There has been an unexpected death in the family. What a fucking hollow joke of a sentence that is; like it’s just some general event, like something just happened, no big deal.

I’m not sure when I’ll be back.

–
Jen
is here,
and you can follow
her on Twitter here.

It’s been six years and when I stand up too quickly, it feels like yesterday. Cantering a gorgeous, spirited Quarab through fields flecked with fallen leaves, marveling at the sound and scent of saddle leather.

He was an eight year old gelding, a Quarter/Arabian blend named Cinnamon Twist and his owner was pretty sure he hadn’t been saddled for more than two years. Observing him from the fence rail of his corral, I watched him boss around even the oldest, bossiest mare. He had attitude in spades. My friend, Deb, had asked me to take a look and see what I could do with him. I had a history of gentling finicky Appaloosas and had never met a horse I didn’t like.

We started slow and easy, with small talk and handfuls of alfalfa grass and progressed to easing a halter over suspicious ears, and leading him in wide circles within the confines of the round pen. His gait was a beauty. Clean, long lines and a powerful stride that simply ate up the ground… Within just a couple of weeks, he was accepting a saddle and seemed to be recalling everything he had ever learned about tolerating humans (the apple slices probably didn’t hurt my cause).

Fast forward to the lovely autumn day… that I will always remember as the FALL of 2003…

Cinnamon Twist and I had spent 45 minutes working through paces in the round pen, and he was behaving beautifully. A need to escape confinement prevailed… I decided that it was time to take him out in the open fields. Deb saddled her horse and led the way down miles of quiet trails, opening to grassy fields. CT quietly took his place behind the lead horse and responded quickly to leg, voice and rein commands. I was thrilled. Overjoyed to be riding, really riding, again- as opposed to slogging through training commands between fence posts.

It happened so fast that at first I wasn’t even certain which end was up. Out of nowhere, a dog musher and team came streaking through the field, from the woods. The dogs caught the scent of the horses and went into full cry, running straight toward us. CT actually lost his mind, right on the spot. He bucked. He sun-fished. He reared. He post-holed. He managed to do several at once. And took the bit in his teeth… and ran. Long after the dogs had vanished, barking and howling, back into the woods… CT was a ball of exploding venom. Time seemed to stand still, and then, so did he. Abruptly. From a dead run to a complete stop-and-buck. My “Velcro” came loose and over his head I went. With one foot still secured in the stirrup, I sailed past his head and heard the melon-pop of my cranium cracking the ground. And then he was dragging me. By one foot. In an ever-tightening circle. Determined to be rid of the alien source of his suffering, he jerked and reared and cut me loose with such force that I’m pretty sure my leg bounced off my shoulder. I didn’t have time to contemplate, because he wasn’t done. The next thing I remember, grinding, searing, crushing pain coursed through my entire lower body. CT had come back around and actually stomped my ass. Crushed my sacroiliac joint and fractured my pelvis, too. Instinct drove to me to curl up in a fetal position, but the only thing I could move was my arms. I covered my neck and head and lay still. Silent. Black waves dancing in front of my eyes. He was circling back. Bloodshot eyes, ears pinned back, he was hell-bent on finishing the job.

I closed my eyes. I just didn’t have what it took to watch myself getting killed. I heard a rush of hooves, an angry voice, the crack of leather and bodies colliding. Deb had run her horse straight into CT, knocking him off balance, and driving him away from where I lay. I heard him fade into the field, running like he was possessed. And all went black and quiet.

When I opened my eyes, I was alone in the field. Nothing but sun and sky and grass and dirt, tilting, topsy-turvy and out of order. I wasn’t moving, and yet the whole world was rushing by. I couldn’t move my legs. Eventually, the medics came and with them a rush of backboard, straps, chocks and a gurney… I had worked as a medic, but never had need to call an ambulance. It was novel, being the one with the blood pressure monitor automatically inflating on my arm, the pulse oximeter beeping, the IV drip, drip, dripping. I kept wanting to laugh. But no sound came out.

