STORIES
NON-FICTION
2016
2016
AN AMBIVALENT HEAD CONVERSATION WITH TWO VARYING PERSPECTIVES
Existentialist- "I had a bad dream last night...."
Nihilist- "It was just a bad fucking dream...then you die."
Existentialist- "Nah man...really? I wonder what this dream meant...and why are we to die? And why are we being like that anyway?"
Nihilist- "For no reason but zero, zilch, nil, nought....absofruitly nothing at all."
Existentialist- "Oh...so you are defining meaning of the universe in it's nothingness..."
check//check//check
Existentialist- "I had a bad dream last night...."
Nihilist- "It was just a bad fucking dream...then you die."
Existentialist- "Nah man...really? I wonder what this dream meant...and why are we to die? And why are we being like that anyway?"
Nihilist- "For no reason but zero, zilch, nil, nought....absofruitly nothing at all."
Existentialist- "Oh...so you are defining meaning of the universe in it's nothingness..."
check//check//check
NON-FICTION
2016
2016
THE UPSIDE DOWN IS REAL
I was getting a coffee at a store that misspells 'Quick Check.'
The clerk asked me at check-out, "Would you like to donate to starving children?"
*he points shyly at the plastic can with a stock photo of big bellied and big eyed babies*
My immediate response: "Ok." *looks all around*
Realize I am standing in a store with shelves overflowing with an abundance of junk, food nonetheless.
In these moments, I question, "Am I really living in 'The Upside Down'?"
*sharp pang in my stomach*
check//check//check.
FICTION
2015
2015
THE REST OF US, IN & OUT OF TIME
You are waking up this morning, two hours of crying followed by two hours of laughing. Pitter-patter and projectile vomit. You held everything inside and when you finally cried, it was inconsolable. The moment you realized the pain wasn’t yours and not everyone wins, only the lucky ones.
When you speak out-of-order-worldly, she looked at you with the corner of her eyes as if she knew what speaking the truth was (what is yet to be known)….she turns her head. Vague speech, but it is just another way. There you are, waiting in the lobby area of the psychiatrist office as they played swing jazz and you are ready for another dose of the white pill or a large piece of white canvas- same thing. Swallowing, That Big White Pill.
Pills that can’t keep you from forgetting, the time you left your sweater under the cafeteria table in 4th grade, the one with fuzzy black poodle on it with pink silky ribbons in its ears, it was dropped lonely under the seat where you sat, your sweater was lying crumpled up next to a small half-empty carton of strawberry milk. Now you’re 26 and people are weird when you show them love, maybe it feels foreign to them, it’s purity tingles under their skin.
On Christmas Eve, you were going through that day, remembering that it is darkest just before dawn and brightest on the very last day then nothing, nothing at all but the very beginning of all that is new. Remember, the new born baby crying. Your facebook post read, “Apparently God made himself into a baby, the devil has to keep up, SLIM!”
Merry Christmas, a holiday to hold true, so be gone to buying possessions that can't be bought and whoever told you that you had to be happy on new year and merry on Christmas. You are just glad for any day given...as if the new year accounted for your new year and not your day of birth. Or the days where the bad ones help you appreciate the good ones....all the more and thanking the Lord for all your teeth.
The day after new year’s day, you felt like you really didn’t like her anymore or like your sister didn’t love you anymore- but you saw a little bit today, you were keeping it light because you wanted her to love you. You hide because you know best.
You told me your Grandma use to tell you secrets, she told you how smart you were when you were little and your Grandpa called you a princess but you never believed them.
You somehow wondered if celebrities were from another planet, perhaps a Planet Hollywood. Not sure if it’s a place to be. You were tweeting from Space on how you had a fucking cookie and beer for breakfast. I love you no matter what condition you were in even while eating mental breakdowns for breakfast.
Kinda bizaare or bizzzzaree or bizarre
Shopping Malls….they are bizarre
They have people……
Surround by people and stuff….
Shopping for something….
They want to buy something
With no money, no money they have….
You got flipped off by a girl driving a Mercedes on your way out because you didn’t know the girl was trying to pass you, so you flicked her peace sign because that’s your one and only intention, peace.
Stay light my friends, it’s OK to abandon your work….let them talk the egos out, try staying silent and the reinvention of un-invention negates the positive to create balance in between.
His name is Jordon, he works all day on a computer then comes home to kill people on a screen, it was a Call of Duty. It was a hologram from Arizona. His mother’s coffee cup he gave her for Christmas was now the same coffee cup he was sipping on. It made him wonder that whatever is given, is somehow returned to you….sometimes never, but mostly always returned in some other shape, same shape, different place.
