Empathy

The amount of understanding I get from you is amazing. When I speak to you about my past I see the care you feel for me in your lovely brown eyes. I can see your compassion and all I want to do is kiss you passionately and make the moment last.

I am not sure what these feelings are I am experiencing however I think I can be happy with time spent with you. When I am graced with your presence time has the power to stop and nothing out there seems to matter. I can see myself lying in your arms, caressing your face and hanging onto each word that is released from your lips.

Although I feel all of this I still stand here at a crossroad, confused and not sure which way to choose my path ahead.

All I really know is, I think I can fall in love with you.

If you look hard enough, you will see I am here

I might not be your red rose that you have been looking for all this years.

I might not always share the same values that you do.

I may not always be the person that you like me to be.

I am the wild child on the outside with a heart of gold, buried deep inside and I only show it to those ones worthy.

I am the girl who will love her partner till the day that I die.

I am the girl who will do anything for the man that she loves.

I am the girl who enjoys to run around in the summer rain, barefoot and fall down in the mud just because I can.

I am the girl that will kiss you when you bring me flower from the garden as it means more to me than a diamond necklace.

I am the type of girl who will go to a lamé art show with you because being with you is the best gift in the world.

I might not always agree with you about everything.

I might not always want to dress up and want to just stay inbed with you all day, watching TV.

I might not love a certain thing you do but I promise to be honest with you at all times.

I am the girl that loves to walk in the vineyard at night and admire the stars shining so bright.

I am the girl who is serious when needed but will always have the heart of a kid.

I am a girl who believes that one should never forget the meaning of the word FUN.

I am the girl who enjoys the little pleasures in life.

I am the girl who believes that sharing a kiss or a hug with her lover is the most precious gift in the world.

I am the girl that is a hopeless romantic and will gives my heart to one man and treasure his in return.

If you look closely, perhaps you will not look back at the girl who you always wanted in life but perhaps through our differences you will see I just might be the girl meant for you.

Where do you get your strength

Strength is sometime that every person needs and it sometimes comes in different shapes and sizes. You will need strength to just get through the day after a long night with a sick loved one or perhaps a very late party. You can need strength to walk a five mile fun walk for a good cause. Sometimes you just need strength to get through the day without killing a college and sometimes strength isn’t enough for that.

Being asked the question, where do you receive your strength from, well that made me think for a bit, where does it all come from? I am a religious person in some sense but not a one hundred percent hardcore believer. Most people would say that they get their strength from God and they pray for it. I thought a little about it and realised, that is pretty much not me.

I get my strength from my friends and loved ones, from people around me and things that happen in my life. When I am in a situation and I have no hope or I feel down, then I just talk to someone I care about and realise that I can do it with a little effort. A little effort can go a long way when someone is motivated.

When you show up at a 5 mile fun walk and you wonder why on earth did I say I would do this? Just look around and look at the amount of people that showed up for a cause greater than themselves. Look at the person standing next to you, the person that has endured a six month chemo trials and still finds it in her to come walk for something she believes in.

Perhaps when you stand in front of you 7^th grade classroom and you wonder how on earth you will get through the last two hours of the day, look at the children sitting there in front of you. Think back to when you were there and you wondered how will you get through that last few hours with that annoying know it all teacher. Think about the lives of those children that you can enrich with the knowledge that you have accumulated throughout the years and the opportunities that lies in front of them. One day that kid you despised the most can become the president of your country and you can sit in your living room with your grandkids wondering around, thinking that I might have done something right that year to lead that child there. Thinking about that can give you the little strength it is needed to just get through that last few hours.

When you sit in your office, wishing that the last hour of your Friday afternoon will just fly by, take a moment back and think upon the millions of unemployed people across the world that would do anything to just get that hours work. Then you might get that extra push to get through the day.

When your friends ask you to host a New Year’s party at your house, your mood sinks into your boots and you think why the hell should you be the one? Think on all the newspaper articles you read after New Year about the amount of people who died on the road due to drunk driving or the result of a drunk driver. That could be one of your friends if you send them away and perhaps you should be honoured that your friends want to spend their New Year’s Eve with you. It will be a little bit easier when you are busy doing the dishes at four am and all the people passed out in your house, at least you know that they will be with you a little bit longer.

