Considering Mountains

        The biennial trip down one state below had arrived. It was Heartland's ever-dispassionate argument that "Oregon is just a slightly-less-wet version of Washington" that dominated the first half hour of the voyage's conversation.
        "Sigh . . ." Heartland released her final exasperation and turned her eyes outside the hatchback's slanted backseat window. Her eyes remained unfocused as the car drove on past the repetitive terrain. In the opposite seat Rylan mirrored her posture, looking out at the passing mountains. He held his finger on the small window letting it slowly rise and fall to trace the outline of the mountains. The grubby finger he held on the window dirtied the glass as he drew the valley's edge. Rylan's eyes were set on the trees atop the ridges, surpassing the grime of the window. An enamoured smirk stretched Rylan's face in response to the green.
        "I think there's some snow on that peak" noticed Rylan.
        "Really?" came Heartland's feigned excitement.
        "Yeah! Just right over there. See?" Rylan pointed ecstatically with a little jump muffled by the seatbelt.
        "Wow. That's uh-maaaaaazing because we neeeeever see any of that upstate." Heartland opened her mouth wide in satirical awe.
        "Hey! The snow is cool!"
        "Oh yes. It's cold all right."
        "Come on, sis'. Don't you know that every snow flake is different? That means this snow can't be the same as our snow. It's different. You say you want something different, right?"
        "Mmm. Sure. This is precisely what I had in mind: piles of rocks with frozen water on top of them."
        "Don't be smart with me!" Rylan squeecked with an effortful frown.
        "Ok. I'll be dumb with you," she made a face with her tongue half out of her mouth then snapped back, "Seriously, you need to stop copying the 'rents."
        "Why do you call them that?"
        "Because they're rentals, duh."
        Rylan's brow furrowed.
        "What is that supposed to mean?"
        "Above your pay grade, kiddo."
        "My name is Rylan."
        "Ry, the mountains and snow are great, mmkay?"

        The landscape passed.

        "Are you excited about the cabin then?" came Rylan's considered question.
        "Very excited. And I'm so glad that I was given a voice in choosing the location for our family  vacation," she glanced at the front seats.
        "I'm most excited to go play in the cool fort-bunker we made."
        "I doubt it's still there, but yeah, that was quaint."
        Rylan smiled.
        "Yeah. The trees are great there. There's Charles and Gregory, the Red Pines, right? And, uhh, Todd, yeah, Todd the Spruce."
        "They're real chums."
        "Yeah! I love vacation."
        "I'm glad Ry, I'm glad."

Requiem

The twigs poked up at her legs and the damp leaves soaked into her jeans, but she sat on the wooded ground still. The sea stretched out on and on before her wavering eyes. Her gaze traveled out across the waves yet the horizon pushed farther up to keep her from seeing the edge. The girl watched the ocean with a thin sweater draped from her frame. She let the breeze rip through her as it pushed up the hill, to remind her she had bones and blood, not just fumes.

Puffs wafted from her circled mouth and spun in the air. This way and that they flew and then sailed into dissipation. She didn't watch the ever-moving smoke. Her eyes lay on the sea.

Please just go talk to him!

no.

I get it! You’re confused, Damn it! But stop being a pussy by letting this be you!

why?

You have meaning with him. He can help!

screw me over and break my heart more likely

Or help you! Why do you hate him!

i don’t.

You sure as hell act like it.

i just don’t know.

Well obviously!

shut up.

She rose from her soaked seat. Stepped forward to the tree next to her and hoisted her body up onto a branch and sat again. Her perch revealed the sand to her. She looked at the crashing waves as they broke again and again on the billions of grains. The wind pushed her and she let it, only holding on enough to not fall from her fragile branch.

The girl let more puffs out into the breeze. Now she watched them. They rose and fell and after a few twists faded into the clear whipping wind. They kept her thoughts for a few moments. They amused her: their short life’s conceived each as a side-effect of her living life. In and out of existence in a blimp that she would soon forget.

there’s something poetic about that.

There’s something pathetic about you!

sigh…

Go!

no.

Do you want to help yourself?

i am.

Oh, right whatever you say depressed loner.

mmmhmm.

GO!

not right now.

Get up.

shut up please, i’m trying to enjoy the views.

