Fall in Love

                                                         over and over        

        

with timeless romance….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HER BROKEN WINGS COULD FLY

My world had turned techno-colored. I would have never dreamed the expression could have any association with the rich vibrant colors I had found in the wildflowers, the rich, green grass, or the myriads of leaves hanging from giant hardwood trees. My world has lost its vivid brightness, had faded to almost black-and-white, with but a mere hint of color. As if someone had come along and begun to lay in some color and somehow become distracted never to return, leaving but the slightest hue of what could have been….

I would have been almost mesmerized had I been able to focus on anything at all—except for the soul wracking pain that had filled my world to the exclusion of everything else.

~Lenore Wolfe

Sacred Journey

You bellow from the other side of the door, calling me names. You bang on the door, threatening me. I've locked myself in the bathroom again. I turn on the water in the sink and the tub to drown you out. I start singing a song as loud as I can. I'm singing off key, but I don't care. My throat is raw. 

I pray that you do not force your way through the door. You have before. I trust that you don't want to break the door. That is something you have stopped doing. 

I sit here staring at the wall, half catatonic. My legs are shaking, and no matter how hard I try, I can't stop them. I'm not shaking because I am afraid. I'm not afraid. I just can't take anymore. You don't stop. You never stop. You've been hammering at me for hours. You just want me to see—you won't stop until I see, but I understood what you were trying to say before you finished your first sentence. 

I don't know how I’ve gotten to such a state, and yet, I know exactly why I haven’t left. Every time this happens, I wonder how I could still be here where you can do this to me again, and yet, I know exactly why I stay. 

You keep screaming outside the door. You've been screaming outside that door too many times. Sometimes you go on for days. You use to go on for weeks. 

Pain snakes its way through my soul until I bleed. I know the source, and I do nothing to stop it. I let my life torture me in penitence. I do not try to stop the things that harm me. You tell me that I am the worse thing that can happen to my children, and I do not try to fight your cruel words I do not leave. I let myself bleed as if bleeding with stop the torture. I never stop trying to be good, and I never stop believing that I am bad. I never stop telling myself that I am beautiful, and I never stop believing that I am truly ugly. I don't even know what it is that I need so badly to pay for, but I cannot stop letting myself bleed. No one made me be here. No one made me stay. I stay to pay. I am standing in the shadows. I look out at the sunshine, but I deny myself entrance. I am shadow. 

The deeper my pain, the more I feel alive. It is the only thing that I am allowed to feel. If not for the destruction of my pain, I would not feel anything. I see the child of my past who should have been innocent. I see her thin frail body and her pale skin. I see her eyes reflecting shadow. 

I want to reach out to her, but I cannot. I am afraid that I will break her. I am afraid that I will destroy her. I am afraid of my will. I am afraid of the power of my intent. I do everything inside of me to protect those around me, from me. I make myself behave. I make myself be good. If I do not, I could destroy with my will. I could bend and break the minds of those I love—and that is not love.

You challenge me with your rage. You challenge me with the nasty things you say. I have never heard anyone talk like you. I want to be shocked. I want to be innocent. I want to pretend that I am appalled—but I cannot. I am standing in the shadows, and I am tired of pretending that I am anything that I’m not. For, I am shadow.

I see freedom in the worst of mankind. I see the worst in the hate in your eyes and the venom of your words. I see myself bleeding, and I realize that I don't want to bleed anymore. I see the truth of all that I am, and I realize that I can live with the worst, and perhaps, I can even find the best. I will not be with you when I do. And, it is okay. I am shadow. 

I lay my tear stained face on my bare knees. I came to you to get away from a bad situation, and I have once again traded bad for worse. I've been here too many times. No matter how hard I try, I keep finding myself coming to this same spot in my life. Over and over, I am here, wondering how I got here, wondering how come. I can't stop the cycle.

It is a cycle not of violence but of despair. It is an exact moment, a moment when I pinpoint my deepest unhappiness. It is the moment I realize, yet again, that I have not moved beyond this place, that I am still stuck where I don't want to be. It is the moment when I try, once again, to figure out how I got to be here. This is the place where I question everything I've ever done. This is where I wonder how I'm to go on if I cannot even get myself beyond this moment. 

