People Watching at the Gas Station

 Realized the extent of my people watching. Decided to document one. Possible inspiration.

White female.

Age difficult to determine due to excessive of plastic surgery: Mission accomplished.
Approximately 50 years?

Thinning blonde hair, dried from dye, needs to be washed.

Thin and frail, yellowed fingernails (probably a smoker) that need to be cut.
Metric ton of mascara.
Painted on eyebrows.

Purchase:18 lottery tickets.
Desperation.

White male.
Approximately 35 years.

Short. Boney.

Thinning blonde hair.

Leathery skin. Wrinkled. Darkened.
Smells of smoke.

Worn jeans, stained white t-shirt.

Purchase: Looks at the cashier and holds up 4 fingers, then ten.
Pump 4, 10 dollars worth of gas.
Mute.

Black female.
Approximately 25 years.

Short, thick stature.

No makeup, messy braided hair.

Loud, low voice.

Loose gray t-shirt tucked into “mom jeans.”

Determined to joke about the service with every person in line.

Purchase:1 mini pack of fig newtons, 6 pack of cheap beer, 1 cigar, 1 gallon of water.
Recipe for one lonely night in.

Until My Dying Day

           We sat in the giant purple love seat in my living room, and he kissed me, finally, during the closing credits. He could play the songs from the soundtrack, beautifully, on his black and white, pinstriped guitar. Sometimes, I would attempt to follow along, my fingers stumbling over the piano keys of the ancient, out-of-tune piano in his living room, but, usually, I would just listen, curling up next to him, snuggling into his shoulder and breathing in his scent of aftershave and cooking grease. We quoted the lines and knew every lyric.

We were in his little blue Scion, driving back from dinner at Bottom’s Up Pizza, listening to the radio. I knew he was going to play our song, when he clicked on the CD player in his car, giving me that look that I knew so well- narrowing his eyes a little, focusing in on me, the right corner of his mouth turning up in a slight smile. Track 7. “Never knew I could feel like this,” he began.

“Come what may

             Come what may

             I will love you,

             until my dying day.”

            As he sang the last two lines, holding my left hand in his right, steadying the steering wheel against his knee, he squeezed my fingers three times. I- love- you. I understood. From then on, it didn’t matter where we were, who we were with, if we could speak out loud or not- three small touches were all we needed. I love you, “until my dying day.” It fixed everything- every fight about his neediness or my lack of appreciation, my over-emotional temperament or his lack thereof. Three touches, three words, and all was forgotten.

At seventeen, it was easy to fall in love, easy to promise to give our lives to each other, easy to ignore reality and foresee only a happily-ever-after. It was easy to keep counting the days of our togetherness- three weeks, two months, four months and a week and three days, or some other obscenely insignificant number that made us feel the need to celebrate, as if we were surprised that things that worked out for long. As if we were waiting for things to fall apart.

Running Shoes

 Observation of a women in the salon. I was intrigued. Hope to put more emphasis on the shoes and their significance?

She wears white, Nike running shoes and sits up straight and tall, as best as she can, despite the rounded contour of her back, with her hands folded politely in her lap.

She wears no jewelry at all, except a thick, golden, diamond-studded band on the third finger of her left hand, which is a little too loose. I imagine it fitting perfectly on plump, youthful fingers fourty or so years earlier, when it first found its way to her. Although that ring is the only ornament she wears, her earlobes hang down heavily, proof of too many decorated evenings out, now in her past.

Her hair is thinning, and the color is fading into a pure white, dusted lightly with speckles of salt and pepper. Her part is a perfect line, extending from her forehead to the middle of her crown, separating her hair into two exact sections, each brushed down carefully and tucked neatly behind her ears, ending just at the nape of her neck.

There are bags under her eyes, puffy and wrinkled. The crevices in her skin trail down to her cheeks and lips, thin and pink, and finally to her neck, which disappears into a blue, cotton blouse, paired with white cotton Capri’s, matching perfectly with the blue and white running shoes she wears, out of which I can see just a glimpse of paper-thin skin covering two bony, fragile legs.