There are many examples like these that I can present to you but I will rather end it here. What I am trying to say is that when you need strength for something no matter how small or big the situation is, think on the alternatives, the negative things as well at the positive, somewhere you will get some motivation to move along. That motivation is most probably brought onto by something that shows you how fortunate in life you really are or by something that shows you that it could be worse.

Pretty much my point is, look at the big picture. You can be glad you are going somewhere and that makes me realise that God has a plan for me. If he didn’t I would still be stuck where I was ten years ago. We get strength from the people around us, where do the people around us come from, well that is simple, God put them in our lives for a reason. So if you look a little bit further, God helps to guide your way and give you strength to move forward without you even looking for his help.

In the end, you get your strength from a higher power even if you don’t want it, asked for it or expected it. There is something greater than us out there, you must just be willing to be open enough to look for it.

When to Quit

The skies open up the rain pours down like buckets water being dumped by thousands of angels, from the heaven. The wind picks up while Jenny walks down the main road trying to figure out what side street she should take to get home. She starts to shiver as the icy wind cuts through her wet clothes. She crosses her arms and rubs them at a failed attempt to warm up a bit. The traffic noise are loud with taxi’s honking at each other, Jenny looks back and can see the mumbling of people she is hearing. It is pitch black outside with just the street lights and the lights of the buildings flickering, providing some light. Jenny feels agitated, confused and by the looks of it, lost. She couldn’t remember where she was heading, in what direction her house was in or if anyone else lived near by where she could crash the night.

She looks in her pockets for some clues but her phone must have been lifted in the club and she only had two dollars left in her pocket. Her cigarettes were now soaked as well and by this point she was just ready to give up. She was shivering and hungry, paranoïed and scared and no idea what she was doing. As she turned the corner there were three homeless people in an alley where they were burning something in a trashcan to keep warm. As she wanted to turn around to leave, the one man gestured her over, showing her the fire. She walked closer and rubbed her hands in front of the fire. She could feel the heat and was grateful for it.

“What brings a nice lady to these parts of town?” the homeless man asked.

“To be honest with you sir, I really can’t remember,” she said, still shivering.

“I can’t remember when last someone actually called me sir,” the homeless man said with a gentle smile. The rain stopped but Jenny didn’t want to leave just yet. She was still soaking wet and the fire was just about to start warming her up.

“I’ve seen you around,” the homeless woman said.

“Really, perhaps you can help me, I am not sure where my house is or where I was headed,” Jenny replied hopefully. It was strange but she was still shivering although the fire was blazing in front of her.

“ I’ve seen you at three places regularly, a house just a few blocks from here, at the club down the street at night and I see you coming out of Johnny’s place often,” the homeless woman answered.

“I’m not sure I know a guy with the name, Johnny” she says uncertain.

The homeless man grabs her arm, she tries to pull away but she feels lightheaded and weak. He straightens her arm and pulls up her sleeve. She can see the blue marks around her veins and now the tenderness of it makes sense.

“That my dear girl, it what Johnny does to people, before you know, you will end up like us” he says and he let go of her arm. Not knowing what do to the with this information, she decides to move along.

“Can you perhaps show me where the apartment is where you have seen me before?” she asks the woman.

“We beter go now, before it starts to rain again,” the woman says and starts to walk ahead.

Jenny shakes both homeless men’s hands and then she runs to catch up to the woman and then walks with her. The wind still cuts through your body and you hear the sound of tire treads on the wet tar. Jenny still shivers as she walks and hopes that the place is not very far. The woman stops in front of a very crummy building.

“You always sit on those steps,” the woman says and points to the brown brick steps, which marks the entrance to the building.

“Thank you, madam, once I figure it out, I will repay you somehow,” she says. The woman takes her Jenny’s hand in hers. She wears dirty fingerless gloves, her nails are long but dirty with chips in them and her hands are also old and wrinkled.

“Repay me, by getting clean, I never had the guts to do it, when it mattered,” the homeless woman said and walked off.

Jenny walked to the stairs she apparently engaged often, on the side of the door were buzzers and her name was next to one. She presses the buzzer, hoping someone is there to let her in. She stands outside for a few minutes and buzzes a few times, with no luck she decided to sit down in the corner of the little porch. More or less about a hour later, someone approaches the building, he walks past her and opens the door. Jenny gets up as fast as she can and slips inside. She remembered the buzzer board showed that she lived in apartment 98. Her head feels light headed and nausea finds her, perhaps it is because she stood up so fast, she thinks to herself.

