Now I lay me down to sleep,
please oh Lord my soul don't keep.
Let it drift throughout my mind.
Hidden secrets let it find.
Let it venture further on
and pass the time with those long gone.
Let it look through wardrobe doors
And spend an age on foreign shores.
Let it live in pages last
seen before the dream was cast.
Let it for a moment be
a spirit in the wild, free.
No my Lord my soul don't keep,
Let it leave me in my sleep.
And while I wander without fear
please keep this vessel safely here.

Nicolas Cage

Creepy Doctor Who quotes plus creepy Nicolas Cage. Because I can :)

I once wrote "no one will know where I have come"

Instead of "where I have gone."

As if I had already left.

And arrived.

If the deed were already done that is what I would say.

Poem: "A hidden, quaint, destructive thought"

A hidden, quaint, destructive thought,
crossed the paths I know.
And if another comes I’ll not
               discourage the way it goes.

Neither moral nor good it cried
for deliverance to my mind.
All other habits turned and vied
               to exclude my treasured find.

Curious, lost, and wonder-struck
I pulled it to the light.
My senses writhed at such ill-luck,
               this chartered lack of sight.

I dragged you forward, exhilarant thought,
and eagerly let you show.
And I’m at last no longer caught
               in all we’re supposed to know. 

Poetrying...

     I can see the purple trees
skulking past the line of leaves.
Hidden in the staggered gloom
quiet, curious colors loom.
Somber light and sunlight past
gives the bark a different cast.

    There is no pomp yet I’m aware

that other shades are lurking there.
No regal sight or lofty glance;
they lend not to circumstance.
Dimly violet, violent tones
make them gravely wooden stones.

I walk through this forest floor
with speckled sun and nothing more;
encircled ‘bout by green and growth
but once inside there isn't both.
The darkened and autumnal state
the summer cannot penetrate.

I cannot keep my outer green
as the only self that’s seen.
This grove is dyed a richer hue
and in the dyeing I die too.
But mutely paying every cost;
imprismed spirits wander lost.

So the purple last remains;
pretense leaves and nothing claims
to fill the void of colors gone,
but I know my strength is drawn
from my plum and spectral hosts.
They, once alive, are now my ghosts.

I feed from the ebbing breaths,
decay and soil and royal deaths.
Plants you see all drenched with wine
are tucked away within my mind.
This joy of green and resting leaves
shields a realm of purple trees.

This is an angsty piece of "flash fiction"

“Deedee.”

“Hmm?”

“Deedee.”

“What?”

“DEEDEE!”

“I said what!”

“Do you remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Do you remember why you’re here? Do you know what happened?” They’re acting like I’m some elderly person with my mind half gone. Of course I remember. I’ll always remember. But I don’t know what it is at the moment. It’s something terrible judging by their faces.

“Deedee do you know why you’re in the hospital?”

“I remember coming to the hospital. I was in a lot of pain.”

“But you don’t know why?” This was getting aggravating. I just told them why.

“Yeah, I was in a lot of pain.”

“Deedee do you remember why you were in pain?” Oh my god. I remember, I remember the pain. But it wasn’t the pain they were thinking of. I remember the pain from before. Before what they remember. I don’t remember the memory they have though. Why did it hurt so much outside? It usually hurts on the inside. But I don’t remember what was on the inside. The outside hurts too much to think.

“I’m not talking right now. I hurt.”

“But Deedee do you remember why?!”

“That’s enough, let me talk to her.” A new voice entered. A calm and terrible voice. I know this voice, he’s a paingiver. This voice gave me the first pain, the inside pain.

“No, I don’t want you. I want to sleep.”

“I have to tell you some things first Deedee, this is the first time in two days you’ve been fully aware of what’s going on.” Terrible terrible voice keeps talking to me. I hate that voice. But maybe I am fully aware. And maybe then the voice will leave without giving more pain.

“No it’s ok. I understand why I’m here. Everyone you don’t have to worry.” There are so many faces around me. Most are paingivers. But not on purpose, I’m sure they’re lovely people. I remember many of them have been in my house before, I better remember to thank them for stopping by the hospital.

