I Start Again

I Start Again


This is about my son’s cancer. I love you monkey boy.




My head hangs low.
Somehow I got caught up... between your lies and your truth.
You have stolen my life.

Yesterday is so far behind me. Tomorrow is like rubbing my skin on asphalt.
Today? Today is waiting. Waiting for familiar things.
The wind laughing around my face.
The trees looking down at me and smiling brightly.
The scent of water making my body shiver happily.
My mother’s gentle lips touching my cheek.
My father’s hand holding mine tight.
Anticipation has me glued.

Sometimes I think this cycle never ends.
How can you leave me standing?
When my body is so small it wants to break.
You've cut me down to size.
I never imagined.

Familiar things. Rolling down a hill of wet grass.
Sticking my nose in a pile of flowers. Oh, the smell.

You've opened up my scars, and given me new ones.
I try to stitch you up, and you just cut the thread.
I keep crying, you keep going.
I want to make you taste this, now.
I feel my brain quivering with fright.
It has no understanding of what its body is doing.
It has lost control, control it was made to have. It was stolen.

My heart is beating faster. We could fall apart.

I'm bleeding out on country roads that carry the strong scent of evergreen.
I stare to the sky with my arms stretching up as far as they will go.
"Who are you?” I scream.
Gazing at what is supposed to be familiar. What I long for. What was taken.

Familiar.
Liar. You brought back what I murdered. Murdered ghosts coming back to haunt.
I search everywhere, and still, nothing.
Will you be on the other side? Or will you forget me?
Cells are being taken without my permission.
I think in thousands of broken pieces.
The spirits I adore, they are far away now.
They don't even understand why I'm here.
All they know is that they were disowned.
All I know is I have no choice.

You chose to come here. You chose to take me away.
You chose to make me fight a fight I'll never know how to.
I don't even know where you came from.
There is never a reason why with you.

I want my freedom back. The life that all beings take advantage of.
I try to think of tomorrow. But it just still makes my skin pain with road burns.
Yesterday can't ever disappear. Today has no choice.
And tomorrow will always have memories.

I, have to live underground... hide in the dirt. Fall through the cracks of the sidewalk that no one ever looks at. The sidewalk that is walked on by 5000 people a day.

Can I be your enemy?

A world without you is a world that would stop forever. This is dangerous. Corrupt.

I'm saying prayers under street lights.
I see my parents cry, I see them break.
Why are you so blind?

We have to stay here. We have to hang on to a moment.
We have to chase after you, while in one spot.
If we don't, we lose. I cry myself to sleep. Out loud, and inside.
Swallowing too much. So much until it makes my body feel strange. But I have to.
Or you will kill me.

Familiar.
I've always wanted to sail on a ship. Waves of wonder. Skies of everlasting beauty.
Beauty in storms, beauty in sun. I'll love you, I'll always love you.
You will live forever.
Always. Always, and forever.

This; familiarity, it may never start.
I must get back.
I must get back.
Get me back.

Who me?

I am Beth. Yes, Beth is my name. I never really think about my name. Whether I like it, or don't. Whether I'm supposed to wonder about liking it, or not. I go to college. A rundown shit hole they call a college, in this rundown shit hole town. I want to be in college forever. I feel it will make me better than everyone else. And I am probably right when I look around at the kids these days. I've danced for 14 years now. Every kind of dance. I started out in ballet. And though I hate pop and rap music, I do dance my best when dancing to it.

I never told myself... "I want to pop pills!". But come Friday after my fucking week I take a few pain killers, what ever kind, and go to a pub like club. It's old-fashion and comfortable. It's stained glass light fixtures make it soothing. Plus... I work there.
I dance, in clothes that is, to entertain our guests. There are only three of us and we carry our dancing as a privilege there. We have come to grow on our boss.

Larry. He is a good man, a bad man, a noble man... an asshole. He never treats us girls bad. But he is not a protector. He only cares. I met Cal on my own. But, I still look at Larry like he is our introducer. Cal wouldn't have ever been in our pub if it wasn't for Larry. I would have never been in the pub if I didn't want to be a ballerina when I grew up. None the less, we met. He wasn't near me that whole night. I never even really noticed him. But he noticed me.

That night when the bar cleared, the two other girls went with some men, and Larry took his usual dark clothed crew to the back, I sat at the piano. Larry got it for me. Well, for the pub. But because of me, I think.

I played with my entire being. You play different when you are alone. It was so real, my body broke into a piano itself. My fingers, were keys.
I paused mid song because I hit a C. One wrong note out of all my fingers notes. My thumb was supposed to be on the B.