The trees around her swayed back and forth from the wind with increased ferocity as the moon rose higher and brighter. She pushed herself a little bit back into the folds of the tree’s arms to escape the weather’s brutal onslaught. She cupped her hands slightly around her cigarette, burning her hands slightly with the dwindling fire, but taking the scorching heat as opposed to the relentless cold.

You can’t even see! Get out of here. No one’s going to chase you down here.

maybe not.

More than maybe! You make them think you want to be alone. You’re stupid.

i think they’ll see

No. No they really really won’t!

fine then.

You don’t even fucking care about anything! You’re just here to feel pain, damn it!

whatever.

Her eyes blinked quickly. The girl’s free hand rubbed her temples loosely. She was frozen.

But she broke from the thoughts and the cold long enough to pull her way down from the tree and begin off away from the beach.

Finally! See, if you want something you have to chase it.

i’m just cold

Right, it’s always the Physical stuff that’s the problem.

you’re a bitch.

You’re one to talk!

shut up and let me think

You Are!

damn it just let it go.

Let what go?

let me go!

Fine.

fine.

She sniffled but the cold tossed away the potential tear. She pushed on through the cold and the dark. The trees had lost their shadows, everything was misty and very not-there.

just keep breathing. don’t let up.

She kept walking.

“Francesca! Hey are you still out here?”

he’s here? he came out here? wait wait wait, really? why? no no no, where is he?

“I’m over her,” the girl faintly shouted.

She walked towards his voice. Suddenly out of the darkness he stood right in front of her. She looked up at him. Her pulled her in and hugged her.

“What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”

“I was just thinking. Sorry to make you worry.”

The Tree House Effect

        The sky proved gray on the brisk morning. Heartland sat inside staring out the window at the dreary and slow moving clouds. She looked at them with blank expression, not wanting to dignify the clouds with her emotion. She knew they were watching and she wasn’t about to slip up and let them get to her.
        Heartland had been to San Francisco once when she was four. It had been for a “family business trip” her father had said. It was a weird trip. But ever since she went there, people always said that she had “left her heart in San Francisco.” She thought those people were stupid. Heartland figured they must know nothing of human anatomy. All the same, she took after her mother. She loved the sun.
        So when the skies turned gray and dripped then dried, then dripped then dried, Heartland wanted to stay far from the front door and simply sit and have her staring contest with the bleak sky.
        Rylan ran in with a burst of energy and an aftertaste of mischief. But Rylan was Rylan, and he always proved that his head could stay between his shoulders. He had a gleeful smile about him, because his heart was far far away from the “Golden State.”
        Heartland scooted over to make room for Rylan’s predictable bound onto the window seat. He smashed his face against the window, in the way that your nose goes all wibbly wobbly. Rylan breathed his hot breathe onto the window and made a little smiley face. He turned to his sister,
        “Don’t be all glum, Heartland. Have you ever thought about why the rain is wonderful?”
        “Oh, plenty of times. But have you ever thought of why the rain isn’t wonderful?”
        “No. I never needed to.” Heartland gave a smiling sigh and turned her face slightly back towards the window.
        “Ha! I made you smile.”
        “Yeah, but only because I was laughing at how dumb you can be.”
        “Well, if liking smiles is dumb, then I’ll gladly be labeled dumb ‘til the day I die.” Rylan lifted up his chest and crossed his arms in short defiance. He couldn’t quite wipe the smile off his face though.
        “Who have you been listening to? You don’t talk like that.”
        Rylan smiled bigger now,
        “I heard Dad talk like that. But I don’t think he was talking about smiles, or being dumb. And Dad can’t be dumb anyway.” Heartland smiled again.
        “You did it again! See! Smiling is better. Happy is better. Rain is better!”
        “Well, some of that is true.”