The building looks oddly familiar to her, as she stoles up the stairs. She finally reaches the ninth floor and walks to her apartment. Her luck changes as she tries to open the door and it flings open. She walks inside and slams the door behind her. She looks around the place and slowly she finds her barings. She goes to the bathroom, turns on the light and starts to take off the wet clothes. She just drops it to the floor and then her eyes catch herself in the mirror. She looks back and stares at herself, not knowing who this woman is, staring back.

Her mascara and eyeliner ran lines down her face and she can see the bags underneath her eyes. Her hair is dirty and has deadens all over. She can see bruises all over her body, not sure how she got most of them. She runs herself a bath and there is not even bubble bath there. She gets in and soaks in there for hours, thinking on what the hell she is doing with her life. She washes her hair with soap as that is all she has and then she washes her body numerous times. She gets out of the bath and doesn’t even bother drying her off as the only towel she owns is dirty with puke on it. She walks to her bedroom and sees in what state her apartment is in. The kitchen has a flickering light with dishes that hasn’t been washed for months. Clothes, take-out boxes, ashtrays and other rubble lays over the living room. She gets to her room and that is not much of beter place! Her sheets most probably have never been washed in the year she has lived there, the stench of mold hangs in the room. She walks to the window and opens it.

She stands in front of the window, naked, to breath in some fresh air. She looks down on the street and sees a few cars driving up and down, kids walking around with cigarettes and guns in their pockets. In the distance she sees two hookers looking for some action and their pimp is overseeing business. The fence along the railway tracks are rusted and have holes in them. A rusted, abandoned old car is parked up the block and there are toddlers playing around in it.

“When did her life become like this?”she thought to herself. She remembers their house in the suburbs, kids playing outside in the street till dark, her and her friends going down to the park and played there for hours. What happened that she ended up here?

Bedside Table

She turns around and she sees a needle and seringe lying on her bedside table. She walks back to the living room and start to search for the phone, she finally finds it underneath the couch. She dials the number and as she hears her father’s voice on the other line, her eyes start to fill up with tears.

“I want to quit, before its too late, I need help daddy,” she says and then breaks into crying.

“Where are you, I’ll come get you,” he says with his voice breaking on the other side.

Pure Beauty

They always say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I really have noticed that in the past few years, to me beauty is so much more and different than some people around me.

To me pure beauty is when my wife walks down the stairs, wearing a pair of my boxers and a t-shirt, her hair worn down and not wearing any make-up. Her green eyes, sparkles in the light reflected by the morning sun through the the corridor window and she gives me a natural and welcoming smile.

She kisses me, good morning, making us a cup of tea and enjoying breakfast together. The afternoon I get back to work and she is there to welcome me with her beautiful smile, we share moments like these and I know I married the right girl.

When we are busy with something serious and her friends need her more, she will drop everything and go help them first. Friendships are important and next to our marriage she will put them first.

When we sit on the sofa together and she starts crying over something in a movie, because it is just so emotional, then I fall in love with her all over again.

We go outside and work in garden and before I know it, she is as dirty as dog that rolled in mud. For me that is her being humble and plain. Have fun with what nature provides.

I ask her to go with me to a function and then she walks down that stairs with a perfect pink dress, hair done up and make-up done flawless. Something that will take any person’s breath away.

Beauty is not just in a person’s physical appearance, it is their personality and their actions in life. Some people can win a beauty contest but after you get to know them, you realise how ugly that person truly is.

Most relaxing place in the world

Mary drives up the road with her music blasting inside the little Volkswagen Beatle. She nods her head on the rhythm of the music and switches her indicator on, signaling to the left. She then turns onto the side of the road and switches off her ignition and then her head lights. She scratches in her bag looking for her cigarettes and listens to the music playing on the radio.

The view overlooks the city and lights are shinning brightly as far as you can see. She finds a cigarette and lights it, closes her eyes, inhales deep and slowly blows out the smoke. A sort of calming feeling comes over her and she gazes out over the view. The cars are driving on the highway and you can only hear them and see their headlights flying by. If you look deep into the distance you can see the lights of the runway and ever so often you can see a plane either take off or land.

