Recorded Butterflies - A Novel

I've settled on this title. This will be book two in a series of what should be four novels that I will complete. Obviously, book 1 is out and available and I am currently working on it's follow up. I am trying to hone in on the idea so I can produce this book in far less time than the first. This book doesn't require me to lay much groundwork as that's already been done so its overall size will be smaller, making it a much faster read. The last book came in at about 500 pages and about 220k words. This one I am thinking will be about 300 at most, but I will pack just as much entertainment into it.

Being that it will be a smaller book, I am also planning on having a lower purchase price as well. While the reading of RM may not be necessary, it is definitely advisable as some of the early themes set on RH play out in this book and will continue to play out through the series. The 3rd and 4th book will not be as long, similar in size to this current work and will probably see similar pricing. I have already started working on the cover art and I am happy with the early creations. I do not have a projected release date yet, but I am hoping to get it all done by some time in July. That's right. I want to move right through this book and get onto the next. The overall literary quality should still keep, but the shorter book will help when it comes to revision and editing. While they will not be perfect in every way, I still hope to produce a work worthy of appreciation...and also drop a few plot bombs along the way.

I've made a decision in the direction of the story, and for those who have read RH and liked the progression and the character development, RB will be a massive plot twist in itself, forcing the character to make some of the toughest decisions anyone could ever make.

For those that are curious, below is a sample of the art I have been looking at. I may not be able to use this image as I do not own the copyright.

 

[caption id="attachment_836" align="aligncenter" width="363" caption="Sample Cover Art"][/caption]

Interesting Chapter 3

A very interesting chapter indeed. Never written anything quite like it so I know I will definitely need to come back and do some big revisions. It was a challenge to write but I was able to get through it. As it sits, it has 25 pages, but I know that will increase as I will need to add further details.

The next chapter is one of the ones I was looking forward to. It has an old character yet to appear in this next book and I am looking to see how I can write this encounter. Chapter 5 will be another interesting one as it comes right after this one does without any break in the action whatsoever. Chapter 5 will involve a study on sleep and our perceptions while we are snoozing. I think it will draw in all the right interests and spell out exactly what i want to do. I'm a little excited about it and I want to get started on it right away.

After Rumbling Heart

Maybe it's just the feeling I have right now, but from what I have been thinking about the last few nights is this. I think I will write a few more books, those that have to do with my current characters, and then probably call it quits. Why some might ask, or based on my sales maybe just a handful of people will ask. The answer is simple. There isn't anything left to write about.

I've a strange and often tortured life and for more than 90% of my years, it seems as if I were living for someone else and not myself. I kept telling myself that once I was able to write I book that I would want to read and enjoy that life would somehow suddenly change; like it would take on a whole new meaning and I could finally live for myself and no do all the things I am simply expected to do. Yet, here I am. My book is out and available and while a few people have felt strongly enough about it to see fit to purchase it, I can't help but feel like nothing has changed at all. Here I am, still doing all the things I don't want to do and feeling as if I am only here to service the needs of others. Sure, it's easy to see that writing a book, in a sense, is the same thing, but I beg to differ. I wrote the book not for fame and fortune. I wrote it because I felt I had something to say. I had a story that I thought was amazing and sad and beautiful and terrible and so utterly consuming that i felt the need to put it all down, so that's exactly what i did. I worked so hard on it that while some dreams of making a real living off of it did seep into my mind, I stopped thinking about that all together and instead focused on writing the best book I could write.

That being said, the story is far from over as the characters will go through changes and, as in real life, both tragedy and wonderment will come into play. Unfortunately, after all that is said and done and the story is out there for all to read, I think, based on my current feelings, that I will be done. I will in no way lax in my style of writing simply to get all this over with. That has not and will never be my intention. Once I give my characters a respectable send off, I will be done and that will be that.

I don't even care about school or a job or living for that matter as most things I have been a part of in my life, in the end, never really mattered. I don't have friends and I don't expect to gain any and I am too old to go out looking for them anymore. Those I knew when I was young have grown and moved on and that's great. I am glad they were able to make a life for themselves. I look at them now and I think to myself where in the grand scheme of things do I fit? Either I have the absolute worst timing ever, or I simply don't belong anywhere. I've left towns and tried to restart my life in different places, but i began to wonder why things never seemed to work. Now I know why.

