Your One Wild and Precious Life (One of My Favorite Trifecta Entries EVER!!!)

Blogger's Note: I wrote this post on November 27, 2012. I have reposted it every year since on the very same day. Yesterday, I was busy being a day-after-Thanksgiving-Day slug. I forgot. So here it is, a three year old post one day late. 

It remains one of my favorites ever for several reasons. It literally flew off my fingertips conveying my feelings at the time. It was a wholly and intensely cathartic experience. In many ways, I feel the same today as I did then. That is your only clue...

Thanks for re-reading with me.

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This isn’t about anyone, nobody at all. It's where an exhausted mind went one morning in late November. I didn’t question it. I simply ran to catch up.

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“Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?”

- Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems

Fool me once…

Fool me twice…

They caressed and played with my senses.

Your words,

Written, spoken, poems, songs

Were deceptive.

They're hollow I told you at the time




But still, 

"I believe in your confusion".

Looking back through crystal eyes,

I question you more,

Deeper.

Is it just your heart that's




Misleading, elusive

Or all of you?




You are a shell of the person you could be.




Should.

You appear so hollow.




Merely a shadow of someone

Trapped within yourself




Never able to get out. Be out. Feel free.

Happy there?




Is it safe enough for you?

Does your passion know where you're hiding?

You’ll glance back with regret, longing, distaste, maybe,

At your life, 

For yourself, but

Probably not.

How’s the view from la-la-land?

Would you even admit the truth?

A better question is, do you know it?

So don’t drown in tears from failures and hurts past



When you realize it,

As the movie reel plays it all back.

Premiering today "Your One Wild and Precious Life".




Sit down; get comfortable; admission is free just for you.


"Beautiful Loser" looping in the background.

I hope it doesn't hurt your feelings.




Remember…

You had choices at the forks.

Made one or didn’t

Which is a choice, too.


 

You did it yourself.

Your creation.

It’s all on you.




So what will you make of your allotted one and only?

Do you even know?

I really don't think you have any idea.

I do

For mine and

I'll own everything, too.

I'd rather look back and say,

"I can't believe I did that."

My blessings,

My mistakes.

Mine.

I will wager in pursuit of dreams.

Will you?

I wish on stars for many things,

For you.

And it's the same mistake

Over and over again.

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33-333 words using the third definition:
Hollow: lacking in real value, sincerity, or substance: false, meaningless <hollow promises> <a victory over a weakling is hollow and without triumph - Ernest Beaglehole (who's he?)

Trifecta: Paper Hearts

blog.thelovenerds.com

We’re taught to properly crease, deliberately trace, and carefully cut. Unfolded, mirror images wondrously appear reflecting its perfect completeness. When it tears, because it will, it doesn’t rip symmetrically. Someone always hurts more.

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This was written for Trifecta’s final challenge (tears) using the following prompt:

“There's no topic, no word, just a free write. Go anywhere your mind wants to travel.  Take us there too.  Just make it count, leave your blood all over this page.  Thirty-three words exactly.  Of course.  We couldn't end it any other way.”

Thank you, Trifecta, for bringing all of us together. And thanks to everyone who’s spent even one minute reading the words I’ve written over the last two and a half years in connection with Trifecta, or otherwise. It means the world to me.

Courtesy of William Shakespeare

As Eve surely uttered,

I did at our beginning,

and mean now still.

For more than half a life,

As William wrote,

“I do love nothing in the world as I do you.”

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(This week’s Trifecta challenge: Exactly 33 words and one of the must be a palindrome (a word or phrase that reads the same forwards and backwards).)

It’s my 25^th anniversary and time has passed too frighteningly quickly. And through the highs and lows (because there were many), good times and those more challenging (and broke), there are a few choices I wish I’d made differently. This is not one of them.

I wasn’t going to participate this week because I have many other celebratory type things on my mind, but I couldn’t help myself. I will miss Trifecta more than my meager and ineloquent words here can express. I can’t recall how I stumbled upon them in January 2012, but I’ve never missed a Monday or Friday where I didn’t look for the prompt or read about the winners. Hats off to Lisa and Joules for creating the awesome place it is by bringing together some of the most talented, kind and respectful writers. They had a tough job and did it with great spirit. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Kissing

guardian.com

Breaths commingle with playful flutters barely touching. Mine part ever so slightly in invitation. Yours R.S.V.P, first warmly, then insanely, thoroughly and unmistakably. 

Because I already tried words to worm my way in…

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Exactly 33 words for the third definition of WORM:

3:  to obtain or extract by artful or insidious question or by pleading, asking, or persuading – usually with out of<finally wormed the truth out of him>

A Sameness Funk

Dirty old snow? 

Dreary slate-colored skies?

Not just a weather funk?

I don't know

but

every single day

looks.

the.

same.

feels.

the.

same.

seems.

the.

same.

My Alarm goes off. 

Every single same morning.

Changeless.

DA DA DA Da Da Da da da da, 

DA DA DA, Da Da Da, da da da

DA DA DA Da Da Da da da da

OVER and Over and over.