Perfect view

Sitting there at, Lover’s lane, overlooking the city, always made Mary feel relaxed. She didn’t mind the cars in front or behind her with couples inside. To her it was sweet that the kids still came up there. This was the one place, Mary, could go to and be alone. There was no husband constantly bothering her for something. There were no kids wanting something every five minutes and always making a noise. There were no dishes to do or no laundry, there were nothing to be picked up off the floor and no beds to be made.

This was the one place Mary could have break, a break from life for a hour at most. This was the place where she could relax and think about the good old days. She loved being a wife, a mother and having a career on top of that but every woman needs a little place to go once in a while. That place will keep you from loosing your sanity and your love for your family. The view was just breathtaking and it never failed to make Mary calm down or relax.

That side of the mountain has seen many things through the years. Started out with Mary showing up there with her friends after a party and they would finish the last bit of alcohol there overlooking the city. A few months later her boyfriend brought her there and they made out in the front seat of his car for hours. Later in life she brought her fiancé there to show him the perfect view and she lost her virginity on the back seat of a Ford Mustang 1975 and eventually she married him.

Now the party days were over and she got in the car and drove around to get her baby to sleep and most of the time she ended up there.  Later in her marriage she drove up there when she found out her husband cheated on her, cried her eyes out and drank out a few bottles of wine with her girlfriends.

After patching up things she knew she needed to relax in someway in order not to kill her family like a raging lunatic. She immediately thought about the side of the road on the middle of that mountain. That place has been part of her life from her teens till now. She knew that there was now other place as relaxing like this one, anywhere in the world.

Macaroni and Cheese

It was just a few hours after Kate came back from the hospital when John decided to make some Mac and cheese. He knew that it was her favorite food and it always cheered her up. She was sleeping when she heard the movement down in the kitchen. She dragged herself out of bed to go investigate. To her surprise John was busy cooking, they have been married for six years and he never cooked before.

Mac and Cheese

“John, do you know what you are doing?” she asks in a soft voice, while rubbing her left eye. He turns around from the stove and smiles.

“I may not be a great cook but your mother is a great help over the phone,” he says with a grin on his face. He walks around the kitchen counter and embraces his wife and holds her tightly against his chest.

“I’m really not hungry at the moment, John,” she mutters out.

“The food is almost done and when ever you feel like it, you can eat. At least you know there is something for you,” he says and kisses her on her forehead. Both of them walk over to the sofa and take a seat. Kate leans on her husband’s shoulder and they turn on the television and not long after, she dozes off. John smells the aroma of melted cheese and remembers that he still needs to get that out of the oven. He gently lays his wife down on the sofa and rests her head on one of the scatter cushions. John walks to the kitchen and was surprised to see that his first attempt of Mac and cheese came out much better than he thought it would. Diane sure is a good teacher he thought to himself. He took out the dish and put it on the kitchen counter to cool down and set the table for two.

He went back to the lounge and sat on a different sofa, not to disturb his wife, and channel hopped on the television. He thought about what he was in for and that he was perhaps not ready for it.

“How do you prepare yourself to see the person you love, deteriorate day by day?” he thought. Although he wasn’t ready for it, he needed to be there for her. He knew that, especially when he thought back on all the times he had the flu and she looked after him, or the time he broke his leg and she had to care for him. She was always there for him in everyway he could think of.

In the mean time he dozed off too and awoke of the sound of someone being sick. He looked at the sofa where Kate was sleeping and it was empty. He got up as fast as he could and rushed to the downstairs bathroom where he then found her hugging the toilet with her head buried in the bowl.

He wasn’t sure what to do, so he took a face washcloth and ran it underneath the cold water. He dried out the water and put the damp cloth around her neck and he started to rub her back. That is what he always saw in the movies and hoped that he was doing it right.

“Water,” he hears his wife mutter and rushes to the kitchen to get a glass of cold water out the fridge. As he closes the fridge he sees a plate of Mac and Cheese on the counter with only a few bites missing. John rushes back to her side and helps her to rinse out her mouth. She threw up for another forty minutes and then he carried her to their bedroom. He undressed her out of her sweaty clothes and dressed her in new clean ones. He went downstairs to get a bucket for her bedside and took a damp cloth from their on suite.