Now I know why people never cared much for my company and that's fine. I know I am difficult and hard to get along with and I know it's at least partially my fault that people have faded from my life, and I am ok with that. I never expected anyone to want to put up with me for very long and based on that, I guess I have forgiven everyone and, without words, given them an out. I cannot think of a single person in my life who really gave to craps about what I thought or what I felt or cared enough to put things aside for my benefit. It may sound greedy and it probably is, but I can't help but think to myself just how many times in my life I've taken the fall for others and how many times I was left hanging all because someone wanted something or someone else. I cannot get past it and I know it's my problem and not yours and so I will so what i feel is the right thing and just bow out.

I have 2, maybe 3 more books in me and I am working on them at this moment; feverishly finding the words so that I can give my creations a proper send off. Then after that, I am done and no one will be asked to deal with my crap anymore. I'm just done. I am tired of chasing dreams I cannot catch and I am tired of waiting for anyone to listen. I sit in a room on a floor, typing on a keyboard without a desk and that's by my own choice, but one would have to think that in all that time that someone would have at least tried to intervene.

Being that I have never felt close to anyone, not even my family, I guess this is probably the way it should be. Till I am through with all this, I will keep recording my butterflies and wondering if there really ever was an Emily Martin. My heart will keep rumbling even though I don't want it to, and with each beat, I know I will always feel a little pain. No one is there waiting for me, because all my life as the minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years rolled by, I never once saw anyone except myself staring back at me, and I've never liked what I saw. How presumptuous of me to think that anyone would see anything different.

No Cheers or Fanfair

Buy Rumbling Heart @ Barnes and Noble

Today, a dream that I've dreamed since I was young finally came to fruition. I have , on my own, written, edited, and released a book, completely of my own creation. While I admit I am not Hemingway when it comes to writing novels, I would like to think he would have looked over my book, gave it a good once over and said to me "That a decent start, kid. Keep writing." Unfortunately, Ernest isn't alive to give me such positive feedback, so I am having to look elsewhere for readers and honest opinions.

I know I'm not some amazing writer who is going to change the world. Hell, I may not even make you think twice about rereading my book once you have it in your possession, but I hope I can at least entertain you and stimulate your mind, if even for just a few nights while you make it through my novel. I've spent countless hours and many late nights working on the words and the text and the idea behind my work just so I can make it as perfect as I can just so I can release and look at it and tell myself that I did it. I really did it.

I cannot say how many times I've broken down in tears while writing and editing this book as many of the supposedly fictional scenes do have real life events intertwined in them, many of which I would rather forget, but for reasons I cannot understand, never seem to leave my thoughts.

I am sick and I know I am. That shouldn't keep me from leaving a mark on this world though. I keep telling myself every single time I wake in the morning that I should give it at least one more go around, just one more try. Just one more try before I cash in my chips. Just one more try before I call off the search. Just one one more try before I hear my exit music begin to play.

I am putting a lot on the line here and I am done hiding behind a fake smile and false positive emotions. I hide it all from everyone, even my family. They see me and they think I am ok, when I know I am not. For all I know, maybe they know I'm not ok and that's why they keep me around. I still cannot shake those events from December of 2009 and it haunts me every single day. It will always haunt me, but it will not define me. I want to leave a mark, a legacy before it's all said and done with. With these characters I've created, I hope to do just that.

John, Olivia, Emily, The Chris's, Donna, Stella, Paul, Audrey...they are all a part of me in ways many of you will never understand. While they all, within my work, define what it is to be human, they also show us a side which I wish we could all live up to. While we move through our daily routines and go to our jobs, raise our children, go to our schools, we all, if even for a short moment in time, wish we could be the best person we could possibly be. We all wish the person we were at our best would never leave. We all wish to be the greatest parents to our children. We all wish to be the children that we know would make our parents proud. We all wish to be the husbands and wives, girlfriends and boyfriends that our partners have always wanted. We all wish to be the best friends we could be, letting our friends know that they could come to us for anything and at anytime and never be judged. However, we all know that this isn't how the world really works.