Acronyms bounced me through the corridors of the ER: xrays, MRI, CT scans… the verdict came in on wings of muscle relaxants and pain killers. Pelvic fracture 2mm from my spine… “disrupted” (crushed) SI joint, internal bleeding, concussion… and worst of all, hospital-grade coffee. Not that I was allowed to have any. The great surgery debate was raging: one of the doctors wanted to operate immediately to pin the whole mess back together. Another argued that I was “stabilizing” and wanted to wait until some of the swelling subsided. Hours came and went in a drug-induced haze, occasionally illuminated by nauseating pain. The kind that tells you that you’re still alive. The moment that I recognized pain in my legs, I cried with relief. The swelling and the fracture so near the spinal cord had caused temporary paralysis, it seemed.

The next 20 weeks are mercifully blurred in my memory. I had started a new job only three months prior to the accident and had only a few days of paid leave available. Taking time off without pay would jeopardize my health insurance. I returned to work, in a wheelchair, unable to stand or walk. I refused surgery, on the grounds that the recovery time would require even more time away from work and the four college classes I was taking at night. Yep, I had signed up for a full semester of classes and was a month into the school year… in a wheelchair… in Alaska… with a three year old child to care for.

I quickly found that most things presumed to be “handicap accessible” are, in fact, a joke. Ever tried carrying school books, wheeling your chair through un-shoveled, snowy parking lots- up an icy ramp- only to try to figure out how to open a door that swings OUT?? Yeah… that was almost as fun as trying to wheel my chair through cubicle-world where I was working as a file clerk in a government office, supporting a staff of twelve case workers whose sole purpose in life was to generate paper files and throw them randomly on the floor. For me to pick up. And sort. From a wheelchair. Some of them even thought it was funny.
Somehow, I powered through. Sleeping in a recliner, at a 45 degree angle, was the only way to take the pressure off the screaming nerve endings in crushed sciatic nerve #1. After twelve weeks with the beast I had come to know as “The Chair”, I progressed to a walker. Ah, shuffle and slide. The goodness of standing erect again, sort of. Mercifully, I continued to heal. The doctor shrugged when I suggested that I wanted to pursue alternative medicine in lieu of the painkiller cocktail he had prescribed. The thought of medicating my life away seemed appealing, but a rather short term solution to a long term problem. I enrolled in physical therapy. Ground my teeth through massage therapy to restore circulation… felt like it was destroying my sanity, really. Went back for a six month check up… and the doctor x-rayed and hemmed and hawed and said, “Well, you’ll never carry a backpack again. Your structure just won’t take that kind of abuse. You might want to look at cycling on a recumbent bike or maybe power walking. And no more bench pressing, squatting, leg presses or running. Actually, no more sports at all. If you fall, even once, you risk a fracture that could result in permanent paralysis.”

I listened. I think I even heard and remembered the words. I inscribed them on my mind’s wall. And I shuffled to the gym. With my cane. Peddled a recumbent bike, put myself through physical therapy, and waited for the interminable winter to end. When winter ended, I put on a pack and hiked the Gold Mint Trail in Hatcher Pass. Past the mountain hut, past the tarn and the boulder field and sat at the top of the water fall… the source of Archangel Creek… and looked down the valley. For five days, I climbed and hiked and explored. Cautiously at first, then with abandon. There was pain- dull and insistent and constant, with occasional pangs like glass shards on cement. There was a sense of peace unlike anything I had ever experienced.

As to the doctor’s words? Next to their inscription on the wall (mostly brick) in my head, I’ve scratched some dates. My first 10k race. Hiking the Chilkoot Trail in Southeast Alaska. 100k bike races. Several of them. Hiking the Kalalau Trail in Kauai. Climbing in the Alaska Range on the Pika Glacier. Summiting Mt. Rainier.

It has been six years, and when I stand up too quickly it feels like yesterday.

–
Ti Conkle
is here,
and you can follow
her on Twitter here.

–
kefaustin
is here,
and you can follow her
on Twitter here.