Indistinguishable

Sameness.

load the laundry. 

clean the kitchen. 

change the laundry. 

unload the dishes. 

fix the dinner. 

load the dishwasher, 

clean the kitchen, 

fold the laundry.

OVER and Over and over.

Identical

Sameness.

Flip on the TV, 

maybe, 

just to hear a contrast.

OVER and Over and over.

Tedious

Sameness.

day in. day out.

everything's the same.

seems the same. 

It's killing me.

You Know What They Say About Revenge

girltripped.deviantart.com

Served Siberian style.

Think

Ice pick cold.

Bone-shivering,

Biting, Bitter.

That cold.

Blood draining your cheeks and lips white cold

(perfect)

Confirming your underestimation.

It’s going to be a three dog night, Honey.

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This week Trifecta is asking for exactly 33 of our own words about love gone wrong.  But they're asking that we not use any of the following words:

love

sad

tears

wept

heart

pain

This weekend's challenge is community judged.

•               For the 48 hours following the close of the challenge, voting will be enabled on links. 

•               In order to vote, return to this post where stars will appear next to each link. To vote, simply click the star that corresponds with your favorite post.

•               You can vote for your top three favorite posts.

•               Voting is open to everyone.

Trifecta: I Swear When I'm Uncomfortable

“I’m going to hate this,” I groan making very little attempt to disguise my pissy attitude about attending a paddle tennis couples mixer. “I wish we stayed home.”

 “Let’s just have fun. Not take it seriously.”

“That’s easy for you to say because you’re really good at it! Did you hear that one over there? ‘My tennis club doesn’t even have a league high enough for me.’ (I mimicked her country club intonation.) Isn’t that fucking quaint?”

“You’ll do fine. We’re going to be perfectly fine.”

“I’m doing this for you, you know, and I’m going to hate it. Ugh!!!!!! Look at the bracket. Of course, we’re playing against her! That’s fucking perfect!”

“You’re making this into a much bigger deal than it needs to be. Her husband’s a beginner, too.”

“It's going to be embarrassing. I’ll be horrible!”

“How do you know? You’ve never played before. Do you want a glass of wine? Let me get you a glass of wine.” He rushed off without waiting for my answer, leaving me alone.

My eyes swiftly surveyed the trendily outfitted room. As expected, it abounded with many more of exactly “her” cliquey kind. The already comfortably acquainted. The kind who can nonchalantly compare the quality of their racket, the best court shoes, semiweekly drills or private lessons. Things I knew nothing about.

He pushed a glass in my hand but, right then and there, I realized no amount of Pinot Noir could come close to quelling my nervousness or insecurity.

“They may know how to play, but you’re the prettiest in the room.” His words brushing my ear as he squeezed my wrist.

Looking at him sideways from the corner of my cynical eye, I almost answered, “What do you want?”

But his eyes were soft. And his smile was soft.

I reached up with gloved fingertips and grazed his cheekbone lightly.

“Let’s go kick some ass.”

“That’s my girl!”

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33-333 words for the third definition of:

QUAINT (adjective)

1:  obsolete:  EXPERT, SKILLED

2a:  marked by skillful design <quaint with many a device in India ink — Herman Melville>  

b:  marked by beauty or elegance

3a : unusual or different in character or appearance :  ODD  

b : pleasingly or strikingly old-fashioned or unfamiliar <a quaint phrase>

Nipple Rings

It’s the glint that catches my eye. The way the small silver sphere captures the sun’s ray and throws it back at the corner of my eye. It dangles there so casually, too, swinging to and fro as he arranges himself on the sun lounger in front of me. I blink to make sure I’m seeing clearly.

It’s like a train wreck, or an accident; something weird and strange that you shouldn’t find scintillating but you do and you can’t help it. And I can’t stop staring at it hanging simply from his left nipple like a delicate horseshoe.

Am I turned on? Or revolted? It’s not like I haven’t seen one before. Both, maybe, but fascinated and stirred are befitting descriptions too. He completely owns my attention.

Dutch, most likely, because this is a Dutch island. Definitely exudes European though. Early 40’s, I’m guessing, with a pleasantly attractive face that's slightly craggy in a Tommy Lee Jones way. Artificial blond highlights grasp at the tips of his brown hair. Hazel eyes, probably. His body is fit as a swimmer's with long muscles, narrow waist, broad-shoulders.   

And a nipple ring.

Of course, I’m watching as he applies lotion. Though he lays facedown when finished, which somehow disappoints me but then tugs at his short, plaid swim trunks until the first curve of his muscular ass is exposed. Minimization of tan lines, I get it. 

It won’t take long before the sun bakes anything it touches on an island close to the equator. And it doesn’t.

Wiping at his brow with tanned fingers, he slips into the ocean. My eyes squint to see his body’s reflection cut smooth stokes through its crisp brightness. Cooling off from the sun’s merciless intensity before slowly ascending the wood steps directly in front of me.

My daughter wakes from her nap on an adjacent chair and asks,

“Mom, what do you keep looking at?”

“Whatever,” I reply, flipping my hand as if it were nothing.

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33-333 words for the 3rd definition of the word WHATEVER:
3.   (adverb) Used to show that something is not important