Strength To Stand - excerpts

Once, i was stardust. Raw. Burning. Cold and light and heat and fury. Dust. i flew through my galaxy. i landed in soft golden grass. i danced through clouds. i buried myself, layers and layers of sand piled on top of me. Sand. Rich and thick and scratching. But i couldn't feel it because i was stardust. But as i fell through the layers of sand day after day, i could hear. i could see each moment. Each pure, unresolved second that once started and once ended. Then i lay at the centre of the planet. Gravity had a hold of me.

Then came the noise. Then came the shaking. The sand i had fallen through was gone. And i was in the air again. In the fire. Not the purples and blues and blacks i was accustomed to but red-orange-red. Thick and killing. If there was anything to kill. i flew, too. i was never sure if i was travelling with that sand, or with my sisters and brothers and gods, or if i was alone.

Then it was silent.

Still. i was breathing once more, no longer stardust but skin. White skin. When i opened my eyes, the light took a hold of me. It wasn't deep blue or black or purple or red or orange. It was yellow and green and there were trees. Gently, i stood up. i had landed beneath an olive tree. The ground was sharp. i had a single shallow cut just above the ankle. Aside from that, i was okay. Breathing, alive. A bird sat in her nest in the tree. Just her. She had no children for her nest. She flew, and as she ascended i stole her body and took her form. i flew. i was not travelling with my sand, or my sisters or brothers or gods. i was alone.

My wings were glorious. Not in that they were beautiful, but that they were simply wings and i simply had this life to fly in. i was an unremarkable bird. Simple tans and browns. i had no stunning pattern on my back. But i felt more than that. i had eagle's wings and parrot's colours. i did not grow tired, but i landed, taking back my human fleshed form and discarding the bird's. It landed on the ground beside me. It was small. i pulled its left claw off and placed it in my embroidered bag. i scratched away dirt with my hands, making it a hole. The earth was cold against my fingers. When the hole was done, i placed my bird's body in it. i took a twig off the ground and burnt it. i took the dirt once more and piled it over the creature. Small and cold. In my mind i remembered where the bird was. The bird's family were gone. i walked.

i came across a lake. There were children playing, their parents watching from the edges of the water. They splashed. They swam. i walked up to the water and stood at the line until i could feel the liquid creep across my toes and then my feet and my ankles and then my knees. The adults did not see me. Nor did the children,
all but for the oldest of the girls. She looked at me. i looked at her. She didn't move. Later, as the adults were warming their children with towels, she looked at me again. i smiled. She walked towards me. She held her hand out to me, and in it i saw something shining. She placed it carefully on the ground in front of me and then ran back towards the others.

It was a stone. When i was younger and stardust my sister had one. She called it a wishing stone. i was jealous and begged her to let me touch it. But she would not. She threaded a string through it and fastened it around her neck. Hers was bright. Starlit bright. Hers was blue, and in it swirled gold and green. The girl's was the same colour as the lake. A light translucent blue, sparkling in the sunlight.

It was mine now. i placed it in my bag with the bird's foot.

i continued walking. Still i did not tire, i did not feel pain in my bare feet and the cut above my ankle healed. Eventually i reached a city. It screamed life. It overlooked the ocean. i had always liked water. The way it is not solid at all. i spent my days exploring the city. There were no fields to dance in, but there was lots to do. i took the form of butterflies and more majestic birds. Bats and cats and spiders. The rest of the time i was human. i collected things and put them in my bag. Beads and coins. Flowers and discarded cabling. i found a drill and put a hole through my stone and some string to tie it around my neck. My very own wishing stone. Every day it changed colour. i watched it changing. Sometimes it stayed still for hours, sometimes it could not make up its mind.

In the night times i went to a bar. It was a mellow bar. Not much ever happened, but people drank coffee and alcohol and read poems and sung songs with guitars. It was mostly the same people every night and from listening to their conversations with their friends and barmen i grew to know them. Some of them read aloud every night. Others kept their poems hidden in their bags, not brave enough to share their beauty. i do not know if they ever noticed me.

After many months i continued, my wishing stone still around my neck. i was the wind and the rain and the mist, but i was not stardust.

i was in a suburban street. i sat at the end of the street. i waited. It was twilight when she came. She saw my shining wishing stone hanging around my neck. She stopped a few meters ahead of me and tilted her head. i took a step toward her and she ran. i was a bird and followed her. She slowed, looked around to see that i wasn't there, and went into a house. It was a nice house with a fence and bright flowers. i took a rock out of my bag. i had picked it up from outside the bar in my city. It was small and cut. i left it in the mailbox.