In the real world, we seem to casually wade through our lives, looking out only for ourselves and never looking back to see the people that we've stepped over to get to our final destination. While some of you read this, you all will surely say to yourself "Well, I've never done that...," but sadly, we all have. We get angry over things that do not matter. We sweat the small stuff. We yell at our kids and our friends and our spouses. People lose their jobs and are forced out of school. Parent's abandon their kids and children disappoint their parents. Our friends get into that car even though we know they've had to much to drink, and yes...sometimes our friends lose control of their car and destroy a family on New Year's Eve.

It's been said that we are the sum of all the people we've ever known in our lives and maybe that's why I am still going. Maybe that's why I'm still writing. Although I cannot remember many things from my childhood, there is still something pushing me to write and to speak and to talk about what I cannot recall. Maybe this was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe I was supposed to die when I was a child. Maybe I was supposed to die when my ex wife held that gun to my head, and maybe I was supposed to swallow all those pills in 2009 while all those voices steadily urged me to kill myself.

I release a book, and with it, I release myself. I release all those feelings that were supposed to have died within my trembling soul all those years ago. I know that this was what I was meant to do in this life. For so many years, I asked myself "What's this life for?" Now I know. It was to think and to feel and to smile and to laugh and to hurt and to cry and in so many ways, I've already loved more than I could possibly love in an entire lifetime, but I've also died a thousand deaths.

Each night, just me and my keyboard, the pain bleeds out of my hands as I write. All of those long nights have finally produced something of value. And with no cheers and no fan fair, I present to the world my Rumbling Heart.

Acknowledgments

So since my date of release is looming, I decided to get together my acknowledgments page and I am trying to think of all the people who have helped me in getting this project off the ground and kept me inspired through its development. Some people are very obvious while others I am still trying to nail down. I am not putting people in it just to appease friends or family. I am looking for those who have offered some sincere insight into what I have been trying to do.

Looking back to the end of October when I just opened up Word and started writing with no real purpose, things have changed a great deal and some people have played a role in the completion of my book. It saddens me to think that there have actually been 2-3 people who have looked down on me not only for writing, but even for going back to school. I kept thinking to myself how awful their lives must be to find nothing better to do that to try and tear someone's dream down and make them feel as if they will never accomplish anything. Well, I am happy to say to those few people who hated on me...KISS MY ASS.

In less than a month, my dream of putting my work out there for people to read is going to come true, and to be honest, I don't care if i sell just a measly 10 copies. I will be happy to be read by any and all readers, and if my work can leave even the slightest impact, I will feel as if I have accomplished my goal. It's not often that people can see a life dream come to fruition, but I am thankful that it will for me. Obviously, any money I make off the project will be welcomed as I am still just a poor college student. I never expected to get rich off of this; all I wanted was to be heard.

Well, as the day draws closer, I am clearing my throat and hoping for the best. That being said, even if the best doesn't happen, I will never stop writing...I can't stop writing. My mind will never rest. I have accepted that. It is the reason I cannot sleep. I wake in the middle of the night after maybe an hour's rest and cannot help but turn on my computer and write until my fingers tingle with pain and fatigue. And the few hours I am able to sleep, the dreams never stop coming. They haunt me and speak to me and the voices carry on like a choir of musing. The inspiration surrounds me from all sides as if i am being pursued by a ghost of ideas as it desperately pleads with me to share it's ideas with the world.

I will always be that outcast and I will always be different from everyone else, and now I know why. I am who I am and I write what I feel, and the voices in my head will not rest. Ever. My legacy will be intertwined with my creations, and through my work, they and I will live forever.

Home, and My Company

I watch the breakers as they approach the shore,

Their frothy texture bubbling up

The distance exposes the horizon

My hand in his, and I feel home again.

 

Exceeding vistas caress my view

We go walking between the trees

The cherry blossoms, aiding my demeanor

Stroll along and smile, beside me, he breathes

 

The bustling rush and the crowded streets

Remind me of things I’ve grow tired of

While my work keeps me traveling, on the go

I long for serenity, a peaceful scene

 

Still I find myself missing this place

I’ve moved on to another

Quiet nights, and I watch him sleep

I touch his hand, and thank him for coming

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption]

5th Day

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption]

