“The fire escape is rusty,” Henry said.
“It always had been since we started sitting out here at age thirteen,” Jess responded.
“Five years on, other things have changed. The rising sun is threatening to take you. You’ll go, I’ll never see you again.”
“I won’t forget you.”
“Is what they always say.”
If happiness was a person would it be mother
That vile person who filled our heads
With vile words of doubt that poison
A young mind with contempt for self
Before even knowing what self was
Drinking in the night
Drunk on all her vanities
Sleeping it off during the day
Short memories give away
The suffering we have brought
In darkness silent
The dark lady walks
With weeping willows
As her only guide
Her black hair blowing
She quietly talks
To no one at all
Except he who died
I was a cowboy in America
Before crossing the pacific divide
In feudal Japan I now ride
I a samurai
With an ancient blade of steel
Protecting my home
In a place that lives in stories
Buried in dusty tomes
Written in ancient languages
Beyond the shifting sands
Lies the object of her desire
Deep in a temple nearly forgot
With staff in hand summoning
To her companions from the inn
Bold warrior from the west
Elfin prince from beyond the mountains
Bearded dwarf maiden from the deep
Towards untold perils they set out
Late at night under the moon
Celebrated by the evening sounds
Of the creatures singing to Mani
I went out to the hazel wood
Because their was a fire in my head
Lit by the fairy folk
Who come to take children away
He’d used his favorite santoku knife to cut his wrists in the kitchen of his restaurant.
His reviews had been going downhill for years. He was trying to keep up with the demand to create something new and something extraordinary. It was never enough. Spending all his time cooking, he couldn’t do what he loved—traveling the world to new places and trying more cuisine—the lifeblood of his creativity.
The last review was the final straw. A two-word headline—Has Been—followed by less than a hundred and fifty word write up. In his prime, he’d get the cover of magazines and entire feature write-ups.
He was tired. No longer seeming worth it, he’d used his tools on himself. Blades so sharp he hadn’t even felt a cut.
The things we show in the masks we wear
The things we hide in the masks we wear
Tiny invisible killers fill the air
Leading to choices about the masks we wear
I came from a place of deciduous trees
And 100% humidity
When I landed at SeaTac in June
It was too cold too cold for my short sleeves
Even though the sun shone high
In blue skies over Mount Rainer
Musing & Creating with T.J.S. Sherman 