Heaven's Cattle Prod

You know that feeling when your heart jumps nine inches into your mouth and you're standing there with your heart pounding between your teeth, praying the other person doesn't see it, and trying to talk past the bloody, beating thing?

Some call it vulnerability. I call it heaven's cattle prod.

All my life I'd kept as far away from that feeling as possible, wrapping myself in layers of independence like fluffy down quits, insulating my fears with rationalizations, and ducking into shadows whenever authenticity threatened to shine its caustic beam on me.

Not Appalled

We see it on billboards and in glossy magazines. A perfume ad, a stranger on the street. Desensitized to human flesh, we walk on regardless. Like muscles wrapped in cellophane on the grocery store shelf, we never think where it comes from.

I am not appalled when I see their bodies flaunted. I am not appalled when I catch sight of a magazine, shoved beneath a bench. I am not appalled when I hear strange noises from the TV down the hall. When I hear about the sick addiction, the clicking monster that grips eyes and minds in its thrall, I am scandalized for the wrong reasons. 

Waiting for Britain

My practice from The Write Practice prompt: Write for fifteen minutes about a time of anticipation.

I stand still in the middle of my bedroom, looking at the piles of clothes without really seeing them, feeling a giddy, pleasant, but slightly sickening tremor in my heart. The empty red suitcase lays on my bed, and the embossed letters on a blue passport wink at me in the morning sunlight. I'm going to Britain. It's really happening. The trip of a lifetime--the one I'd been saving for since I was 11--is finally coming. Tomorrow I'll board a plane headed for Manchester, and the green fields of England will be waiting for me.

british_airways where do you want to..., a photo by bedharak on Flickr.

What will also be waiting for me is customs, that frightening ordeal that I've heard about but never experienced. I picture myself running a savage gauntlet with my luggage in tow, standing in a line three miles long before finally coming to a booth where a woman with a sour face and a strong German accent will interrogate me, stamping a big red "X" across my passport and shouting at me to go back to the States where I belong. Why she has a German accent I have no idea, but it does a good job of scaring the living daylights out of me.

Hairbrush. Toothpaste. Shampoo. Stick to the basics. Don't worry about what will happen on the other side.

I pick up a guidebook to England and flip through it for the thousandth time, relishing every photograph, underlining a few more things, making note of prices. 

T-shirts. Sweater. How many pairs of shoes? 

Tears for Free Wings

Little bits of me, dribbled out by increments.
Tearing, tearing. One creates the other.
Breathing comes choked, blockage in the throat and it seeps into my eyes.


     Give thanks for the dove that has flown,
     Rejoice for the white wings that at last found freedom.
     How hard it is for a caged bird to bless the unhindered ones.


          We smile through our tearing,
          We smile through the bars.
          No longer hearing their sweet song, we know
          The clouds will one day welcome us.

HeartBroken-Tears are the Baptism of Soul, a photo by honikum on Flickr.

peace dove, a photo by AlicePopkorn on Flickr.

Sense vs. Sensibility

E: I can feel my heart break and not cry. I can watch someone laugh and only smile. I can think and never let anyone know. I understand things. I think them through. Am I wrong? Am I repressed? Am I missing something beautiful? Am I blind?

M: You've always played it safe. Look up! Stop staring at the ground, afraid of making a misstep. Smile! Don't be afraid that someone won't understand. Love! Stop fearing the possibilities. Can't you say something? Can't you let us know you feel? Sometimes I wonder if you ever feel anything. You show a smile but I can't see anything behind it! Have you ever loved? Have you ever hated? Are you capable of heartbreak and heartjoy?

E: I am capable! I feel every time the wind touches me, I hold a friend close, I paint a flower. I could sing, I could dance in the rain...but then who would be sensible? Someone has to balance, someone has to stop mistakes before they're made. I whisper to myself when I walk alone. No one hears me then.

M: Why?

E: Because if I tell, then it won't be a secret. If everyone knows--my heart won't be special, won't be mine anymore. Things happen when you tell people; the magic goes away. I can't share my heart with everyone, I can't let them know how much I feel! I must be circumspect, must be cautious.

M: You can't keep it a secret. Do you know what happens to secrets when they're kept too long? They crumble into dust and ashes and burnt memories and suddenly the world doesn't look as bright anymore and your heart is brittle as glass.

E: But who will be sensible? If I make mistakes....

M: The world won't end.

E: Life isn't easy in an empire waist.

Photo cropped from ELIZABETH EN PEMBERLEY, a photo by /colorinchi on Flickr.