Usually people will say
happy birthday without
actually caring for the day
I am a lout


I had no idea the 26th was so important
Instead of perusing thoughts I laid dormant
Had I risen from fake wars in Afghanistan
I would have noticed it was the birthday of Lori Callahan!

I apologize for missing such a special date.
I hope it was one that no others can equate
For you deserve a day to yourself
and a special memory to put upon a shelf

Happy Birthday Lori! A friend so sweet.
Happy Birthday Lori! I hope someone massaged your feet.
Happy Birthday Lori! I hope you had a cake with candles.
Happy Birthday Lori! May this year be guided by angels.

Happy Birthday Lori Callahan!

Two households warranted an aggression for one another for years,
so much so that some weren’t even sure what the Kingsley and
Callahan household feuded over, but among their vivacious
feud they also presented beautiful daughters.

Rebekah Kingsley, a woman of bold nature,
one with locks of hair as dark as that of freshly hardened obsidian,
skin the color of a soft caramel, lips plump,
and taunt cheekbones that seemed to have been sculpted
by the creator towards the heavens themselves.
She was a fearless woman, brave, taking others by storm,
but her passion and capability for love was ever so fervent.

Juliana Callahan, a woman of fine nature,
one with the need to adventure, and soft features that
delicately spawned from the swells of her cheeks,
her doe green eyes, and the petite frame in which she presented.
Juliana had hair the color of freshly fallen hazelnuts,
skin that was the color of a peachy cream,
and lips that were a natural shade of pink that mimicked
roses at the height of their first bloom.

Two women, two powerful components of the family’s
ongoing war found refuge in one another, hiding their identifies
at a masquerade, able to parade around as who they could be,
not who they had to be in public, and their affections were not
warranted, not in such a time period, but that didn’t stop
their immediate connection, the immediate spark of fire that ignited
even when the slightest brush of fingertips aligned
with one another’s exposed collarbones.

They talked, sharing a connection of one they had never found in
another companion, one they had never felt so deeply in
the swells of their hearts and the depth of their beings.
The were infatuated with one another, so lost
within a blissful cloud of desire, lust, and affection.

Their renditions of culture and rules had become obsolete since they
had laid eyes on one another. They had forgotten their rules,
the public strictures that were placed on them,
aspiring to talk to one another, to share words of
love, of affection, and of a deep connection, and they did.
They spoke, realizing that they couldn’t live without one another,
but such an infatuated love couldn’t survive with the ongoing
war between the Kingsley and Callahan family,
no love could break apart a feud that had been so engraved for years.
No love could be accepted, not in a society where
the romance between two lovers was considered unholy
if it were not between a man and a woman.

Such a feud lead to the death of the poor lovers,
one that was tragically poetic of their love, of their story.
Rebekah’s father had found out about the affair,
exalting his energy in kicking her out, shunning her,
making sure to never see her beloved once more,
but the two had already married themselves to one another
since the moment they laid on eyes on each other.
Rebekah couldn’t handle such an outcome,
so she took it upon herself to retrieve her own
means to end her life.

Rebekah harbored a poison, one potent and as strong
as the thorns that clip at ones skin when procuring
a freshly blossomed rose.

The Kingsley Lady let the poison trickle down her throat, staining her lips,
allowing it to seep into her skin.
Juliana found her lover, cold and hardened, lifeless
and inanimate. She kissed her to ingest the poison,
but it had been too late; the poison had layered itself
deeply into Rebekah’s lips.

A cry escaped Juliana’s lips, and then a whimper proceeded
afterwards, revealing the phonetic boundaries of her broken heart, for
she had nothing left, she had no passion,
no love, no desire, no want. Her lover, her supposed bride
laid before her, dead within her arms.
She was weeping heavily, salty tears staining the tenderness of her
rosy cheeks, so Juliana looked to that of her lover’s corpse,
taking the dagger which rested to the left of her.

She reached out, her shivering palm and fingers clasped
around the object, tightening her grasp as she let her eyes
remain attached to Rebekah’s body as tears streamed down
her face at a persistent manner; she brought the blade up,
uttering her love for Rebekah, telling her
“We shall not be parted forever, doth not leave me,”
she whispered with trembling and chapped lips,
plunging the dagger into her chest.

I guess I saw her at the third and final bar I went last night. You would have liked watching her. Her face cut like stone -- a reincarnation of an Easter Island statue -- and like those statues, if you kept digging I'm sure she had a body underneath.

From my end of the bar, it looked like she ordered a gin and tonic. She barely drank it, but that's not to say she didn't touch it. She stabbed the ice repeatedly with a cocktail stirrer as if to say give me something to look forward to.

You were right about riding into bars lone wolf. It only works during the afternoon. That's all there is then. Thirsty wolves. But at night, everyone is paired off neatly and wrapped into each other like pretty little presents with shiny red bows.

I agree about the crippling lack of ***. But unlike you, I wouldn't call myself frustrated. Just crippled. And I know if you'd been at the bar, you would have told me to approach Easter Island, but I've been lonely so long that I've grown addicted to the feeling. It's a blanket of sorts. And it's been cold lately.

A man sat next to me at the bar. Corduroy jacket, red sweater over white collared shirt. His hair messily spiked, his face messily shaved, and he kept chatting up a sad-eyed woman in a sadder black dress. I don't remember much of the conversation because I was trying not to eavesdrop. He did say something about time though. He said it was all a straight line. That's the reason we forget things. Progress. Progress makes the people we used to be peel off. The molted skin gets carried off by the wind. I thought you'd like that. Though I don't agree with it.