The running shoes are what intrigue me the most- so white and clean, obviously never used for their intended purpose. As she makes her way to the register, to pay for her haircut, she takes shaky, careful steps, each foot deliberately placed. Heel- toe. Heel- toe. She looks at her shoes, wiggling her toes in them every now and then, admiring them, as her ankles tremble under the stress of standing. Occasionally, she reaches down to retie the laces or straighten out the tongue just so, so conscious and protective of her running shoes, which, I am sure, were never bought to run in.

Dear No One

One day

we’ll take midnight walks

down the streets

of my neighborhood

barefoot

in too much of a rush

to be alone

to bother

with tying laces

One day

I’ll spray lavender perfume

on my chest

and wrists

to keep you close

but you’re favorite scent

you’ll tell me

is the way the nape

of my neck smells

when you kiss it

One day

you’ll know

how to hold my hand

fingers twisted together

with my thumb over yours

the way I like it

One day

you’ll know

that a kiss

on my forehead

is the cure

for every stress

every headache

every long day

One day

I’ll press

your palm against mine

and think

about how tiny

my hand looks

in yours

and how, despite my

5 foot 8, 150 pound frame

I feel delicate

One day

you’ll count

all my freckles

even remembering the one

on my little toe

determined to memorize

each constellation

mapped out

across my skin

One day

Tupelo Honey

It was the late shift, at the hospital where my mother was working. Ideal, if you want to get out of doing work, but the most boring shift of the day, with all the patients sleeping, all the visitors gone for the day. The nurses sat around with little to do.  They began to draw labs from each other, honing their skills, they may have convinced themselves, but merely fighting boredom is closer to the truth. Each lab came back negative for this and that, as expected.

One of the nurses handed my mother the results to her test. They all looked at each other in disbelief. The labs were for fun only; just to keep their hands busy and their minds entertained with impossible ideas. This is why my mother could not believe that she was pregnant.

“You’re joking,” she said over and over. Having only been married for a year, she hadn’t planned for anything like this, until things had settled down and there was enough time, not to mention money, to bring another life into the mix. “You’re joking.”

My mother signed out of the hospital, terrified and trembling as she walked across the parking lot to her car. She unlocked the car, opened the door, and sat staring at the steering wheel. It took a few minutes to get her head, to begin to comprehend the immenseness of what had just taken place, before she turned on the ignition. As soon as she turned the key, the radio clicked on and “Tupelo Honey,” by Van Morrison, began to play. “She’s as sweet as tupelo honey,” he sang to her, reassuringly. She says that this was the moment that my name was spoken to her, “by an angel,” she tells me

When my mother would put me to sleep at night, or when I would crawl into her lap crying, she would sing the lyrics to me. Even now, as I live away from her in my own world, living my own life, she reminds me every now and then:

“You can take all the tea in China

Put it in a brown bag for me

Sail right around all the seven oceans

Drop it straight into the deep blue sea

She’s as sweet as tupelo honey

She’s an angel of the first degree

She’s as sweet, she’s as sweet as tupelo honey

Just like honey, baby, from the bee”

Bucket List

1. Take a submarine down to see the Titanic
2. Go to Africa
3. Get into nursing school (done)
4. Get married
5. Be a mom
6. Be published on a large scale
7. Preform in Grease (done)
8. Write a novel
9. Never be divorced
10. Never have regrets
11. Try escargot
12. Learn to ride the public bus (done)
13. Learn to sew clothes
14. Write a song
15. Sing at a open-mic/karaoke (done)
16. Take a hip-hop class
17. Learn an entire rap
18. See the Lion King on Broadway (done)
19. Take a Zumba class (done)
20. Read the entire Bible
21. Go skinny dippin
22. Ice skate on a frozen pond
23. Become fluent in Spanish
24. Try squid (done)
25. Read all of Jane Austen's novels
26. Read as many of the "classics" as I can- poems, novels, etc.
27. Learn to do a cartwheel
28. Be a famous author
29. Advance my degree after college
30. Kiss someone in the rain (done)
31. Completely dye my hair (done)
32. Put a crazy color in my hair (done)
33. Make a movie
34. Go to Spain
35. Fall in love (done)

