She pulled into the driveway not four minutes later, her thoughts swirling in a cacophonous mixture of rage, confusion, and concern. Even in that short time, she had to crack the windows enough to coax out the insistent smell of his all-day intoxication. She was at the door long before him, slamming it open while he was still navigating the step, that endless step, out of the van to the ground somewhere far below. When he finally made it inside, her feelings of abandonment and emotional rape took over. A family picture found its way off the wall and lay demolished on the floor. It was a convincing sound that scared their eldest son, waking him up.

A family was coming apart at the seams and he knew it. He let her rant. What else was she to do in such a moment? His self-esteem was lodged somewhere in his lower intestine…

He stumbled back to his office barely remembering the way, a path oft trod in the past three years. The hallway narrowed ominously with each fumbling step. The lights seemed more like taunting stars in some unknown sky. This familiar heaviness in his soul was peppered with liberal amounts of fear and doubt and pestered a conscience, dulled and thin. His life had become one big bungee jump of risk versus survival into which joy, let alone hope, was not allowed. At least that had been his inner narrative for more years than he could remember.

He managed to sprawl himself into his spinning office chair with a careless groan. An even more insidious narrative played within, tapes well-worn that had become his fair-weather companions. “I’m fine”, he said to himself, “if I stay here just a while longer, this will wear off and no one will be the wiser.”…

 

 

 

 

Scattered across lonely seas

dwell the lilies of desire.

Dotted between the balancing

 

green are other frondish delights 

with fingers extended on palms

upraised, deterred by nothing

 

but the gentle floating away of

newly made ripples, starting

from a center and pushing out

 

to the edges where the shoreline

awaits to receive what waves may come.

They have made big what once

 

was small, white-capped wonder

from still and never-sunken petals.

The end exhumes the beginning

 

but little beginnings brought

such proud endings, humbled

by endless sandy sleep. Here

 

God is waiting.

God is watching.

God is cooking fish. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lily: www.parentdish.com

Crashing waves: www.123rf.com