Circe's blog

It was rather beautiful, somehow,
in the way that frozen time
would be beautiful:
imperfect, & yet,
like raindrops-turned-snowflakes,
the crystallization had transformed it
into something utterly
unique.

The taste was condensed, almost-
slightly fermented
like icewine,
& sweet like no
normal fruit would ever have been.

The heat of my fingers seared
gold-red mottles
into the perfect opaquegrey surface;
it was strange to me
how skin
could balance on two such extremes-
how the reaction between them would
alter something in each.

It melted slowly,

In the chipped paint & overgrown violets
of half-abandoned houses;
I'm dancing at the fringes,
trailing my fingers along
peeled
railings
and neglected vines.

Because there's something magnificent
about old houses:
something in the scent of ancient wallpaper,
elegance in the water-stained
floorboards and sun-splintered shingles.
"Antique" is precious because
You cannot fool Time,
and History is embedded in the very heart
of civilization
(& its materialism.)

We hoard
because the story of something
is often just as
beautiful
as the
thing itself.

& sometimes,
that shard of opalescent reflection
becomes caught in consciousness,
and the fragile softness of
(already broken)
eight months past is forgotten.
Spine cracked and veins shattered,
that leaf bobbed among the breakers
until it split into tiny fragments
of long-decayed anger.

There's not much left of
what once was nearly beautiful,
because it was;
at one point.
Before the blood seeped in
and stained everything
black.

{Tiny fists can only grasp
so much
of longing, and naïvete
can only explain away
so many
lies.}

because beauty

Catch me here,
with brambles in my feet
and leaves in my hair;
I can feel my blood
rushing, rushing
against the earth,
the soil of my fathers' bones.
Their tears, their toil; it has shaped
this place, given it life, burden,
fruit.

Something tells me to cloak myself
in raw emotions
and leave my hair
wild and unbound.
I am the couching lioness
you always told me I was:
flashing eyes and a twitching tail,
untamed in this chaos.

Flashforward-rewind-taketwosteps
into the future, and watch
what we can unfold.

http://www.cynthiawoodphoto.com/#a=0&at=0&mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&s=4&p=0
Remember when
there was so much more
to this place, burgeoning
in the hours before
dust had settled
along the planes of crackling cane
shelves.
Peripheral eyes catch the glimmer
of memories
from shifting mirages
of a past life,
where walls bleed together
effortlessly.

One can almost imagine Arthritis rising
reluctantly from that desk chair,
rubbing his joints
with the resigned creaking
of old bones.
Too old for this job, he thinks,
sipping from a chipped mug
filled with tea-steam.

The humidity puckered and stretched around us,
morphing into an impenetrable haze
that enveloped
our torsos and mahogany-framed heads.
Our shadows were so similar,
shoulders and braids overlapping,
and the identical slapping of our flipflops
on the hard packed dirt synced easily together.
We pored over Astrology for the Soul,
discussing materialism and comfort zones,
laughing hysterically at the irony
of the North Node Taurus section.

The lighting storm hit,
and we watched Zeus strike out at the Earth
as we ate coconut ice cream and drew

Turned from the seat, feet resting on
clutch&brake,
and looked at my father sitting
next to me.

How strange this is, to have my hands
on the wheel
in this seat of power
that I'd only ever
imagined myself in.

How odd to have my life resting,
so soft and vulnerable
between my palms,
master of my own fate and desire.

His eyes were liquid with pride
and sharp with more than a little
apprehension,
but he handed the keys to me with
near-compunction,
as if this were something he did
every day.
As if it weren't significant
of how long it had been

i.River-skin warm
with the heat of the sun,
and my hair like seaweed, undulating
in the current.
Your hands cup my face,
analyzing
the precious metals of my irises
and the salt of my skin.

ii.Electric lips
& purple wavelengths
have tattooed flaming spirals
across my shoulders,
and your initials are carved
in the depression
between my collarbones.
I'll finger-paint poetry
on the velour of your tongue,
disclosing the dictations of my mind
in ways
that I could never articulate.

iii.In persuit,
you told me that I was
far
more
beautiful

You're not really my mother, of course.
Only a few years separate us, and you're far too young and responsible to be a mother, even an adoptive one. But the family tree is not limited by the confines of reality or social acceptance, and in ways that surpass diagrams and online musings,
I am your daughter.

