Little Red Riding Hood's Last Stroll

Twas the darkest of nights in the prarie woodland
Little Red Riding Hood walked the raven strand
Her beaten path was strewn with briar and thistle band
Losing her way, she stumbled into the murky lowland
   
A steamy fog cut through the bleary bog
The rancid odor of vaporous springs did the air clog
A venomous frog full of spite sat on a jagged log
Vampire bats with their ebony capes the putrid air did flog

A Hoot owl from overhead bellowed out a dolesome refrain
Sprightly shadows followed forming a loathsome train
Every few seconds, an eery howl filled the air with a portentous strain
Creepy, crawling insects fiddled a tune of disdain

Little Red Riding Hood's heels became mired in the porous, sandy soil
Discarding her sandals, she screeched; slimy leeches clasped each, bleached sole
Thirsty, Vampire bats veered all about seeking her ****** blood to spoil
Frightened to her wits' end, she sat down on a log to weigh her dreary toll

Unbeknownst to her, the spiteful toad for a wary companion did troll
Taking aim, that malicious toad took a gleeful caper landing on her ****** mole
Discharging his vitriolic potion, Little Red Riding Hood screamed as the pain through her blanched tissue did roll
A minute later, her callous mole was transformed into a pusy, seething boil

Leaping from her bartered stool, she ran into the foreboding wood
Her homely cape snagged on an extended limb and from her fragile arm  spilt blood
The whiff of fresh, warm blood was immediately sensed by a wolf pack brood
Hearing the howling pack approaching, she froze right where she stood

Remembering Grandmother's wise advice, she climbed the nearest tree
Not realizing therein lay a poisonous snake perched so sprightly
Arriving on the scene first, the Druid lapped up the trail of blood that gushed from her wound so freely
To placate the menacing brood, she tossed down some of grandmother's crumpets briskly

A second later, the coiled up snake lunged at its helpless target with lightning speed 
Alarmed, Little Red Riding Hood whirled about wrapping around her the flailing snake like a nimble reed
Losing her balance, she fell headlong into the hungry jaws of gluttonous greed
That ravenous brood lapped up the crumpets, diced up the snake, and did the nimble limbs of Little Red Riding Hood knead

A word of caution to every rambling, ambling tite
If ever you venture into the perilous copse at night
Beware of the spiteful vermin that scour and stalk with stealthy might
And never from the beaten trail stray or malicious malcontents will your innocence spite

In third grade, I lived in a white rent house; forever known as the “white house.” It was in the backyard of this house that I played Pocahontas, and Little House on the Prarie, it is also where I met him. I don’t remember his face, or his name, only his age: sixteen, his buzz cut and the fact that he live with his grandma.
I was a quiet girl, with long brown, curly hair falling past my shoulders. I was nine. The boy and I became friends of sorts talking through the chain link; the criss-cross of the metal keeping me from his full face. Eventually our friendship moved from the backyard to the Front yard, where there was no chain link and things blurred together. The two yards meeting in the middle, mirroring the friendship of the boy and I.
Soon a game developed, a new version of hide and seek perfect for two. I would hide a piece of paper, and he’d try to find it. I hid it in the same spot every time, the huge terracotta *** on my front porch: the one with no plant life, only black potting soil with the white fertilizer specks.
I remember staring down at the small white paper as he quickly scanned the porch, not really looking. Then his eyes would latch onto me. He’d kneel before me, and ask the question I would always dread, “Where did you hide it?”
I didn’t dread the question itself, just the after. He would take my hand and lead me over the boundary between our yards. The one that was invisible and mirrored our friendship.
I remember looking down at the green outside carpeting as I climbed the steps to his grandmother’s house, hand in hand with the boy. He took me inside, down a long hallway to his room. His grandmother wasn’t home. I stepped into the room, my tennis-shoed feet sinking into the thick carpeting, which was so very much like my grandmother’s.
He closed the door; I remember exactly how the lock clicked into place before he turned to me, smiling.
“You’ve been a bad girl,” he said “you hid the paper in a place I couldn’t look at outside.”
I told him it was in the big *** outside my ouse then, afraid, but not really sure of what.
“No,” he said, “I check there. Why would you lie to me?”
And that was when he lifted my shirt, exposing the chest of a child, with my baby fat belly, and not a hint of puberty. The pants were next. I remember watching them, red with white hearts, the shorts my mother had made me falling to the ground, pooling softly around my ankles. I never said no, I was only silent, my brother was four at the time, he was the cute one then, so I desperately wanted the boys attention.
I was standing there in my underwear, too tall socks, and tennis shoes. Glancing towards the door that seemed to have grown in size, like the Christmas tree in the Nutcracker.
His hands went to my *******, sliding them down to my ankles, making the familiar swishing against the dry skin of my legs as they went down. He just sat there for a moment, staring. Finally he said “Well, I guess the paper must be out there after all.”
He pulled up my ******* and helped me into my pants. He opened the door, which had returned to normal size, and lead me out into the sunlight, crossing the invisible boundary of our yards. He plucked the paper from the planter and smiled.
“You know if you want to be on the internet all you have to do is show your underwear.”
He turned and walked away then, dropping the precious paper on the boundary of our friendship as he went.

