Green Rusted Doors

-childhood story-

I wish I were invisible, so that he could not get me. He drives around in a green car, with rust covering the sides of the door, like a dirty child left uncared for.

I watch for Him.

He passes my street when the sun is high set in the sky, at the time of the day when it's too hot to run to the mailbox without sandals, black concrete on my driveway melts my feet like hot lava. When the driveway begins to melt like lava,

I look for Him.

I wish I were invisible. Now, I have to look & hide. Molly lives across the street. Her mom did it. This one real hot day when were doing the slip & slide she stomped across our yellow dying grass, ringing our doorbell three times in a row, but not by mistake. With that look in her eye, that mom worried look. She told my mom all about the man who drove around, she said he stopped up the street, asked Sandra to look at his kittens in the back of his car, but she said no and ran away. Her mother taught her not to talk to strangers. I used to be jealous of Molly's mom. they would bake cookies and do crafts, because she was the oldest, and her mom wasn't tired of kids yet. But now, my throat gets all tense like like I'm swallowing a golf ball when I see her. I am mad at her.

Now I look for Him.

Before the day she marched over to my house, I didn't know that HE was alive; I was just playing slip & slide but now...

Now,

I wish I were invinsible. The other night I heard channel 11 blaring from the TV, 9 (that's how I know dad is home from work). I crawled up right next to him and slipped under his warm arm. He smiled and gave me a cheese cracker w/a spot of mustard on top, his creation. Crumbs fell from my mouth all over the bed but he doesn't care.

"Dad?"
"Yes?" he muttered, his eyes fixed on the TV.
"I don't think I'm going to be around for my high school graduation."
Tears began swelling up in my eyes; I got that choked up feeling again in my throat. He looked at me suddenly and said:

 "Don't say such a thing! You & your thoughts. You worry too much!"
 I thought-See, I will be gone by then.

Some afternoons my girlfriends & I lay in a big field across from my house. We lay on our backs in the soft green grass, (not yellow like ours. Dad doesn't water it often). Our eyes skim the clouds. We imagine they are creatures crawling across the sky. We laugh. And sometimes for a moment, I forget about Him. Other times, though, I'll hear a car drive by, and if it's that time...I will sit UP real fast to see if it's the green car. Molly will look over at me, "You act strange sometimes," she says simply unblinking. I'll lie back down, imagine myself climbing on top of a cloud & floating away. I begin mapping out which clouds I will hop on to get to the biggest one in the sky, that one that will become my own sky island. But then, the dinner bells rings, & I see my mom smiling there on my front porch, with splattered flour speckled on her cheeks. She looks silly-I wave & run inside wondering what is for dessert.

Waiting

-a poem-

he waited for a bus that never came i told him sir the bus is not coming it stopped running five years ago but he didn't move his silver hair swept across the outline of his face his eyes held gray puddles staring wondering who took the color out i waited with him he spoke only a few words i am getting married today his fingers entwined melting into one mass a ring left unpolished sat on his finger she must be a lucky lady i replied he would not look at me he watched for the bus tip tapping his foot he glanced at his watch she smells like flour&redwine he replied after what felt like 103minutesofnothingness would he wait forever for a bus that would not come i nodded and said nothing there we sat sharing fireflies&silence it was delicious i became full ohimustgo i mumbled tripping quickly over my tongue he nodded turning slightly to smile a youreafoolishyounggirl smile i sat with him every night for three months we named fireflies august 4th i ran to the bench with my apron in my hand standing there on the corner waiting impatiently for traffice to clear i memorized his wrinkles&creases sculpted under his cheeks my lost job&apartment evicted faded behind me as i began running across the intersection for him my anchor he had become saltwettears flooded painting my face silk my hand swept shattering its grace my head lifted to see it

a bus pulled up at the stop he pressed his face against dirt streaked windows

and waved

The First Snow

When I see the first snow of the season, I think of Taylor Mali's poem, "Undivided Attention." I am reminded of the shear amazement children have for the world's small miracles & quickly I am humbled by my existence. Each year, at this time, I watch the snow fall outside my Chicago bedroom window & think about how I too, should be filled by this wonderment. When I wake up & set forth to teach my class of 9 year olds, I keep this inside my mind.

Undivided attention
By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com
A grand piano wrapped in quilted pads by movers,
tied up with canvas straps - like classical music's
birthday gift to the insane -
is gently nudged without its legs
out an eighth-floor window on 62nd street.
It dangles in April air from the neck of the movers' crane,
Chopin-shiny black lacquer squares
and dirty white crisscross patterns hanging like the second-to-last
note of a concerto played on the edge of the seat,
the edge of tears, the edge of eight stories up going over, and
I'm trying to teach math in the building across the street.
Who can teach when there are such lessons to be learned?
All the greatest common factors are delivered by
long-necked cranes and flatbed trucks
or come through everything, even air.
Like snow.
See, snow falls for the first time every year, and every year
my students rush to the window
as if snow were more interesting than math,
which, of course, it is.
So please.
Let me teach like a Steinway,
spinning slowly in April air,
so almost-falling, so hinderingly
dangling from the neck of the movers' crane.
So on the edge of losing everything.
Let me teach like the first snow, falling.

Our Shadows

A short story from Junior year in college (2003-2004)

I told my roommate, my freshman year, that I didn’t want to lose my faith in college. Some days I’ll think of that. I went running on campus this one night. That’s when I get to thinking about things I tell people. I get to thinking about myself and its odd. I start falling into this hole as I run trying to make sense of my being: past, present, and who I want to become, simultaneously. I was thinking about college, and myself. It was one of those nights.

Its dark out & cold, fall is here and the leaves stick to my feet as I run. My thighs are pink from the air & my hair is slopping all around my head as I go. I like to watch my shadow on the sidewalk when I run at night. I’ll look at my arms aligned carefully right above my hip bones, my back straight and steady. It’s mysterious and inviting to watch. So here I'm going along & thinking about God- but not too hard. If you think about things systematically they won’t invade you so fast. It’s a hard job to think of something so carefully. That phrase I said two years ago keeps doing jumping jacks in my head. It’s frustrating, because I’m already getting consumed by it all. College moments flash in my head, flickering and numerous. So many since freshman year. So much distance from that sentiment-I think as I run.

Right as my stream of consciousness begins to run endlessly, I run down this little hill on a narrow sidewalk. Suddenly there is this old man with a small round belly & white hair walking up the hill. He doesn’t even notice me, I run past him and then stop, because I hear something. He’s either crazy or he said something to me. I literally freeze and turn around. He is pumping his arms up the little hill with his red plaid button up shirt on, slacks and pearl white sneakers. He has over sized headphones on, and a walk-man in one hand, and he’s belting out lyrics. I can’t even tell you what he was singing. Something gospel. The little old man is bellowing out this song like there is nobody around him with this half smile on his face. He just keeps trucking up the sidewalk, swinging his arms, letting his voice meet the melodies without missing a beat. I laugh then, because he is the most beautiful thing I have seen in a long time. The leaves on the trees sit above-vibrant and changing. I know then I can’t tell anyone about this moment, because they wont get it. I turn back & run in the opposite direction. His phrase in my head slips quietly into the cracks in sidewalk behind me.