This is the way it works after you’ve been disappointed or broken or burned.

I mean–I suppose–that this is how it works.You test, and you attempt to conceal and you give away very little. You give, I suppose, just enough for her to be slightly confused. It is not a rejection. But not an acceptance either. You’re careful. Far more careful than you should be because this new person is new and so it stands to reason that she has no real power over you. Yet you’re still careful.

You spend all day preparing a glorious meal that will be enjoyed by your closest. You worry if there will be enough for all. You worry about the seating. The music. So, you spend all day preparing. You enjoy the preparation. Your voice bubbles over with excitement. But you still worry. You worry about the way you should introduce her. Then, in order for there to be no confusion, you call her and you inform her–matter of fact–that you will be introducing her by her first name. Done. Now what’s next? You spend all day preparing and when she arrives you’re so busy that you fail to introduce her to anybody.

But, she manages to make introductions all the same; without your help. You’re not aware of it completely but you imagine that she is smiling and making small talk. You worry when it comes to your attention that your friend knows her sister. You joke, “That is not good at all.” But your joke lands on three blank stares. Then, you realize that you have no idea what that meant. So, you laugh. The laugh that you know she likes in the hope that you’ll unnerve her into forgetting. Then, you’re off again. Executing. Controlling.

This is you. This is your life. And it needs to be perfect.

***

You try to avoid the slurred “I did not know Greek women were this beautiful” and you attempt to steal already stolen glances in his direction. He’s far too busy creating a perfect evening to notice. Jet lagged Out Of Towners hop from single girl to single girl and somewhere in the middle you realize that you are in the middle. Not yet wanted exclusively. But not rejected completely either.

So when when you meet a girl who knows your sister and this girl who knows your sister asks you, “So how do you know him?” you do not know the correct response. And because you haven’t been accepted (but not rejected either) you vaguely reply, “Oh, you know through so and so.”

You fight back by now redundant tears because you’re tired of this. You’re tired of drunk men that use flattery to pass the time at a party. You’re tired of not knowing where you stand. Not with this particular man, at this particular time, but the collective men that have gone in and out of your life. Can just one feel like it will stick? Just one time. Please let it be this time?

You look out into the midnight sky and find a star that you think is a star but its so bright that it could easily be a satellite. A silent satellite orbiting the earth capturing snap shots of disappointments that are so strong that you imagine scientists that study these images are sitting in offices wondering, “Did you see that? Did you see that pulse? There. And there. And there. What IS that?” you imagine them whispering; these scientists.

It is the collective rise of a breath filled with hope and that pulse? That is the collective intake of breath, as single woman after single woman is sucker punched in the gut. In that exact place where all her feelings of ‘certainty’, of female intuition come from. You wonder if any other single girls out there are accidentally wishing on satellites (instead of stars; in that case you’re not the only one fooled by brightness) and you wonder if this is the reason that you’re all still single.

Then, a soft–almost sad–giggle escapes your lips.

This is your life. This is you. And you’re nowhere near perfect.

–
Eleni Papaioannou
is here.

We bought this house because of the basement. There is an identical house around the corner, fronting on the park. But that house has a finished attic, and no basement, and this house has a finish-able attic and a HUGE basement. Brett and I sat on the floor of the other house’s attic, looking at the floor plans for both. The house with the basement had a bigger guest room, more accessible for older relatives. It had a big, sunny room for Brett’s office, with a door between that space and the other room, which would be our children’s play room. We decided and signed the offer. Now the house is mine, not Brett’s. But the basement is still just a little bit his.

A couple of days after the 2008 Superbowl, when Brett dumped me suddenly, I told my now-ex-friend Tiffani that I hadn’t slept in days. “He lays there next to me, and I just wonder—will he look at me? Reach out and touch me? And then I feel afraid and desperate, and I just can’t close my eyes. Maybe I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

“Don’t you go to the guest room!” Tiffani was vehement. “He needs to go to the basement. He started this, he’s the one who wants space. Don’t you go anywhere.”