To My Mother, Upon Leaving For College

If I could

I would shrink you 

down to fun-size

and slip

you into the left front pocket

of my jeans

so that

when i stood

as i do

with my thumb hooked

into the opening

i could

wiggle my finger around

and know

that you were there

even when you've lost your phone

again 

or your hands are covered in glue

due to some, new, experimental

home-improvement project

you are determined to carry out

I would pick you up

and place you

behind my ear

so you could

sing to me

a few notes too low

a few notches too loud

a few lines made up

skipping the verses, of course

but, somehow, better than the original

I would set you on the tip of my pen

so you could

shift your weight

this way and that way

steering my hand

where it needs to go

saving me

the red pen cross-outs

and ruthless critiques

that I rely so dependently upon

I would even let you sit

on the dashboard of that

rundown, beat up, hunk of metal

you make me

drive and I wouldn't even complain

during the "slow down!…dear Jesus!… don't hit the biker"s

so that you could tell me

where to go, so that

I wouldn't lose my way

too far from home

as I sometimes tend to do

If I could

I would shrink you 

down to fun-size, so that

as far away as I needed to go

to stretch my wings

and test the waters

I could wiggle my fingers

into the left front pocket

of my jeans

and there you would be.

Why I Write

It can start with a single word. One, tiny, insignificant, minuscule, word that somehow, sparks something inside you. As soon as that one word is planted in your mind, it begins to grow. It grows and grows, until there is no more room in your head.

It spreads down your arms and into your wrists, tickling them as it stretches deep into your fingers. You twiddle your thumbs, tap out a beat, try writing something down, but it doesn’t die out; it just keeps getting bigger.

Then, that one unclear, undeveloped idea finds its way into your mouth where it turns into words, phrases- sentences even. It’s heavy and uncomfortable to keep inside of you. It feels like a marble sitting on your tongue, and it keeps rolling around, knocking against your teeth, until you just have to spit it out. You try saying the thought out loud, molding it and shaping it, trying to find some hidden meaning in this thing that will not leave you alone, though you have no idea what it is. It floats around awkwardly in a conversation, or on the corner of a notebook, or on the back of your hand, wherever you have decided to keep it, with no meaning, no purpose. Eventually, you put it aside, trying to forget it.

Days later, while in class, while reading a book, while washing the dog, while grocery shopping, occupying yourself with other day-to-day, mundane activities, your mind drifts, and in that moment when you are freed from thought, that pesky idea or phrase or whatever it has become at this point, find its way back in. This little seed has found just the moment it needs to grow, and it grows and grows again, sprouting words you never knew you had inside of you.

The words come so quickly, you struggle to remember them all, afraid to forget anything, and you scramble for something to write with. You don’t know how, exactly, but as soon as that pen touches the paper, it’s as if it takes on a life of its own. A story reveals itself to you, and you follow curiously behind your writing, with no idea as to where it will lead you.

You are thrown into a world entirely your own. You may fight as a soldier at war, run away from home, speak a different language, fall in love, or watch the sun rise from a fishing boat in the middle of the ocean. You can never be sure what will happen, until the story is complete. When it is finished, and you look at it again, it has become something beautiful, coloring the entire page with its vibrant abstractness that you found so unbearable only days before. This long, exhausting, irritating, process has resulted in something unique, something that only you could create.

And then, the most incredible part of it all happens when someone new, a stranger to your adventure, reads your story. You watch the reader’s smile rise and fall, their eyes fill with tears, hear them giggle or gasp, see their eyes widen in wonder at a world you have created, at a life that they have lived, because you have given it to them.

Luke

 first short story. freshman year of high school.

