wisely nor did they buttress it properly according to the way they loaded it.

Beth’s not been very well the past few days. We’re hoping it’s just stress! The eating schedule’s been way off (eating late, eating badly), and there’s been, of course, the physical and emotional stress of moving. We have less than a carload of stuff at the old apartment still, so I’m going to take care of that tomorrow morning and will hopefully be able to get back before lunchtime.

I imagine we’ll be unpacking for a while… but that’s OK!

We are tired, but safe.

They exchanged words. The words themselves were harmless. However, the ones doing the exchange meant little good will for the other.

It had already been ten years since they left each other. When it comes right down to it, they split over the apple. They would give you many other reasons, but it all boiled down to the apple.

She was afraid; he was too proud. They split, both leaving the godforsaken apple behind.

The apple only had two bites taken from it, one on each side. It did not turn brown, nor was it rotten inside. It was that same apple that joins us all in disarray. It is the one thing that we all share–and that divides us all from each other.

He never forgave her for taking that first bite. She never forgave him for not facing up to it, and on top of that, blaming her for the whole thing.

The stayed together for a short time–long enough to bear two sons–and then they parted.

I was only a fly on the wall when they met up last. They were full of venom each for the other. Ask them, and they’d tell you, “I bear no ill will,” but they do not speak soundly. Their actions thwart their lips.

So here they are, ten years later. Each one has their own life now. He has a wife and family; she has a boyfriend and is building towards a good pension. And they meet, but only because their son exists do they ever see each other.

They bicker over the water. She had a glass of water and commented on its taste. He then said that should wouldn’t ever be happy with what he had to offer anyway, so it didn’t really matter. She hesitated, cut the tension with a quip and left.

Meanwhile, the son was left behind to muse, to think about what had happened to his parents. Certainly he could not condone either one’s behavior. He could have taken his father’s side, since he was in the right in a few things–she had picked up and left, she had sworn him off, and so on. But the son could also have gone to his mother’s defense–he is always overbearing, he always has to be in control, and so forth.

The son shook his head. There was no way to truly reconcile these two. After all, their lives had brought them in different directions and a true reconciliation was out of the question. But what about his father’s children by his new wife? What will they ever know of this? Likely nothing. And what of his relationship with his new wife? Will it end like the first? And what of the mother? She does not know God–she refuses to know God.

So the son thought. He thought that there might be a chance to reconcile these two. “All I really want,” he thought, “is for them to not be hostile towards each other.” He then thought of what bitterness was. The initial sweetness of that apple had turned their stomachs bitter and raw. They refused to let that go. The mother and the father kept their stomachs filled with other things, but they would not let go of that wretched maw in the pit of their abdomens.

“Forgiveness,” said the son, “sounds easy enough. But it doesn’t seem that I can be the one to bring this to them. They don’t look up to me–they look down on me at best.”

So the son locked the door to his room and wept.

“What’s it like?” asked the little boy.

“Well,” the blue-green dragon replied, “there’s this fire in my belly. I know that it’s there, but a lot of the time it is pretty small.”

“So that is why your nostrils don’t smoke?”

“Exactly,” returned the dragon. “In fact, my nostrils hardly ever smoke, even when the fire gets big.”

The little boy looked puzzled. “But where does the smoke go when the fire gets big?”

The dragon could only shake his great head. “I don’t really know. I guess that it must stay inside.”

The boy turned from the dragon and looked at the sky. The dragon heaved a great sigh and gazed over the lush valley below.

The boy suddenly turned towards the dragon and said, “If there’s no smoke, then how do you know that there’s a fire?”

The dragon smiled sadly and, still gazing at the valley, replied, “I can feel it in my belly. Sometimes when the fire is small, I forget that it is even there. But when the fire gets big, I cannot contain it. I have to get rid of it somehow, usually by spitting it out. I don’t like when that happens, but there’s no other way to get rid of it.”

The little boy looked at the dragon quizzically. “Does the fire… hurt?”

The dragon looked the boy in the eyes. He didn’t answer, but the boy could tell from the way the dragon looked at him what the answer was.

Why is it that I feel lost?
I am marooned in the darkness, gasping for breath on a piece
    of driftwood in the storm.
I feel abandoned and not worth finding.
Just lying there, no energy to move, waiting to be found.
    Or to die.

Would I have wings, I would fly without care and totally
    free.
I could glide by the clouds, pitch toward the sun and
    the earth, faster than lightening.
Yet, with wings, I could not fly all the time, there must
    be periods of rest.
With this rest would come thought, thoughts of loneliness.
I would be horribly different.
I don't want wings.

Past is darkness.  Shrouded by memory.
  Bring to light, illuminate.
    See what it was that destroyed you.
  Look full upon your destroyer
    and fear him not.
        fear her not.

The destroyer is not the afflictor.
You may be run through and not lose hope.
Yet still even find joy in sorrow
                    gladness in suffering
                    peace in pain.

The destroyer cannot hold his prey
  the master will not allow it.
The destroyer cannot annihilate
  we will rise again.

And we will rise.
And we will rise.
And we will rise!

Rise, raise, risen!
  Every day and evermore.
Like the phoenix from its ashes
  So rise we from the field.

Flaming, blazing, streaking, flying
  to and from ourselves and God
Take the time to consider
  the state.

Regard the destroyer
  and let us laugh.
He can do no harm
  that is everlasting.

Lo, the destroyer is pinned to his pit,
  she cannot escape.
He is bound to eternity
  she will stay there forever.

I was still pretty Christian-y when I wrote this, as you can see from some of the imagery.

I don’t know exactly where I was mentally when I wrote this, but this was my fall semester of my 4th year of college, and I barely made it out of two classes with Ds instead of Fs. I was very depressed and was becoming increasingly suicidal.

I don’t know what else to tell you about the poem except that I knew at the time (and also know now) that I was not writing about “the Devil.”

I’m moving to Newmarket, NH this weekend!

I’m quite excited about this move–it’s a move up from where we currently live in a number of ways, but also it’s much closer to better job opportunities for the both of us.

But can I just say that I do not enjoy moving? I hate the packing, the cleaning, the packing, the packing, the packing… aruuuuugh! If it was just cleaning, that wouldn’t be so bad, because that’s not a problem for me. Packing, though, just seems like a task of putting a never-ending mountain of crap into boxes.

Right now, we don’t really have the time to go through boxes and throw stuff away (and with the commute I had, I was exhausted during the week and used the weekends to recuperate). When we get to the new place, one of the things I’d like to do is reduce the number of boxes that follow me when I move, because it has definitely increased from when I moved out of my father’s house (a grand total of two boxes that did not include clothes or currently-used computer equipment).

I’m so tired at the moment… my back is groaning and occasionally screams if I twist just so (and yes, I try to remember not to twist, of course, but, I direct you to the whole “tired” thing)… I’m so out of shape… but I’m very glad that I hired some help this time around! It is nice having a few extra bucks, for sure.

I find myself unable to do very simple tasks, such as packing a box of books… I’m all thumbs and have a hard time focusing my eyes.

Maybe I’ll repost some more of my old poetry while I’m resting.

A poem I wrote in 2001 and my interpretation (that I should have had as Trusted Content from the beginning, but I am still tempted to provoke the rejection of others):

“Bah”
My Interpretation of “Bah”

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