5^th Day

Cherry blossoms trickle down from the sky, and the grass is soft, lush, like a bed of down on a cool, spring day. I look skyward and speculate on the clouds before me, wondering what each one looks like. Trains and trollies, and teddy bears consume my being; the light, northern breeze kisses my exposed skin. My knees are pointed up and I feel as if I am being watched, in fact I know I am for I can see her out of the corner of my eye. She stares at me and wishes her wish of carefree days and endless nights, the pattern of bittersweet days having taken their toll. Her red hair sways out across her rosy lips as the wind plucks her lavish locks out from under her hand which attempts to hold their listless flight at bay. Her heart beats and rumbles, and her blue eyes glisten with sweet delight as she steps closer to me. Finally, I turn to her and our eyes meet, and startled shivers exert their force upon her shadowed visage. Her eyes show her grief and we both know I cannot stay here like this, relaxing in her silhouette for long. Four days and six hours have passed, and every waking moment we have spent together, and every moment in slumber she has been in my arms. I’ve read her mind, her thoughts melancholic, and I know her heart for she has told me of her incorrigible desire to keep me with her. We hold each other’s gaze as we listen to sounds of children at play, our unborn child still just a dream.

The breeze picks up and she sits down beside me to show me her cruel and lovely intentions. Her theft, of such brilliant and tireless devotion, was only the beginning of our unforeseen affinity, and the loss of such a strong defense was not bitter, but a welcome circumstance. Her company was not granted, but more a luxury, a state of which much due diligence had been paid. As I turn my eyes back toward the heavens, she joins me for the critical view, and I take a breath that precludes all fallacy of reason.

Revolver

Revolver

 

Unrealistic transformation, hidden revolver

Bursting bulbs, the lights, the tone will be fine

Cheers or jeers, I don’t care which

Collision into hindrance happens regardless

 

I look over to the mirror, dim luminescent glow

The colors I wear, dark and dazzling

I see my hair draping down and consider it fine

The rings on my fingers click against the crackling hiss deity

 

I look at the door, listening, that relentless vociferate

Repetitious existence, hundreds a year, yet still neurotic

Welcome thy dead souls, intrude my horizon

It’s what they expect so I exhale, and cry again

 

Enervating and worrisome, and loosening my grasp

The phantasmic ritual recovers memory, inception manifestation

I walk to the door and carry my affliction

They will all get to see what they paid for

 

Blind Unicorn

I cannot write the way I want to at this point in time. I can't sleep right and when I do it's for minimal 10 minute intervals. I am awake and asleep at the same time and i cannot break this vicious cycle of restlessness. I am inspired and demotivated, I am dreaming during my waking hours and the stories never stop writing themselves. They unravel and distort, the truth is cycling through me like a virus on steroids. When my eyes are closed I can feel a presence, but I don't know who it is. I hear a merry go round, but it only goes around in a hellish cauterizing and illuminating feverishness that binds my thoughts together with super glue. I have no feelings yet i feel it all, the weight of an audacious animal biting at my strength. I'm interconnected and losing my signal, I am running in circles without a set number of degrees as I travel in time that has suddenly stopped. I've just about had it and the taste of pomegranate sticks to my palette, these sleeping pills leave me in a daze. The dreams will keep coming so I better keep running, my pen attached to my finger tips is dripping of ink and it never quits. So write on I must and face the distrust of the human condition despite premonition. This can't be real.

Butterflies

“Dreams are like butterflies, fluttering through our minds while we recover from our lives. Their colors are rich and vibrant at times, and offer us a glimpse into an ideal world where anything is possible. Yet during others, their wings come caked with nightmare and sorrow, and look only to unhinge us from ourselves, leaving our souls faded, and stained with melancholy.”

-Olivia Shirai

Static and Silence

Static is all I hear and it might as well be silence. I’m not sure what it is I am listening for, but I know it’s more than this. Highlights and twilight beckon and I am not certain of very much anymore. Nothing new I suppose, confused incontinent mind unable to grasp my foreseeable future. My fingers spitting out toying words and subject matter of the 7^th degree; not making much sense as I deal with illness and dizzying tiredness. I've lost 6 pounds of water weight just today and I am not sure if I want to look at that as a bad thing just yet. I inhale bottles of the stuff, yet it melts off me as my mild fever comes and goes. I dress in layers, warm ups covering my legs and I even place the wool cap on my head, but I can never seem to get warm enough. Two blankets I place over my body. The one I feel on my torso is soft and comforting while the other is stiff, its material eliciting an itch which I cannot help but scratch. I toss it from my chin as my patience is beyond exhausted.