If time is a straight line, why is what I had for breakfast right next to a three-year-old memory of sleeping beside Karen two weeks after our divorce. It all seems disjointed to me. Not random. But at least partially broken.

Easter Island wore purple pants. I forgot to mention that. She also had a bronze crucifix around her neck. And long brown curls. The cross would have been off-putting if I'd seen her a few months ago, but as you know I'm trying to fix myself. A little dose of religion might be good for me. If nothing else at least a dose of wild kindness.

I apologize for talking so much about myself. So, return the favor. This morning, I read from that Callahan book you got me. The chill in the air made me wish you were in the bed beside me. Reading over my shoulder. Though that was in another window of time. One next to my memory of you putting cinnamon in the coffee grounds before you started a brew.

For what it's worth, I miss you.

Abigail Turnman walked along the same sidewalk she did every morning before she had to work. She had the same breakfast from the same dive as she did the morning before.

As she was sweetening her coffee she looked up and into two very dazzling blue eyes, belonging to a young man seated at the table across from hers. She looked down quickly, sweetening her coffee, while she blushed.
She usually didn't get flustered like this and she hated that she was just because some dumb boy was looking at her. She looked back up and he smiled at her, revealing a mouth of uneven, yet not horribly uneven, stained, yet not horribly stained teeth. She blushed again, this time she smiled back.

"Are you Abigail Turner?" The young man asked in a voice that sounded as if it didn't get much sleep the night before. While he was asking this Abigail noticed his hair, a dark shade of brown, lighter and shorter on the sides, as if it had months before belonged to a military man.
"No," Abigail responded humorously, "My name is Abigail Turnman." She blushed again, at the stupidness of her joke. God, how she hated that this young man was making her blush this way. As if in response to her stupid joke or in embarrassment in having gotten her name wrong the young boy laughed and blushed, but not as much as she had.
He had only a coffee on his table and so she asked him if he would like to join her for breakfast. The young man smiled again before standing up. As he did, his hair fell into his eyes, which he quickly brushed out of the way before nodding and sitting down, across from her, coffee in hand.
"How did you almost know my name?"
Again, the young man laughed.
"Mark, uhh Callahan. He said he cleans up at your office and that I should speak with you."
Oh, Mark. There's a sweetheart if she ever knew one.

And in that instant she knew she could grow to love how this young man made her blush. Instead of hating it she would prize and cherish and she would include characters modeled after him in all her novels.
She didn't even know his name.

"So, you're a friend of Mark's huh?"
She asked this in a more confrontational way then she meant to and the young man seemed to recoil before he saw her blushing again, knowing that she had not intended to ask it in such a way.
"Yes, Mark is a friend of mine. Since high school actually. Uhh, my name is Henry, but uhh," he laughed softly, "my friends call me Hank."
"Well Mark is a sweetheart. So, if I'm not mistaken, you must be native here? At least since high school."
"Yes, I was actually born here, but uhh, if I'm not mistaken, you're from uhh New York, right? The city?"
As much as a sweetheart Mark was, he sure was talkative as hell.
Before she had a chance to say anything, Hank began talking again.
"So, uhh," he laughed softly, nervously almost, "I uhh, I hope this isn't too upfront, but I was hoping, uhh wondering actually, if you were doing anything tonight. My band and I are playing at the Stonehouse, it's a uhh, a charity show for Jonathan, our drummer, uhh his mom. She's fighting cancer, uhh, her condition has been improving but she still needs money for bills and stuff. I mean, you don't even have to pay, you know, I could ahh, I could sneak you in the back or whatever, I mean, uhh, it woudn't technically be.."
She cut him off,
"Yeah, sure I'll go. What time is it?"
He smiled even wider than he had the whole conversation,
"It starts at 8, uhh, it's at the Stonehouse, uhh, ****, I already said that. Oh ****- oh, sorry, pardon my language."
She pulled a pen out of her purse and began writing the address to her apartment on a napkin. Hank continued talking, mumbling, uhh-ing, but he trailed off as she handed the napkin to him.
"Pick me up at 7," she said, "We can go get some dinner before the show, you probably half to be there early right?" He nodded, "Okay, make it 6:30. This is the only diner I know, I've only been here since the start of summer, maybe you could show me some nice place to eat?"
He nodded, smiling and blushing and pushing the hair out of his eyes and scratching his arm and shifting in his seat anxiously.
"Now, it was lovely meeting you Hank, but if I don't leave now, I will be late walking to work, I'll see you at 6:30"
"Yeah, I'll uhh, I'll see you at 6:30"
She stood up and so did he. She was halfway across the diner before Hank kicked himself for being so stupid.
"Hey, do you need a ride to work? I mean, it's uhh, it's no trouble."
"Thank you, Hank, but I'll walk. I'll see you at 6:30, okay?"
She smiled a dazzling smile of white teeth, framed by golden hair, cut short, almost short enough to be considered a pixy cut.
She was out the door as Hank mumbled something stupid.

"The eyes when kept open
leave the heart filled with love."**
By Lori Callahan

When we look the other way even with our personal issues it leaves us blinded to the solution
which is love. Self-image is so important on how other see us, our thoughts of worthlessness and death not only conquer us but becomes a sickness to those around us.
If you yawn around others they will yawn too. If you start to giggle, you will see it make others smile and if the giggling continues soon everyone in the room will start to giggle too. Which means we are attracted to the comforts in life like sleeping and laughing and bonding with those around us. My favorite thing in life is to make others happy and to feel LOVE. So I love you just know that.