I read through your blog last night. Skimmed it really, noting the passage of time by the progressive eloquence of your words and the amount of broken glass in them.

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Scrap of blushing scarlet
knit with delicate jade stems,
meshing the fabric
of your skin
with mine
for one moment of
passion-suspended time.

Perhaps,
with studied spontaneity,
you tossed casual words from the passenger seat,
and loped through prickers to bravely
snatch up the blossom
that bespoke the number of times
I've delayed our rambles
to gaze upon
some obscure bloom.

Yet the stem was unfrayed
and blade-smooth,
as if you'd cut it with
the sharp
edges
of your own
purposefulness.

Such a delicate gesture,
that of a petal
in my palm
and your lips

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Sia stayed in Warren for almost a year.
She stopped drinking and using drugs, but she often wished she had something to dull her sorrow for Liam. His letter helped to keep her strong though, and Sia stayed clean.

It was Liam's last wish, Sia thought,
I guess that includes this.

Bottle after bottle was emptied down the sink and flushed down the ceramic whirlpool of the toilet.
She wasn't going to live this way anymore, Liam was right. As the drain gurgled with booze, Sia turned and faced her apartment.
Piles of unwashed clothes mounded on the floor, mingled with broken glass and the scent of cheap bourbon. Dust lay thick along the sparse furniture, the fabric dappled with brown-rimmed holes and dark stains.

One night, Sia came later than usual.
Mr. Malone had kept her late reorganizing every single box in the store room. Exhausted and cross, she had come to see Liam as she did almost every evening.
As she walked down the road, it was uncommonly windy and dust clouds swirled around her, staining her eyes scarlet and chafing her face until it was raw.
Sia struggled through the sand-filled darkness, miserable and alone, with not even the barest sliver of moon to guide her way.

Weeks passed in much the same way that they always had.
Sia worked, went to see Liam, got high and passed out in her apartment.
It was a good routine, and it suited her well.

Sia had found a dealer nearby who frequently came to the gas station.
She would buy acid, weed, and anything else he had that week.
She was addicted to every drug known to mankind and didn’t give a shit. Being high was wonderful, better even than being drunk.

Anger, love, and chemical reactions
are
instantaneous,
inexpensive,
& intangible.
Therefore they are not immoral.

Darling,
maybe
we're just a fragment
of somebody's
broken imagination-
lost in the dust motes
left over from
spontaneous expansion.

Because honestly, I feel like
crumbs on the crust
of the Earth,
and when I stare up
at the stars
from the fortress of your arms,
my world is confined to
particulates
of ebony space.
I am no longer aware
of the surrounding
orchestrated
chaos.

Earthshine
is nothing more than

Something roils in violet chasms,
churning with sickening flashes
of maroon and emerald
at the point
where the sky splits into infinity.

My hands have been folded
and pressed, rose-like,
between dogeared pages,
and my brain has been inked
with the blockletters of
subjunctives until

I can no longer think
in just one language.

But somewhere in this storm
of uncertainty and stress-tears,
there's a patch of blue
spreading against the darkness.
You're the summer sky to my internal flames
because blue and red look so profound
together, and somehow

A bard owl calls into the night,
lovely and chilling as
the heat
reflected in your eyes when you
behold the tempest
in my irises.

I think you can see the fire there,
twisting in the pearled shimmers of light
barely concealed
by silver
smoke.

I am not always beautiful, you know.

A labyrinth of twisting grooves,
I am a series of locked doors
with sphinxes snarling at crossroads
and thorn-spiked pathways.
But somehow, you know the answers to
my riddles and have the key
to all my padlocks.
With tranquil lips,
the answers spill at your feet

That conversation will last for eternity,
spinning itself like star-web
around and around the slim darkness
between our linked fingers,
a cascade of rippling bronze
twisting against the graceful contour
of your wrist.
My locks are textured with some
unnamed passion
swirling in the variegated strands,
crystalline and frosted, awaiting
the thaw of your touch.

