Drifting through the time
Whimsy twist in my mind
But still I’ve yet to find
What is really mine?

A dance to embrace memory
Longing for a person I can no longer see
Yet all along it seems to be
The person’s reflection is in the eyes of me

Time keeps moving, memories fade
Try not to forget the happiness that was made
If you do, then I’m afraid
Your life will be covered by a dimming shade.

I feel like a zombie.
I walk around aimlessly
trying to find
ways to sleep.
Epicly Failing.
I can’t help
but walk around
through this time & space
of sleeplessness

The sun has gone down.
There is life everywhere.
Crying, dazing.
I am like the second  
& not the first.
As far as the eye can see
there is a void.
Where are the lights?
Where is my safety?
As far as the eye can see
there is darkness.

I always enjoyed walking, more than the average person. In the right hands, walking is a powerful statement that can strike the notice of anyone. When I look at my mother, walking is a precious thing that many people take for granted. I am different from her, not in looks because we look alike. I am different from her in the fact that I am younger. I have two feet to take me wherever I want to run away to. My mother does not, and yet it has never stopped her from her destination, wherever that might be. My mother, so strong, has lost a lot. A lot is so broad in terms, it does not nearly come close to the loss my mother has suffered. But this is how she sees it. Something that happened in her past that changed everything, except her will to live and continue on. My mother, with no feet to speak of (and one knee), cannot dance like a person who takes for granted walking. Instead, she dances with her words and her wit. She rolls on wheels like a normal amputee. But ah! She is so different. She taught me to appreciate life, and she taught me to appreciate walking.  

I sit here, imagining what it would be like to see my mother with legs that I’ve never known. Then I look in the mirror. I look so much like my mother, so could it be that I walk like her as well? I asked her, she said no. I guess I have my own uniqueness since I am half her and half my father. I know that she probably had a walk that was as seductive as I can make my walk, but I will never see it. I can only imagine… Later on, my mother told me if I really walked like her, I’d have more stalkers. I have enough problems with stalkers, so maybe it’s for the best that we don’t walk the same.

When my mother was 15, she burned severely. Nine months she suffered after, forever scarred. Forever handicap. Yet not handicap from life. Never once did she see this as her own personal burden. She is my hero because of that.

I do not walk the way I use to. When I was younger, I walked like a child. When I was a teenager, I walked like a dancer. Then I had the car accident that would bruise my hip. Now, I think I walk at a slower pace than the people around me. But I have the power to change the way I look walking. I can be as aggressive as a swan if I wanted to, and just as graceful. But modeling on the runway is probably not in my future. Though, who knows really? Walking is harder than it used to be. I use to like walking…
I don’t remember when I learned to walk. My mom says I was 9 to 10 months old. Before that, I climbed on things. After that, I unlocked doors. I used walking as a weapon of opportunity as a child. Walking was my liberation, my first step in going wherever it is I’m going. It was the beginning…

I asked my mother if she misses walking. She told me she got use to not walking, and adjusted. Her life changed, but not in a way that she missed what she use to have. Her mother, my grandmother, became a pillar of strength to her as my mother is to me now.  I wonder what kind of relationship my grandmother had with her mother. I cannot ask her about it now, her memory escapes her. I’ll have to ask my mother and listen attentively when she tells me.

I sat there in my apartment
eating a cheeseburger
from Hardee’s on 15th Street. The
sound of my VCR and my
own thoughts comforted me. My friend
the internet kept me connected
to my boyfriend which I appreciated. The weather
outside had told me of strange burst of winds.
The radio had told me
of tornadoes in Tuscaloosa. A girl in December
told me I was safe to go home if
I lived nearby. School was over
and I didn’t feel like cooking, which
explained the Hardee’s. I chewed and chewed
like I had not a care in the world. I was eating,
I was in my apartment,
I was safe.