This moment when I have to face the fact I am still stuck. But then again, perhaps I am not stuck at all. Perhaps this is exactly where I want to be, feeling this deep pain, locked in despair. 

I am shadow. 

For, I stay to pay. I stay, to pay for not being a good elder's daughter. I stay, to pay for not being what I was supposed to be. I stay because, as I write this to you and the world reads what I write, I know my family will pay the price. I stay, because I couldn't believe, and because I couldn't believe I lost everyone. 

I stay because of the truth—their truth, the only truth. I stay, because I must live with the fact that their truth is a lie, and my family is between me and that lie. I stay, because the pain of failing my family will never die. 

They said that you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. And even though I now know that their truth was never truth in reality, I stay, because what they have taught me will never set me free but will torture me until the day I die. I stay because you make me bleed, and as long as I bleed—I live. 

PRELUDE TO HER DARK MIRROR

     I’ve lost all fear of being betrayed. I have lost all fear of being abandoned. I have lost all fear of being homeless. I’ve lost all fear of having no place left to turn and no place left to go. I’ve even lost all fear of death itself.

You dressed me up because I’d snubbed you. You dressed me up in a cowgirl outfit and made me dance with you because she’d gone to the dance hall with someone else.

With another of your many affairs, you took me out and bought me a tight-fitting outfit, again at a cheap dress store, because Lilly would be at the study-group, get-together with her husband, and you wanted her to see you had a beautiful woman at home.

You threatened to blow up my world if I threw you out, and yet years later you threatened to make me homeless. And when you had a new girl to whisper to. the same words you'd whispered to me, "I’ve got you, baby, I’ll never let you go"—you threw me out, knowing I had no place left of my own. After all, you had been the one to help me get rid of my things, and you'd helped me to give up my home. Yet you still made me go, though I’d never done the same to you in all those years—all those times I when I should have.

I’ve hidden in closets to escape your wrath, and I’ve taken refuge behind locked bathroom doors, praying you wouldn’t break in. I’ve sat in despair while you forced my bedroom door open, in spite of all the furniture I had placed in front. I’ve lied to cover bruises, and I’ve bled internally from the damage you'd done, and you weren’t done with me. No, you couldn’t be done until you could make me out as the bad one, the crazy one who wouldn’t leave you alone. You knew I loved you, and you used my love to bring me down.

Well baby, I’ve crawled across glass for every ounce I’ve gained since then, and I’ve lost all my fear along the way. I’ve come to know that if I hadn’t been so afraid of being betrayed—I’d have never been afraid of you at all….

Most of all—you will get to watch me be wildly successful at everything you sought to destroy. You will get to watch me be the successful author you said I’d never be. You will get to watch as I live wonderfully—every dream you tried to trample into dust. You did your best to shatter those dreams, so I think it’s fitting that all the things you swore I sucked at are the things that raise me up. Every time you turn a corner and find me there, doing well, I want you to remember the very last thing you did to me—when I was down and out…. 

I’ll forgive you some day like I forgave you all the rest. Keeping grudges only gives you power, and you don’t have that right…but I will never give you the love you so willingly threw away. And I feel sorry for you—because you’re the one who’s going to miss my love.

Isn’t it funny how we never appreciate what we have—until it’s gone?

Bet it drives you more than a little crazy that I have the peace you’d never let me know. And when I laugh, I'll remember you tried to take that too. Too much joy always seemed to irritate you. I will live each day with joy, knowing that if you hadn’t thrown me out—I'd still be right there shaking, watching your face, all twisted with hate, and listening to every disgusting word you’d scream….

You didn’t deserve all the years I stood beside you, even while you brutalized the love I never tried to hide. Still, you have spared me anymore of the rage that eats at you—and for that I’m thankful we finally, really are—through.

You never deserved—me. And baby, I’m finally home.

