the rose of kiev

I hate my flaws.  I hate having them, hate seeing them, and the work of hiding them. But life seems to breed the issues I'm so eager to conceal, as though every day is a walk through a thorn bush wearing a pale silk dress.  I just want to make it through the day with my clothing in one piece, but the environment makes that impossible.  Of course I'll lie down at the end of the day bloodied and scraped with rips and tears.  But why do so many other people around me seem to reach their beds unscathed?  Is it something wrong with me? So I'll stay awake late into the night, needle and thread hacking my frayed dress back together.  Because what if they see?  I can't let them see the holes.  Because that's the message out there: You must not be flawed.  Why else do more than a million people a year inject Botox into their aging cheeks?  People flash white smiles and don't talk about their teeth whiteners, just like magicians don't reveal their secrets. That's...

I have this lovely pair of brown flats that I like very much.  However, judging by what they did to my heels when I wore them last week, the love is hardly mutual.  In the time it took me to walk to my first class from the bus stop, I was already limping and fantasizing about Neosporin and a box of Band-Aids. My heels were lucky enough to be raw on a warm and dry day, and the bulk of my path happened to be across the campus Oval, a grassy park area criss-crossed with sidewalks.  With my shoes in hand, the undamaged soles of my feet padded through the soft Bluegrass blades of the Oval's circumference.  And I endured a surprise lesson on the terrain.   In that short walk, my toes sunk into a miniature swamp, and then were covered by a patch of sand on the opposite side of a sidewalk.  One moment the turf was luxurious, then a looming pine tree would choke out the grass with its shade and needles.  And just when I'd think I'm in the clear again, I realized from the acorn lodge...

Autumn is a woman taking her clothes off.  The sun falling upon the leaves of her garments, her cheeks and fine clothes blush one more time before she starts taking off the beautiful layers of summer.  Summer-green pumpkin vines bulge with warm orange, and corn husks open to reveal checkered orange and rust-red.  She unfolds her arms and apples come spilling out into pie crusts and cider pitchers, herself a cornucopia of bounty.  She laughs in the plenty and dusts her hands on her cornfield apron. She smiles first when someone bites into that tart early apple.  There is always a piece of hay in her hair and a pie on her sill.  Her scent is sweet in the corn maze and the child's trick-or-treat bag; she smells of warmth and change.   But she never visits long, with her rosy orange cheeks and gentle breath.  Because Autumn is a woman taking her clothes off.  And the apple trees are shaken and picked clean, and the pumpkin vines shrivel and turn brown, and every day another tree loses ...

(I wrote this back in March) Writing is flying a kite, and as of late I have been trying to fly it with a stiff iron pipe. Holding the cold metal in my hand I should know better – I’m merely trying to hold my kite to find the pre-approved Jesus section of the sky.  And I’ve endured enough sub-par creativity to know what a failure kite-flying is under such stiff direction. I pull a loose yellow cord, bright with hope and fearful lack of control, from my front pocket to attach to the kite.  The bright cloth dangles loosely from the string, and perspiration rolls from my palm to dampen the cord.  What control do I now have?  A running start of inspiration, a frantic toss into the air, and dragging the kite along until it catches the winds and begins to climb.  The wind bucks and weaves, bellows and quiets, and the satiny square floats upon the gusts, what I can only pray are the breaths of the Spirit.   This is no child’s kite, to crash into branches and electrical wires with laugh...