Prologue

Warning: You are about to enter someone else's dream

[thoughtsfromyesterday]

That night I dreamt vividly that I was a child again, outside with my cousin in the morning sun, hunting down freshly chewed bones left behind by coyotes during the night. In my dream I am laughing, and running, bones rattling against bones in my little plastic bucket. I do not care that the sun is too bright, or that my bare feet are covered in scratches from the dry summer grass. In my dream I am alive, and I am so, so blissfully unaware of it.

[thoughtsfromyesterday]

Keys, phone, wallet. Phone, wallet, keys. I’ve checked my pockets a dozen times since leaving the hospital and everything's there, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m forgetting something. Miami pulls into the driveway and it’s the kind of dark out where everything is just a shadow of itself. I unbuckle my seat belt but don’t move to climb out of the car. 

“They’re not home.” Miami mumbles, kicking open her door.  

“Who?” 

“They’re at an event late today.”  She steps out and comes around to open my door. 

“Did they come to the hospital at all?” She squints her brows but avoids meeting my eyes.

“Of course they did, bud.” She’s pulling at my legs by now, trying to shift me out of the front seat herself. I feel so stupid that she loves me so much she would fireman carry me into the house if I needed her to, in some ways I’m thankful for that, but in most ways I wish she wouldn’t waste the compassion on me. 

“You’re a terrible liar.” I unhook my phone from the car charger and stand up with only a little wobble. Miami shrugs and turns towards the house. 

“Go take a shower, you smell like a fucking Germ-X factory.” 

[craigslits]

[imagine-life-blog-deactivated20]

[stoicmike]

The infinite possibilities of the day diminish as the day progresses…but then there are always the infinite possibilities of tomorrow… – Michael Lipsey

[olivierseignette]

[thoughtsfromyesterday]

Grit

“I don’t remember leaving the hills to find Ma, I don’t remember the hospital, or the police statements, or the crying, or the funeral, or the endless casseroles of deepest sympathy. I don’t remember how Ma lost the urn with the ashes when we moved out to the salt flats of Nebraska. She claims it was an accident, I think it was more like an opportunity. I do remember the summer it happened; it felt endless, hopeless. July in the morning, July in the evening, July in the afternoon. The grasslands are alive, Ma used to say, before she shriveled into something phantom-like under the weight of her grief, if you aren’t careful, they’ll eat you alive. I never believed her until I watched the prairie swallow Dad whole.

 We had gone hunting. We always went hunting, just him and I. He was finally going to let me shoot a pronghorn. Not just a rabbit or a rodent or a raccoon - but something meaningful. We planned to smoke the meat and have it for Christmas. We would carve the antlers into harsh knives and boil the hooves for soup stock and turn the pelt into a rough lap blanket for Ma. We found a docile doe, grazing among the dried sage brush. Dad knelt to the ground as if he were beholding something holy, and I followed suit reverently. He never took his eyes off the antelope, and I never took my eyes off him. We waited. The doe left, the sun rose higher, we waited. Rock and twig digging into my knees, legs falling asleep, we waited. Around dusk another pronghorn wandered into our circle. Step, stop, sniff, step. It looked right at us, but it never ran. The look it gave Dad, I shudder remembering it, like it was daring him to shoot. I wait for Dad to hand me the rifle, but he never does. “You’ve gotta aim for the head, Judd” he cocks the trigger and turns the gun around, “If you don’t get a head shot, the animal suffers.

I think about Dad. Not Dad as the target, but Dad before that. Dad in the morning with coffee dripping from the tip of his mustache. Dad cursing at a roach he just saw scrambling under the cabinet. Dad at the smoke hut slinging venison shanks over his shoulders. Dad when he held Ma. Dad when he didn’t hold Ma. Dad when he was and Dad when he wasn’t. Dad when he said “make sure it’s painless, Judd” right before sticking the gun in his mouth. Teeth clacking on metal, metal clacking on teeth.”

