Tag: life

Ballad of Chores

Bridget Bales1 Comment

I crank up the volume, give a spin and caress my dancing partners wooden handle.

Careless whisper rings through my earbuds with each awkward step, as I belch out each line off key.

Bare toes tiptoe across the wet floor, forward and back, then side to side, stomping my feet to every beat.

The music dies and my arms raise the rag up high as the solo begins.

My hips swerve with my body as I perform my signature booty shake.

My feet slide across the floor as the screamer hits his frys, and I strike a pose with my mop mic.

I keep sliding, my legs go up and my body goes down, landing flat on my back.

I stare at the ceiling, counting the cobwebs I still need to clear, then move on to my air guitar solo, battling it out with the streaks on the linoleum floor.

The cleaning must go on.

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Overhaul

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It’s time for a change.

I’m ready for that leap.

Let’s focus up, tell them what I really think.

Dust off those shelves and get out the ink.

Get rid of the signs

That weren’t really mine.

Clear the space for what’s to come

I have waited for so long.

It’s almost here,

It’s almost complete.

I can’t wait to show you

What I can do.

When people ask, “You wrote a book”,

I can finally say with pride,

“Here’s my website. Go on, take a look.”

No more throwing money away,

No more drowning in misprints.

This time, I’m going to do it right,

I’m going to make it mine.

Just a little bit longer now,

Just you wait and see.

It is going to be fantastic

And it won’t be for free.

Tibby’s list of Happy Thoughts

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As I race through the infested forest of Belate, a jungle as thick as your amazons, running for my life so this lizard-snakes mother doesn’t chomp its jaws down on my blue behind, I try to run through brain exercises to distract myself from my impending doom.

Think happy thoughts, Tiberia. Think happy thoughts.

Ah, scalpels. Yes, scalpels make me happy. Specifically, my scalpels. Cleaning them in cloric acid, watching the silver shine through.

Money. Money makes me happy. Money makes me very happy. Perchance, if I had some money, I would not be running for my life, with a dead snake head in my sack, and its mother slithering behind me, “Ah!”

I jumped with a screech as the snake clamped down on my tail. The poor thing, I had just grown that back.

With its length, it whipped its head back and yanked me off the ground. In an effort to save myself, I pulled a scalpel from my boot, twisted my body and sliced my own skin, cutting my tail as close to its jaws I could get, and fell back down against the vine floor.

Dirt. I was now really happy for dirt. Nice, soft dirt. For if it weren’t for dirt, I would probably have a shattered collar bone, or worse, a broken spine.

And a tail that grew back. Yes, I was very happy for a regenerating tail. My balance would be off for a day or two, but my tail was a rather resilient limb, in that it would stop bleeding after an hour or two and slowly grow itself back. In fact, as most species would consider it a pest during battle, I cherished my tail, as it could hold the light when I did not have a proper lab with the proper lighting to do my work in.

I huffed and clawed at the ground to get back to my feet, blood spilling from my gaping would. That would need to be clamped soon, though, so I did not attract more ferocious animals.

Running once more while this mother Spiner finished off what little of my tail she had devoured, I scanned the area around me for a plant that would paralyze, or poison the beast. My eyes and nose were of average use to me, I was happy that my thirst for knowledge has trained them in the ways of botany.

There, in front of me were gooberries, a blue carnivorous plant that released a sweet paralyzing goo as it touched your tasteful, before shooting thorns from the fruit to rip an eaters throat and stomach open.

I had never been more happier to spot a carnivorous plant. I snagged the base of the plant and tugged as hard as I could. I was yanked off my feet, unable to uproot the plant with my strength, and fell flat on my back. Oh for the love of science, why did I have to be so weak!

The beast slowed its slithering, reeled its head back and dove straight down to swallow me in one blow. My mono-blade stuck in my backpack, I had no time to retrieve it before I was Spiner food. I let go and rolled away as far as I could, happy for my quick thinking skills. The large snake dug its teeth into the dirt, snapped down on the gooberries and swallowed.

I finally stopped in a pile of ivy, and covered my head counting backwards from  three,

Two,

One.

The Spiner’s stomach bulged out and exploded, shooting its guts twenty feet outward. If it had not been for my weak strength, it may not have swallowed those gooberries. And for that, I was very happy that I had spent my lifetime training my mind and not my body.

As I was a female of science and not religion, I did not put much faith into divine intervention. However, I did believe in luck. And I was very happy of how lucky I had been these past few weeks.

I stood and brushed the snakes guts and ivy from my chest and legs, happy and delighted to be born a Torbe, a species that was naturally resilient to most poisonous plants.

I took a moment to clamp my tail, hissing in pain. Then, I retrieved my mono-blade from my sack, cut part of the Spiner’s head off, the part with the venom, and retraced my steps back to civilization, to claim my reward.

Pour

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Drip

Splash

She watched as it slid and fell into the puddle below, glistening with a red hue. It was cold and dark. A small chill crawled down her spine.

Drip

Splash

Silently, the liquid pooled below her. Eyes watching it form, slide, and fall to the puddle below, feeling lightheaded, and tired.

“Molly. It’s time to go to school,” her dad called from the hallway.

“Coming,” she called back. Grabbing her bag, she glanced out the window at the rain and the red blinking street light one more time before exiting her room and heading to the front door.