My brother was born with arthrogryposis. It’s really called Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita, which is a big, crazy, medical term for crooked joints. That’s what my brother has: crooked joints. There are lots of things that can happen when you have it, but normally, it’s just the joints and muscle weakness, which is bad enough. If you have arthrogryposis, it doesn’t get any worse as you grow older, but it doesn’t get any better either.

I remember when Luke was born. My parents tried to explain to me why he didn’t move like other babies, but I was little and didn’t really notice anything different about him for a while. It wasn’t until we were older, and I wanted Luke to play baseball, or go swimming with me, that I started to notice something wierd about him. My parents told me that something happened with Luke’s body that made his joints not able to bend and straighten all the way, and it was difficult for him to keep up with me. Although, I realized that Luke didn’t wrap his fingers all the way around his toothbrush like me, instead he sort of squeezed it in his palm like he had claws, and that he didn’t run straight and fast like me, instead he sort of wobbled side to side as he hobbled around, I didn’t understand exactly what was going on.

I used to get so frustrated with him, thinking that, if he just tried hard enough, he could keep up with all the other kids. “If you really wanted to keep playing, you could,” I used to say to him when he would start complaining that his legs were tired and that he had to go inside. I thought it was sort of like when you get really sore from exercising or when it’s really cold and your muscles stiffen up, it hurts to move sometimes, but if you just tried hard enough, you could do it. My dad told me one day that it wasn’t like that at all. It didn’t hurt Luke; he just couldn’t do it and never would.

Luke was a smart kid, though, and he figured out how to do just about everything the other kids did, just in a different way. Like, if he was lying on the floor of our living-room watching TV, he couldn’t bend his knees to stand up all the way, but he would wiggle his way up to the couch, pull himself up with his elbows, and stand up from there. We always made special positions in the games we played, just for Luke. When we played cops and robbers, Luke got to be the chief of police, who went from team to team, looking for cheaters who would be sent to “jail.” It took a few years for Luke to figure out that there was really no chief of police in cops and robbers, but he didn’t mind.

Sometimes, I would feel mad at Luke for being different, the way he was- for not being able to play as long or fast or hard as everyone else. It bothered me when I saw him taking an extra minute to get up the steps of our front porch, pulling himself up with the railing, and I was embarrassed every time someone gave him a funny look when he had to take his wheelchair out for longer outings. As much as it bothered me, it didn’t take anyone long to see that Luke wasn’t bothered by his disability at all. If he could do it, it didn’t matter one bit how he did. He didn’t mind a little extra help, or taking the long way, or needing a head start on anything, as long as it got him where he was going, and he always figured out how to do just that. Luke was just like any other kid, and just like all kids, Luke and I wanted dog.

“Absolutely not,” my mother said when we first posed this idea to her. “I am not raising the two of you and a dog,” she said, emphasizing “dog,” making it come out slow and heavy like a bad taste in her mouth. More times than I could count, Luke and I would come inside with a dog we had found in the neighborhood, pretending we had no idea where it came from, until Mom or Dad would make us take it back to its home. We would come into the house making as little noise as possible, and sneak the dog into the room that we shared. We were never able to hide the dog for more than an hour or two, before Mom or Dad found us out. I remember one day, when Luke and I tried to capture the big black poodle that lived in the house behind ours.

Luke and I had found Princess prancing down the street, and called her over to play with us.
“Don’t let Mom hear us, Ben!” Luke whispered to me as I slowly turned the shiny brass handle to our front door.
“Be quiet! I know what I’m doing! Now, don’t forget the plan.”
“Got it,” Luke said, nodding his head determinately.

Slowly and quietly, he slipped in the front door, leading Princess to our room. I clenched my teeth, covering my face with my hands, praying that Mom couldn’t hear the quick-slow, quick-slow sound of Luke’s limp across the hardwood floor. Then, when his footsteps were overpowered with the clippity-clippity sounds of Princess’ nails scampering around the room, I knew we were done for.

