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We just moved in.
Cows and goats as neighbors.
Mangy dog hunting varmnits.
Old hardwood floors.
A backporch for houseplants, smoke breaks, muddy boots.
Our white shanty farmhouse.
Windows abound; sparrows nests on the ledges.
The steady clack and rumble of trains.
A room to be my Study.
This catacomb has lain untouched for centuries, the stone covering its entrance not having been moved since the last body was entombed here. The air is stale, old, stagnant, and thick with dust and decay. The silence is heavy and overwhelming, save for the stones and bones rattling and crunching beneath my boots. The pressure of being so far underground weighs on my chest and the darkness is nearly impenetrable. I carry a torch; the fire casting shadows against the walls and tombs. Skeletons wrapped in disintegrating adornments, surrounded by sentimental treasures. Not even the rats seem to be here anymore; any remaining corpse long past the time when they ever had any flesh on their bones. Unexpectedly, the moths come to my light. Awakening from their centuries-old slumber, to flit and dance around the warm flame, bumping into my hand, their soft wings brushing me in ancient dust. Have they been sleeping here among the dead all this time? Had they ever even seen a light before? If they had-would they even remember it? These moths must be in awe of me as the light-bringer, much how I am in awe that they are alive here, in this forgotten place, where there has only been darkness and silence.
Like a lover, passionate and familiar;
I will fill you.
Like I have so many others before you.
You give me butterflies.
I think about you
when I’m not holding you open
between my hands.
I miss you
when I’m not caught between
these soft pages
And the rough tip of my pencil.
Are all of you my asylums?
Forming crazy words and ramblings
On tens of thousands of blank pages.
I think I’m held captive in these lines.
My entire life scrawled and thrown down
In graphite and ink blots
For people to decipher.
I am overwhelmed.
Being pulled all directions.
I am exhausted.
I’m going to hide under my bed.
Don’t get enough sleep.
Schoolwork has taken over.
Too much stuff to do.
My attention being spread too thin.
Clutter baring down.
There’s too much junk in my house.
My life needs cleaning.
I have too many things in on my plate.
Her gnarled and wrinkled hands, long fingers like spider’s legs, nails like daggers, clutched the black leather bag and its two handles. It had served her well for centuries; larger on the inside than it appeared on the outside, and only ever weighing hardly anything. It sat aerodynamically upon the tail of her broom and always match her dress. She set the bag down and unclasped its buckle, rummaging through its contents for the supplies she needed for her spell work. It contained innumerable items, both ancient and modern, used for purposes both good and sinister.
Reference books and spell books and her book of shadows. Crystals and metals and minerals and gems. A portable iron cauldron, a broom repair kit, and charged water from a Solstice. Various bundles and satchels and jars of both fresh and dried, medicinal and poisonous, herbs and plants. Salt and honey and the powdered wood of various trees. Holy symbols and statues and effigies of Gods and Goddesses. Candles of beeswax in every color conceivable. A corn dolly, a voodoo doll, and figures formed of clay. Bottles of ink, and feather quills, and parchment for notes. Ancient rune stones, tea leaves, tarot cards, and a crystal ball. A curved boline, an athame, an axe, and a wand. Burlap sacks, a wicker basket, pruning shears, a mortar and pestle, Alchemist’s refining tools, and grain alcohol.
These items and so much more. Each one having numerous uses, each one gathered and well-used in her travels. Some fear her, some love her, but most know her work by name. So many years. So many people. So many spells and remedies and ceremonies. Her old hands find each item where it should be, and she lays them out, preparing her workspace, and centering her mind. A witch’s work is never done it seems.
It was late at night, far into the winter, and deeply cold outside.
The snow fell steadily, blanketing all and sticking.
Then, the snow stopped and the temperature rose.
Just enough to make-wet the streets
And make fog rise from the ground.
I was driving my pickup truck; headlights on.
The fog was so dense I couldn’t see 15 feet in front of my own bumper.
I drove slowly down country roads,
Watching for ice and monsters alike.
I hit the outskirts of town, traffic driving by me from the opposite direction.
I turned a corner to see a semi a ways away,
Its headlights illuminating a man crossing the street,
And pausing to stand in the middle of the road.
The distance between the semi and I closed,
And as the glowing beams of our headlights touched,
There was no longer a man standing there.
He was gone, completely.
Disappeared into the fog or the night,
Making me suddenly truly believe all my Grandfather’s stories
About ghostly hitchhikers on the road at night.
The sky flickers like an off-channel TV screen, the black and white fuzzy flashing. Sunflower cover the horizon, their shadows playing with me in the dark, casting lies against the side of the barn. I swear I can see the outline of a man, hunkered below their heavy drooping heads. A gust of wind makes them bend and shake, playing tricks on my eyes again and again. Am I still alone here in this barn? I become nervous, pulling my Winchester pocket knife out, opening it up, and squeezing it in my left hand while I write. It was all so strange, sitting on the lowest bales of hay, watching the heat lightening on the East side of the barn. The chickens are much bigger now than the stout fuzzy bodies they had a month ago. They softly fluff their feathers and cluck under their breath, the straw beneath them rustling as they stir their feet. The rain on the barn roof came down in a light mist, until finally, the skies opened up and large dense drops fell and splashed to the wheat fields and barn below. The wind blew in through the broken windows and whistled through my ears, tossing about my paper and all the tufts of hay that stuck out awkwardly and messy from their bales; frail bodies shaking.
Today I drew the cards
And they told me that to flourish
in my writing, and in my life,
I need to allow myself to feel my grief.
Because it withholds me,
Cripples me,
Retrains me.
That I must stop concealing my pain.
Stop hiding my broken emotions.
Stop hiding my sadness.
My loss is my power.
My devastation is my fuel.
My anguish is my battery.
My trauma is my fire.
To use in my writing, and to write about.
But it hurts.
It takes so much out of me
To put so much of a broken life on paper.
I blanket and hide and conceal and distract
So my heart isn’t heavy.
So I can sleep at night.
So I can find happiness in the things that used to make me happy.
I have been told that I am a pit of misery,
So I stopped, and became something else.
But apparently I need to shed my skin,
And allow myself to feel,
To heal and move on.
The sacred ceremony, meticulously documented for thousands of years. Texts of directions and procedures and specific step-by-step ceremonies of tending to the body of the Dead. The long process to prepare the dead, now done with this life, prepared for the journey to the next life. Soul and body would meet again. The Wedjat eye watching over all. The feather of Truth waiting patiently. The priest performing the opening of the mouth. Attending shabtis effigies packed along with worldly possessions. The tomb not a final resting place, only a crossing over, a trip on the journey to the next life.
Perfumes and oils. Resins and linen and medical surgical tools and Papyrus texts. Gold flake paint and incense burners and sacred God-headed canopic jars. Walls adorned with hieroglyphs and burning torches. Natron, layers of cartonnage. Evisceration and embalming, and the mask of a jackal. the heart and the kidneys remain inside. Liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines, and the four sons to hold them; Human, baboon, Jackal, and falcon. washed with wine, and water from the sacred Nile. Sutures and a beeswax ceiling incisions. Amulets carved and imbued with spells. Tens and tens of days of wrapping of the body with anatomical precision. Body cavities filled with aromatic plants and herbs. Eye sockets containing replacements of onions, stone, or glass. Elaborately decorated burial masks made in the likeness of the deceased.
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