So I told him to go. And I slept, fitfully, but better than eyes wide open. He asked me pathetically if he could come back upstairs about a week later. “Are you coming back as my husband, or because the room is more comfortable?” I asked pointedly. He stared at me dumbly. “Then you can’t come back to my bed.” And he never did.

He made a little apartment for himself down there. He came and went after the kids’ bedtime out the French doors. And he fucked my best friend on the sofa bed we bought for our parents to sleep on when they visited their grandchildren.

Brett lived in the basement for seven long, long months. When he left, I stayed out of there for a few weeks. Then, I found myself in a quandary. Paul was being shipped out of town, with two days notice. The very two days I had the kids. A proper goodbye was absolutely necessary. I had counted on Paul being in Atlanta through Election Day; disappointment and fear at having to face my new life loomed.

So, how to have a few more nights with Paul? Obviously, the guest room. It had no furniture, and the first night he snuck in, I ended up with rug burns that you can still faintly see on my upper back. We were smarter the second night. I met him on the porch in a tank top and shorts, and we shared my beer while we looked at the stars. We eventually did end up in the guest room, with a blanket on the floor this time.

I had the baby monitor in the room—somewhat disconcerting to my young friend, but he was good humored. Then we heard a cry. I threw on my tank top (backwards) and ran upstairs. Tillie was up—an extreme rarity. Damn my luck. I calmed her and settled her in with her binkie and blankie. Arriving back in the basement, I found Paul wrapped in the blanket, waiting for me.

A few minutes later, having laughed off the interruption, the baby monitor crackled.

“You’re fan-TAS-tic!!” the gleeful voice of Bob the Builder sang. “Good job! You’re fan-TAS-tic!”

Tillie was playing Builder Bob’s workshop. What a great background for our final liaison! We laughed and tried to ignore it. Then: “Uh-OH! Try again!” Great, Builder Bob is calling the plays on possibly the last sex I’ll ever have. Is this what being a single mom is all about?

Eventually, Tillie went back to sleep, silencing Builder Bob, and I got to say goodbye to Paul without the cartoon play-by-play.

The guest room is furnished again, and I’m slowly organizing the rest of the downstairs. As Yom Kippur ended last week, Joshua and I stayed up after the kids were in bed. We finished cleaning the kitchen, and headed to the guest room. We talked and kissed and made love and held each other. No Builder Bob, and no goodbye.

Brett descended to the basement as the beginning of the end. Paul met me in the basement for the end of the beginning. But I think Joshua belongs upstairs.

–
Becca Sokolov
is here.

–
Ry Pepper
is here
and here
and you can follow
her on Twitter here.

Doghouse Rose – This is one of them roses you can buy at 24 hour convenience stores like 7-11 or a corner market. They come wrapped in cellophane with a little water bulb at the bottom. Usually they don’t look so healthy but when you’re buying a flower a 4 am it’s all relative. See, they’re called doghouse roses because you only ever buy them when you know you’re headed home to the doghouse. You missed something important, you have been gone for three days or the last time you went out the door it was with a wild word or two and a smashed picture frame or three. And you’re standing on sailor’s legs because the best choice you made was to get lost in a bottle or pill.

And you take your peace-offering and you walk in the door, looking like a sorry case and a lost child. Sort of repentant, sort of sly like. Watching her out of the corner of your eye. Hoping this little offering makes it okay. And see it does man. It heals a whole mess of wounds at first, in the beginning when love flies like a wild pitch. Then she comes to you and takes it, throwing her arms around your neck and kissing and sobbing into your chin. She lets you in. And you think you done it, you are the smoothest cowboy on the range. You rode your horse back into town and everything’s A-okay.

But they stop working after a while. Because you see she has a secret little stash. A Ziploc bag full of petals from a hundred other roses. A hundred other times you broke a promise, where you broke a heart, where you messed up so bad that each time it inched her a little ways further down the hall to the door. She don’t wait up no more, she don’t wonder, she ain’t there to wrap a blanket around you as you drop into a heap on the living room floor and embrace and touch, knowing forgiveness. You walk in the door and the lights aren’t even on. So you drop the rose on a bedside table. Then make your way back to the living room and set down on the couch in your clothes and fall asleep feeling somehow slighted. Somehow like she took away your magic and you probably curse her under your breath as you pass out.