“Luke? What is-”
“Hey, Mom!” I yelled, running into the kitchen where she was cooking dinner. “Luke and I are just going to go to our room for a little bit? Okay? Okay. Bye!” I said in one short breath, running back out of the room, before she had the chance to ask any questions. I had made it halfway down the hall, when I heard her voice call calmly, still in the kitchen, stopping me in my tracks.

“Take it back, boys,” she said.

Luke’s little head popped out from our bedroom door, wide-eyed, mouth shaped in a surprised O, waiting for me to come up with an easy out.

“Mom? I don’t know what you’re-” I began.
“I don’t want to know. Just take it back.”

Luke’s head disappeared back behind the door, returning a moment later, drooping towards the ground in defeat, solemnly walking past me towards the front door, pulling Princess along behind him by her collar. “She always knows,” he mumbled.

Luke had always gotten along with the other kids in the neighborhood. We had grown up with them, and they were used to him. He didn’t have to explain his disability to them every time he wanted to play. When Luke started school; however, it wasn’t quite as easy. Luke was quiet and shy and avoided situations with lots of other kids, so that he wouldn’t be the center of attention like he always was when people first met him. It didn’t help that every year of school meant a new group of kids, and a new group of stares and questions. No one ever meant anything by it, and Luke knew that, but, still, he tried to stay out of the way, most of the time.

Mom and Dad noticed that Luke was becoming shier and shier as time went on, and Mom started to get a little worried. One night, when Luke and I were supposed to be asleep, I heard voices coming from the living room. As I crept down the staircase, I could make out my parents' voices.

“It’s just not normal,” she said. “He shouldn’t be so shy. Luke is such a smart, sweet boy. He should do what he wants to do.”
“I think he is doing what he wants to do, Jen,” came Dad’s voice. “He’ll bloom on his own time. The boy’s fine.”
“Still, I just don’t like it.”

About a week later, Luke and I came home from school to find Mom waiting for us at the front door, a smile stretched wide across her face.

"I have a surprise for you," she said, "but you have to close your eyes. You can't see it yet."
"What is it, Mom?" Luke and I asked, barely able to wait another second.
"I can't tell you. You'll just have to see for yourself."

Instantly, she was flooded with a thousand questions. "Is it big?" "Can you hold it?" "Do you eat it?" "Is it alive?" "Will we like it?" "What does it smell like?" "Do we want one?" "Where'd you get it?"
"When can we have it?" Luke finally asked.
"Right now! Just close your eyes- both of you, and don't look," Mom said excitedly, putting a hand on each of our backs, leading us through the house, our eyes closed tightly. I knew we were going to the back yard, when I heard the sliding glass door open. Mom stopped us there and said, “Now, when I say three-”
She didn’t even have time to get to the count of one before I heard footsteps sprinting towards us and, a moment later, Luke’s scream. Terrified, I opened my eyes to find Luke lying flat on his back underneath a giant, black dog. Already, in the few seconds Luke had been on the ground, his face was sticky and shiny from being licked. “Mom!” he squealed in between giggles, flailing his arms and legs from underneath his attacker, “A dog!”

I watched my mother’s face in that moment and saw how it lit up with Luke’s laughter. I think she expected that dog to bring some sort of miracle for Luke, helping him, making his life better, but it wasn’t quite that easy.

Susie was a year old, when Mom and Dad brought her home for us. She was a great, big, black Labrador retriever with a great big heart and a great big amount of energy, and Luke fell in love. Susie had lived in the pound for most of her life and wasn’t very well trained. She seemed to have the most trouble learning, “no,” although, since Susie came to live with us, that was the word that was said around the house the most. “No, Susie!” when she stole Dad’s bedroom slippers, or when she stole Mom’s rolls off the dinner table, or when she chased our next door neighbor’s cat under the porch, or when she chewed up Luke’s library book when he got his very first library card, or the thousands of millions of times Susie ran away, always coming back exhausted and dirty, tracing mud, leaves, and sticks into the house.