Me: "You know, Nirvana said it best..."
You: "Like what, 'RAPE ME'!?"
Me: "No, like 'COME AS YOU ARE'..."
You were already afraid to show Mr. Bradford your new work but he always said your sadness was hilarious. You love how sadness can be hilarious just as it can be paralyzing detrimental in the moment of it. I guess you would rather laugh than carry on the cradled emotion of melancholy. You described your mood as cloaked in darkness.
I don’t know if I can bare another day without beauty and truth. I find that it is all I care about now even if that means spotting out the lies. Though there is a part of me that is frightened by it. I want to burn a single candle for you every day, the stray dog I saw hanging out in front of the Dollar Tree sniffing the concrete.
Hold it…
Hold it….
Hold it….
There is no escaping, “I could have done that better, 1,000 times over”…..and maybe if I lived this life over, I would still do it 1,000 different ways to make it better and do it less, to make it right.
FICTION
2014
A MIME'S FACE VALUE AND LIP SERVICE
One would imagine that this Fall was the Fall’s very best since you moved back East 5 years ago. The bursting foliage of the many shades of the color wheel, leaves spinning and dropping like thick colored rain drops from various living things.
I looked back and saw you moved to Arizona before you were the age of 12, you were blinded before pubescent puberting and the haunting beauty of Autumn’s delight. You couldn’t tell if the desert was living or dying or both happening simultaneously under your feet, and isn’t it so?
How you are a Diseased Sentimental Sap, a Poor Little Sapling. Did you see my drawing in spiraling circles with no beginning or ending or just a closed shape for protection? This is how I remember, though, from the Fall time, you know?
Like how you know how to speak to strangers but can’t make out what my brothers and sisters are saying. You are speaking a decaying language, either too specific or not generalized enough. How few little words need to be said if not at all when speaking the truth, how we slaughter ourselves and each other with a spoken tongue but with gestures that are contrary to word, language or action.
This is how you remember…..loving people all the while hating their refusal too see the unrealized hope of what they have yet to learn and to love about another and themselves instead.
You forget though...
You only wanted to wake up, from the dreaming which is me and choosing reality as if it were ever a choice, or is it not?
A
Choice.
I don’t know
Knowing, Don’t I?
Noing…
I do not.
I Know
Meaningful things like:
Sweet Gum seeds
A Honey Locust Leaf
Dirt
Rocks
A Little piece of bark taken from a peeling River Birch half way up Mount Joe
Salmon, lilac, with mint green vestiges
From that time and place where nobody’s right or wrong.
I, just is. You, just is. Just us.
And so it was, on the way home from the Lord’s Closet Thrift Shop at 2:54 p.m. You wondered if the storage units we passed by were prison cells, or encapsulations by one larger encapsulation of what was important and just isn't anymore. Did you forget about it? If you forgot about it....does it mean you don't care anymore, or you are just needing Spring’s reminder again to tell you it was just sleeping beneath the dead of Winter's snow?
I looked back and saw you moved to Arizona before you were the age of 12, you were blinded before pubescent puberting and the haunting beauty of Autumn’s delight. You couldn’t tell if the desert was living or dying or both happening simultaneously under your feet, and isn’t it so?
How you are a Diseased Sentimental Sap, a Poor Little Sapling. Did you see my drawing in spiraling circles with no beginning or ending or just a closed shape for protection? This is how I remember, though, from the Fall time, you know?
Like how you know how to speak to strangers but can’t make out what my brothers and sisters are saying. You are speaking a decaying language, either too specific or not generalized enough. How few little words need to be said if not at all when speaking the truth, how we slaughter ourselves and each other with a spoken tongue but with gestures that are contrary to word, language or action.
This is how you remember…..loving people all the while hating their refusal too see the unrealized hope of what they have yet to learn and to love about another and themselves instead.
You forget though...
You only wanted to wake up, from the dreaming which is me and choosing reality as if it were ever a choice, or is it not?
A
Choice.
I don’t know
Knowing, Don’t I?
Noing…
I do not.
I Know
Meaningful things like:
Sweet Gum seeds
A Honey Locust Leaf
Dirt
Rocks
A Little piece of bark taken from a peeling River Birch half way up Mount Joe
Salmon, lilac, with mint green vestiges
From that time and place where nobody’s right or wrong.
I, just is. You, just is. Just us.
And so it was, on the way home from the Lord’s Closet Thrift Shop at 2:54 p.m. You wondered if the storage units we passed by were prison cells, or encapsulations by one larger encapsulation of what was important and just isn't anymore. Did you forget about it? If you forgot about it....does it mean you don't care anymore, or you are just needing Spring’s reminder again to tell you it was just sleeping beneath the dead of Winter's snow?
