Tag Archive: introspective


The letter I would have sent

Filed under: An Introspective, Uncategorized — Leave a comment
May 13, 2026

We have never known how much time Holly would get, because we did not know anything about her health the first year of her life, but I know that no number of years will be enough. She personifies that which I call good in this world. She is hope that tomorrow can be better than yesterday. She is trust that an outstretched hand can help not hurt. She is unconditional love in spite proof to the contrary.

We found her walking down a busy road on a rainy December morning, painfully thin and frightened. We took her home and made her part of our family. She had been nothing to someone, but she is everything to us. We promised Holly she would always be safe with us, and that we would never give up on her.

Working with VSS oncology and the University of Missouri Vet clinic is how we plan to keep our promise. With the help of these critical scans we will be able to move forward with a treatment that will allow Holly to work towards the best chance of survival we can hope for. If we are not able to perform these scans Holly’s treatment options will be limited and the likelihood of survival diminished.

We thank you for your consideration, and we hope that you agree giving Holly every opportunity to beat her thyroid cancer is a worthy cause.

That is the letter I would have sent for the procedure Holly should have received… but that monster we call cancer stole her away from us. In the end, my plans were useless. While I made phone calls, set appointments, and gathered information the monster grew. When I thought every step we took was bringing the promise of more time closer, her hope shrank.

She fought harder than she should’ve had to for things I took for granted; a breath, a step, restful sleep, a comfortable position. But through it all was love. It colored every moment, and it informed every decision. Our love for her is absolute and if it alone could heal she would be beside me now as I write this.

I would have moved heaven and earth for you sweet pea. When we made you a part of our family your father said “everyone else gave up on her, we will never give up on her”. He was right and he kept his word. I hope that what comes next is even more beautiful than your dreams sister, and I hope that one day we can journey together again.

For now… you are loved, you are safe, and the bad days are behind you.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Liars lie

Filed under: Short Stories — Leave a comment
March 1, 2025

I look down at you sleeping and tell myself I know why you ask me the same questions every day. It’s because you wouldn’t stay if you were me. It took me a very long time to realize that if you could run from yourself you would never look back. Even longer to understand that knowledge of a truth does not equate to belief in the truth.

So you question me…

How could I be telling the truth when what I am saying is separated 180 degrees from your truth? It’s because there is no point in lying to you. The lies I told you outlived their usefulness almost immediately, and the pleasure of having a secret stoped being fun shortly after. I stopped trying to lie to you years ago. I’m lying to me.

“Fact, I will always be true. There is no version of myself that would or could betray you in this way. You won’t believe me on this, but it’s true.

Fact, I will never leave you. I promised to love and care for you and, with as much patience as I can muster, I will. You can’t accept the proof of this, but it’s true.

Fact, I love you. For reasons that no one else will understand I love you. I love you in a way that is so deeply ingrained in me it, in part, defines me. You don’t trust me on this, but it is true.”

Your small sleep groans punctuate the night and effectively cut off my soliloquy. The facts I have been listing under my breath hang in the air surreal and unsubstantial, as if they were written out of colored smoke. I wait afraid to move or breathe incase it tares your veil of dreams to pieces, waking you completely. Not till you settle deeper into sleep can I continue. It’s as if I believe you can even hear my thoughts. There is no other explanation for the internal one-sided conversation I am now holding.

“Though I will not acknowledge these truths as facts. It is true that I’m growing tired and resentful. It is true that you frustrate me to no end. It is true that I wish I was less determined to keep my word.

So when I answer your questions quietly with little inflection I am telling you the truth, and when I answer your questions loudly, angrily, or vehemently I am telling the truth. It isn’t worth the grief or the pain to lie to you.”

So now I only lie to myself, because liars always lie.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

A path I can’t yet tread

Filed under: An Introspective, Poetry like stories — Leave a comment
July 28, 2024

I know you had to go, you could not stay,

but I miss you each and every day.

You were my heart, my conscience, my clock

and now it feels the world must stop.

Somehow, someway I must move forward

or run the risk of going wayward.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I await that day we will meet again

but know I’m not alone till then.

I feel your presence as if you’re here,

or out of reach but oh so near.

You walk with me on every breeze

and I with you in moments like these.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Though you have taken a path I can’t yet tread

I know it’s one with warm sunshine ahead.

Your mark upon me will not dull or fade

my grief at this parting will be dearly paid.

My love for you cannot be measured

not in tears nor memories treasured.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Someone else

Filed under: An Introspective, Uncategorized — Leave a comment
February 16, 2024

I took a long hard appraising look in the mirror. It’s not The Persistence of Memory I tell myself, but it’s different in a hundred tiny ways. Stray strands of white or god-help-me-grey snake through my hair. Fine lines and dark circles surround my eyes in an outline much less flattering than kohl. I am sure it’s me, but if I look away quickly enough it could be someone else.

A woman whose pinched expression cannot hide the dimples in her smile or the annoyance written across her brow.

If I squint I can almost see the person she set out to become. Satisfied. Impactful. Happy. I wonder what would make her laugh hard enough throw her head back and shed a joyful tear. I guess at what could give her pause, make her sit with a moment and let it grow. I theorize what might be her biggest regret. Wondering if she carries it on her sleeve or locked away in her heart.

I hope for that woman, the one who cannot be me.

I want her to know contentment and comfort… but she only smiles when someone is looking.

