Hmm. Something new.

I'm not really sure what this is. It started out as a poem, but the line breaks weren't working so I turned it into prose, so maybe a prose poem? I don't think it would qualify as flash fiction or anything. And the ending sucks, but here it is.

Note that may or may not be interesting or useful: This is based on the true story of my great-grandfather's older brother and sister (with lots and lots of creative license, because pretty much all I know is what happened that day and how his parents treated him after).

It had all been his fault.

He was three the night he crept up to his sister’s bed and whispered that he needed the outhouse. Clara was three years older and much, much braver, and anyway Mama said he wasn’t supposed to go alone in case he fell in (but she always smiled so he knew she didn’t really mean it). Clara groaned and told him to hold it, but she got up anyway, lighting the lantern and fumbling for her shoes.

They stepped out into the darkness, his fingers tightly clutching the back of her nightgown. The lantern flame flickered and he stumbled, straining to see the tree roots snaking their way across the dirt pathway. Suddenly Clara tripped and fell, causing him to tumble down with her. There was the sound of breaking glass, and when she sat up he could see a trickle of blood running down her arm in the moonlight. “Ouch,” she said softly.

Then from somewhere there came a spark, and a flash, and he watched, terrified, as a little flame sprang up at the bottom of Clara’s nightgown. “Sissy,” he cried. She looked down and screamed, then tried to blow it out, but as soon as it started it was spreading, climbing up, reaching for her hips, her arms.

She screamed again, panicking as the fire started to engulf her. Mama and Papa came running out of the house. “Clara,” Papa yelled gruffly, fear in his voice. “Clara!” He ran toward her but she had started running, down the long dirt driveway, toward the road. The little boy followed as fast as he could, too afraid to yell or cry. He ran and ran but she was faster than all of them, a bright light, a flame that flailed and thrashed, bigger, bigger. He could see her outline underneath; her arms, her hair; until she crumpled to the ground and didn’t get back up.

Mama didn’t speak to him after that. She didn’t talk to anyone until he was eight. Then she yelled at him when she found out that he had been going in a bucket and taking it out to the outhouse in the morning. She didn’t understand that every time he lit the lantern, every time he walked down that uneven path, he saw her there, blackened arms, horrible charred face with the nose burnt clean off, whispering, “Don’t worry, Charles; I’m okay.”

It had all been his fault, and he remembered it when Mama went to bed and didn’t get up for weeks, or when they read the big Bible on Sundays and Papa always stopped to look solemnly at the first page. He remembered it when he got married and had children, wondering what her children would have been like; what it would be like to lose his little girl. And he remembered it on the Fourth of July when his grandchildren asked why he never came to the family reunion barbecue, and every birthday party that he avoided until the candles had been blown out, and every cold, winter morning when the smell of burnt oatmeal was enough to make him vomit, and every time his wife just took his hand, squeezing it hard and not saying a word.

It was his fault, and he remembered it until the day he died, his hand resting on the cover of the old family Bible, his daughter at his side, and a quiet voice whispering in his ear, “Don’t worry, Charles; you will be okay.”

Translation (Rev. 6/28)

“Aquí está tu café,” he said, and I took the mug
from his hands, looking down to see a swirled heart.
He smiled at me from behind the counter; then
glanced away, and I knew he was saying “I love you.”

“¿Quieres andar?” he asked, and I nodded and laughed
as he took my hand and pulled me out
to the hot, crowded sidewalks, and bought me ice cream,
and his words changed and sang “You are beautiful.”

“Cásame,” he demanded one day, and I let him slide
the ring onto my finger, feeling its weight
like a ball and chain. His words echoed:
“You have no choice – I am your last chance.”

“Te amo,” he whispered in the muggy dark
and the words slipped down and scorched my throat,
drowning me mute, because really he said “See?
I knew I could make you mine.”

Prompt: "The Perfect Man"

The Perfect Man

A man like you is hard to find: a man
who brings daffodils home for no reason,
who makes breakfast and brews the coffee,
who folds the laundry and is always
home by six.

I thought that you would solve everything.
We talk about music and Jesus and poetry,
walk the dog in the park together, and sometimes
we eat on the lawn in the moonlight. I thought
I would never be alone.

But the only reason you can hum Beethoven
is because I decided you would, when I built you
out of cogs and clockwork, bolting your arms on
and programming you to sing. What does it mean
if you don’t know you are doing it?

Maybe you can dance, but when I twirl
in the rain you hide inside, afraid of rust.
You don’t smile for pictures and when
I hold your hand your cold fingers
never squeeze back.

Oh inhuman perfection, I would gladly trade
your screws and steel for a stubble-chinned man
who leaves sweaty socks on the floor, and snores,
and listens to country music at seven o’clock
in the morning.

The wizard may give you a painted heart
but no one can ever teach you how to love.

Requiem for a Charlatan

Music cracks apart and splinters deep
as serpents clatter past me, for it seems
I’m dead, but I’m pretending – I’m asleep.

Dark things, wildly dancing, try to keep
me frenzied and deranged inside these dreams.
Their music cracks apart and splinters deep.

Once I could have forced myself to weep
for every child who lifts his eyes and screams
I’m dead, but I’m pretending I’m asleep

while nightmares, made of tar and talons, leap
and writhe and screech. A bleach-boned graveyard steams
and music cracks apart and splinters deep.

Now they conspire, tangled in a heap,
to ask a shining Lucifer, who deems
I’m dead, but I’m pretending; I’m asleep.

I’ll crush the stars to moonsap; let them seep
through shoulders, arms: a poison that redeems.
Music cracks apart and splinters deep –
I’m dead, but I’m pretending I’m asleep.