In the Doorway

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He just stood there. At the doorway. Just stood. It might be a bit complex to explain why him standing at a doorway was odd to his behavior. But, it was. He was hesitating. He never hesitated before.

I wanted him to speak. From where I sat, I smiled up at him. I waited for him to speak. His face cast in shadow, I could not see whether he smiled or not. But, if he did… if he did smile… I would not have known.

His shoulders slumped atop his tall stature. His necktie and suit coat sagged, tired of the stiffener that was put into them this morning. His hair, although he had just taken his cap off, was messy. For such short hair as his, it must have been hard to mess it up.

Whatever was on his mind, whatever thought made him hesitate, there in the doorway, made his hair look messy, even though his cap had just been taken off.

I fidgeted under the blankets. The warm blankets that the nice ladies kept in warmers to make us more comfortable. Subconsciously, I reached for my arm, and rubbed the area in which the IV stuck into. It itched. I hated that itching feeling. That feeling was something was just under the skin, and just out of reach.

So close, but never obtainable.

That was how I felt when he stood in the doorway. No, hesitated in the doorway. So close, but never obtainable.

“Dr. Lemu?” I asked. My voice quivered. I was worried. So, I tried a joke. Jokes always broke the awkward silent. I forced a laugh first. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Maybe you should get some fresh air.” That was not even a joke. “And call the ghost busters.” I added. I was never good at jokes.

His head shook, at least I thought he did. It was hard to tell when he stood in the shadows, so far away.

Out of sight and out of arms reach.

“Come on, quit scaring me, Doc.” I laughed again. Hopefully this one did not seem so forced as the last.

He lifted his head and looked at me. I had not even noticed that his head was down. With no light near his features, it was hard to tell.

“I’m sorry.” He hesitated again, like he never did. “It’s terminal.”

Like being dumped, except you left the knife in my back.

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What do you want me to do?

Stand there and be like you?

How can I justify to you what I do,

When you’ll just toss me aside, like the rest, too.

This game of tug and war

Is making me go insane.

The times we spend together,

Weren’t the memories supposed to last forever?

You were never a lover,

But a friend that was supposed

To be here when I needed cover.

I know you’ll never stop to read this,

You’ll just pass on through.

I suppose that’s why I write for me,

And not you.

I am a social outcast,

And you’re with the in crowd,

But I thought being an individual

Meant staying unique,

And true.

You’re bipolar, insane.

I can’t grasp the concept of your mood swings.

What did I ever do?

What didn’t I do?

Please tell me

So, that I may forgive you.

You’ll be my best friend again.

Things can’t just go back to the way things were,

But I know that if you just help me mend it,

Maybe I won’t have to cry anymore.

Those endless nights I stay awake,

I could never burden a line with them on your face.

The dreams I had of you telling me you hated me,

Will never pass my lips, you see.

For you don’t understand what I went through,

And I’m not asking you to.

Just stop with this incessant confusion,

And let us be friends again.

Favorite time of the year

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I remember those sweet January afternoons.

The feel of warmth against my neck and chill in my toes as I trudged through the feets of snow, sun blazing up above.

I remember them like they were yesterday,

The grey snake in the pathway,
Dried Ramen picnics,

The crunch, crunch, crunch of noodles and powdered broth.

I remember our first barbie snap-on sports bra,

Digging deep to find it like treasure,

Then rushing to our mom to show her what we found.

In those January afternoons, so filled with every fantasy game, film and novel.

Stirring those dusty sunray particles,

Filling me with that fragment of nostalgia,
Then closing my eyes and dreaming it all over again.

Those beautiful, dusty sun-ray particles of nostalgia remind me of how simple life used to be.

I got married in January, to taste that simplicity.

I saw my first dead deer in those parts.

Raised our first puppy in a Ramen box.

Played tag

Ran and ran and ran through the old apple trees.

With my four other simblings

Oh, how lucky we used to be.

The Smells in Our Lives

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Friends left and smells gone,
I cringe at the bittersweet scents of the past.

Downy as down in chemicals is sickening
As stomach flips from previous kisses

Cat and spice, like a bad foreign romance, fills me with ache and pain, and an urge to spit upon the pages and scream out in anger, “I have ascended!”

Sweat and perfume, like the two brewed on a dusty old shelf, brought back feelings of freedom, carefree-ness and an urge to give all away,

Now, sink me low, like swallowed rocks, dragging my feet as the tears fall.

Will the pain never end? Is our only solution to fill these voids with “replacements”, never truly respecting those who step into the gap.

Smelling is as heartwretching as puking, vomiting, expelling all the bad and the good, never able to choose between.

Oh, what I would give for a smell eraser machine.

Ringing Rain

Bridget BalesLeave a comment 
                              Pub-
                           lisher,
                        publisher,
                      go away.
                    And dont call
                 again, another day.
                Im working at the
              bakery today,
             Hard at work, slaving away,
          Making the money you cant
        afford to pay.

      Publisher, publisher, please go away,
    I wont fall for another money scheme.
   I have mountains of copies and piles of
  misprints,
 I wont pay you to not market for me.
The moneys dried up, you see.
I have a wedding to plan and bills to pay,
I dont have time for you to bother me all day.

Publisher, Publisher, please go away.
 Please stop calling, please leave me be.
 I have no story, its unfinished and boring,
  And it wont be yours when the pages are clean.

       So please, publisher, publisher, go 
            away, and don't call again, 
                    any day.