From that day onwards, Kate was never able to stomach Mac and cheese ever again.

 

Forbidden Love

Forbidden love is the one form of love everyone wants to have experienced at least once in their lifetimes. Forbidden love has some features that normal everyday love never reaches. It’s that weird sense of excitement that never goes away no matter how much you are satisfied. It’s the rush you feel that you have while you are together, the rush of knowing its wrong and the rush that you can be caught at any moment.

Forbidden love is not something that is new to our world, in fact I think that back in the seventeen and eighteenth centaury it was discovered and in full bloom. Back then times were different and if you had noble blood you would marry a nobleman no matter what you said or what you wanted. In that time status and money meant the world and even meant more than true love or happiness. They believed that money could buy anything including emotions.

It was then when stableman fell in love with the Duke’s eldest daughter who has been promised to the son of a Lord or a Count. When the lady would tell him she was to be wed, the stableman would declare his undying love for her and wanting her to choose him over her Lord. Of course she could not but agrees to have an affair with him, they promise each other that no one would breathe a word. So it was done and a hot and passionate affair starts between them. The Lady then starts to sneak off to the stables or the woods to be with her true love.

The passion shared between the two of them is unbelievably good. It’s like tasting something new everyday and experiencing it a little longer than the afternoon before. You know what you are doing is wrong but in some sense how can loving someone be wrong? How can wanting to be with someone for every moment of your being, be so damn wrong? Who decides what is wrong and right when it comes to love?

Would it truly be the end of the world of a lady of leisure end up married with a commoner? Would it be so bad to spend your life with someone you love but instead of a ten bedroom mansion you live in a one bedroom excuse for a house but at least you know the man sharing your bed is the man you love, the man you desire and the man you crave?

Or does those feelings all crumble away when it all becomes real? Now it’s not just an afternoon game being played by you and the help. When it becomes real it’s not just a hot passionate love affair which you can turn on and off when it pleases you? Now it’s the real life with you having to work hard along side your loving and gorgeous husband. If you imagine it all and you can still bare to be with him then its perhaps true love and then my advice is jump for it.

Mostly a forbidden love is just a phase that someone goes through. It shapes both parties for the future and it rarely works out in the end. The simple reason for that is because it’s not right to start off with so how can it later become right, something that your family will accept? There is a reason that it’s forbidden in the first place. A reason that does now might not make sense but in a few years from now when you look back to this love affair, then it might be clearer.

Have fun in while it lasts but remember that something forbidden is never meant to last a lifetime.

Remembering

Remembering is not such a bad thing to do. At first all I wanted, was to forget, to forget you and all the good times we have shared. I wanted to click on delete and empty the recycle bin so that I don’t have to be reminded of you. I didn’t want to feel the pain anymore and thinking about you was painful. Knowing that you will never call again, never email again, never send me flowers again and never kiss me goodnight again, that scared me! I thought I realized that I couldn’t move on without erasing your form my entire life.  Hit the delete button and try to act as if you never existed. I picked myself up and tried to move on and tried to start over.

Little did I know that the love I felt for you was true love. That it is not something that you can just switch on or off. It’s not the material things in life that reminds us of our loved ones. It’s not their clothes, books or even pictures. No, it’s the memories the two of you have shared together and no matter how hard you try to block it out, it always has some ways of crawling back into your mind.

When I walked down the street after it rained, I remember the times you would take me out dancing in the pouring rain and our laughter echoing down the street.

When I sense the smell of freshly cut grass, I remember the time you cut the grass only half way when it started to rain and you came back to bed and we just cuddled all day.

If I go to the theatre and I see young couples in love, seeing the sparkle in their eye, I think back on the times we would go to the theatre and how I would always end up resting my head on your shoulder.

When I sit in the cinema and a couple walks in, I remember the first of many movies watched with you.

When a waterpype bursts in our street, I think back on the morning when that happened at your places while you were shaving and you rubbed off all the shaving cream on the pillow and myself!

When it rains, I remember the Sundays we would spend either on the sofa or inbed watching movies, being lazy and fighting over who will make coffee.

These are just a few things that come to mind, I can continue for days, months and years to name every single thing. Some memories are beter left in the past but memories of love and happiness deserves to be remembered. No matter how hard you try to suppress it, it always finds a way back out, not always at the best of times. So do yourself a favor, don’t try to forget your loved one, remember and let their memories live on!