"That was beautiful." Said a voice that lingered on my backbone. I turned abruptly to see, Cal. A man handsome in his own right. He had his own genre. Perfect fitting dark jeans. Muscular, and healthy looking. Light brown hair and light green eyes. He had the weak smell of a wonderful cologne I still can't place. Since that day it's been weak, and enough too. Mm. I guess I say he's his own genre because he seems to have a cloud around him. Some thick aura like cloud. Filled with spirit. Spirit of every kind. Compassion, coldness, sex appeal, and friendship, arrogance, slyness, and honesty. Yes, Cal is honest.

I love him. It's a platonic love. Every in an out of the word platonic, is us. Except for one. I think. We haven't had sex. But, we have a sexual connection. So, maybe we aren't platonic. This, is where our issues are. This, is what separates us, from the world. Everything with us, and around us... is, and isn't, at the same time.

I'll Take a Martini

"A Winter in Hell." She said while skipping ahead of Cal. "That is what I shall call this." She bit her bottom lip and floated along trying to ignore what was to come.

"Well, Beth... the body was taken care of." He looked down. She flung around to face him and continued to walk, backwards.

"Oh; but we don't kill people." She said mocking him and turned back around flinging her hair with her.

"No. We don't; kill people." Again, his eyes spoke more than his words. Their understanding of one another was irreplaceable. Others never seemed to grasp how they perceived the world. How it functioned... how it worked.

"I'm so angry with you. You took something that should have been mine." This was the first time she ever had a negative emotion toward him. And she didn't like it. "I had every right to be the one to kill him. Not you, or anyone. Me."

"You, and every other woman he hurt." He wanted to say a million things. Like that the scene would have been too much for her. The torture that the fat, stale smelling man went through was more than she could have ingested. Or even that he died quicker than he would have, if he hadn't yelled how good she was.

"Fuck you." She blurted out, wishing she hadn't immediately after. "I deserved the kill."

They kept walking down the trail, and it seemed like it would never end. Cal tucked his hands into his long coat to keep them warm. He felt the shell in his pocket from the murder weapon, and wished he could hand them to her as a souvenir. Though he didn't shoot the gun, it was the last thing the fat man saw. He stared at Beth waltzing a step or two ahead of him, stared at her hair, her body. He could only think of two things: he was scared to teach her, he needed a drink; and maybe a third thing, of how sexy she was.

They came near the ending of the trail.

"Let's... go grab a drink." He unclenched the shells and grabbed her hand to pull her closer to him. They were entering a territory that wasn't his. But if a person was in his life, they were important. And he protected anyone important.

Beth bounced next to him holding his arm. "Yes please! Anything to get me out of--"

"Well, well, look at this Carlos! We got us a Cal!" Two men came lurking from the shadows of an old, shutdown flour mill. Beth clung to Cal's back. "How about we play a little... chase the kitten."

"Mm. That one looks good Cal, where did you get her?" He wiped his snot and beer smelling saliva with the sleeve of his coat. His beard hair had tiny icicles in it.

"Leave us be Mike. Why don't you and your buddy step out of our way. We don't need this done right now."

"Oh but Cal, I think we do. You seen Bill... Cal?" The street lamp near them flickered.

"Bill is a lucky one Mike. Now excuse us." Cal knew there wouldn't be any excusing as he tried to back away with Beth still clinging to him.

"I ain't gonna let that happen now little Cal." Mike stepped in front them.

Cal knew Beth wouldn't let go of him unless he made her. In one turn, his left hand threw her to the ground and he crouched down to grab his knife from his belt wrap. Carlos pounced on him from the right and Cal immediately punctured him in the gut. Blood spat on Cal as well as everything in close proximity to them. Jumping up quickly he noticed Mike just staring at him.

"Lets get this done Mike, you can lay right next to Bill." Cal stood out of the light listening to Beth pant with small gagging noises.

"I think your weapon choice is finally ready to haunt you." Mike held up a pristine looking tan and silver semi automatic pistol.

Cal laughed. "All you have to do is get close enough to make your kill. One hit is one kill. It is that simple." And he flew to Mike, making his statement known and true.



Beth pushed herself to her knees weeping. Cal turned to her and knelt in front of her. "I can't see his blood." She inhaled loudly.

"What do you mean?" He said with a serene, monotone voice.

"There's mud... under the snow, and I can't see the difference between his blood, and the dirt. Dirt. Does that mean Spring is fucking coming?" She had tears dripping down her face.

"I hate Spring." Cal said still in front of her. "Let's take advantage of the rest of this dark night." His deep voice lured Beth to her feet.

"How did you know them?" Beth tried to gather her scattered mind.

"You sure you want to learn?" Cal looked at her with such a deep hearted and staid look that she felt her body become light, and heavy, at the same time. She looked away from him knowing for sure what she was going to drink.