        Heartland sat in another staring match. This time her opponent was white, not gray. Her foe had red battle paint down its whole body. It stared at her with evil intent. Finally she reached for her pencil and began to write.
        “Napoleon Bonaparte was the Emperor of France for 11 years, he was the abolisher of feudalism, and the idea of a “Napoleon Complex” was understandably based off his misrepresented life. Napoleon, born the 15th of August in 1769, grew up in a noble Italian family from Corsica. An interesting fact about him is…”
        “Hey Heartland!” Her pencil stopped moving and she looked up from the paper to notice her brother’s call.
        “Yeeees, Rylan?” She asked in legato tone.
        His small head leaned around the door, “Come outside!”
        “Rylan, I have a paper to write. And it’s raining!”
        “Heartland, please! It’s important. I really really need your help.”
        Heartland gave out an exaggerated sigh, “Right now?”
        “Yes! Come quick,” Rylan replied and then his head dipped away from sight. Heartland slowly rose from her seat and left Napoleon on the table. She made her way to the door.
        “Heartland, where are you?”
        “I’m getting my coat!”
        “Leave it, come now!” Heartland began to hurry slightly, thinking that there might actually be something that Rylan needed help with. She walked outside, the cold grabbed at her, she ran to her brother to keep away from it.
        Rylan was sitting near a tree, crouched down. Heartland rubbed her arms and impatiently asked, “Ok, Rylan, what do you need?” Her brother looked up and her.
        “I need you to come up in the tree with me.”
        “Rylan, do you actually need help with something or not?”
        “Pleeeeeease!” Rylan fake-whined at his sister.
        “Fine! But then I need to rush back to my paper.” The two of them in turn climbed the wood pieces that were nailed to the tree. They slowly ascended into the leaves and then clambered their way up onto the wood planks that were molded around the tree.
        Heartland felt the temperature change from the insulated warmth that the tree provided. She made sure not to mention it. Rylan sat across from her and looked just right at her face with a silly smile.
        “What?” Heartland asked after he stared for five or so moments.
        “Nothing. I’m just happy that you’re happy?”
        “Oh? And why am I happy right now?”
        “Because you’re here and you have a brain.”
        “Mmm, riiiight. I may have a brain, but I’m not psychic. What are you talking about?”
        “You remember when mom would bring us sandwiches after dad first built it? Remember the little bucket we had to send up food or send down messages? Remember that?”
        “Yes, I remember all that.”
        “Then you’re happy, right?”
        “Umm, I guess.”
        “I guess, Or you are?”
        “Rylan, stop. It’s whatever. Stop worrying about me. I’m happy. See, I’m smiling.”
        “Don’t whatever me.”
        “Oh, and now you’re copying Mom, eh?”
        “Yeah, because mom is always right.”
        “Okay, Rylan. Whatever you say.” Heartland rolled her eyes then set them back on her little brother who looked right at her. He just stared for a while.
        Heartland opened her mouth,
        “I… Okay. I’ll try to smile more. You happy?”
        “Only if you are.” Heartland smiled. She crawled over the creaky wood and sat on her knees in front of her brother. She reached for Rylan and pulled him into a hug. Heartland lightly spoke in his ear,
        “I’m smiling now, Rylan."

Falling from Up

When I'm in the sky
I always feel that
i am going to fall

I look down down below
and something in me says
"You're going to fall"

But it's not
a fear
no
it's more of
An Expectation

It doesn't scare me
it's always just a blink
in my thoughts

The ground seems close
and far away
all at once

"The ground pulls
at my feet"

Being sucked towards the earth
just makes sense

But I stay afloat in the clouds
Always expecting the crash
Always sailing on into the sunset
Always staring at the ground
waiting and waiting
for me to hit it

Goodbye

Up on the hill again,
sand at their feet,
the falling sun in their eyes

Orange was never brighter,
purple was never deeper,
the explosion was never louder

Their whispers nor their smiles
could have been softer
as they watched the fall

She held tighter
so he held on
to not let go

But he did
let go,
just as the sun hit the hills

Then just him and
sand between his fingers
watched the light flicker and fall

He walked from the hill
with the moon in his eyes
and sand trailing from his hands

But Together

He watched her hair toss in the breeze.
Her brown eyes rose.



"If I cry now, will you hold me close?"
"Of course. But, you must know, I'll cry too."



Her head rested on his shoulder.
They walked down the hill together.

Mended

             I loved the spirals of purple and the twists of pink,
             the gorgeous green running below each stem, pulling it all together, making it perfect.
             I watched as she sat amidst the cascade of color in the dewy grove.
            She sniffed each one she could reach. She delicately felt each petal. So beautiful.

            Then she noticed me. I saw the minute change in her face, almost contained. 

            She smiled. I smiled. I walked up the incline and sat with her in the glade…

“They’re beautiful.”

“Yeah, they are.”

           

“But, it’s hard to understand them.”

“I know.”

She sighed.

“It’s okay.” I smiled again. 

“It takes time for them to grow.”