Tag Archives: Traces of the Soul

Wish You Could See

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image: courtesy of Janssenfrank and taken from Wiki Commons

Mary sighed as she knelt down in front of the gravestone. Her hands did not tremble as they cleared away the grass and weeds that tried to cover the slab of cement, though her fingers lovingly traced the outline of the letters.

“It’s lonely without you, Warren. The boys aren’t home as often as they used to be, busy with work and school and friends. They don’t have as much time for their mother anymore.”

Terry had graduated high school with honors and was now attending university, his long-time girlfriend off and studying her way through dancing, his job not ending just because he had less time on his hands. If anything, he spent more time with his boss than with his mother.

“I don’t mind so much, Terrance is really coming into what he wants to be and I think he would make you proud with his dreams of going into law. He’s not just going to leave it to someone else to fix the mess that has often happened in our legal systems.”

Matt wasn’t in high school, not yet, but that was more because he hadn’t wanted to skip grades than anything else. Her little boy was smart and often spent time over with his brother at his workplace. Terry’s boss didn’t seem to mind and even let the pre-teen help out as well.

Mary smiled once more at her husband’s gravestone, “It seems that I am nothing more than a thought they have now and then, but I know that they still love me even if I don’t quite fit with them anymore.”

With a sigh, she stood.

“I wish you were here to grow old with me.”

This is a dual inspired post, part of it came from reading a post by Oliana this morning (nothingness) and also from the Light and Shade Challenge.

Instead…

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Who says, who says you’re not worth it?
Who says you’re not perfect
Who says you’re the only one whose hurting
Trust me, that’s the price of beauty,
Who says you’re not pretty?
Who says you’re not beautiful?
Who says? –“Who Says” by Selena Gomez
 

Why were people so heartless? So eager to cast someone, anyone down into the dirt and mock them as they flung stones? Why did they only feel better about themselves when they were destroying someone else?

It didn’t always end in death. Oh no, it was far more fun if their victim lived on, that way they didn’t have to find another to trap in the entanglement of their chosen entertainment.

Even those that had once been in the dirt were eager enough to squash someone else beneath them so that they knew that, for all their pains, there was someone worse off.

What would it take to stop this cycle? To change it so that pulling someone up and out of the mud would make you feel better instead of shoving them back down in it.

Is it even worth it some days?

Only you, yourself, can know the answer. It’s not the same for everyone, because some people just need time away from it all to rest. To step back and do something else, worry about anything else, because they’ve been int he trenches so long, that they’re starting to forget that anything else ever existed in the first place, let alone that they can make it.

In the end all it takes is time. Time that you use yo out-stubborn, outlast and out-believe that your way is the correct way in the first place. Because there’s no other way to do it.

Not that I’ve seen.

This mini-rant was inspired first by a post from Oliana that I read today, Sense of Loss, but the rant isn’t just about what was contained in her post. It was further pushed out because of this week’s Three Word Wednesday prompt.

There are many, many, many different ways to hurt someone, to push them down.

If only we had more ways to pull them back up instead.

Different Phoenix, Different Ending – Reflections Traces Prompt #12

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Sometimes she wondered how different life would have been for her had she the power to chose her own outcome. She had loved a man so much, much more than he had ever deserved, though that was something that she had not known until later in their life together. They’d had children, so many children and she thought they’d been happy.

It was only later that she learned there was more to life, their life, that she had not known about.

Her kind were often thought of as a blessing or a curse, depending on who was talking.

To her husband, she had been a blessing both in children, long life and in personal power. Those who came to their home to speak with her husband were always awed by his wife, though it was unintentional on her part. It was just what and who she was.

In many tales, it is said that those of her kind will die and then become reborn from their own ashes, ready to rise once again in glorious fire.

For her, she would die upon an altar, her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren around her and her husband standing over her. In her death, her children, some of whom were very sick, would gain some of her life force and heal from it. She had chosen this. She was old and if her death could have a purpose, then she would be grateful, even if it interfered with the original sequence of her kind’s death.

Her rebirth would happen not right away, but scattered throughout the lifetimes of her descendants. What she hadn’t foreseen was the outcome of that supposed one-time sacrifice. Every death thereafter would further seal her fate to what had once been her family but was now nothing more than her slavers.

Original concept for this particular story is actually a little old. I have some scenes for this story written down somewhere in another collection of shorts. When I saw the Reflections Traces Prompt for this last week, I thought of this story. It has no connection to my other long-standing story in Phoenix ‘Verse.

Chaotic Space – Traces Prompt #11

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Many times in my life, I’ve shared my basic space.
Yet always I have yearned for my very own place.
 
Rarely have I had a moment’s peace
Only madness anc chaos have I known.
Or would it be better to say
My life is not just my own.

I have a lot of siblings. A lot. I also now have a lot of nieces and nephews (their numbers finally are higher than the numbers of my siblings and I with the twins being born.) No matter what house (or apartment or duplex) I have lived in, there have been people who double up for bedrooms.

(Well, except for that short time (almost 18 months!) where there were only five of us left in my childhood home.)

For all the chaos in my life (and there has been a lot) I don’t know if I’d be able to survive long when nothing is happening and there’s nothing to do. I like being able to work, even if it’s only from home or at home. Though I do know how to spend most of a day with only a lot of people around during the evening. I’d like to think that I’m pretty adaptive, but I do have this thing with my head and neck. I don’t like people to touch them unless it’s okay with me. (History of head and neck injuries here so I’m a little paranoid.)

Either way, I did like writing a short little poem here and then rambling for a bit. This post was inspired by last Thursday’s Traces Prompt from Olianna.