FICTION
2013
A DISTANT FRIEND WORTH KNOWING FROM THE DISTANCE
When it rained the time before the last time I saw you, was when I was curious to ask you about how it went for you last night. You know that place where you go…listen and dance to jazz kids play….I imagine you sitting there, hunched back in conversation with your antennas bouncing every time you moved your lips, surrounded by the suffocating sounds of bar flies buzzing. You can forget your name for a transient claim or just...for a place ‘to be’, brilliantly be. Still.
Those places you go ‘to be’. You know?...because I saw the reflection in your eyes, the deep pool of black iris, sparkling at the surface….holding trapped beneath the many ways of seeing in through the darkness. Scarlet.
Space and time, I kept telling you so you wouldn't forget, but you will…..you swing in the ebb and flow kind of tides of depreciating things that don’t belong to you, so you can have your drink, to swallow and spill it too. Stained.
I’ll record our conversation, document it like you do everything else, then I’ll hear you in a song, a song from ancient times or see you pass over me like a flock of snow geese for warmer climates. I will feel the longing waves that had pushed and pulled me away temporarily….bewitching me. Symbol.
Underneath the dressing of a blue bird....who'd knew just how to sing, speak and be. And I am looking outside the window at two men, one taller than the next with a woman toddling behind them, a scene I never want to be part of again….ever again. Soliciting. Separateness.
All those times we listened intently attentively to celestial sounds. Sweet birds and jazz.
Oh and….Don’t listen to a piss word anyone tells you about ‘real life’ because they aren't living in it. You are a sweet bird, angel of the night pouring tea in your corked pinot noir to be ssShhhared.
So long,
Moriah
Those places you go ‘to be’. You know?...because I saw the reflection in your eyes, the deep pool of black iris, sparkling at the surface….holding trapped beneath the many ways of seeing in through the darkness. Scarlet.
Space and time, I kept telling you so you wouldn't forget, but you will…..you swing in the ebb and flow kind of tides of depreciating things that don’t belong to you, so you can have your drink, to swallow and spill it too. Stained.
I’ll record our conversation, document it like you do everything else, then I’ll hear you in a song, a song from ancient times or see you pass over me like a flock of snow geese for warmer climates. I will feel the longing waves that had pushed and pulled me away temporarily….bewitching me. Symbol.
Underneath the dressing of a blue bird....who'd knew just how to sing, speak and be. And I am looking outside the window at two men, one taller than the next with a woman toddling behind them, a scene I never want to be part of again….ever again. Soliciting. Separateness.
All those times we listened intently attentively to celestial sounds. Sweet birds and jazz.
Oh and….Don’t listen to a piss word anyone tells you about ‘real life’ because they aren't living in it. You are a sweet bird, angel of the night pouring tea in your corked pinot noir to be ssShhhared.
So long,
Moriah
FICTION
2013
WHERE THE SYMBOL WENT TO DIE DESCRIPTIVELY
I remember the first time I saw you dancing, so shameless it was the most appealing thing I have seen at that moment in space. I was instantly gravitated. You were completely free. I wanted to be free. It was pure but nothing excessive just righteous. I knew you knew I wasn't ready to see it and the glorious scrapes on my childhood knee caps hadn't darkened yet for notice.
At the time, I was boarded off by my companion of black birds that once held me away and plucked away all my wings apart. Now I am comfortably tethered in a softer flock of winter birds, the ones that nudge one another for warmth.
I wanted to come to you, but I knew if you were anything like me you had no trouble seeing the residuals of mud I dragged in. Or how you would hear my voice which stops in the middle of my sentences because that is the wrenched minded woman I am and will always be....trying to speak a decaying language. My elders heard me and giggled at me because they knew that place I was standing in would not be forever. They were stern with me at times but I am so grateful to the ones that gave me a break every once in awhile even though they knew I may not take it, eventually I did.
Your eyes that have been lying to you….what feels like your whole entire life. You wanted to fit in, to have some placement along the shelf-line so you opposed it and found out you were special. So you can stop crying about how they didn't give you a green feather for your Thanksgiving turkey in kindergarten.....let’s face it we all have been spoiled, force fed with all the wrong things for way to, way too damn long. Deprived of all the right ones. I will never forget you Mrs. Rottin like the rotten polars I believe myself to be, the ugly dog woman who wanders every now and again.