Wallowing is how negative energy keeps us lost and confused. Wallowing keeps us stuck, unable to let go, unable to forgive others. But we must also love ourselves just as much, forgive ourselves, which we often find so much harder to do. When we let go, we go forward. This way, we remove the dam to our emotions and allow our emotions to flow through us, the way it was meant. Emotions are meant to move, the way the river moves. Life is not meant to be stuck, like a pool that becomes stagnant. When we let go, we remove the burdens that wear us down. We release the past. And, in doing so, we release the heavy, dead energies that keep us tied down and prevent us from feeling the pure joy that is our birthright. ~Lenore Wolfe

Even death couldn’t keep them apart…

Prologue

It was a chilly, rainy night. The rain pelted his windshield so he could hardly see two feet in front of his car—even with the wipers as high as they would go. Wolfram O’Connor was high up in the Smokey Mountains, and perhaps if this had not been his first time up here, and then to have done so in the dark, it wouldn't have felt so—well—paranormal.

That was putting it mildly.

It had started with the mist, which had settled into the crooks and crannies of the mountain. But that was the nature of these mountains. Then, the rain had come. But, again, sooner or later, it always rained. That was mother-nature.

No. It had been the shadows, which seemed to follow him as he drove along, that had finally done it for him.

Wolfram didn't spook easily—actually, it was pretty difficult to scare him at all, raised as he'd been on the streets of Chicago. But this place was giving him the creeps. He preferred the back alleys, on any dark night in the city—to this. Wolfram didn’t play around. He knew his sheer size and strength gave him his confidence—well, and his willingness to throw down when it was warranted. He easily admitted, though, that knowing how to fight dirty sometimes gave him a false sense of security. It really didn’t matter how big you were—with the right enemy. And he didn’t know the woods—he knew the streets.

On the street—he was equal to the task—no matter the enemy. He’d had to be from the time he’d been a kid when he’d had to protect his little sisters from the gangs.

Here—well—he didn’t know the woods. He’d rather face a gun any day—than a cougar.

He wouldn't have been here at all if it were not for the plea he had received in his email—from a very old friend. He had almost dismissed it—but he'd been curious. This was a girl he’d never been able to get past. And he couldn’t understand that when all they’d ever done—was fight. And not your run of the mill yelling, type fighting either—but more of the knock-down, drag-out type of fighting.

Even their fucking had sometimes been violent.

He wished he had left the whole damn business alone. If he were honest, he’d known as soon as he’d seen the email that he should have left it alone. The only thing that made him feel anything, at any given time, for as long as he could remember, was rage and sex. She had fueled both, like gasoline on brittle tinder. All he ever want to do fuck her—or hit her.

He winced, remembering a time when he'd come out of a white-hot rage, only to find himself holding a glass candle like he'd intended to cave in her head—she'd been looking him right in the eye, her light blue eyes staring hard into his dark ones like she was daring him to do just that.

He wanted to kiss her, to see her creamy white skin against the darkness of his own. He wanted to beat her beautiful ass, see his hands against her flesh. Even when he beat her, he wanted to take her with violent need. And he’d never understood it. Other women pissed him off—but none had created such violence within him.

When he finally reached her mile-marker, he could barely see through the rivulets of rain that streaked his windshield. The black, glassy sheen of the pavement, damp from the dark of the storm, and the dim shine of his headlights didn’t help. So he wasn’t that surprised when he ended up passing up her driveway. Scowling, he managed to turn the car around—in spite of not being able to see where the damned ditch was in the rain. He congratulated himself on doing so without some car coming around the bend and plowing into him.

The driveway was worse. Google hadn't told him that she was a half-mile off the road. The road was soft beneath his tires. If he got stuck up here—well—she just better damn well make it worth the effort it had cost him to get here. Not that he was trying to think of her in that way.

He was a scoundrel—but she was still his friend. And they had put each other through too much already. Who was he kidding? He’d never been able to keep his hands off of her.

They hadn't exactly become fast friends. Actually, they had, in a way. But it had taken years. At first, they had always been too busy loving and—hating one another. But all that had changed when he’d had tried to live without her.