Loosing a friend and brother

The darkness fills my body and soul when I think back on that grueling day. The guilt and sadness of the entire event flashes by and my stomach turns like waves in a hurricane. I rerun every movement and saying but when he walks out of the house I try to go outside and stop him, the door is slammed shut and barricaded from the other side. I run to every possible exit but my luck has run out like a bottle of whiskey in the house of an alcoholic.

I talk to everyone in the house, trying to get someone to listen, trying to get someone to stop him but they walk past me and ignoring me like I simply don’t exist. Then I see myself talking to my friend as if nothing is wrong.  I scream at myself but nothing sinks in. Don’t they see me at all, surely I should hear myself?

There I stand cleaning her bedroom and finally taking a seat on the sofa. She puts in the DVD and we light up a cigarette and drink our coffee. Gran walks past our room and she goes into the back garden to continue her daily gardening. I get up to go to the bathroom and see Aunty Gail getting back to bed. The music from the room in the backyard trumpets through the entire house, it sounds like an Eminem CD jacked into a local taxi with more base than needed!

How can everyone be so calm? How can they just go on with their day, while the tragedy of a lifetime is about to occur within a few moments? I see myself walking back to her room and sit back down on the sofa. I swing my legs over the arm of the sofa to get a comfortable angle.  I see myself talking to her, asking her if we should not ask him to join us for a movie, telling her that after everything that was said, perhaps we should go out that night to get it off his mind.

We continue to watch the movie and more or less thirty minutes fly past and I see Gail walking to past our room and I hear the back door opening with ease this time round. I hear her screaming and we run outside to the back, my feet barely touch the steps and I run around the wall to find him hanging there. I see him hanging there with his lifeless body connected to the roof with white lead wire. Gail continues to scream and cry at once and pretty much so does everyone else, its chaos around me and I need to make some sort of order to it all.

I lift his feet and scream to Gail so that she can remove the wire from his neck. I place him softly on the ground scared that his porselein body would break into pièces. I instruct her to give him CPR and I run back to the room to get my cell phone, I call the cops and urge them to come quick. We hear the ambulance far in the distance but instead of the sounds becoming closer it fades. I start to panic and take over CPR from Gail trying to give her a break. I tell her to calm Gran and just take her into the house before I loose my mind. Marlene sits on the steps of the kitchen just moving back and forth not saying a word. To me she looks like a patient in a mental hospital.

Perhaps that is where I have found myself upon, inside the world of a crazy person and all of this is just a dream. The only problem of my theory is that everything feels so real. The idea of it all is unreal but I can feel his cold lips each time I try to breath the life back into him. I can still hear Gran’s crying in the distance coming from the house and I can see the Marlene just sitting there with the Eminem CD still pumping its beat in the background.

Gail gets back and offers to take over from me and I gladly step down. I go to the room and switched off the overbearing rap sounds which are driving me crazy by now.  I walk to Marlene and tap her on the shoulder and walk to the front gate. We sit on the porch not saying a word to each other. The sun is on its highest but all I can see is the darkness overbearing on this house. The ambulance sounds are becoming clearer and within a few minutes they stop in front of the house. I open the gate and urge them to hurry when the paramedic tells me that they struggled to find the house and it’s their first day on the job. I lead them to the back garden and take them Jesse and his mother. They shock him twice before he shows a pulse and they load him onto the stretcher where they now want to move him to the ambulance. I walk behind them still not knowing what it is I am and should be feeling. The lady lets go of the stretcher and runs past me and with reflexes kicking in, I grab the stretcher and walk with to ambulance where they load him onto the trolley bed and into the ambulance. The paramedic comes back and you can smell the stent of fresh vomit from her breath.

I can feel my mouth starting to water but I keep it in and once the ambulance drives off I run to the bathroom and puke.  I come back and take a seat on the porch, next to Marlene. She hands me a cigarette and take a deep drag on in, I slowly blow out the smoke and we sit there for hours not saying a word to each other.

Your mind runs crazy with silly thoughts and you still hope that it’s just a bad dream and in a few hours you wil wake up to find everything in place. The truth to the matter is nothing was ever in place again after that day ever again.