Challenger

Challenger of a turbulent tide

Please hand me the key

To your world inside

We'll sidestep the monsters

Welcome truth to peruse

Kick dark fate down the staircase

What's left you'll use -

Challenger of a turbulent tide

Know you are stronger than that

Dark fiction of unscrupulous ways

Your base mind is an iron flat -

Challenger of a turbulent tide

Filling your pockets

A most watery ride

Brilliantly broken

The last page you pen alone...

Framing dusty, dark floorboards

A Room of Your Own.

Ghosting

I went out on the patio and sat down on the front step. My glass swirled the thick red liquid around like a lost, dark promise forgotten. Soft footsteps made me look up to see small eyes glinting my way. A little girl about 10 with a bowl haircut and a ripped knee in her dirty jeans. She was holding a ball and stopped to say hi.

“Hi yourself. You out playing some basketball?” I shaded my eyes as the sun was just starting to descend.

“Yeah. Do you play too?” Her front tooth made a window in her mouth as her words curled around a smile.

“I use to actually. Not so much anymore.” I tilted my glass for a sip and met her smile.

“What position do you play?”

“Guard. I'm real good. I even got a three pointer once only the game was over.” She bounced the ball with her tiny hand and I wondered how in the world she could control the ball at all.

“Wow. Three pointers are difficult. You keep playing I bet you'll get one while the game is still on.” she shot a smile my way and shook her head.

With only a child's trust, she crossed the grass toward the patio with the ball on her hip.

“How did you skin your knee?” I pointed to her jean hole and she shrugged.

“I dunno. I climb trees and play ball all the time. I'm faster than most the boys in my grade. I probably did it playing.”

“I use to do all that stuff to. Well, you just keep doing it and having fun.”

“Why don't you play ball anymore?” her brown eyes asked the glass in my hand as I consciously set it aside to think.

“I don't know actually. It's different when you get older.”

“Howcome?”

I laughed uncomfortably and said I really didn't have a good answer for her other than priorities change when you get older and she would understand that one day.

Then, with all the maturity a 10 year old can have with a gap toothed smile and ripped knee, she made a kind of exasperated sigh and looked me dead in the eye.

“Sounds awful. You shouldn't ever stop having fun.”

Before I could respond, she shot me a quick pass with her ball and I almost knocked over my glass to grab it last minute, but I got it. I smiled in response through the one upping that had just occurred.

Then a thin voice carried in the air down the street and the little girl turned quickly in that direction and stated, “That's Mom. Gotta go.” Her skinny legs carried her down the street and around the corner before I could say a thing.

I stood up to remind the girl about her ball, and my ears heard a second faint call in the air -

“Amy! Dinner...”

I looked down at my hands with a strange smile and saw only a glass.

Serial Dating

Oh - the Therapeutic Message from a good book! To feel oneself drawn in and cradled from a simple s t o r y. We are given a voyeur's peek into a world unlike our own - or perhaps too similar to. We meet characters with details we can see, and voices we can hear, lives we can imagine inserting ourselves in. A good book is a break, a vacation, a pleasure. A seasoned writer will weave a truly unique web of words across each page to draw us in all the more. Lines we say over - out loud, paragraphs we must share with another soul simply because we were touched. We can skitter around the gamut of emotions until we reach that last chapter/paragraph/line. T h e n, a creeping strangeness infiltrates our psyche that states boldly; 'No, not yet-not the E N D'

But it has to come. The End is a necessity. The End is the author's way of tying up loose ends in a way so that you will remember them. 

If you read a lot,  you too are a serial dater. Someone who invests somewhat safely in the lives of others for a set amount of time. You will come to care for those lives, feel things and then ever so unsimply be told 'it's over'. You will move on - to another story, other lives and emotions will weave you into the fray until you taste the bitterness of those two inevitable break up words; 

The End.

Appearances

Appearances can be deceiving - we've all heard that. Often it can work in your favor . Let's just say you're a bit like me and your best attire is a pair of Docker pants without holes and a t shirt that doesn't say 'gone fishin' with a clumsy stain in the middle. So you put on those best duds, run a brush through your unruly, dyed-too-dark mane and saunter into a nice store.

You know the kind - the ones your mother drug you into when you were a kid and hated. She always said 'Stand up straight' and 'Don't touch!' As a kid you loathed them because 1) they never had kid stuff. 2) your Mom never bought anything interesting. 3) the sales person was always stuck up. Yeah, those stores. Now you look down and see bumps (when did those get there?) and realize you are an A-DOLT and can slouch and touch all the boring stuff you want to. Yay.

But because appearances can be deceiving, your wallflower meets Barney Fife look might just come in handy! when you walk into a posh furniture store say, and look like the priciest thing you've ever bought is a 2 for 1 X-Men T.v. Tray, you might suddenly find yourself hassle-free and walking through the suede and leather barcalounger sets like a ghost.  You might find yourself wafting by $3,000 price tags like an invisible wind if you know how to look poor enough.

The same can be said in Car lots, although those poor bastards could badger an empty bag blowing through their overpriced lot. So, this one might be trickier. I would probably suggest going into full combat gear and blackening out a few teeth, forgetting your shirt (extra points for a woman) or say talking to yourself and waving your arms around violently. This should do the trick. If this by chance doesn't work, i would succumb to giving them the sale and thinking highly of them for sheer courage alone.

I realize even pesky sales people are people too. I've been there and was never good at it. But i don't think I'm alone when i say "Down boy!"

I think it's fair to say no one likes being pestered, pushed or followed into a dressing room. (If you do there is therapy for that). 'Overly attended to' is probably the most appropriate thing to say, but appropriate is overrated and so are appearances.