Susie was always with us. When we went to play in the yard, or with the neighborhood kids, Susie was there, trailing right along beside us. She sat between our chairs under the table at dinner time, scarfing down scraps that we snuck to her. She slept in a little blue and red plaid dog bed we picked out at the pet store, which we laid out on the floor in our bedroom. Anywhere we could possibly bring Susie, we took her. That's why taking Susie for a walk was a little bit of a problem.

When we took Susie out, I held the leash, most of the time, because Mom was always afraid that Luke wouldn't be strong enough. Dad told us that dogs need lots of exercise, and if we wanted to keep Susie, we had to take care of her ourselves, which included a walk everyday. I really didn't mind walking her myself, or going with Luke when he walked her, but Luke was crazy about Susie, and, for the first time ever, he was determined to do something completely on his own.

After Luke toppled over, once, when Susie chased after a cat on one of their first walks, we knew there was a little bit of an issue. Luke had a wheelchair that he used sometimes when we would go out for long periods of time, because his legs would get tired so quickly. He used his wheelchair a lot when we went out on long "walks," and we figured that, that might be the best way for Luke to take Susie out on his own. At first, he just held the leash in his hand while he wheeled around, but when the leash got twisted and tangled up in the gears on his chair, we decided that probably wasn't going to last very long. Luke and I were very creative when we figured out how to tie the leash to the armrest on the wheelchair. That went almost perfectly, for a few days, until Susie took off down a hill, pulling poor, little Luke along behind her, flying down the street chair and all. After that, we gave up on Luke walking Susie by himself for a while.

One afternoon, a bunch of the neighborhood kids went out to play basketball at the park, a few streets away from the house. Luke had been complaining all day, knowing that he wouldn't be able to play with us. In the end, he lost the vote and took his place resting at the sidelines, watching, with Susie sitting at his side, just like always. Susie ran off at some point when no one was looking, and when she didn't come back after a few minutes, Luke grew anxious without her.

"Luke, it's just Susie. She always does this. You know that," I told him.
"Yeah, I know, but it's not like I can play anyway."
"Come on, Luke, it's just a few more minutes, and then we can go home. She'll already be there by now, I bet."
"Nah, I'm just going to go, get a head start."
"You're being a baby, Luke."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. See you at home."

Luke left, then, and, after a minute or so, the sound of his footsteps died down, and I figured I'd give him a little longer to get ahead, before coming home myself. A little longer turned into an hour, before the game ended.
"Hey, sorry that took so long," I said, coming in door, "Where's Luke?"
"What do you mean, 'Where's Luke?'" Dad asked, coming down the stairs. "Wasn't he with you?"
"Yeah, but he left early to go find Susie, when she ran off."
"Ben, Luke hasn't been home since he left with you." There was the tiniest trace of panic in her voice, and I felt my heart stop, just for a moment.
"I'm sure he's fine," Dad interjected quickly.

Another thirty minutes passed with no sign of Luke. Mom and Dad started calling friends and neighbors, but no one had seen Luke since he had left to go home. We went out looking for him, driving down every street in the neighborhood several times, but no Luke. Finally, around supper time, we came back, hoping that Luke had showed up at home, or someone had called the house with news of him, but, of course, there was nothing.

"I can't do it anymore," Mom said finally, pushing out her chair and getting up from the table. "I'm calling the police." This time, Dad didn't try to tell her not to worry or that she was overreacting, and I started to get scared. I excused myself from the table, grabbed my jacket, and headed towards the front door.

"Ben? Honey, where are you going?" Mom called after me.
"I'm going out to look."
"Ben, it's dark. An officer will be here in a minute to talk to your father and I, and then we can go with you."
"I have a flashlight. Mom. I'll be fine. Please." and with that, I left.

