I paint.

Painfully.

Wishing dad were here to see.

What normally took 4 days to complete....

seems to last an eternity.

My paint can fills with tears.

I miss him.

My house is covered with thoughts of dad....

in droplets of my memories of him.

He is here....

and I know he's proud of me.

thanks dad.

Wispers in the Wind

The voices in my head that talk to me,

or manage to mumble under my breath ,

they know I listen and hear clearly.

How often is it that they sound as loud

as trains that run on a track whilst screeching to a halt in sudden emergency,

the creaks and the cracks within the screams of metal on metal.

Whistles blowing.

Steam puffing.

It peirces the deepest reaches of my hearing capacities,

sometimes painful,

yet instantly comforting.

Once it's there, it blocks out the noise of those who speak around you.

Invisibility is a superpower..

sometimes worn on purpose,

it overtakes you,

smothering,

enveloping,

seizing,

gripping,

choking,

and you just want it to end all things.

But then it all goes silent.

You look around

and their mouths are still moving,

and their bellies are laughing,

and everyone is hugging

or telling stories....

and all you see is movement.

while you fade into the wall.

I stand in a room

surrounded by food

and flowers

and pictures of dad.

And I know he's there

and everyone knows he's there

...but invisible.

Dad's the only one who sees me...

because he hears the whispers

and the soft mumbles beneath my breath.

He sits by me and says nothing.

Invisible.

Like me.

and we watch...

and we breathe...

and I lean on him.

Because he knows the superpower full well.

I love you daddy.

flowers faded

a tulip hangs on her wall...

painted,

by me,

representing me, ...us...

a painting representing a connection.

evisioned through a window,

she took notice.

the red curtain... now a representaion of relationship torn,

a separation

a death,

a violent death, and the tulip dies,

tilted in it's vase,

petrified forever in death...

the vision in the window is forever dim...

and masked by rain that blurs the view between those on either side.

I want my painting back.....

but I know it will never reach me...

that painting was a breakthrough for me and then an investment of relationship...so hard to give...and now lost forever....

I can only see it here when I write.......

It has inspried me to write more.......

Where's my lip gloss?

Invisible....
I sit here, invisible, reading my book in this hallway. Sharing my breathing space with that little black fly that ever seems to follow me.
Doctor's and nurses pass me by wih no hellos....
my world is quiet..yet noise rushes in one ear and out the other.
I read my gardening book, learning of root maggots and meal worms, insect's that devour and slugs that ruin everything...
The things that also appear nvisible at most times but are there nonetheless.
I am surrounded by bugs.
The fly passes me again. I swat at him.
He laughs and carries on as he has for years.
Funny....everyone seems to laugh when you're invisble.
They laugh with each other.
they laugh at a story, they laugh at a joke and then when you ask "What's so funny?"
they stop laughing....and talk over you like you were never there.
They don't even look at you.
The fly brushed my nose.....
did he not see me?
...or was he coming in for a closer look.
Still he laughs as I brush him away.
It doesn't matter that someone thinks your smart, or "Lovely" or that your hair is "fabulous".
It doesn't make you visible...not permanantly anyway.
Invisible.
I fade into the chair I'm seated in and allow the weeds from my gardening book grow up all around me.
I am comforted here....
maybe they will see me if I put on more lipgloss.
mmmm....lipgloss.
invisible but shiny....
like glass!
I'll probably need a good weeding after this.
"WHERE'S MY LIP GLOSS???"

Plain Jane Librarian

"It's nice to see you back to work with your shelving, Jane."

I pretended to smile as I struggled beneath the weight of books I held cradled in my arm. I had found all the volumes I had reluctantly left beneath my bed, after changing my room around.

"What are these, Jane? We've never seen these books before!"

I continued to shelve and reshelve, trying to remember their order for they had not been numbered except for in my memories.

"What are these titles? What do they mean?"

"Yes, Jane. Who are they?"

I wasn't sure what to tell them...knowing the criticism they often throw in my direction. These were books , chronicled by me, of friendships found and lost....and this shelf was thier graveyard. Each spine, a headstone in their memory. A collection of works, so rich, yet tales ending in tragic death.