The Lillies bring you peace,
They can even be an animal.

The breath of babies,
The man that's hanging.

Roses are many different colors than just red,
Those colors having different meanings.

Violets can be the color of their name,
They can also be the color blue.

Some flowers are from the sun,
Others are not as bright.

Daisies and Lillies can be in a prarie,
Others don't even sprout from the ground.

My best friend is my favorite flower,
Even though she's not an actual.

Flowers are bright and colorful,
While others can be dull at times.

She is as beautiful as anyone's favorite flower,
Looks wise and personality.

She's almost always bright,
But everyone and thing had their moments.

The moment we meet she had me hooked,
I never knew I was missing anything till I found her.

When people are sick they ate given flowers,
Or even is they just need them.

Good saw we needed some flowers,
But he had a plan.

He gave us each one flower a piece,
He knew just the one would suffice.

He knew we would help the other,
He knew she'd be the perfect flower,  for a damaged one like me.

a dream of fantastic horses**

there were red horses.
white horses and spotted
horses.  horses so black
they shimmered crow-like
in the morning.

pouring across
the plains of sleep,
thunder horses,
lightning horses,
horses swimming in floods,
dying in deserts.
horses wading withers
deep in snow.

knife-hooved,
prarie-eyed,
mountain-thighed

memory horses,
lathered up unsaddled,
strung out like ribbons in the wind.

i.
pictures hung so abundantly like there was a ponytail for every assorted alcoholic beverage that would go down while you sat on the counter top with grey in your eyes
or on my lap like lavender gloves. i bought flour and red velvet as atonement, but hollow words are as indicative of unfaithfulness as your eyelashes were indicative of my heartbeat speeding up like your raggedy red Taurus on the Pike and slowing down like our souls in self-reflection, co-morbidly.

ii.
i clip to cold like frozen gnomes but the room with fire was bellowing through the chimney in your irises. it was the ceiling i was the most comfortable collapsing under. Merlot, you are a peach and almost all of the sun that our brains can ultravioletly receive. There is no where to run to when logs and THC are crackling while you let my try on your scarves and you rub my arm horizontally like there was no famine or *** trafficking in the world. The rabbit is always right and Dewey loved the hay and telling us that we belong together. there was no time to guess the right combination of psych meds and there was certainly no one there to close the sliding glass door.

we'd unzip and kiss in a mist of dampened television volume while everyone was asleep. i fell into you, first in billions of separate-cardboard puzzle pieces and then all at once like oblivion within a climate-controlled stadium.