All rights to ShutterStock
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

December mornings

Filed under: Short Stories — Leave a comment
December 9, 2022

The trees stretched bony hands towards a sun that never quite delivered. While all around her was the death rattle of winter. It was a cold stark beauty she thought, almost like a slab of marble, hard but still compelling. It brought a slight glint to her eyes in the early morning hour.

Looking up through the branches to the sky she felt a closeness with the off putting weather. It made people turn up their collars and hurry away. She had that effect sometimes too. People often found themselves with other places to be when she was around. It was just as well. Bren liked the solitude that could be found outside. It seemed more honest to her.

Outside there was little distraction, if one could look past the societal fingerprints that seemed to stand out against every surface. However, Bren liked to think that she could shut out that nonsense. She would sit in a moment watching a bird or tracking a cloud and never once flush with embarrassment.

It was time to blink reality back into focus though. Time to zoom out so the interesting shape in front of her could become a thing with solid lines again. She tensed against the thoughts that came racing in. They streamed by in watercolor sadness and angry heavy modem art lines.

It was always easier to not think. To just exist and worry about the minutes as they came, but there was something about the stillness of December mornings. It seemed to demand introspection and deep thoughts. A shiver rain down her spine that was less to do with the wind than the thoughts whistling through her mind. Bren pushed her hands deeper into her pockets wishing for a way to not look as anxious as she felt.

She turned back to the window glowing softly with warm white twinkle lights. Her eyes closed as she took a steadying breath. Okay she told herself, and she hoped she was right.

Tags: , , , , ,
Comment

Reality is never kind

Filed under: An Introspective, Poetry like stories — Leave a comment
November 5, 2020

Egg on my face again, and I would have guessed that by now I wouldn’t mind.

But when you believe in the lie you live reality is never kind.

Cut it clean or it’ll never mend, this isn’t a wound time can bind.

Swallow your tears then… happiness isn’t yours to find.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Junior’s Clan

Filed under: Uncategorized — Leave a comment
October 7, 2020

We gathered last night, by firelight in a huddle of sorts, to steel our nerves. Three generations deep we sat and talked and laughed to hold back the dark. If only to remember that the whole remains even if it feels diminished. It was as if we wanted to cement the fact that standing together could represent standing for one another. In that moment there were no tears only strength.

My grandfather might be gone but these are my people.

He was a man. He had Alzheimer’s. He would not have remembered me, but I remember him. To me he was the most imposing man in my childhood, stern but with eyes that could smile when he laughed, and COVID took him.

My you find your way to the tree of knowledge on your way to what comes next.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

I watched…

Filed under: Poetry like stories, Short Stories, Uncategorized — Leave a comment
August 15, 2020

I watched his mind shatter.

A thousand sharp and unforgiving shards, that cut and tore as they fell, surrounding him. There is no graceful exit. His tender feet, frozen with indecision and fear, cannot bare the weight.

Is he slipping or have I lost him? Either way I’m a captive audience. The active yet unwilling participant in a game of chess I didn’t start. I might not see the checkmate coming but I can feel it.

The pain reads across his face, a map to an empty future filled with anxious worry. A distorted image of twisted tension locked in place. I build my effigy in granite, praying I do not crack, sliding the emotion from my heart just in case he looks.

It’s my job to assemble the broken pieces but the image isn’t right. A fuzzy picture smudged with blood and streaked with tears. I squint and strain to bring reality back into focus for us both, but mostly just for him.

With foundation rotted and supports unhinged I’m still building our house of cards. I’ve lost track of the white rabbit but I’m pretty sure the time is late. The pills haven’t done anything at all, and he can’t or won’t sleep easily tonight.

It’s shallow water, and I’m drowning, not that that will slow me down. Holding on is all that’s left. So I cling to his shattered being even though it’s gotten hard. Mind of glass or filled with sand, either one could slip through my tenuous grasp.

But I’m still here, watching him, as time runs out.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Comment

Caught

Filed under: Short Stories, Uncategorized — Leave a comment
July 28, 2020

The loop was endless perfection, no beginning, no end. It just was. No one questioned it anymore. No one kept count of the days, weeks, or years just the minutes. Just the long seemingly endless seconds.

Those we kept.

While it was pointless that everyone still had a clock even if they didn’t have a calendar. It was interesting to think back to the moment when the days, already so blurred and hazy, went away. But moments were all that was left. Of course we all remembered the scourge and the riots. The starting point, however, had faded into the loop when it got worse not better.

What power lies in a date that doesn’t in a moment? When we lost the historians to current events no one even bothered asking that hard question. Who had the time? We were busy fighting for each moment holding on by our fingernails daring the sunrise to come.

And it isn’t over. And the rule of the loop is, it doesn’t end. But I’ve been keeping track and hoarding time.

The loop wasn’t movement, that was the lie, and it will work till someone looks up and rubs the blinders from their eyes. It only survives if we stop looking.

So now it’s time to put the x-ray specs on. To cut out the rot and flatten the curve.

Together we can break this wheel and finally feel the winds of progress upon our brow.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Rather, rather not

Filed under: An Introspective, Poetry like stories — Leave a comment
May 26, 2020

The truth is I would rather not.

I would rather not be the maid, the butler, and the bank.

I would rather not be the difference between swam or sank.

I would rather not be the cure if it means I must have been the cause.

I would rather not be the measure of motion against your pause.

I would rather shine without worry of your tarnish.

I would rather act with impunity and without carnage.

I would rather be who I am without censor.

I would rather live my life without wanting more.

So the lie is I alway will.

Scream #2 Art Print by andreaslie
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment
Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started