Titles listed as, Pamela, Tracy, Jennifer, Rae-lynne, Nicole, Andrea, Michelle, , Paula, Sara, Tammy, Marc,Deborah, Noel,Stacy, The Ripplers, and Juanita. Each volume embossed with silver elephants, that when placed on the shelf next to each other it gave the illusion of tail linked to trunk.

"Why the elephants, Jane?"

"Aren't they Pretty?", I asked them?

I used to be the elphant. The obtrusive thing in the room that no one wanted to be around...the invisible elphant that everyone knew was there...but pretended wasn't. The one that took overbearing footsteps and intruded into people's lives without intentionally doing so....but everyone made it clear that I did....

Silver sometimes appears invisible, reflecting light and color, causing it to fade into it's surroundings.

That's what I did.

.....But now immortalized the former friends into the silver form of an elephant. Putting to death the endagered species of friendship. Causing them to fade in the shadows that surround them.

Life becomes quiet in an elephant graveyard.

Elephants will carry the bones of the deceased elephants for miles and miles, grieving their passing, leaving a long line of mourning, a pathway to healing, and the determination to move forward, still.

"Can we read them, Jane?"

"Not today....but, maybe someday , I will read them to you." .......I smiled , reassuringly.

"How exciting!" the librarians exclaimed, chattering about the mysteries encased within as they wandered back to their quarters.

In my heart, I have excavated too many of these cadavers....and my heart grieves...but their order, and their display remind me of something invested in, worthily.

I am saddened at the opportunity to stand in my own elephant graveyard, laying them out in a line, burying the bones of those who once lived in my life, in my heart, in my memory.

Today I leave their bones behind....annd stretch forth into the sun.

I place Juanita on the shelf. The latest of the collection. A deep breath passes from within me. Like lowering a casket into the ground as the preacher says," Amen."

And I turn and let her go.

"I am Jane....and I will begin again...."

Wasted!

I woke up in a bed of debts today.
...heavily weighing me down as I bought gas for my car and the machine declined my card due to insufficient funds.
I am smart with money.....
the blanket of bankruptcy held me there.
...trapped by my ex-husband who left it for me to care for for the last 10 years with no reprieve.
....and still I pay.
I make good money,
I'm smart with money...
But when does it go away?
Like the winter snow and the chill in the air.
When does light break forth and I start to feel free?
When do the layers peel back and release me to live the life I was meant to live...
without Marc's past haunting me every month when the "balance is due"?
Today overwhelms me with Grief as I tear away the layers of my household.
Obsessively
Compulsively
removing the things from my house I haven't used in a year.
Such waste.
Wishing I could remove all that he left behind....and my working all to pay off his waste....

...what a waste....

Plain Jane Beautiful 3

"DO you really need to wear that stuff Jane?"

The voices in the mirror stared at me while I put on my make up.

I always struggled with red hair,

and freckles,

wishing I was someone else...

like those pretty girls I alway s saw in the hallways at school or in the mall.

I think it was mandatory that all red heads have an ugly childhood.....

"How will anyone see who you really are with all that makeup on, Jane?"

I don't wear much..just enough to hide the blotches of my fair skin and some mascara to bring out my eyes .

Don't they know that blonde eyelashes just make you look invisible?

I ignored them as I powdered my face removing the shine.

"Who are they to judge me?"

At school i started to blossom in grade 12...started to discover my beauty.

I came to terms with my red hair and the mole on my face.

I started to tell people it was my other nose.....just in case I needed one.

ALl of my self worth was wrapped up in that mole on my face...

my friends tell me they don't notice it...I still do...

I'm sure the mirror just ignores it...and so do I....

not bothering to ask it the infamous question of...

"....Who's the fairest of them all?"

"Jane you have fair skin."

"Why do you always have to compete, Jane?"

It wasn't competition...it was just to be visible...

to be someone and stay someone....

I continued to not comment. to see past them and apply some lipgloss to finish the look.

I'm not there anymore.

School has long passed me by...but the voices in the mirror still linger ...

trying to tell me who I am.

They're wrong.

I still hear them. but I have to choose when to listen...and to whom...

I look at them in the mirror and then past them to myself and smile.

Their eye's stunned and silent.

They see the difference.

and they wish they could be more like me somewhere deep down.

Polished,

Pretty,

Plain Jane,

...... Beautiful

With eyes and fair skin,

rosey cheeks and kissy lips.

"HAH!"

I laughed at them.....

And left.