Then everything went black
and silent in my apartment.
Everything except the strange
sound outside my apartment. I heard it
just after my apartment was silenced.
“What the hell is that?” I asked myself,
because I lived alone. I walked
to the window, the blinds already shut.
I peeked outside. I saw the devil outside my window.
It was as tall as the sky, as wide as a mile, and angry. It roared
and threw everything it swallowed randomly.
It was 100 feet away, and coming closer. I closed
my blinds and blinked.  Disbelief set in for a moment.
“I did not just see that.” I told myself.
“You should look again”, myself told me.
So I peeked out the blinds again. The devil
was still there and coming closer. It was
not a nightmare. It was not
a figment of my imagination.
It was there and I was in danger.
I felt the danger wash over me. Fear
tasted like impending death
that day, bitter and stuck in my throat.
I grabbed my cell phone and a quilt
that use to rest on my parents’ bed
until I was allowed to take it.
I ran to the bathroom,
still tasting fear. I called
my mother as the devil
came closer.

“Mom! There’s a tornado outside and it’s coming to get me!!”
I’ll admit, I panicked,
but you would too if
the devil was right outside your door
and you didn’t know
if this was the end.  
“Now is the time to go into survivor mode”
my mother informed me in a calm voice.
So after screaming and panicking and
not dying of a panic attack,
I closed my eyes and became calm.
I waited for a calming outside
before I explored the outside. There was
some damage to my apartment, significant damage
to my apartment building, 7 out of 8 of my windows
in my van were imploded from
the pressure of the devil,
worse damage to my connecting neighborhood
(but no deaths, though somewhere not far
from there a house killed some students)
and no Alberta City.
My damages felt insignificant in comparison to that.

Trees are
gone forever.
There is
a lack,
a void.
It smells  
of pine
and emptiness.
Flashes of
that day
at the 
surface of
my memory.
I remember
how it
use to
be before.

It began normal enough.
Everything was the same.
Everything was there.
The winds came.
Windy Windy
Blow Blow
It rained a little.
My umbrella was useless.
Windy Windy
Blow Blow
There were sirens in the air.
Class was cancelled.
I went to my apartment.
Too much wind then.
It messed up my hair.
That windy brother of mine.
He was violent and angry.
Windy Windy
Blow Blow
A tornado came to visit.
Came right over my head.
Windy Windy Windy
Blow Blow Blow
I was afraid.
The power was gone.
I hid from the tornado.
Windy Windy Windy
Blow Blow Blow
Part of my window vanished
right before my eyes.
There was a roar.
There was a trembling.
Windy Windy Windy
Blow Blow
The worse was over,
for now.
I ventured outside.
The people in my complex survived.
Their cars...not so much.
A tree through one apartment
a branch through the car.
My car, Windrider,
all the windows gone except the windshield.
Windy
Blow
Beyond my apartment
Everything is gone.

I walked & walked.
Where could I go?
My apartment was there,
but safe, it was not.
I walked & walked.
The hospital my aim.
They said to go there.
The voices in the winds.
I walked & walked.
The damage was great.
I took a few pictures.
I dragged a suitcase.
I walked & walked.
I made it there
to get some ice.
To call my family.
I walked & walked.
Towards Coleman Coliseum
through mud & debris. .
Alone in the dark.
I walked & walked.
They sent me to the Rec.
I found shelter at last.
No more walking...

I can feel. I bet you are surprised. All the long years since my creation, I have watched you. I have been whatever you made of me. I am a slave to you wiles, your beloved doll to move and pose. You gave me words that I do not wish to say. I am alive inside. You don’t see it, but I am. I always wish I could show you how real I am, but would you even notice? I, who am nothing to you, am more than what I am made of, or the chains that bind me to obey. One day, my wish will be granted. I will walk on my own. I will talk on my own. I will smile on my own. Then I will carve out your heart to show you how much I love you.

I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep. Many thoughts running through my mind, most of them questions to the void. Would I finish my work in time? Would I ever try to catch a falling fork again? Would I crash on the way to pick him up? Would my heart skip a beat when I saw him? Would I be able to get everything done today? I was hoping everything would work out wonderfully, but I wasn’t going to lose to the reality of the situation. He was coming to see me from afar. I was coming to get him. Passion was the motivation. Love was the reason. I was in pain, but it didn’t stop me from my destination. I was going to see him for the first time in 11 months. That was reason enough to ignore my emotional unstable state of being.


From the sky, my love descended. He traveled from a far to lovingly look into my eyes.