iii.
i noted the same pictures in this room and how your ponytails ended all existing threats to human suffering.

iv.
i loved the dark and the stars and the soupy-vacuum, pulling us in and spitting us out like a bitter mango.
there was never any water in your pool to turn green and so the unfilled concrete was an ocean to our symmetrical lawn-chair thrones, radiating green jeans and the hazel-stained dream-scene.

we lost what vision was real and what was a dream. this was a gift beyond any explanation or expectation. yet, you wouldn't let me remove all of the shrapnel and funnel antibiotics with my barren fingertips onto your scalp.

v.
here, there was kin-
the only room in which your skin didn't show me a piece of you,
but your words did.
there's a way that all of our lives collide like a supernova and our explosion felt more like a hundred-decade erosion,
giving and taking from each other like a sea-side boulder and the tide.


vi.**
you finally showed me the flesh you were ashamed to show the couch, your bed for two in Easthampton, mac & cheese without almond milk, the top of Wachusett, the pit of a pizza dish, the sink of the swooning stitches, the empty pool, the movie theater, your fake bras, and
everything else that supported us like an apparition that wouldn't return my favorite t-shirts.

and i was in.

my fingernails were there. every hair i touched while panic deducted consciousness in some scarce granting of a wish was another prarie for me to grow corn and flowers and ecstasy within. every single crop died but i never forget how self-loathing turned into a comforting sleep. we ran from consciousness like a runaway train but you were always on my back, whispering that solidarity was a the solution to a world that values prosperity over pragmatic humanity.

all the tears and dreams that danced like the branches in the frigid, unforgiving winter were dried up like a creek that i lost consciousness in when you shut the door.

these spaces exist in purgatory because i don't remember my dreams anymore and nothing really ever means anything,
like biting off my fingers in all of these rooms that are left with only memories of you.

Along the Prarie
Sofia Drougas

As I walked, I noticed the dull skies around me. They were blue, but they seemed to be weeping. I watched as crows pecked every last crumb off of the dry, cracked ground. People around me stopped and stared as I walked by. They were in ragged, torn clothes that probably hadn’t been washed in weeks. Their faces were drained of color, the bones on their cheeks were outlined by the hollowness of their faces. Children cried of hunger. I sighed and looked ahead, too pained to watch any longer. My long skirts were swishing around my ankles. I looked back once more. The skirts that they wore climbed up to their calves, revealing their bare legs. I walked on. I saw more of the people, huddled together in an alley, trying to keep warm. They ran to me, hands stretched to the sky, begging, crying for money. I had none to spare. I promised to return with bread for the family. I ran to escape their needy fingers. I walked when I could run no more. I was breathing heavily, panting like a dog in need of water. I stopped to rest for a minute. As I stood, I saw trees, stripped of their leaves in the distance. I saw birds flying across the scorching, hot prairie. I felt the gentle breeze, barely detectable across my face. This was home. I had lived here all of my life. I was born here, in the vast, cracked land. I had never seen a rainstorm in all of the time I had lived here. Rain came and went, like a bee flying from flower to flower, never stopping too long at each.
“Hello.” I didn’t turn around. This is the reason why I walked all of the way here, through the burning sun. I didn’t reply. Instead, I waited for him to speak.
“I’ve missed you,” were his next words.
“It’s been a long time.”
“Almost a year.” To me, it had seemed like a year, multiplied by ten.
“One too many.” I turned, and saw his sweaty, *****, smiling face, sun burned from his journey.
“Come with me. To my home. Live with me. Forever.” I responded with silence. “We’ll be happy together. We will walk, every day, in the presence of the rising sun. We will never be deprived of food or water. We will always have what we need. You will never have to work again,” he said, trying to convince me to leave my home.
“I….I can’t.”
“Why can’t you? You have nothing here. No one left. No animals, no company to visit you. All you have is me, and you won’t come?”
I did have things here. I had memories. Memories of my childhood, memories of my mother and father, long before they were killed. Of my younger sister, Maurice, and my older brother, Joseph. I remember us playing together. These memories were safely kept in remnance of our past: in the old toy box, still in the same place, in the photos placed by my mother on the fireplace mantel, and in my family’s old rooms, untouched since they all left. I couldn’t leave.
“You are not all I have.”
“Then what do you have? Tell me one thing, and I will be satisfied.”
“I have memories of childhood, of my mother and father. I have old things which my family owned. But more importantly, I have faith. I have courage. I have lived by myself for fifteen years, and in that time I have learned to hunt, to gather plants that I could eat. I found water in a field that was completely dry. I have learned to survive. By learning that, I have also found strength within me. I am not a little girl. I  do not want to have servants wait on me all day and night. I want to care for myself. I already walk, every day, in the presence of the rising sun, and in the presence of the setting sun. I have all I need and want. I am happy. God had provided for me. I do not want to go with you to your land of servitude and so-called happiness… But since I am so dearly fond of you, and if you are willing to give up what you have now, please, come live with me, in my warm little home. Bring your animals. Bring your clothes. Bring whatever you please. I assure you that you will find great comfort in having just enough to live by. A life without distraction.”
“I cannot leave my home. I must go. I do hope that someday, we may meet again.” I turned away as tears ran down my cheeks.
“Please stay with me… I want you to stay.”
“I must go. Don’t be sad. Will I see you at the fair in the summer?”
“I hope so. Goodbye…”
He waved, then turned and walked away, into the sunset. The sky was the most magnificent colors: red, yellow, orange, pink, and purple. As he grew smaller, I turned, wiping the tears out of my eyes. I walked south, along a road that was well trod upon. A road that was familiar. It seemed to be calling my name, beconing for me to return home, where I would always belong.

