If I was a smart girl, I'd close my eyes and sink into the conformity of being told what to do. If I was a smart girl I'd be some place warmer. Although today was a beautiful sunny day. I know it's only going to last a short moment until it starts getting cold again. If I was a smart girl I'd tell you where to stick it.

You have enraged me in a way that no one has before. You have turned me inside out and left me to burn in my anger. I don't understand how you don't see that your life is slipping through your fingers. I don't understand how you can't see that you lost the best thing that ever happened to you. I held it all together. I was your fantasy. I lived above the clouds in a dream castle that dissolved with one little whisp of wind. No one tells you that motes around castles work both ways; no one can get in to tell you it's all fake and you can't get out to save your own life.

It was hard work wasn't it? Laying all the bricks for the path of lies you led me on. But the harder you work, the easier it gets and pretty soon I'm skipping along without a care in the world. The path winds on and on and it's like I've never walked on anything different my whole life. But I've trudged through my fair share of mud. I was willing to share the burden with you and we would have gotten out together.

I am sad for you. I see where you are headed. I know you better than anyone else...even better than you know yourself. You are brilliant. You are talented. You are light hearted. You have a gentle way about you that is strong enough to hold up the world. I really pray everyday that you somehow figure out that the possiblity for you to have a healthy, happy, fufilling life is still there. It very much could happen. You have to want it though. And I can't make you want it. I figured that out; the hard way. I wish you would listen. I wish you would open your eyes and realize just where you are standing. You are two inches from jumping. It's like a cartoon where the anvil is tied to your ankle and you are standing there on the ledge watching the rope unwind and you have three minutes to cut it. Do something. Do anything. Struggle. Fight. Scream. You have already accepted the fall and you've closed your eyes. Open them. Look down. You are still on your feet.  

I can't save you.

I can't save you. I won't save you. You won't save yourself.

Now That It's Winter

Let me start off this letter by asking you to forgive me. When it happened, I was determined to keep you from learning that the youngest of the men was gone.

It was as if the strongest, tallest tree in the forest had been struck down by lightening.

Back then I didn't know what it felt like to have your mate die in your arms and to hear a human being howl like a stabbed wild animal.

I was terrified by my daughter's howling and cried out, "Lord, take that knife, blade and handle, from my child's heart."

At that she grew still, as if there'd been some unseen sign.

Later on, when she started speaking again, she told me that she sometimes dreams about him. Last night they seemed to be walking together on a road, looking for a glove he'd lost while mountain climbing by himself.

That's why I'm asking you, now that it's winter, to knit a pair of warm woolen gloves to give to some young man who'll wear them for him.

Here, it's hard to make anyone understand that up there my daughter's husband would need something as trivial as a pair of gloves.

When it happened, I laid out the linen cloth that he would pass over, carried out of the church by seven men. But I had no idea in which corner I should tie the coin he'd need to cross the bridge.

I came out onto the church steps and in the quiet asked, "Can any of you good people tell me in which corner of the white linen cloth I should tie the coin he'll need for the crossing?"

From the looks they gave to one another, I could tell they were sorry not to know what linen, what coin, what crossing.

So you can see now why it would be simpler if you asked some young man over there, now that it's winter, to wear warm woolen gloves for his sake.

      - Dona Rosu

tonight is silent. well actually i can hear the wind whispering; leaves swell up and flow down like the long languid sighs of a content lover. Sleeping beside me your drawn out breaths reverberate in my chest. I close my eyes and I hear sunday morning. The sun is shining in through the curtains basking the room in a soft orange glow and I cannot tell my limbs apart from yours. we couldn't be farther apart. a strange dog zig zags through yards tags tinkling. panic rises in my throat choking me while someone waltzes into our house. they have keys. how do they have keys to our house? it's a large dog with white feet. the knot you tied behind my neck grows gradually tighter each breath you take. youre happily dreaming while i fade away dangling by my toes. this is the best sleep you've ever had and all i can think is i'd rather be spending my time elsewhere.