I have been wanting to tell someone that when I keep looking at a photograph I'm in or my old stacked up paintings I did in the past years, I want to paint over them all, paint over the thickness in paint like the makeup I wore, heavy masked, all-lined-face up that was once me and sometimes still lingering me.....
Today, I know that I meant something to Someone....it just took me some time to figure out. I think every person knows what that feels like, but they will deny it. Forever denying us....a smelly stink fish.....that is a smelly stink fish. Full to the brim with crud, but I promise under the facade is a crying baby at the bottom of Conor Oberst’s well.
I don’t think I am the only one that sees the difference between the people who are there and not here,
Moriah
At the time, I was boarded off by my companion of black birds that once held me away and plucked away all my wings apart. Now I am comfortably tethered in a softer flock of winter birds, the ones that nudge one another for warmth.
I wanted to come to you, but I knew if you were anything like me you had no trouble seeing the residuals of mud I dragged in. Or how you would hear my voice which stops in the middle of my sentences because that is the wrenched minded woman I am and will always be....trying to speak a decaying language. My elders heard me and giggled at me because they knew that place I was standing in would not be forever. They were stern with me at times but I am so grateful to the ones that gave me a break every once in awhile even though they knew I may not take it, eventually I did.
Your eyes that have been lying to you….what feels like your whole entire life. You wanted to fit in, to have some placement along the shelf-line so you opposed it and found out you were special. So you can stop crying about how they didn't give you a green feather for your Thanksgiving turkey in kindergarten.....let’s face it we all have been spoiled, force fed with all the wrong things for way to, way too damn long. Deprived of all the right ones. I will never forget you Mrs. Rottin like the rotten polars I believe myself to be, the ugly dog woman who wanders every now and again.
I have been wanting to tell someone that when I keep looking at a photograph I'm in or my old stacked up paintings I did in the past years, I want to paint over them all, paint over the thickness in paint like the makeup I wore, heavy masked, all-lined-face up that was once me and sometimes still lingering me.....
Today, I know that I meant something to Someone....it just took me some time to figure out. I think every person knows what that feels like, but they will deny it. Forever denying us....a smelly stink fish.....that is a smelly stink fish. Full to the brim with crud, but I promise under the facade is a crying baby at the bottom of Conor Oberst’s well.
I don’t think I am the only one that sees the difference between the people who are there and not here,
Moriah
2012 FICTION- SHORT STORY
DECADENCE AT MY DOORMAT
CHAPTER I- DOUBLE SIDED COIN
One day my obese step father decided to bring four lions onto our property home.
The Lions feasted on a small cow near our North Western New Jersey country property.
There was an electrical fence that had already been in place so my step father Rick could decide whether or not his damn step children couldn't leave his damn property.
A double sided coin if you ask me.
So if we were to have any wits about us, we were to stay afraid and be afraid at all times because that is really ALL there is to it.
Anyway, that evening a hefty storm came through, unsnapping our electrical poles and our electrical fence along with it.
The Lions awoke from their slumber and sniffed us out.
There was never was enough to feed lushly lion appetites and their first meal was my step-father and his all his fatty guts.
Clawing through our walls and knocking down our doors terrorizing us.
The Lions came and left as they pleased.
We were all able to make it to the basement the only place the beast couldn't sniff us out; we were safe underground, so we thought...
One night during our sleep we heard murmurs outside the basement walls.….
We heard people voices…
We could hear the Lions speaking about how they are so full from Applebee’s.
The Lions were talking and we heard them.
We stayed quiet but the voices grew louder and we were confused because lions don’t talk.
Suddenly a door appeared in the basement and there stood black beady eyed people with identical uniforms, holding the body of Christ.
They force fed us human flesh.
We were now dead.
I appear to be outside our basement walls, a ball room, red and black and candle lit elaborately decorated, but a dark ominous décor. It was hell. It was heaven? It was a place with lots of jubilant laughter, games, drinks, and a crowd of strange yet beautiful people. Not the usual hell everyone imagines. We were all directed into different directions.
My sister Christin wrapped in white cloak and blindly being leered by a women, I ran after her asking, “Where are you going, where are you taking her?” The lady said nothing but held up a tarot looking card as if I could read what it meant.
The door was shut in my face. I felt an eerie presence following me. It was a demon without a name, a handsome grown man who was kind to me, but gave me vague, unclear answers. Unquestionably deceitful. They took my sister and older brother. I couldn't help to think that if I was in heaven I would have clarity and be surrounded by people I know and loved from the past. This demon was somewhat seductive….and always seemed to agree with me like he was on my side. He was kind in his words and gestures but still never giving me a clear answer to the many questions I cried out. I felt I was being tested; a puzzle I couldn't figure out- but knowing no one in this place would help me out. Demise I couldn't face.
