A Series of Lives

A thousand voices and stories. I'm a bit sentimental. I drink and I write things. All compositions posted here are my original works. Author: Brent Fisher.

[aseriesoflives]

If This Candle is Lit, Someone Is Saying Goodbye.

who needs words when sounds do their duty, daylight streaming as minutes,  a cast of thousands, changed surroundings like skin, shedding it once, twice, again, shadows prodded by their agency, while I gazed into the vacancy left by your sudden omission. quietly too, like time was too shy to ask for my permission; memory obeys it’s own rules, true, so I close my eyes, take my seat. feel a gentle warmth, heat, fleeting sense of weight at my feet, a flighty, fluttering little sigh, content grunting, some shuffling, just enough time before sun’s setting to properly say goodbye inside the realm of where only you and I matter.

[aseriesoflives]

Flocks a Mile Wide

Though I did not know you, I look to the vacancy left in the heavens and rip your shadow from majesty of sky, that distant tapestry of light, firmament, see the filament of loss, vast and magnificent, and vow, now, as we did when we stood before splendor, when we felt awe at wonder, to simply remember.

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She Belongs to Stars

magi cloaked in old spells and smoke spoke to the corners, elements, and rattled staves while attendants quietly prattled in the doorway, “Pray, I say, I bid thee hold, my beauty old,” scolded a man with jeweled crown, faded gold, clutching her hands till they grew softly cold. “Oh Jupiter, be our executor, and Mars…” called the wisest acolyte, divine interpreter, “…see her safely out into the fold,” he told, resting his hand on the shoulders of his Lord, “Weep not, my sire, she can no longer tire, she is sky-fire; Now she belongs to stars.”

[aseriesoflives]

I Miss You, Father

hands built for making, rough, yet gentle, lithe and strong, the kind of grip forged by creating, metal and parchment, heartfelt encouragement in spite of admonishment, kindness your adornment, a voice, bold and resonant, I would listen to it wrap like a silk rope around every consonant. How I wish it was still present. Especially now, in my era of blinding recrimination and self-resentment. No. This is not how you find me, in form either real or figment, I stand, resolute, and grab brush and pigment, as you did, painting something marvelous, wondrous, and in the margins of colors rapturous I think of us, knowing you live on in colors of dawn, and those of skies set far, far, far beyond.

[aseriesoflives]

Scent in Dark Places

pressing tears into the void of fabric that sits, alone in a tear-stained quiet aside from the damned static below, where we left the TV on before, a second and a year ago, nose wedged low in high thread counts, fleeting thoughts, needs, regrets, tears staining, streaming down cheeks, the weight of you missing from mattress and the pull of blankets, I hate this, your scent in all the dark places, and the knowing of your going, owning up to my part in it all, weep girl, weep, let them fall, and come morning, we pour bleach that cleanses sheets and heart.

[aseriesoflives]

The Girl with Delicate Hands

Legs too long, brow too strong, hair too short as he ran fingers through his errant strands, a boy in search of a girl with delicate hands. Called one name, but felt another, alien almost. Adrift, aimless, lost amid life’s desert sands. Subject to a host of doubts, bouts with identity. No serenity, nor relief. No respite, no indemnity. No ability to fight a name that never fit quite right. Wrong clothes. Wrong bones. Wrong color crayons. Father lost in memories. Mother never spoke. Breathless testimonies that confine and choke, still yearning for that girl with delicate hands. After a journey, she was found in a mirror. A smile, a laugh, a name that felt like home. Hope to all who roam when life has other plans. A girl with delicate hands.

“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” ― Ralph Ellison

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Whisper Quick

listen here and whisper quick, I know the songs and words that hung thick in the air, slick with memory, entropy, an agony in the cracks where the tears fell in, and among the dying light an endless din of sighing, I saw a ray of light flying between two bands of hue as my thoughts flooded with you, sunset an errant conductor of one feeling for another, little wonder, then, that she came for me after all, as stars lit flame and a tapestry of little sparks bore witness to how fleeting and fickle fate can be in the Fall, from fraught plans for naught, to sweet, sublime delight.

[aseriesoflives]

The Breaking of the White

thick viscous ichor adorns the chamber where they left her, lonely echoes her anchor, hands grasping at nothing while gasping, her eyes go black, rolling to the back opening her jaw like a gaping maw. a shuddering, a keening, a wailing, a strange resonance, awkward words, with obtuse, unknown alien cadence, and a song, a damned one, rotten, older than old, cold and forgotten. then, there was light, but it was not bright, fetid and foul, this illuminated miasma, so terrible, so awful, so wrong. but she smiled, bile bubbling up past blistered lips; a crooked ruin, “I won.”