We are the horizon,
where untold fiery depths and
calm blue reflection
meet at the line of dusky rose,
and the merest sliver of gold
punctuates the landscape.
This is the sunrise of summer

The neighbors sold us their garden, such a rarity
in the dry heat of the mountain desert.
Frizzled hair and sun-bleached skin found solace
in the overgrown patches of wild celery & chives,
searching for bits of moisture pooled at their roots.
Such luxurious growth in the parched, rocky soil
was foreign to me, yet my knowledge of all things green
was limited then.
The garden was a short-lived relief,
a rebellion in my cloistered world of reddened rock
and great cracks in the Earth's skin.
When we packed up and left,
I missed the garden's miracle.

Now

It was twilight yet again,
and Sia sat next to Liam marveling at the deep aquamarine of his eyes. His tan skin rippled with muscle underneath, and when he smiled at her, Sia's whole being seemed to soften.

She'd never been in love before.

Sure, there had been guys in Jordan, handsome criminals who had gotten her plastered and knocked up.
This was different. She'd never been drawn to a man like this.
When she went to sleep at night, Sia could almost feel his warm bulk against her spine, his lips against her neck.

Liam Owen Walker was born on the dirt floor of a shack at the end of Millhouse Road. His mother, Mia Walker, was sixteen and screaming as Liam entered the world that day, and she would be frail and delicate from that day forward. He was the last live child that she would ever birth to.
Liam grew up barefoot and half dressed,

So what? So what if your life sucked in the city? At least ye could leave.
"What, are you tethered here? Chained to your shack?"
Look, I can't just leave! he screamed. Where the fuck would I go? Got no money, never been to school- I can't GO nowhere!

So they sat down where they were.
Together, they sat in the mud and realized how trapped they were in this town full of dust. Their eyes met and they just looked at each other helplessly.

Millhouse Road was still wet from the rain,
and little rivulets trickled down the gravel like channeled tears. It felt good on Sia's bare feet, as did the breeze rippling through her off-white blouse. It was peaceful to be walking in water, it lapped around her toes and the sand squished beneath her.
The fence came into view and there he was, slouched against the chain, his face illuminated by the rays of sun as it began to set. He was wearing the same shirt as yesterday, but it appeared to have less gaping holes and more badly-sewn patches, as if he had mended it since last night.

It was 12:43 and the clock wasn't moving fast enough.

Every few minutes, Sia would look up and see if any more time had gone by. All she could think about was the boy and if he would be there again tonight. She was fascinated by his attempt at suicide and wondered incessantly about his motivation.

What a strange way to want to die. In Jordan, men died in the streets, fighting to their last breath; the ones who did commit suicide did it with drugs or a gun. No one jumped, it wasn't assured enough, and who wanted to climb to the top of a skyscraper anyway?

Warren was different.

Sia glared back, her green eyes boring deep into his dark ones.
"Don't."

Why not. There is nothing for me here.

"You don't belong there with them. They should not be dead,
and neither should you."

So you would have me die in this hell-hole,
alone and bitter that I never did anything with my life.

"No," she whispered, "I would have you leave. But not over that fence. Go by the road."

He stood, silent, in the dust, as
the wind tossed his hair towards the icy stars.
The moment hung between them,
weighting the air with dewdrop heavy tension.

Days passed and a
sort of rhythm began
to develop.
Sia continued to
visit the fence on
Millhouse Road, she was
drawn to it in a way that
she couldn't quite understand.
Night after night, she
would find herself staring
down into the ravine,
wondering about the ghosts
that gathered like fog in
the riverbed.

The town was beautiful at night,
different than Jordan: quieter,
with cicadas humming in the trees
instead of bright neon lights
against the velvet sky.

It was especially pleasant out
tonight, the air had cooled
enough to take the suffocating heat

Feeling exhausted and
post-traumatic, Sia meandered
back from the fence and along
the road. She felt dizzy and
kind of drained, as if she
were crashing from an acid high.
Suddenly Sia realized that she
should have been at work
an hour ago. Mr. Malone
was going to kill her.
------------------------
Sure enough, the moment
she stepped inside the musty
interior of the general store,
the beady eyes of her boss had
narrowed dangerously.
A bit sheepishly, Sia donned an
apron, praying that he wouldn't
have second thoughts about hiring her.
She needed this job. It meant food,