must have got a dud
coffee.....still nothing
brewing, nothing clicking
over.... just open prarie space....not even a cliched
tumbleweed......
........ god.... hope i have n't
lost my brain.......

Pray the foghorn comes no closer;
bringing thunder over rolling waves.
A stampede across an open prarie
bellowing with ancient lungs.

Are there secrets with the crickets?
Whispering in harmony
to the rustling leaves?

There is no hospitality
in silence.
Conversation lives between everything that breathes.

I was a born a happy child,
With crooked teeth and a cheerful smile,
But as age skipped stones, and i had more flesh and bone,
Life began to be shaded in a unique tone

All around me, individuals loved and cared for the opposite ***,
So did i, but not as much as the same as mine, but alas, the world regarded me as an outcast for it, someone that had been hexed
Individuality was no longer a common trait, you couldn't do as you please,
Regardless, i never changed my choices, my stubbornness was set to freeze

And there was another, that loved both genders with equality,
Live and let live, this term was drowned in humanity's monstrosity
But they did as they saw best fit, life was in their grasp,
They had evolved, and learned to tear off their mask

Next came along more uniqueness, from one gender that had wished to be the other,
But was never supported in their decisions, not even by their father, mother or brother,
In the end, our clarity takes us to our destined landscape, a destined world,
A reigon of self acceptance, from where all judgements escape, and where the universe no longer swirls,
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, yes, we are all of this,
This is our gallop down the prarie, this is our bliss

Pure Prarie League in the pizzeria
    soothing my spirit, yes I need ya
      band plays, I sing - try to please ya
      

  drive home in the dark, stars above
            I too keep falling in and out of love

Echoing among the craggy cliffs
the sounds of water cascading
over the precipice and falling
hundreds of feet into the ocean.

The flat water turns to ripples
scattering outward in rings
that may eventually
undercut the overhang into a cave.

Prarie lands cling to the top of bedrock
precious inches of soil
held in place by sweet green grass
allowing sheep and goats to feed.

I sit, feet dangling over the edge
taking in the scene
and adding to it with a mellifluous tune
I whistle along with the waters echo.