He hated that—hated that he missed her—hated that he might have needed her in any way.

He had tried to hate her too—tried damn hard, in fact. He’d said a lot of mean things. Hell. He’d done a lot of mean things to her. But he hadn't truly been able to hate her at all—not from the first moment he'd laid eyes on her. Perhaps that was the thing that had driven him.

What was she doing up here anyway?

He squinted through the pelting rain. He thought he spotted a light way up ahead and didn’t try to hide his elation. He was just feeling relieved when something gray screamed and landed on the hood of his car.

He nearly drove the car into a tree. He sideswiped that tree and came to rest on a much smaller one. Adrenalin shot through his veins and fueled his fury.

He jumped out of his car—enraged—ready to beat whatever it had been that had scared him into oblivion—all of his senses telling him that he had not just seen what he thought he had. He’d nearly convinced himself—when that same something landed square in the middle of his chest, driving his large, muscular frame backward with a strength that amazed him, knocking him flat on his back and stealing the wind from him.

He froze at the sight of the face just inches above his own—eyes so pale, they nearly blended with the whites of her eyes, stared back. He didn’t move—didn’t breathe—didn’t blink. He knew it was female by her long, white hair—at least he hoped it was female. He had no idea what difference it made. But somewhere in his mind—it made a difference. Cold, gray skin hung from her bones. Her nose was more like two holes in her face. She poked at his face with fingers so long—they couldn't possibly be real.

But then—none of this was real. Was it? Nothing on the streets had prepared him for this. Did these things only live in the woods?

She leaned in. She was so close that her face was a mere two inches from his. She sniffed. His throat ached. His body screamed for air, but he had the sensation that if he moved even a hair—even flinched—she would tear his limbs from his body. Call it self-preservation, but he didn't move. She sniffed again—then opened her mouth to reveal razor-sharp teeth.

This time he did shiver.

She immediately leaned in closer. Then her pale eyes centered on his—and she stopped. She sat like that for a long moment—her gaze not wavering from his own. Then she put her head up, and she screamed. Wolfram had never heard anything like it before in his life. It sent shivers up the spine.

And suddenly he was free—

She moved away from him, towards the shadows of the trees—took one more look back at him—then melted into the shadows.

Wolfram had never in his life moved as fast as he did now, skidding in the mud as he ran for his car. He slid alongside the door, went down like a baseball player sliding into home, and banged his elbow on the car as his whole body went sideways. His right hip hit the ground hard.

He slipped, again, trying to get up. Taking a deep breath, keenly aware his terror was making him clumsy—he forced himself to slow down. He got up and fumbled for the door. Once inside, he quickly locked it—then checked the backseat for good measure.

“What the hell was that!?” he shouted at no one in particular. That no one was around to give him an answer—but it made him feel better. He cranked the engine—relieved when it started—but when he shoved it in reverse, the tires spun.

He slammed it in drive, then reverse, rocking it back and forth, slamming it into drive and reverse, alternatively. He had to do this several more times before the car got enough traction to move away from the tree and back up into the drive.

He stared in the direction of her house. Every sense in him told him that he should get the hell off of this mountain….

But he wasn't enough of a coward to leave anyone—especially not an old friend—and especially not her—at the mercy of whatever the hell that thing had been!

No—most especially not her!

He tore down the rest of the drive, spitting pebbles as he pulled up next to her house. It was dark. He was cold, wet and covered with mud. He looked at the house. He knew there was no one home.

He would know if she were there.

He hit the steering wheel. And then he hit it again. After a long moment, in which he fought his usual round of temper and cursing, he resigned himself to his fate.

Wolfram settled down to wait for her to return. At least there was a yard light in the front drive. He noticed that there was apparently another one in the back. If were not for the lights—he swore that he'd have left her to fend for herself. He turned up the heat on full bore—and then he turned on the radio. He started to feel a little better. Light, heat—sound.

But fear still tasted bitter on his tongue.

After a while he turned off the car, still peering beyond the edges of light for anything that moved. Finally—exhausted—he fell asleep.

-To be released January 31, 2018