#1
Days are filled with half-shadow memories and nights haunted by half-shadow dreams. Phantoms of guilt, and hate, and suspicion still lurk in the hidden crevices of the heart. That is my life, and has been for the past ten years. Today I will celebrate the 10th anniversary of her death. Of Cecilia. Whom I did not love, had never loved, and still do not love.
---will continue.
Father, hear my cry
Lord, move me in a way You never have before. Your love for us, Your overflowing mercy, Father God, how can I deny it to the people I care most about. My family and so many of my dearest friends don't know You. And that, as always, is my fault, my mistake, my inadequacy falling at their feet, that I am so afraid to speak for You, afraid of rejection, of belittlement, to the point of denying them the joy I have found in You. Father, I place my shortcomings before you, my failings, my fear. Help me, Lord, help every one of my brothers and sisters in Christ to speak up and to speak out, to climb out of the rut we've fallen into as indifferent children, for this light was not meant to be hidden. In Christ's name, Amen.
la proie
Its warmth flowed into her cupped hand, soft brown fur pulsating gently against her skin. She lifted its small body to eye level, slowly opened her hand, watched its whiskers twitching, feeling, sensing, its eyes curious, oblivious, nose small and pink and working insanely to comprehend. She shook her head slightly, lowered it again, looked down upon its vulnerability, afraid and disgusted by the disarming similarities between herself and this creature that stood upon her hand. She cupped her hand once more. Tighter and tighter still, ignoring the sharp teeth that broke her skin, that implored and begged, that served as the last and the first defense of its short innocent pointless life. A shrill scream before it choked and lay still. She lifted its small body to eye level, slowly opened her hand, stared at the twisted body, limp tail, lilliputian tongue and blood-stained teeth, her blood. No streak of sadism flowed in her veins but the path behind her was littered with the bodies of the dead. Each a mistake. A thoughtless frantic impulse in a desperate search for meaning and purpose. The nightmares would follow her for the rest of her days. She did not like to sleep. She chose not to remember her dreams.
Don't use me.
"Why not use her, wasn't it always about finding uses for the people in your life, why would they be in your life if you had no use for them, and if you're using them, didn't that lend purpose to their lives, you're actually doing them a trickle-down favor, aren't you, allowing them to use you to feel themselves useful, and that's something, isn't it, better than nothing anyway, than being useless or used up." --John Edgar Wideman,
What We Cannot Speak About We Must Pass Over in Silence