Because you just don’t see, old hoss. That it isn’t the rose. It wasn’t the sad eyed puppy in the door that worked on her. It was the worry and fear. It was that you’ve got this death wish and a wandering mind. And every time you walk out the door she is so scared that it may be the last time. That the streets, the drugs or the threats of never coming back may just take you. And no matter how bad you did wrong it don’t matter. Because you’re safe there with her. And you still smell like you and smile like you and you still make all them promises again. You still make love in earnest and fall asleep with an arm around her giving her some hope. And that’s all she ever wanted. All she ever needed. You and a hope that maybe tomorrow when you wake up it won’t start again. That you’ll become the man she sees through the fog and stone walls.

But it never really happens. Each time, each disappointment and each wound just push her heart back a little further and her step a little quicker. Until she isn’t sure how she loves you anymore and her own secret heart tells her she loved a ghost. And now it’s a habit just like yours. But maybe tomorrow she’ll kick. She’ll brave the hurt and the withdrawal and go on out that door and never look back. There’s still time for her. Even as she watches yours run out.

Then one day she does just that.

And you don’t feel it right away. Even heartache takes a while to weasel through your woods. You just get angry and you get high. You think that she’ll be back. Ain’t you a cowboy. Misunderstood and a little wild. She loves that about you. But then she don’t come round. And it starts to get in on you. The loneliness, the loss and the missing her. Even if you really don’t understand. And your heartbreaks. Into a thousand sad little pieces. You wander the streets at night because you don’t want to go home. The pillow still smells like her hair and the toothbrush she left behind still hangs in the bathroom. There are love letters in the drawer. A picture on a shelf of that time you were happy and she was still blind. There’s even a half empty bottle of wine in fridge from when she decided to join you in some adventure a while back but she didn’t have the legs to keep up. And you gently put her to bed, kissed her forehead and loved her as best you could. Then nursed her through the hangover the next morning. So you find no comfort and you hurt like a spike is being driven hard into your soul. You moan and sob when you’re alone. You stand on bridges too long thinking of jumping. You write suicide notes and try to figure out where to leave them so she can know you did your best. You suffer the consequence of your actions. But you never quite see it then. It’s just white-hot pain and lingering sadness.

Till years later when the pain has pulled back and the ache and mental pictures of her and where she might be, who she might be with fade into a gray-white haze in your mind. When you can’t hardly remember what her voice sounded like over the phone when it was warm and full of love and longing. She becomes stone angel in a graveyard of a life lived all wrong. Some place you visit once in a while to remember and pay respect. To lay a single red rose on.

It’s a death died a thousand times. And it is all your fault just as sure as if you fired a pistol. That hole in time and heart where she once was. That’s your doing. And not nothing can take it away. It’s just a truth in your life. You live with it, you pull it along and drop it down in each new grave as you dig it. Another woman but the same song is sung and the same dance is done. Another stone angel and another hundred roses.

And then you’re alone. Not sure you can love or even if you know how. And age and scarring have told you that you can’t do it no more. You can’t hurt another soul like that. But the lonely carves you apart every night as you lay in bed. You wish just once that damn phone would ring and the voice on the other end was soft and warm and says “Hey I missed you, do you want to come over?’ But if wishes were horses…

So you’re left with a thousand doghouse roses and not much else. A little box you keep hidden in a drawer of memories and mementos that you can’t open anymore than you could open a coffin to see what’s inside.

You drop to your knees and beg forgiveness. From God, from time and from the ones who left you behind. For their own lives they ran away.

Prayers and echoes man. That’s it. That’s all. That’s everything.

–
J.R. Romanovitch
is here,
and you can follow him
on Twitter here.

–
Mark Taylor-Flynn and
Animark Photography
are here.

–
lysavi
is here.