No longer can I rest so now I must write and express and tell stories no one will understand, but I write them anyway. Words keep coming, but no sense is assigned. Mindless and tired, sometimes we do things out of habit more than for survival. While not bothersome, my habit is never being able to let my mind sleep. Even when I do sleep, I am restless and my body tosses about on the bed till I am sitting on the floor once again harboring delusions of fanatic assumption. I crave sleep. Admittedly, I sleep to dream and dream I do, but my mind, forever writing its stories, battles my fantasies and forces touches of reality into them. While I imagine others sleeping and snoring and perhaps unknowingly smiling in their slumber, I can feel myself moving, twitching, unable to let myself relax.

At times, I cannot tell if I am dreaming or waking up. I force myself to become self-aware which is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing so forth, the knowledge of dreaming, exhuming the fossils of my nature and the demons of my past, yet the curse lingers. Knowing my mind is lurking and hiding reality from me, sitting, waiting to procure enough sentiment to cause my logic harm, I tread lightly and wait for the storm to arrive. Still, I cannot help but let this happen for dreaming comes much easier to me that the realism of the world outside my bedroom door, for in my dreams, I can create and write however I like without fear of prudence and judgment. In these dreams, I can see her and only her and she makes me feel normal and real and safe. Her hair long and flowing, her body small and almost fragile. I look into her and she stares back, looking into my nothingness and finding what is hidden and blackened by disdaining aberration. However long the night or complacent the façade, she tears it all down and reveals what is real and I begin to feel content. The opening of my eyes enemies my infatuation and need to be with her, but I know my time with her is limited, so I must revel in its glorious splendor.

 

Holiday Gift

You know what the greatest holiday gift for me is? No, it's not the super special awesome wool cap I asked for or the gift cards i got. Sure, spending time with my family was great and while I do appreciate that, I have to be a little self centered here and say that coming up with the perfect climatic ending for my book is the best thing. I woke up today and it was all just there, as if i dreamed it all the night before. I was up at about 5am on my own, and not because it was Christmas because honestly, I don't really care too much for the holiday anymore. Yet on this day, I figured out the ending to my work and I couldn't be happier. It's so simple yet so perfect that I don't even have to outline it to remember. It's engraved in my heart and mind, so much so that you'd have thought I lived it. I have only one other person to thank for this literary bounty. Have a good holiday and be safe.

 

Chapter 19

The big build up is almost done. Chapter 19 turned into something I wasn't really looking to do, but it turned out really well. It had the main character conversing with two people familiar with his situation and one of them finally made a real impact on him. Chapter 20 has him doing something completely out of character for him and as he does it he is trying to figure out why and how it will all work out. 20 will also bring back our long ignored 2nd lead, but she will appear toward the very end of the chapter as most of it will be focused on the journey to her and not necessarily feature her. The 2nd major part of the storyline is to be written very soon and it seems my dreams have pushed another idea into focus. Olivia once again has sent a little nugget of inspiration to me and it makes the climax in 21 seem much easier to write.

Sweet Dreams

Apparently it's my turn to start dreaming of various different book and movie ideas. Tonights was a bit violent, the second one at least. The first was standard fair. And to better explain what I mean by "tonight" i was asleep by 6pm and got out of bed by 11pm, waking up several times throughout my "night".

The first was Olivia and I, but our topic of discussion was a little different. We sat there in a coffee shop and we were discussing her stress levels. I was offering her suggestions to help ease it so that her health wouldn't suffer. We sipped our drinks and looked outside, watching people walk by and go about their lives.

The second...was kind of insane. I assure you I am not some loony. This was just one of those weird dreams that's kind of unexplainable, yet interesting. I was with a group of time travelers and we would jump from different versions of out world, parallel dimensions. We were trying to find out way back to our world which mathematically speaking may be impossible since according to many scientists there could be an infinite number of parallel universes out there. The only way to force ourselves to move from time to time was to murder ourselves in our current time. Usually it was not difficult to find us, most of the time we found ourselves at home, school, work, etc. There were a total of five of us doing this. Myself, 3 women and another man. The man was about late 20s, one of the woman was a young girl, maybe about 15, then there was a somewhat younger woman about early 20s, then an older woman who was about 45. We had apparently been doing this for some time as we had become exceedingly good at quite literally killing ourselves. We usually hunted as a group to assure our success. We would hunt for myself and the other man...the other me and the other guy to be clear...so that we can move on to the usually easier female targets. As we hunted, we would surround the locations of our other selves and move in for the kill with precision. The other guy would usually break in and scare the other us, flushing them out of the house or into a place in their location where they would be trapped. Once cornered, we would without much talk execute the other us, then move on to our next target. We continued doing this for what felt like 50-60 times and of course we were never transported home after the final kill.