I knew as soon as I shut the door behind me that it was hopeless. We had been up and down every street at least five times, and it was pitch black out now. Giving up on the roads, I turned to the basketball courts where we had been playing earlier. I remembered going to amusement parks when Luke and I were younger and Mom and Dad telling us that, if either of us got lost, to go to the last place where we had all been, and they would come find us. I crossed my fingers as I walked, hoping that, maybe, Luke remembered this too, and was waiting there now. I knew in my heart, though, that Luke wouldn't be there, because Luke wasn't lost. We knew every part of this neighborhood front to back. We had grown up here. We had spent years exploring every nook and cranny. We even had secret places that only we- and then it hit me, the one place my parents hadn't thought to look, because my parents didn't know about the fort. Only the kids went there- no grownups allowed.

I sprinted through the trees, as fast as I could, brushing the branches out of the way as they scratched at my face, . I couldn't see where I was going, but I had been in those woods enough times to know where I was, even in the dark. After a while, I came to a cluster of fallen trees, with a blue plastic tarp stretched over them- the fort we had made a few years back. Luke and I came here when we wanted to get away from home, when we were upset, or just needed to be alone, but we hadn't come here together in such a long time. Hope filled me as I reached for the edge of the tarp and lifted it.

But there was no Luke. My breath caught in my chest, and I realized, I was out of places to look. I had no idea where Luke was, and there was no way I would be able to find him tonight, and what if tomorrow was too late? I could feel my throat tighten up, that achy feeling burning in my stomach rising up until my eyes started to water, and great, hysteric sobs rolled out of my mouth. It was cold; my breath fogged in the air in front of my face, and I knew I had to get home before Mom and Dad started to worry about me too. I turned around and started walking, slowly, home.

I don't know exactly how long it had been, a few minutes, maybe only a few seconds, before I heard something. It was a slow, high-pitched whine that sounded sort of like a tea-kettle whistling. I stopped walking, but heard nothing, so I continued, more cautiously now. Soon, I heard the sound again, that same high whining noise.
I swallowed hard. "Hello?" I said in a whisper. "Hello?" I tried again, a little louder. The noise stopped all together, and then immediately started up, faster and louder than before. I ran towards the noise, calling out to it, every few seconds. The sound changed from the soft whimper, to a bark, and then I shouted, "Hello! Can you hear me?" The barking was very loud now, and close, and overtop of it, I could just make out another voice, smaller and quieter. "Ben?" it said.

"Luke? Luke! Is that you?" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I kept screaming like that, the whole time I ran, the voice screaming back at me, neither of us able to make out the other's words, with the barking overpowering both of us.

Slowly, a small, dark shape began to form in my path, and I ran faster and faster towards it. It was almost motionless, lying down on the ground, masked by the leaves and branches around it. After a few more seconds, I could make out Luke's face, shivering and frightened. I started sobbing harder than ever, and knelt down beside him, pulling him towards me.

"I'm sorry, Ben! I fell down, and I didn't have anything to help me get up. I didn't mean to- I tried to-" Luke was crying, now, too.

I didn't say anything at first. I just held him like that some more, both of us crying uncontrollably. A few minutes passed before I looked down at his legs.

There was Susie, her head in Luke's lap, completely still for the first time in her life. My Susie, the crazy, untamable, chewy, mischievous, dog that she was. The dog that had knocked Luke over hundreds of times in her life, the dog who had run away from us leaving us searching blindly for hours, had found my brother, had saved him, in the end.

After that night with Susie in the woods, things changed some for Luke. He began to blossom, as my dad said, and Luke had a new story to tell every year at school. When the kids whispered and stared, Luke's smile stretched from ear to ear. The first day of school was his favorite- new group of kids, new group of questions, new chance to show off the miraculous story that all happened, because Luke was different.

"Hey, did you hear what happened to me?"

Loafer

 my first abstract poem, done my sophomore year of high school :)

sole tarnished
textured by skin
worn
to the seams
reeking
of the musky odor
of dried sweat
sides sagging
inwards
too tired
to carry
its own
weight
heaving
an exhausted sigh
a cloud
of sand colored dust
rising
from the lifeless mass
taking
its final
steps
and the empty
body collapses
to the floor