I didn't have the right keys or knowledge of the bible that would guide me to heaven. I knew nothing of this place I was in.
I finally came across a hallway leading to a door way of stereo typical fluffy clouds of the heavens, and a line of people appearing to be rugged like the homeless type and others offering me drinks before I had the courage to walk through that doorway.
I had no other choice but to get to heaven through this doorway and I didn't know if I should just stay. My demon was still behind me, calmly waiting for my choice. I stayed with him, he brought me to a room where he said I could just rest and return back home. He led me to sleep and hypnotized me in front of a TV screen. He lay beside me.
CHAPTER II – WAKING UP
The demons in hell treated me well, treated me like I was someone important- that my name meant something…but for what?
Answers still unclear.
My demon kept speaking of other The Other One, the high demon…I knew who he spoke of. He spoke of Satan. Satan was neither female nor male. There was a strong dark presence that was watching over us.
I woke up in the upstairs floor of my old bedroom; the demon had left my side, so I thought.
I heard growls coming from the downstairs living room which was right below my room.
I then woke up to life as I now know it.
CHAPTER I- DOUBLE SIDED COIN
One day my obese step father decided to bring four lions onto our property home.
The Lions feasted on a small cow near our North Western New Jersey country property.
There was an electrical fence that had already been in place so my step father Rick could decide whether or not his damn step children couldn't leave his damn property.
A double sided coin if you ask me.
So if we were to have any wits about us, we were to stay afraid and be afraid at all times because that is really ALL there is to it.
Anyway, that evening a hefty storm came through, unsnapping our electrical poles and our electrical fence along with it.
The Lions awoke from their slumber and sniffed us out.
There was never was enough to feed lushly lion appetites and their first meal was my step-father and his all his fatty guts.
Clawing through our walls and knocking down our doors terrorizing us.
The Lions came and left as they pleased.
We were all able to make it to the basement the only place the beast couldn't sniff us out; we were safe underground, so we thought...
One night during our sleep we heard murmurs outside the basement walls.….
We heard people voices…
We could hear the Lions speaking about how they are so full from Applebee’s.
The Lions were talking and we heard them.
We stayed quiet but the voices grew louder and we were confused because lions don’t talk.
Suddenly a door appeared in the basement and there stood black beady eyed people with identical uniforms, holding the body of Christ.
They force fed us human flesh.
We were now dead.
I appear to be outside our basement walls, a ball room, red and black and candle lit elaborately decorated, but a dark ominous décor. It was hell. It was heaven? It was a place with lots of jubilant laughter, games, drinks, and a crowd of strange yet beautiful people. Not the usual hell everyone imagines. We were all directed into different directions.
My sister Christin wrapped in white cloak and blindly being leered by a women, I ran after her asking, “Where are you going, where are you taking her?” The lady said nothing but held up a tarot looking card as if I could read what it meant.
The door was shut in my face. I felt an eerie presence following me. It was a demon without a name, a handsome grown man who was kind to me, but gave me vague, unclear answers. Unquestionably deceitful. They took my sister and older brother. I couldn't help to think that if I was in heaven I would have clarity and be surrounded by people I know and loved from the past. This demon was somewhat seductive….and always seemed to agree with me like he was on my side. He was kind in his words and gestures but still never giving me a clear answer to the many questions I cried out. I felt I was being tested; a puzzle I couldn't figure out- but knowing no one in this place would help me out. Demise I couldn't face.
I didn't have the right keys or knowledge of the bible that would guide me to heaven. I knew nothing of this place I was in.
I finally came across a hallway leading to a door way of stereo typical fluffy clouds of the heavens, and a line of people appearing to be rugged like the homeless type and others offering me drinks before I had the courage to walk through that doorway.
I had no other choice but to get to heaven through this doorway and I didn't know if I should just stay. My demon was still behind me, calmly waiting for my choice. I stayed with him, he brought me to a room where he said I could just rest and return back home. He led me to sleep and hypnotized me in front of a TV screen. He lay beside me.
CHAPTER II – WAKING UP
The demons in hell treated me well, treated me like I was someone important- that my name meant something…but for what?
Answers still unclear.
My demon kept speaking of other The Other One, the high demon…I knew who he spoke of. He spoke of Satan. Satan was neither female nor male. There was a strong dark presence that was watching over us.
I woke up in the upstairs floor of my old bedroom; the demon had left my side, so I thought.
I heard growls coming from the downstairs living room which was right below my room.
I then woke up to life as I now know it.