Journey’s End, One Can Only Hope – Traces Prompt #10

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Solaris looked out over her people. They were happy and thriving, the pains and losses of the war finally starting to be forgotten. It had been a long road for her to walk, for her to watch her people walk, but they were finally starting down a new part of the path.

She did not turn her head to her faithful Guardian who remained standing at her side, rigid, her eyes scanning the room for any threat, perceived or otherwise.

Solaris held in a sigh. Star still had a long way to go to find peace.

If she ever did.

Solaris would not give up hope that such a thing was possible for her oldest friend. If she gave up hope then it would be certain that Star would never find her own inner peace.

Star was annoying like that lately. If it was something that Solaris had given up on then Star would not fight quite so hard for it. It was like the woman had given up on anything that wasn’t already hoped for by someone she deemed worthy of making such decisions.

Unfortunately, Solaris was on top of the Decision Pedestal for the Guardian and the queen couldn’t think of anything that would remove her from this position.

Well, she’d just have to think of something to fix this problem.

Inspired (late, I know) by last week’s Traces Prompt from Olianna.

Like Lightning – Traces Prompt #8

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Summer days and summer sighs
Underneath the dry, hot sun.
My gaze is drawn away
Melting underneath the sky.
Energy infuses my being
Right as you pass by.
 
Lightning flashes across the sky!
Oh! But I love a summer storm!
Voices fill the house with a blackout,
Even though we aren’t alone.

I haven’t ever had a summer romance, but I have always loved summer lightning storms even when they caused blackouts.

(Especially when they caused momentary blackouts where we got to use candles around the house because there weren’t enough flashlights.)

It’s actually storming really hard right now.

Written for this week’s Traces Prompt: http://tracesofthesoul.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/traces-prompt-8-summer-love/#like-10662

Waiting – Traces Prompt #7

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She’d been waiting forever, it seemed.

(It really had been forever as far as others were concerned. There are few people who’ve seen the rise and fall of civilizations like Rome and the Mayans; the rise and fall of empires across the globe.)

She hadn’t been alone, and thank heavens for that.

(There have been others, others that they met, that had been alone for far too long. They’d had to ‘put them down’ and that hadn’t been enjoyable.

Killing someone that was more like you than just about anyone or anything else was never pleasant.)

Waiting for someone, something, to come about.

It had been a very long wait, but it had been worth it.

That is what Comet, as she was now known as, told herself as she defended the Royal Nursery from the Enemy. She wasn’t going to let her queen down.

(Even if it meant waiting longer with only half a mind to work with. At least she’d never be waiting alone.)

(Star hadn’t realized what she’d felt until too late, but she had never left her other half alone in all their waiting; she wasn’t very well going to abandon her sister now.)

(No one wanted to wait alone.)

Written for last week’s Traces Prompt: https://tracesofthesoul.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/waiting-haibun-traces-prompt-7/

Sorry this is late again, Olianna!

Too Many To Add – Traces Prompt #5

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Chivalry is dead you say? I’d like to disagree.
Help offered and given when taking groceries out to a car.
I‘ve had a life as a child doorstop only to grow up and see others take over.
Volume lowered when realizing it’s too loud for your neighbors without them even asking.
A lot can happen in a day, of that I’m sure, but seeing one who vowed vengeance turn and ask forgiveness doesn’t really seem absurd.
Lasting peace when there is energy abounding, children try their hardest to not overwhelm the sick.
Real life is hard, it was always supposed to be, but having someone to walk alongside you makes all the difference.
You say that chivalry is dead and yet I see it in the little things all around me.

Not everyone has learned to be kind in the same way, but everyone has that flicker within them to grow and become more than even they would ever imagine.

Written for this week’s Traces Prompt: http://tracesofthesoul.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/is-the-age-of-chivalry-still-here-traces-prompt-5/

There were too many examples that I could think of for this prompt so I went with my favorite method, the acrostic poem and named a few. There is just as much kindness in this world as there is cruelty, but there have been moments of chivalry even amongst those who seem to have none of the former and too much of the latter.

Souls of My Shoe – Traces Prompt #4

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I can feel it, negativity! -Sailor Moon

What do you do all day?

Do you sit and think of what you’ve lost?

Do you throw in the towel when the fight’s just begun?

 Sometimes I just don’t
Know what to do…
I want to give in,
Stop in the souls of my shoe.
 
Too exhausted to carry on,
I’m tired and worn out.
“Get up you lazy bum!”
You don’t need to shout.
 
Why must you do this?
Try so hard to drag me down,
Almost as if you’ve decided
To run me out of town.
 
Well you know what?
I’m not going to comply.
I’m done with listening to this
And I’m not going to let it get by.
 
I have a life,
Moments of my own,
And I’m not going to let you stop me
And take what I have grown.
 
If you want to be down
And let your life turn to ash,
Then do so if you will
Though I think such actions are rash.
 
Because there’s so much more out there,
Waiting for you to stand up;
To take what has been given
And never give it up.
 
It may take you some time
To come to terms with this,
Until you do so,
You I will surely miss.
 
Just know that I will always be here,
Waiting for you to come home.
Sitting outside each evening,
And missing you while you roam.
 
Because this is a decision
That only you can make.
And from you I will never
Try your life to take.
 
So learn and grow
And always my friend,
I hope you know
That in my heart you’ll have a place.

Written in response to Olianna’s Traces Prompt: http://tracesofthesoul.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/traces-prompt-4-stop-raining-on-my-parade/#like-10040

And because I’ve had to watch people I love walk away from me because they needed to grow and it was something that I could not help with. And because sometimes I have been the one to walk away, because there were things I needed to know for myself that I could not learn through another.

Thank you, Olianna, for this incredible prompt today.