Theme 18: Under

'I'm going under'

Under. Sinking... falling.
Fallen.
Under. It's become nonsensical.

Create a world around you where you won't go under.

Embrace the changes as they come
So you don't slip and fall - become one with them
So you aren't taken under.

Beneath yourself.  To another place
Under where you are meant to be.

Never stop hearing, speaking, shouting your words,
Thoughts, ideas... let them be heard
Or they shall go under....

It is your Truth and only your Truth that will be lost...
To no one but yourself... and while that may
Make this all seem so trivial in meaning,
It is your life
Your RIGHT to be heard, to be felt, to be UNDERstood. 

I find myself asking the same questions I asked over a decade ago
When I was just a babe (some people think I still am).
I feel it slipping away... that youth.
But I've had that sinking feeling before.. that feeling of going under...

And I know I have it in me to fight, TO FIGHT until
Things turn around, and I come out okay,
I can't help but wonder HOW LONG
until I go under again.

How long in what seems a perpetual game I play
I've become a part of and haven't yet found/formed the tools to escape...

I'm going under.. just speaking these words... shame on me.
These words I've spoken so many times and, for over a decade now,
Have become so tired of speaking again and again. 

We shall rise.  We shall rise alone or with one another...
It doesn't really matter.
Into our greatness... one day it will come;
(I can almost promise this.)
We know it exists we just have to start from the bottom...
Under all of this... this pressure,
Under where we feel we were meant be.

I'm with you if you'll be here with me...
I bring myself back here to you every time
I feel I'm going under....

Theme 17: Blood

Blood. On my shoes, in your hair.

Sticky, messy, thick. Pooling
around your aching self.

Sickening to look at. Nauseating to think about.

I can nearly taste it, or feel it flowing through my veins,
running this body, this heart, this aching heart.

Feeble. Woman vs. Man. Sick. Growth, age, deterioration.
Yet it's all the same.
The stuff that moves through us is almost all the same...

Your type, my type... your diet based on your blood.
Do you subscribe to that notion?
 I might try it if I thought it would make a difference....

I see blood, oozing out your vessels like water through a tap.
Does this work for you? Does this make you queasy? 

Can you feel, taste, or smell your blood... without any
being present? Can you conjure up the vision of this
crimson-life-force running through you and me, him and her,
both your lover and your enemy?  

That man you judge, that woman you scorn, they'll bleed,
if you cut them, just the same. It's all the same.
Over and over.

Blood. Flood. Flowing blood. Through
your veins, my veins.  Like a river that never stops,
only this time it does.  Trivial compared to the Nile.
Eventually it stops flowing, the river in our song, our tune,
our beat. Heartbeat. 

Would this blood go on forever if only we could build a well?

Theme 16: Spit

Spit. Saliva. Pity. The act of spitting upon someone. Spitting on the sidewalk or out the window.  Spitting being illegal. Spitting during an athletic game... accepted... denounced. Tiger Woods on the green having to apologize.

My dad taught me how to spit and it's something I'm actually quite proud of; I see it as a talent if you will. I don't know if you'll think it's as cool as I do, but growing up an athlete, I did my fair share of spitting. Frustrated spits, over-salivated spits, nervous spits. Because-I-can spits. Watch-me-spits. One of my most memorable pictures of me during HS softball is of me in the outfield mid-spit.  I love it.  Completely cracks me up.  We were playing at a Southern, and I meant business. That was an I-mean-business/don't-mess-with-me spit.   

Long walks in the woods as a child, long walks down the dirt road I grew up on. Two miles long and we lived near dead center... either direction prime real estate for Spitfests. Walking the dogs (and sometimes the Yak), making stories up about Dive Rock, Robin's Egg Corner, and Bear Mountain. I could take you on a tour of my childhood woods... my backyard, which just so happened to back up to a gorgeous state park. We'd walk the deer trails and make them our own. We'd spit the entire way.  Not that we made a big deal out of it, it was unspoken... but as a girl, a spitting girl... I made sure to get my fair share of spits out with my dad.  It was our quality time. He'd spit, all of a sudden I'd realize all that excess saliva sitting swamped in my mouth. My turn. Pride. The relief of a good spit.

Bonus points for distance. This is what Dad's are for, isn't it?

Theme Five: Rot

'Go ahead and just let it rot,' she snarled as she turned her back to him.

He stood there, unsure whether to break the silence or let it be.  She's been this way for a while now.  Caught in her own world, overly sensitized, distracted.  It weighed on him heavily, but he had no idea how to respond when she got like this.

She walked up the stairs and through the screen door, letting it slam behind her.  He let out a heavy sigh and walked toward the shed. 

She picked up the basket of apples they'd purchased earlier in the day at the market.  She began washing them frantically, dousing each with baking soda to scrub off any potential pesticides.  Cleaning was her escape.  Cleaning was her zen.  Yet in realizing this, she still did not find the escape appealing.

It didn't stop her.  She piled up the two dozen apples after rinsing them and opened the cupboard, clanging around for the apple peeler.  'If only he could see into my heart,' she thought.  It was true.  If only he could know the discord running rampant in front of him was a reflection of the chatter in her mind that she tried but could not control.   

She stood at the counter peeling apple after apple, while mentally lining up the tasks that will keep her busy through the day.  Preoccupied.  Her fingers began to prune from the wetness.  'An apple pie.  I suppose I'll turn this mess into a beautiful lattice-topped apple pie.  What an idealistic image,' she thought.  The perfect family with the perfect wife, home baking apple pie on a sultry Sunday afternoon.    How... expected.  She shuddered as the warm breeze blew in through the kitchen window sweeping loose strands of hair across her bare neck.

A moment later, he came inside and washed his hands.  He dried them slowly on the towel, watching her as she kept her head down working steadily.  He grabbed her apple soaked fingers and pulled her toward the next room.  She started to resist him so she could clean her hands free of the muck coursing between her fingers, but he persisted.  He pulled her into the dining room.  He felt her soften, felt their world soften, witnessed it from the outside in, wanting to capture this moment.  Her arms went limp, releasing his fingers.  A smile spread across her face as she glanced upward noticing a modest one on his.

It took all the strength she had to step closer to him and throw her arms around his neck.  She then allowed herself to melt into him once again, this time from the truest depths of her core.