Versions of Chai

Show me your soul no matter how dark I won't look away. I want to see past skin, muscle, and bone to the raw you, Formless as vapor, the part that struggles to be free. Show me your soul. I do not fear the monsters lurking there, Being so familiar with my own creatures of darkness. Show me your soul no matter how dark I won't look away.

Sunlight pours down and spreads through stiffened limbs like warm honey, inch by inch restoring life along with grace. The world relaxes into color as the outlook shifts from gray to green. SAD days are over-- time for the thaw.

Happy Ides of March! You may think it morbid to celebrate the day given its historical significance; however, the Ides of March has become more to me than the anniversary of Julius Caesar's death. It has become a family holiday for my sister and me--an inside joke between the two of us that none of our co-workers can understand since they don't share our literary tastes. As teenagers we had our own version of the famous prophecy associated with this day, "Beware the eyes of _______" (insert name of creepy guy that rhymes with March). As I said, only a true literature buff would see the humor in that. But this year, the Ides of March has become more to me than just a literary inside joke. I have decided it is a day to celebrate friendship and loyalty, a day for true friends to stand by each other. Although for Julius Caesar this day meant betrayal, it does not have to be that way. On the Ides of March I do not say beware, but take heart. For when Brutus comes I w...

The mask-- I donned it willingly knowing full well the consequences the sacrifices required Yet somehow miscalculating the placidity of my own soul After years of practice I think I wear it well-- that frozen smile But inside I languish beneath the mask drumming fists against the rigid facade Pining for a few unfettered steps outside the glare of the magnifying glass The choice I made this visage I wear weigh heavy on my soul how long I can bear it I do not know

Amid the crunch of collision, such a small thing wards off death in the moment of slow-motion crash, protecting from the reckless hand of fate, but not without cost. Sighing in the instant before impact, it warns, "This might hurt a little." Then steels itself for the inevitable task--its created purpose--and when released from duty bemoans the necessary bruises it left behind. Such a little thing, really, yet with so great a job. A small strip, narrow but strong, the very reason I am still alive.

Words crowd into my mouth, burning my tongue, pushing against lips sealed shut by fear--the paranoid, paralyzing kind. To rid the acrid taste I swallow back each incendiary noun, verb, and adjective, though the action scalds my throat. Before the pain can subside my stomach retches them up again to begin anew their acidic onslaught. Why do I not speak? How can speaking out possibly cost me more than the turmoil of keeping silent? No answer. For the questions never leave my head. Afraid to speak yet tortured for not doing so, this silence is killing me.

O Apollo, blazing golden in the sky, ruling day from a chariot of fire, think of me, Artemis, pale goddess of night. Imagine me waiting in a shadowy glade. Silver arms outstretched, beckoning you to my wild embrace. O Apollo, meet me in the dusky hues of evening and in the first, gray light of dawn, Where we-- twin halves of one soul-- can unite and once again be whole.