The logic told us that when we got home, we would not find our other selves and that we would simply know we got back because it would "feel" like home. Finally after another successful hunt, we failed to "jump" to a new dimension, thus ending our journey. Out of frustration and knowing we would never get home, we began killing each other. The other man killed the teenager and the woman in her 20 ran for her life. The older woman and the  other man hunted each other for what seemed like ages. Finally the man caught up to the older woman and shot her 4-5 times. While she was dying, he moved over top of her and began to chastise her, seemingly blaming her for our not getting home. While he was talking trash, she was able to lift up her shot gun and shoot him in the face, killing him instantly. I heard the shot and ran over to see what was happening. When i got close, the woman was still alive, but barely physically functional. I knelled down besides her and assured her I wasn't there to kill her. As I watched her die, i took her hand to offer her some comfort and told her that I didn't think it was her fault, that this was something bigger than ourselves. Sitting there I did not hear the woman in her 20s come back and put a gun to my head. I told her I was unarmed and had not shot the older woman or the dead man lying next to her. I told her that I had no intention of hunting her and that it was pointless for us to kill each other as it would never help us get home. Still cautious, the woman slowly backed out of the room and left again. I looked back down at the older woman to see that she had expired.

I walked out of a building covered in blood, almost in shock over the ordeal I had gone through. I fell to the ground and the woman in her 20 reappeared. She said she thinks she figured out how to get us home and it didn't involve murder. She sat next to me and held my hand as rain began to fall. The drops washed away the blood from the both of us and we fell to sleep. When we awoke we were home, sitting on a park bench surrounded by children and families having a good time there. We both knew we were home. We exchanged handshakes and vowed to never speak of the misadventure that we shared. We both turned away from each other and walked away.

Dream Camp

Ok, maybe the thought of finals coming up is getting to me, but my dreams have been weird lately. They were boring for a good portion of time, but last night and a couplf of night before...weird. Already wrote about the one a few nights ago, but last nights was...interesting.

Some how I am floating above a jeep while i control it with my mind...ya i know. Anyways, I am controlling this jeep, not very well i might add, and I am floating just above it. As i am driving it through town, I keep losing control of it and it goes crashing into other cars. I remember the feeling that I should just bolt, not wanting to take responsibility, but when it crashes I have this overwhelming feeling that I have to make sure everything is ok and that no one was hurt. Each time i go to look, thankfully no one is hurt and I offer help in case they need it from me. Each time the people i have crashed into are thankful to me for sticking around and taking responsibility. As soon as everyone is ok, I go off, controlling it again and a few moments later, another crash. This went on for a bit, till i woke myself up.

The second dream from last night was a little less exciting as Olivia was around again talking to me. We didn't say much this time around though as she seemed content with us just enjoying the night sky. We laid there on a blanket looking up, seeing an occasional cloud go by the moon.

At Rest

I was doing some file recovery from really old floppy disc and came across a folder of various writings I did many years ago. Here is a poem that even today I am proud of. It's a bit spooky too. Notice the date... God, I am old. If i remember correctly, this is another writing I did concerning a dream I had. I tend to do that a lot. In fact, I may just post a few more dreams that I have saved on here for people to look over and see just how odd they are. The practice of writing down my dreams is something I have done off and on since I was a teenager. I was so happy to have found some of my older ones so that I may share them all these years later.

 

"Wake Up My Darling"

 

my foggy, shadowed windows

on a frozen winter night

I peel back the layers of darkness

to view my beloved lady

 

cause of much disbelief

red is everywhere

a fertile life flows out

beautiful eyes forever close

 

the cold street beneath my knees

her face is framed

her head I cradle

my body rain pours

 

like speaking to a stone wall

wake up my darling, wake up

our audience stares

stone faces

 

sirens blare to no avail

not a voice is heard

silence

wake up my darling, wake up

 

3/10/97