“Deedee you’re in the hospital.” Yes, yes I know.

“You were brought in by your husband.” Oh yes, that face at the end. He isn’t usually a paingiver, except for once.

“He brought you in because you were hit by a car.” Oh the car I remember the car. The car was an outside paingiver, not an inside paingiver. I can stand outside ones.

“Yes I remember that. No need to look so serious. I’m alive aren’t I?”

“But…do you want to be alive, honey?” Paingiver voice. But I think it’s my sister’s. She never means the pain. Why would she ask that? She wants me to be alive I’m sure. I don’t answer; such a ridiculous question.

“Deedee you were seen to jump in front of the car. Your husband Jack said he was walking after you in the rain to bring you home when suddenly you turned and jumped into the street and were hit by an oncoming car.” Doctor doctor paingiver why would he tell me this? I didn’t remember and now I remember but I don’t want to know the end. The end will tear it all apart. I was so close, so unlucky.

“Deedee when I found you…” Jack’s voice choked, is he crying? He never cries. Heartless. But so caring. But he couldn’t cry when he needed to. Because I didn’t cry. Crying is for feeling and my feelings were dead.

“Honey I’m sorry about his rainboots. I left them out, I was moving boxes, I didn’t know you would see.” Jack was crying. How strange. I remember the rainboots. So little, he only wore them the one time. He would have grown out of them soon. Good thing he was wearing them, it was raining that day. It was also raining with the car.

“Deedee,” doctor began quietly, so quietly, but I still could hear. Dear God don’t let me hear. 

“Deedee the rainboots were found with you. Knocked out of your hands. Clearly this is linked to Jonathan’s death. You’re going to be here for a long time undergoing intense psychotherapy and it will be hard, but everyone here cares about you and things are going to get better we promise.” There are the memories. The bastard brought them back. I finally knocked them out and he brought them back. Doctor paingiver that’s all he is. I know what he’s saying. I understand now. So they’re going to fix it? They can make it go away? I give them all my best smile:

“Lies.”

The toad of truth in this swamp of Ulysses...

So after having finished Part 1 of Ulysses I flipped through Part 2 to see how long that would take me and I realized that Part 1 is only 47 pages while Part 2 is in fact 635 pages. 6.3.5 pages! 

I'm a pretty fast reader. It's one of my talents. If you're thinking of being wildly jealous of me remember that I trip over the floor when I'm not walking. But with my mad reading skills I can read Harry Potter 7 in a day. Impressive yes? And that's 759 pages! So you would think that I wouldn't find Ulysses so daunting until you actually open Ulysses and realize that reading Ulysses is like wading through a swamp. Of words. And there are Gaelic words and Irish words and more and more words and some of the words I know, like little patches of dry ground in the swamp, and I can stand on them and try to keep walking through the swamp but those words are so few and far between that I inevitably find myself stuck in this squelching sucking mud and marsh again and I know there are more dry spots but I can't find them because a lot of the time they're covered up with swamp and it takes some sifting to find my footing and sometimes I think I've found my footing but I read one more word (mahamanvantara) and I go pitching forward into the swamp again.

Run-on sentences are OK when you're discussing James Joyce.

But I'm 47 pages into the swamp and I have realized that Harry Potter and Ulysses are vastly different books and my ability to read a storybook quickly is not transferable to the "timeless classic" bog that I'm in.

And I have 19 books to read after this one! So when I realized that Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund is 666 pages (which seems unlucky in and of itself) I decided that unfortunately Ahab's Wife will have to wait for a future date and I have decided to replace it with Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, a lovely 288 pages and an author that I have been REALLY wanting to read. So yay for that! And now I have to go get in the swamp again.

As a child (and now) I really loved being in the mud and playing in the mud and so you would think that a muddy swamp wouldn't be an adequate metaphor for how overwhelming this book is but I liked mud on the ground when you can get in and play in it and mold it and mess with it and casually throw it around with other people. I do not like being in a swamp and thinking that the mud will never let me go.