You asked for the rain to fall down
and cover you with bittersweet thunder
now here come the raindrops
slipping in through the windowpane cracks

I want you to know that I too
Understand
but you don’t wanna give me the chance
So I will keep my piece and peace and live forevermore
without you

I can survive this monsoon
of tears falling down on
windowsill looking at ripped up love notes
so old yet can’t forget

Listen to me!
Hear me cry out over the lightning
I’m trying to reach out
and scream for you but you don’t hear
me anyhow
Lost in the rainshine
moonshine
beating down fast in the rhythm of footsteps
in a land far far away
make it stop
make it ring
and leave it high and dry and cry
and be mine.

Pain… grows
Pain… hurts one so much that healing is no longer within reach
Pain… kills
Pain… disguises
Breathes
Lives
Hunts.

Yet more is it prey than predator
This thing we call pain
for it is in the mercy of one who feels it
Its victim has more control over it
than it does over itself.

Pain… shrivels
Pain… fears knowledge of its weakness
Pain… dies
Someday
One day
When one learns to overcome.

“Life is like an onion: you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep”

- Carl Sandburg

————————————————————————————

Life is like an Onion

It makes you cry
and it looks really crappy
but once you peel off that first layer
it starts to look a little better
(still makes you cry though)
but as soon as you put in in a pot
filled with water
and spice
and salt
and a little “kharpudi”
maybe even some cooked split lentils and some cilantro
and a curry leaf or two
and simmer that baby for about fifteen
minutes
it tastes
like life is supposed to taste like

It tastes like love and excitement and home and happiness
and you’ll find that you
keep coming back for
a little
more.

She was on the hunt. Her next assignment was a prominent member of the royal family, and she shook with anticipation – this was going to bring in enough gold for a lifetime. Enough to feed her and the child for a long time.

Maybe long enough that she wouldn’t have to kill again.

As the carriages passed down the beaten pathway in the forest, she kept her eyes on the one close to the middle – six white horses marked it as the royal prince’s own. The horses started slowing down, the drugs finally affecting the large beasts. She let out her breath. The plan was working.

A brown mop of hair leaned out the window. She was close enough, just past the edge of trees, to hear the prince tell his envoy to go on ahead. What a fool, she thought to herself, grim-faced.

The carriage stopped, and out he came, straight into the open and completely vulnerable. The driver and two bodyguards who accompanied him were easily knocked out with sleeping darts. Leaving him all alone.

Lifting up her bow, arrow notched in place, she aimed it at his sternum, and walked out from behind the trees.

“I would like to apologize for this, Crown Prince,” she rasped out, her eyes hardening behind her mask.

His look of shock dissolved into one of thoughtfulness, and finally understanding. His eyes, deep green like the trees around them, closed, and he gulped loudly.

“Very well, then. I accept my fate.”

And suddenly, upon his utterance of those words, the snake bit.

Searing pain traveled up her legs, and with a hiss, she fell. A knife quickly thrown from the clearing severed the snake’s head, but the damage had already been done.

“It’s poison is one that kills,” he said quietly, kneeling beside the assassin and fingering the snake. Its tell-tale pattern of red, black, and yellow was too bright in the forest’s shade. “I need you to answer one question for me – why?”

Her eyes were shut tightly – she could feel the venom traveling up her leg, burning like hellfire. “To feed my son,” she managed to whisper, “I need to live!”

He quietly laid a hand on her calf, where the snake’s bite could be seen as an ugly rash. Green light erupted from his palm.

“You’ll live,” she heard him say as her world went black.

—

“Father, I saw a fairy in my dream last night.”

“Do tell.”

“Well, she told me a story. About a prince, just like me! She talked about a green light and how it could only be used to heal and… there was something else, but I forgot.” The child pouted as he tried to think back to the night before.

“I see… I guess it’s time for a little history lesson then.”

The child groaned, making the man laugh.

“No, I think you’ll rather like this lesson – you see, there was once magic rampant in the world. Every being could use it – it was as easy to pluck out of the air as berries from a bush.

