I've had just enough love in my life to soak my insides dry...I wanted real love...A love that would climb inside me and awake and caress my soul...A love that would climb inside me and make me move and dance...A love that would open me up to new things and old times...A love that would change my perspection of the love that made my walls crack from lack of moisture...from the kind of love that reaps through leaving a swollen mess behind making it hard for me to walk and to pee, while I lay there hearing pleasureable moans in my ear overshadowing my lost of breath because of the dryness. See I always thought love was magical, like the way the seasons change. But even the changing of the seasons seemed to be confused in these day and time...the spring was just as cold as the winter and the fall cried all day and night...which made the trees glow and sparkle with deep, dark, living colors. Maybe though, just maybe that wasa sign from God telling me to make it through this confused season because life in this slow death of mine is coming...and I'll welcome it if even for a navigated time, moment and/or place...I'll welcome it if even my death is sure to follow because it was said and I heard that life is just a journey and journey's do end. For death is certain...And I do except and beg my pardon but if I could with the stipulation of it (love) being real, bone crushing, flesh eating, mind boggling real....Zora sat down on the back stairs of her uncles house she loved being in the country, she thought it brought her closer to God. There was something in the way the wind blew through her in the south that city life didn't have not even in the "windy city". There was just something about the sunrise in the open air and space that seem as if God was opening his eyes from a wonderous sleep. Zora wanted to feel the sun's grace on her, her days had been filled with idiocy that she dropped everything and got in her car she drove (blank) miles all the way,until she had to stop for fuel, and she continued on. Til her uncle openned the door and she stood upon holy ground. She had been a slave for far to long, yearning for what didn't exist anymore. Crying for a shelter that had been burned down by people who raped it, maned it, mutilated it and left it dilapidated. She had so much inside of her that as soon as her feet crossed the thrush hole her eyes exploded with tears and her body felled limp into her uncles arms, who at his age held her up pretty good. And after a few days rest and good home cooking, with the serenity and peace she felt better, she felt strong enough to leave the room and sit on the back porch, where she could she the water and the flowers and the birds and the trees and feel God.Zora's uncle was a retired preacher who lived alone in the backwoods of Louwiseanna.His wife had died two years ago. He had always been good to Zora since the first time they meet when she was nine and him and his wife had always made her feel at home. On her birthdays and special holidays they never forgot her. Zora stayed with him two weeks after his wife had died, and he did most of the consoling.
Zora took a deep breath she wondered what her uncle was possibly thinking about her, as long as she had been their taking up space he hadn't asked her one question, he just took care of her silently and went about his everyday activities such as...cooking, reading, tending to his garden and sometimes she'll wake to a note saying enjoy(it would uaually be attached to food) I'll be back soon/later. Zora wondered how she was going to explain that all this wa brought about because a train of derailed relationships. Her pain seemed so petty. No she said to herself, her pain is real, love had his foot up her ass, and it had gotten stuck. Zora was dying she could feel her heart wanting to stop, every beat took effort, even though the sun that was shinning just for her couldn't be ignored. A bird flew past her with colors that shook her thoughts and she looked over at her uncles garden and thought of the emptiness she felt when she wook up. Um.....she thought to herself her uncle must be gone again. He had seen to be busier than normal these last few days, with writngs and leaving notes, come to think of it she hadn't sat down and talked with him since she been there and it's been almost two weeks. Zora let her feet feel the wood under her toes, til she reached the end and she felt the pebbles and dirt and she walked the trail nearing the river the flowed past the house. It had been a whole twenty mintues since she thought about love, in all it's splendor "ha, ha, ha" Zora laughed aloud than she hit the ground, and the tears flowed like the rain that had visited her earlier this week flowing off the top of the house on to the top of her head and shoulders on to the rest of her body., she swung her arms trying to grabbed on to the tree that was in reached but she hadlost her breath from the blow that love gave to her heart, it left the wind out of her."Get a grip" her mind related to her and she began to breathe, Zora laid sideways on the ground until her tears said goodbye, and she thought of her mother and how she thought her mother was so cruel, so cold when she said that love was for the birds, that it was for the poets and song writers, that it was the creative man's dream. That love wasn't real, that it was for the story tellers, another lie that D' man put out to trip us up meaning women, another tool to hole us back, and I see it now. I'll never, ever fall in love again.
It was late now and the sun was falling she had spent the whole day laying their watching the tides and God's little creatures.This time she noticed her uncle didn't turn the back porch light on, Zora got up and slowly walked into the house that looked so far away and the way the moon sat over the house sent chills through her. When Zora walked into the house the kitchen hadn't been touched everything was the same as this morning, Zora felt herself becoming cold she almost began to hold herself, until she came about the livingroom and saw her uncle laying on the floor with the end table that accompany his chair had his things sprawl all over the floor.
Then the vision hit her him walking in from his day and feeling the pain in his heart he hit the floor while trying to collect himself he knocked everything off the table and then he serendered and laid there. Zora felled to his side, hoping she wasn't to late,hopingit was something she could do just to even explain her behavior but as she lifted his head she could feel him all around her, there was a force there that surrounded her filled her with a warmth that set fire in her nostril, then down and through her stomache. Love is real...Why did her brain say that to her? Why? Zora kissed her uncle's forehead and sat in his warmth.
Zora contacted her relatives and friends she thought she arranged a perfect farwell party for him one he would have approved of himself alot of the same elements that went into the depature of his wife. And she knew, Zora knew that he welcome that day because he'd be reunited with his wife.But again she was empty, knowone to take care of her, alone like the Weeping Willow tree in the yard, alone in all her greatness...sad and weeping hung over low and blowing in the wind...yet not going anywhere. Zora thought to herself while looking out of the window at the willow,it would that I/you would make a wonderful home for one to take comfort in...my delicate balance of strenght and weakness, of excellence and submission. The power to cool in the hottest of times,to shelter in the rain. Instead I'm left misunderstood and unapprieated....
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Reviewed by ELAINE HAMMOND
4/26/2003
You have the wisdom and insight of a person who's been here before.(This Life time)
GO AHEAD ON GIRLFRIEND!!!
Well Mitzi, it has taken me a while to get here, but am I ever glad I did. I wouldn't have wanted to miss this for the world. It is a wonderful story and I love the way you have delicately phrased some of your sentences which turned out to make the whole read a lot more powerful. Bravo....Trish.
I enjoyed this piece as a whole, but I was distracted by your incredibly beautiful poetic phrases.
Trees were once my only friends. I would go into Central Park and draw them, or perhaps a leaf - I only have one drawing left, of a leaf it took me four hours to draw.
There are willow trees between the boathouse and the fountain. Sometimes I think they envy people who can go anywhere. However, I have seen them in a very loving and happy mood.
Reviewed by na na
4/19/2002
You captured the heart of the story and expanded it well. I know you have much more to say and I am anxious to hear you say it.
Bill
Reviewed by Cathy Montgomery
4/6/2002
Your story immediately caught me, captivated me, and carried me along. You made these characters live and breathe--people the reader cares about! Wonderful story!
I was mesmerized by Mama's Black Sheep. The story tugged at my heart and caused me to feel many fond emotions. This type of writings (so full of feelings) are seldom seen nowadays. This is a superb work of art by Mitzi. I am looking forward to her writing a full length story, which I know will galvanize the readers of literature.
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