fighting lies.

terminal velocity

I've been on the lookout, spent long nights
breathing low, closing bedroom windows,
and dimming down the lights. I was acutely aware
of the horror, the bloodthirsty monster, that
lies
out there. Evil – just cold, dark, ugly.
Yet I sat, running numb thoughts to kill time.


Hadn't I bested the same crippling monster
not so long ago? It should have been over then,
already history, but no, the signs all the same. We've crossed
swords before. Such reassurance proved awkward
comfort at best. The thought crept across my mind,
'twas imagination's tricks. It's made a fool
of me before, perhaps once again. Sure of a rematch, I called,


“Come out, wretched creature. This is your end.”
The defense began - relentless assault on wordy
armor, blood and bruises bore deep to both parties.
Mean words not meant – a shocking deathblow.
Boisterous evil deflated,
then limped wearily back home.

terminal velocity

On the Farm


On a brisk March evening, under the guise
of cat-feeding, boy and girl avoided the rotting
stair outside and stepped into her parent's dim shed. More a heavy
machinery graveyard now, the rusting corpses of tractors
and band saws lay haphazardly along the adjacent wall. The weeks-old
kittens cherished the obstacles, ducking in and out.
For their first moments alone, they agreed it peculiar that six
months of melodrama would lead to handholding
in a filthy farm garage. Rain began to pound overhead,
and they danced to the patter of water touching metal.
She threw a blanket around him, then they
drew nearer. Underneath, they felt apart from the fleeting worlds
of cats feeding, of parents inside, of passersby on the gravel country road.