A year later i was back at the end of the street, watching the sun set over the rooftops. The sky was beautiful and i yearned to be travelling with the sun. She came back. She didn't see me at first, i was sitting beneath the shadow of an olive tree. It wasn't my olive tree from when i landed. i heard her crying. She was wiping her eyes when she saw me. She knew it was me because i was wearing my wishing stone. That night it was pink. She did not want to go home so she stayed. She sat beside me underneath the olive tree. i told her stories until she stopped crying. Then she spoke. "You're not the only one."

We buried the rock i had given her with the roots of the olive tree. From then on we were friends. It had been so long since i had had a friend. We talked, we danced, we wrote stories, we sung. Just us. That was how we wanted it. Sometimes at night she snuck out of the house after her bedtime and we would sleep under the olive tree. We counted stars and i told her about what it was like to be stardust. In the morning i would wake her to make sure she was at her house before her parents woke.

She grew up. She went to high school, learnt how to swear and how to get hold of alcohol and cigarettes. She didn't even cough the first time. i'd wait for her after school and we'd go for walks to find new places to have picnics with cupcakes and occasionally vodka. We didn't drink much or smoke much, only when she'd had a particularly bad day. We were each other's and nobody could stop us.

Until then. When the noise came once more.

We were sitting underneath our olive tree. We had been quiet for days. It was silent and then she spoke. "i was alone.. i think.. i'm okay." She wasn't getting her words out but i knew what she meant. My wishing stone was black. "Go home. It's time. You know it." She stood up and walked to her house. Thunder. i dug the soil up, pulling away the roots of the grass, getting the cold earth in my fingernails. i was shaking and i felt the rock and i rescued it. No longer smothered. i didn't replace the soil. The rain was hail and ice. i walked down the street, and she watched me put the rock in her front garden by the flowers which were not colourful anymore as colour of any sort in the house was lost long ago.

i walked out of the suburb with rain on my skin and in my lungs.

She forgot about the rock.

Years passed and i kept travelling, kept collecting. i spoke to no one. i felt. i breathed. i had no brothers or sisters or gods and i was not stardust. i simply was. i trekked through forests, i climbed mountains, i swam oceans, i listened to people. i learnt a lot. i kept my wishing stone on everywhere and my bag of treasures close at hand. i began to understand why my sister had not let me touch her wishing stone around her neck. i wanted to see her so i could tell her. i wanted to say sorry and i wanted to laugh with her and say goodbye to her. But i could not.

i was alone. The only one.

On the day that my wishing stone turned the same shade as my sister's was, i knew it was time. Bright and blue and gold and green. i made my way back to my city and the bar where i had spent my first earth months. Where i had seen the poetry in people's bags and pockets that remained unread. Some of the people from my first months were still there. Still arguing in their minds. To read aloud, to not read aloud. By now there was a lot more alcohol being served than coffee.

On the fifteenth night, she came. She went straight to the bar to order some vodka. My girl. My girl from the lake. Always the same age as me but one step ahead. She didn't see me at first.

After an hour of her vodka she got up to the stage. She fingered the rock in her pocket.

"Never ending fluroscence
a harlequin sits at a booth
diamonds stretching with
silent tears
and sips of coffee
assistance required
before the flight off
rain covered piers
and self served
bitter consumption
harly's a juggling junkie
but it's got no balls
white powder
scars to show
under all that makeup
that's melting down its face
exposing beautiful
tired eyes
it never believed me
when i said it didn't have to do this
when i wished on a star for it
it never believed
it was the funniest person
i had ever met

Never ending plastic smiles
i can't say i ever
really knew it
but felt the world
when i looked in its bleeding eyes
i cried when i heard of
a harlequin's ressurection
a return to the stage
of laughter, music, and joy
i cried in grief
that i wasn't there
and haven't been

When i close my eyes
diamonds fall
art and colour
trenches dug up by everyone
i'm hundreds of miles away
shovel in hand
trying to dig myself out
wishing i could help
one person

We share some of the same scars
mine not as deep
but they are the same lines
we wear the same diamonds
we are shedding the same makeup
and a harlequin
that got back on stage
has helped me get back on mine
harly's juggling again
better than before
she'll never stop this time

If only,
if only i knew how
to write love on her arms."

And she looked straight at me. Walked over. My girl from the lake. "i saw the green gold blue of your stone in the sky. i went back to my old house to raid the garden."

She took me to the beach. Not my city's ocean, but away. We lay on the sand. i buried my feet between the grains, but that was it. i was not stardust.

My brothers and my sisters and my gods were gone. My sand filled memory life was gone. i wasn't alone.

"It wasn't time."