Her Native American name would be Crazy Talk
I asked her what to do
and she smiled and said that too many people confused parenting with property development, always worried about future potential and renovating for market appeal, rather than appreciating the beauty of what was already there
and so I put down the tools, threw out the plans,
and we had ice cream for breakfast.
she smiled as the wind wrapped itself across her, and said, i love the wind, it’s like the universe is reminding us we are still alive
and he said, what about hurricanes and tornadoes?
and she laughed and said, don’t you get angry when no one listens?
She wasn’t just biting off more than she could chew, she was chomping, and hoping like hell someone nearby knew the Heimlich maneuver when she choked.
She began to wonder whether ‘beating all my highscores on the Wii’ would be considered resonable grounds for divorce.
she beat the drums hard and fast, and he leaned over and said, ‘who’s the girl?’ and she replied, ‘oh that’s just the truth, she only speaks when it’s silent’ and he asked ‘why are you making so much noise then?’ and she replied, ‘because I never like what she has to say.’
It seemed we were now a people who turned tragedies into sideshows, where hundreds lined up to trade in their empathy for front row tickets.
Some days she woke up in what felt like a bad, made-for-TV movie, starring Neil Patrick Harris. And while she knew she should be looking around for poignant life lessons, all she really wanted to find was the remote, to turn it off.
she held out her hand and said $6.99 and he said I thought dreams were free? and she sighed and said maybe they were, once upon a time, but these days it’s $6.99, to cover postage and packaging, tax and insurance and, for an extra dollar, she’d giftwrap it.
They look like everyone else, it is only when you look into their eyes and you see their pain, that you know. They are the raw nerves who walk around exposed, soaking up every one elses discarded pain and sadness, hatred and anger. Some are compelled to sing songs, write poems or paint pictures, even though it is only others of their kind who truly understand. Mostly all eventually embrace the inevitable, cut straight to the chase and become no more.
As she handed over her worn, torn, congratulations yet again, she wondered when everyone elses successes would stop feeling like her failures.