[thoughtsfromyesterday]

Bent backwards, but still upright. The way you can see footprints through a field of wildflowers. I’m still waiting to find you, my little corner of the world, I have looked for you under every rock, above every wave, in every person. I dreamt once that you fluttered shyly to me so I could hold you in my hand. If you did, would your fragile wing break a little more? Would my nail misplace your scales so that you could not fly away? Little butterfly with dampened wings, it is so dooming that one cannot keep you on a chain. In the perfect world, I could set you on the windowsill and feed you endless teaspoons of sugar water, but the happiness would never come back to you, and therefore you would never be mine.

[thoughtsfromyesterday]

developing characters for my latest novel and tried to describe the essence of each one in just a few sentences. it's a good warmup excercise:

Rebekah Bourne is a sour girl. The plainest of Janes, if you will. She has straight brown hair and chubby cheeks and a bite that’s worse than her bark.

Jodi Dixon is the oldest twin, by two and a half whole minutes. She stuffed her bra all of freshman year and has a shoe box full of chap-stick under her bed. “I’m not vain,” she tells us. “I’m just mindful.”

Clove Dixon is the youngest twin by two and a half whole minutes. She wears multi-colored nail polish all the time, says all the colors are too beautiful to pick just one.

Lloyd Dixon took the basketball team to state last year. He’s obsessive compulsive; everything he owns is organized by color, make, or model. He doesn’t drink at parties.

Chick Woodley is a creep.

Virginia Hewitt wears sparkly clips in her hair and dusty combat boots on her feet. She only shops for her clothing at flea markets and thrift stores. “Second hand things have character.” is her excuse.

Miles Vega knits his own sweaters. Not in a gross way, they actually look really cool. We told him he should make an Etsy or some shit. He shrugged, he’s not much for consumerism.

[mahasita]

[thoughtsfromyesterday]

Southern Comfort 

We’re beginning to reach the crest of deep summer. There are no more Lazy Susan's bordering the driveway and the public pool is overcrowded and overpriced. Where there is shade the grass grows long and whispers in hushed tones whenever the breeze rolls in, and the town begins to look warped and distorted from the lack of rain. My grief rises to my throat the way the heat swells up the branches of the budding pecan trees, setting off the cicadas as it goes. If only I could unhinge my jaw like a rapacious snake about to feast on its unwilling prey, I could reach in and pull out the heavy bundle of heartbreak without a second thought.

[thoughtsfromyesterday]

the seventh sorrow

From the moment my mother entered my room (her voice carrying that false-cheery tone it gets when she’s avoiding a cry) to tell me he had passed pleasantly in a stuffy hospital room, laughing and smiling, I had entered a state of feeling like I was half awake, in limbo, suffering a prolonged bout of sleep paralysis. This isn’t my life, I’d say to myself all the way to July, I’m anguished by someone else's grief.

“Oh,” It was all I could think to say at the time, and it took me a long while to get my words back after. “Oh.”

[nevver]

The Unvierse next door, Jack Bool

[thoughtsfromyesterday]

Mile Marker

“Let’s say a Rosary,” My Mother decides, reaching out to turn down the radio. “For a safe trip.” We had reached the 20 mile mark. No matter where we went, in any direction, once we got 20 miles from our house my Mother would have a cheap plastic Rosary in hand and a dozen prayer intentions in the other. “You start, Elizabeth,” She’d always say to my sister, “I can’t lead when I’m driving.” But this time it was just her and I, and I sure wasn’t going to do any leading; it was hard enough for me to keep up with the following.

[officialaudreykitching-deactiva]

‪Heavy dreams. Uneasy sleep. We are transforming into something new.‬

[thoughtsfromyesterday]

"It was a raw, nondescript time of year, toward the end of November, the kind of wet, self-pitying November day when every speck of dirt stands out clearly."

- John Knowles, "A Separate Peace."

[thoughtsfromyesterday]

It was hard to remember in the heady and sensual clarity of these mornings; I forgot whom I hated and who hated me."

- "A Separate Peace", John Knowles