The truth is, i can afford to dress nicer and drive a better car. I just chose not to. I could afford to look like i want to be bothered, but I don't. You can breathe new life in the girl, but her lifestyle will remain.

For now, i enjoy being invisible and hassle-free. And the sick part of me will enjoy even more when i go to make that boring, expensive purchase for something i think i finally need, in my plain wall paper style, and look up to see the confused expression of the sales person as i purchase my overpriced item outright, no financing needed thank you.

It Occurs to Me

It occurs to me that humor is missing in my blog. I didn't set out to write melodramatic verse - Words and ideas knock on your door - you answer or you don't. I realized humor is missing largely and if this Wine & Wit scribble blog is to be entirely honest and well-rounded i should balance it out a bit with a spot of chucklery. 

 I'd like to think in my vein-ego centered, artsy fartsy brain that i have a touch of funny rolling around inside. Some occasionally tell me I do, and I don't even pay them. I went through a very cynical period from childhood to now in which i randomly spewed forth what i call 'rants' - most weren't angry. O.k. I lied. They are, b u t they are dipped in silver shimmery sarcasm and sprinkled with miniscule bits of bittersweet chocolate chunks. Sweet enough not to spit out, but healthier in small doses ; )

Anyways, those pieces were like spit-ups of fact, humor, over-indulgence and arsenic. You know, happy writing! I'd like to get back to that idea. Let's just call them 'free-writes with a smirk'. 

If surviving the dumbing down of the Bush administration doesn't give us all a cause to vent then nothing will.

So, I will attempt to diversify my posts and perhaps even gain a bit more feedback! (was that subtle? i didn't think so)

Go in confidence and Peace. And always, thanks for reading -

~ Towanda.

What Can't Be Bought

Inheritance is a funny double edged sword. In a good light it can be seen with utter gratitude and relief. But, let the dark cloud cast its shadow and it becomes blood money, a benefit from death, from opportunities missed elsewhere. A hard swallowed guilt accompanied by memories and questions unanswered.

And because the proprietor of such funds is not around to thank, one can feel an insurmountable guilt and host of emotions. The gamut of feelings from great to shit-faced. Only then does the real responsibility begin.

You can do what you want, but then what is that exactly? When it's never been an option before you might find that you've never taken the time to answer the question. This is as new of a proposition to you as a strategic, happy life behind a white picket fence with cloth diapers dangling from the clothes line.

I don't fucking know.

Or do I?

I will buy that bed I've needed for most of the year that won't hurt my back. I'll take care of business necessities and personal qualms but those aren't as important...they've waited this long.

The word 'Need' hits me with a sideswipe and all i can think of is what i would buy for you.

I'd buy you a top of the line, Versace brand gilt plated set of wings to wear. I'd beam at the purchase as you looked at me with a half smirk and said, "Amy, comfort..." soooo, I'd settle on silver and fleece. I'd point happily at the diamond studded pumps as you casually moved my pointer finger over to the more logical, leather-clad Birkenstocks of which i would relent. I'd pick out one in every color ( like you use to have).

In my exuberant frustration i would turn you around and say with persistent eyes, "Mom, you deserve the best." and you wouldn't miss a beat then as you smiled casually and stated, "I had it."

Oh, but that is only a foolish girl's need to believe! in lieu of knowing the truth. The Truth.

Mama didn't raise no fool.

Diamond pumps and gold plated wings aside, I really only want to buy time. With You.

I want your time. I'm able to pay $1,000 a minute. We have to make it quick Mom.

I grab for you like the last ice cream offered at a state fair on a 100 degree day. I would spend every precious second trying to be half of what you were to me. I'd simply hold onto you and be there. Holding and waiting. Remember .....? The time you came back from a Chemo appointment to find me curled up on your bed crying? There you were, depleted and wrung dry and somehow found the energy to sit down and crush me to your chest in the tightest hug as I selfishly cried. I'll never forget that feeling. How did you have that? That surge of force that shouldn't have existed and yet did. Because you loved me. You passed something to me then and there that I'd buy all the time in the world to repay if i could.

Courage got its definition from you. That is the truth i know for sure. That is the bet i will put money on every time.

So in that blindingly perfect moment of holding onto you again I would shut the hell up and instead tell you everything through wordless exchange. It would equate to the most beautiful sunset on the Oregon Coast times ten. I wouldn't trade it for anything ever.


Then, the last minute buzzer would sound and I'd pull away only to wipe my eyes, hold your hands and pull out my utter best. There's no need to say what you already know, so instead I'd take that momentous time to infuse you with sheer joy and laughter.


I'd make you laugh..... That was always my favorite thing. Whole heartedly, from the belly, tear stained eyes - yes, i would. I'd make you laugh harder than you ever had. The lines around your soft eyes would crinkle, your stomach would ache and you'd beg me to stop. The tears would be escaping your eyes as mine did as well. The moment would glisten in perfection. Life would be as wide as the universe.

I'd catch you then - in silver fleece wings and purple Birkenstocks smiling so hard your eyes were bursting with the bright sun. And you'd fade slowly - like an old black and white movie nearing the end...

I would turn, into the blinding sun your eyes left behind, rattling an empty lined pocket with a melancholy smile. Only then, only T h e n...would I be the richest person alive.

Dirty

Treachery bound

In turbulent war
Seek solace in flags of white
Rest a spell
Take up your hell
On another doom filled night
Revel in the rapture
Of simple peace
Plant an orchard

Flower your foe

Instead with arms of ease

Water the weeds

And yank them at root

Begin your garden again

No one will know

That well made boot

Was ever caked in sin.