[aseriesoflives]

Isn’t She Always

Molded pillow, folded fabric, and a silly smile that says something you can’t make out; There’s hurt too. A regret, passing fancy? It’s tragic, but isn’t she always that way,  she isn’t, always, this quiet, solemn like a ghost, a whisper, a wisp and a whimper, a glimmer, here and gone in an instant. Humor me for just a moment,  look me in the eye, tell it true, She’s in love with me? I think. Isn’t she? Always. Maybe. Blinking into the mirror, water running in the sink, I fill a glass, swallowing agony. No more wallowing. Today I say it. Maybe she likes girls too, like me? Maybe she’ll be there for me. Maybe she won’t judge me. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She’s not that shallow, she’s my harmony. Isn’t she? She is.

Always.

[aseriesoflives]

Come the Light

I am the mercy that lies in the fleeting hours and minutes of evening, come the light, come the night, whispers of those errant stars that cast their glow, and I know, I know, come the light, come the night, such things are best left to dreaming, but if I may be so bold, I’ll hold your hand, come the light, come the night, if only for the time being, until dawn comes, frosted breath on glass, a kiss, I missed this, come the light, come the night, and the joy, the covenant, of our meeting, cast off our doubts and fears to oblivion, come the light, come the night, for here, now, as it was once said, death holds no dominion. 

[aseriesoflives]

Witless Hours

staring at a blank wall like it was made of majesty, finding nothing, seeking solace from something solitary, a beige, blank, mother-of-pearl monstrosity, this tapestry, thinking that your special when you’re nothing, really, failing, flailing, flat-lined and falling, into that void of plaster and white-flecked alabaster, slave to the silence,  self-loathing your master, beck and call,  and the gumption, the gall, really,  to think you could even matter. 

[aseriesoflives]

Claire Voyant

Gloves without fingers, tongue catching snow in a moment delicate as the ice now falling, so I linger, watching, for the night is calling, the cold winds bellow, walking with her, slow. Arms curling around each other, I lean in, lips brushing blush in her colored cheeks, about to whisper silly things about love, she gives me a light shove, and laughs. Squeezing my hand, like it was planned, she says, “I know,” slyly, with a wink, “but I think-” she stops me, presses my lips, shakes her curl-covered head, drapes herself around my hips, a tug, a hug, drawing me close. “I know,” a kiss, “I know,” a kiss. After a while, coming up for air, I smile, “I could get used to this.” Eyebrow raised, leading us home, she grinned at nothing in particular. “I know.”

[aseriesoflives]

Regret

sat out on this rock  till the sun came knocking, this unsettling feeling, sentiment, sediment both real and imagined as impediment to the predictable predicament, legs heavy, like cement, a cry, a whimper, a light lament, amber and gold, like her eyes, looking towards the sunset, fill of regrets, and sighs.

[aseriesoflives]

When Sarah Remembered

raging, racing rivers course composed of tiny tendrils, sinew, tissue, I see you, shivers down the spine, you see, “You are mine,” she recalled, she thought, felled a mighty tree with her memory,  tumbling out, those words, a flicker, a flaming ember, smoldering, sick and thick, billowing, flowing, moaning, moving down a quiet lane where a house crumbled into ruin, history, parchment, inking promises to a leper left for wanting,  the company she’s keeping, dirty clothes, maggots, soil, unblinking, opaque, weeping on the day of reckoning, when Sarah remembered.

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Love & Everything After

Dusty photos and faded echoes, emotions leaking from mementos and yet, looking back, the best part was getting here, just you and me.

Take a breath. Hold my hand. Let’s add one more treasure. Ignore the wires, doctors, machines. Close your eyes. Just you and me.

Lights and candles adorn the tree. Children squealing with pleasure. Delights, presents, pageantry. Dinner, wine, just you and me.

Snow and family gather outside. Soon you’ll be whole again. No more pain. Just serenity. This is but a passing agony.

In my head, I hear you say, “Come with me.” Soon, perhaps, but not yet. We will see.

I love you forever, and everything after. Time enough for you and me.

[aseriesoflives]

More than anything, the most precious gift is each other.

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My Edward and I

Damn the toil the heart undergoes, when confronted with the evidence that perhaps, despite all attempts, there is a shimmer in hope of yes, a glimmer even, dare I but think it, a slight sliver, even as night grows dimmer, to shiver at the prospect of finding among debris and detritus a single barest chance that, for me, fate could not break, dear reader, but instead alter its contours, to bend, a chance love has both means and end.

[aseriesoflives]

Blood & Baptism

she smiled and sat her soul on a window sill, portents, signs, glass panes, tapping of rain, staccato rhythms, refrains,

she walks out, in the thick of it, each drop a pretended blessing, a presumptuous cleansing, for that horrible thing she did.