But then, humans lost their ignorance – they became greedy and cruel. The beginning of what we call humanity was actually the end of peace. And so they learned to use magic for things best left undone. I believe that what happened next is that it was locked away by a powerful God. This God then allowed two people who proved themselves, through many trials, to have pure intentions, to access some of this magic.

And forevermore, there would always be two individuals with the old magic – powerful, but good.

There is another legend, more of a prophecy really… It says that whenever magic is used, it can only be used to save a life, and in doing so those two lives are linked.”

“Forever?”

“Forever until the gates of death themselves.”

“Well that seems a little too dramatic, doesn’t it?”

The man chuckled, ruffling the boy’s hair affectionately. “And you’re one to talk, Crown Prince Christopher.”

I’d never exactly trusted computers – and with my luck, the one time I booked an airline ticket online, it had been given away to someone else. This had posed somewhat of a problem at the airport. After almost two hours of arguing with the manager of the airlines and presenting all my evidence of buying the ticket, they finally seceded, upgrading me to a seat in first class.

Sitting down in the large seat, I sighed. College started in a week. In England.

It had been a dream for as long as I could remember – a foreign university to escape dull American soils.

A boy just about my age sat down next to me, stifling a yawn with one hand while stuffing his laptop bag near his feet. Faded jeans and a crumpled Oxford sweatshirt completed his look – the look of someone who definitely shouldn’t have been in first class. It was certainly odd, but then, I probably wasn’t looking much better.

Looking out the window, I watched the planes one by one moved down the runway. My neighbor simply put his head back and fell asleep immediately, his seatbelt cinched around his waist.

There was absolutely, positively, undeniably no way he would do that… even for his little sister, who he loved more than life itself.

It was just so… so….  humiliating.

And yet, there he was, sitting on the miniature blue stool.

“Oh Nicky,” Jenny squealed in her high-pitched six-year-old voice, a hairbrush in hand. “You look so pretty!”

His pout just deepened. His lips, covered in a thick layer of fuschia lipstick, looked like they were from an 80’s fashion magazine.

“Thanks, Jenny,” he said in fake cheer, putting on an act for his sister. “But now, big brother needs to go do his homework.”

“Already? We haven’t done your nails yet.” Her hazel eyes looked deep into his, glistening with almost-tears.

This was what he hated the most – who could ever say no to the Look? Sighing in resignation, he said, “I guess I can play for five more minutes.”

As she giggled off to get some nailpolish, he banged his head on the desk repeatedly. That lab report was going to keep him up all night.

It wasn’t meant for me to read, seeing as how it was about me, against me. But I happened to chance upon that half thought out remark.

And that was when I realized; no matter how much I think myself above people’s influence, above their demeaning glances and acidic thoughts – I truly am not.

Trying to be is far from being.

As the saying goes, that words cannot hurt a person – I find myself believing in it until the very moment that those words are sent shooting toward me. At that moment, it feels worse than needles being twisted under my skin.

Should we die of the pain? Or stand meekly letting it twist and do nothing? Should we defiantly rip out the metal and throw it back?

I won’t pretend that I know which is the right choice.

“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“Do you really think that thi-”
“I’ll take care of it. I promise I will!”
“That’s what you said with the fish, the gerbil, the five mice, the iguana, and the dog.”
“But this is different!”
“Let me just make my point – poop is not exactly the most pleasant thing in the world.”
“But mom, this… doesn’t poop.”
“If it did? Would you clean it up?”
“I would.”
“Liar. Okay, write me a proposal underlining your reasons why I should let you get one, how it is a benefit, any problems that could possibly occur, and solutions to said problems.”
“Done. If I do all of that, then will you let me get a laptop?

2009 has dawned.

Another year of
living
loving
learning
and laughing

I can’t wait for all the things to come.

And in anticipation for it, I decided to challenge myself this year: write a short piece each week, in different styles.

I am optimistic (as is everyone in their first post) and hope that this optimism won’t decelerate in the near – or far – future…