A Backwards Glance Forwards

I look in the mirror.

Compared to the year previously,

This is not the same person that stands in front of me.

Not drastic, just different, nothing to abhor.

Skin pulled flat.

High cheekbones, not as pronounced, lead to

Lips, full and red, the same as before.

But now they go unnoticed.

Underneath the eyes lay sunken, flaccid skin.

Not dark circles, not what people would call ‘bags,’

I don’t know what it is I’m looking at.

I know it’s tired, I know it’s dark.

But that too is a subtlety.

Here is the difference,

Here I peer into an altered soul.

The eyes themselves, though silent, scream.

These eyes are endless- these eyes are flat.

I gaze into the depths and that’s all to see…

Before they sparkled, before they gleamed.

Now they stare indifferently, no curiosity.

Look closely and catch a chill, I can see in but nothing’s looking out.
Sometimes they wander wildly, at moments they go blank and motionless,

At those moments I wonder what image they portray.

I don’t know, for then is when I can’t look.

Frightened I turn away but those eyes remain.

A ghost of what they once were, the likeness haunts me,

Those eyes reveal a hidden unreality.

Funny how change can happen before you know.

Through the looking glass, my soul had fled.

With the looking glass, I found a broken husk.

At the looking glass, I scream, "Will I notice when all is gone?"

The looking glass dissapates; leaving me incapable of reflection.

Tschüss!
Marta Frieda Hart

Fireflies

Lightning Bug.

The name itself is just exciting.

Nature.  Power.  Unpredictability.  Flames in sky.

You see them and think beauty.

Unknown beings.

You see their flash and think peace,

Tranquility.

You see a

Cat leaping in the air, trying frantically to catch

Just one.

At moments, all four paws are outstretched in different directions.

A funny sight when the lights go

Out.

Dedicated individuals,

Smart spirits.

Floating, they send messages.

That is what their lights are.

I don’t think they get enough

Recognition.

‘Glow Worm’

Sometimes we even fail at giving proper names- worms don’t fly.

Children crush their corpses,

Smear ‘war paint’ on their grinning faces.

What has this world come to?

Our unnecessary necessities mix their messages.

Headlights and streetlamps pollute night air

A poor bug can’t find his love amongst

The ‘brilliant’ chaos.

Nature trumps manmade.

So why are we inadvertently killing

These innocent messengers?

They are beautiful, they are powerful.

Yet we snuff their

Flame.

It shall be a sad day when the fires cease to fly.

Tschüss!

Marta Frieda Hart

Steam Engine

Shovels usher coals.
Flames welcome them into their warm embrace.

The engine breathes in: shutters, shakes.
This engine steams, now ready to roll.

Smoke plumes drift.
Skies beckon them to their lofty homes.

The engine is still rusty and old. But
This engine is capable: full of power, not pain.

Everything is there.
Surroundings remain; yet they accept new diversity among them.

This engine is not trapped in a body of steel. It's no longer
The engine that struggled up the mountain.

Trees watch silently.
Sun & stars give it their strength & perspective.

This engine sees the beauty in what had become its hard labor.
The little engine that could is now the one that can.

Tschüss!

Marta Frieda Hart

Bumper Sticker

I realize that all of my posts so far have been quite lengthy...
I wasn’t sure if you would find that to your liking, so I decided to shake it up.

I saw a bumper sticker. It said I don’t need a higher power, I have a cat. 

Just something I considered share-worthy.

Tschüss!

Marta Frieda Hart

Thought's Path

So…after the last one I decided to go for something a wee bit more lighthearted and not as structured. I shall go for strange ramblings meant to sound both deep and intelligent that might actually make me appear slightly untalented but nonetheless eccentric.

Something strange happened as I walked home the other day. Gravel crunched beneath my feet as I nibbled on a butterhorn, allthewhile wondering if I should’ve spent my money on the $1 kohlrabi instead. I imagined taking a bite: its flavorful juices invigorating my taste buds as well as my mind- It’s been 6 years since I’ve had kohlrabi. I realized that oftentimes the mind wanders to strange and unexpected places as mine fled from that topic to something more confounding. I found myself thinking of beauty and love. Surprised, I sifted through my mind to decipher why I had breached this unusual topic. Well perhaps the topic itself is not unusual, for it is present in every aspect of life…however what made it unusual is where my mind ran with it. 

This week I’m entranced in the fantasy fiction that I reveled in during my middle-school-years. I’ve been turning each page with excitement, pondering every aspect of the books, and searching for any meaning I may have missed. What does this have to do with beauty and love? There’s quite a bit of that in there, so I drew a connection and figured that was the catalyst. Now for my thoughts on the topic…okay, deep breath, here I go with this whole sharing thing...

No one has ever fallen in love with me, or even found me attractive. I’m not trying to paint the ‘oh woe is me, I’m ugly’ picture because that is what I’m trying to stay away from! It pains me to see others get ideas in their heads that they aren’t good enough, so fear struck me as I discovered that my thoughts sounded pretty dang self-conscious. But still they couldn’t be stopped.

 There was a boy on my 6th grade track team who revealed his crush during a game of truth-or-dare, and 3 creepy old men who hit on me and my sisters when I was 15, despite that, nothing. Oh wait there’s one more, and this is most touching: there was a boy in special-ed in 3rd grade who I played with at recess, his name was Ryan. On Valentine’s Day he gave me a huge handmade card in the cafeteria. But that is all I’ve ever known of other’s attraction to me.

Once, in Germany, a group of unruly boys on the train told me that I was ugly. Not just once, but multiple times, and they kept sharing their opinion with everyone else misfortunate enough to sit within earshot. So what did I do? Why, what anyone else would do: I bestowed upon each of them a thousand curses and then leapt from my seat, dagger in hand, blood splattering wildly. The locomotive stuttered to a stop, the last boy fell with a dull thump, and I dashed out the door and onto a train headed for Berlin. My apologies, that is not the truth, just the fantasy books taking control of my head…

But back to my train of thought (hahahhaha did you see that connection there? Witty, right?) There has been no love, no romance, not even a flicker of attraction, and the why puzzles me. I don’t know if it’s because I guard myself so heavily, or strike people as the beginning of a crazy old cat lady, or something else.  I see beauty everywhere, sometimes I’m embarrassed by what I notice and how nervous such beauty makes me, and I wonder if nothing happens because I just don’t seem to match up to that beauty.  Well, enough of that.

That is the strange thought that crossed my mind, surprised me, and sent me forth with a desire to build my self-esteem.  The next moment as I passed a fresh flower peeking at me in the sun, my mind wandered to the next thought: if I pick this flower would it be considered stealing? Or murder? Could I get in trouble? Would the flower be mad? Such are the intriguing ways of the mind, and I continued along my path, without a flower in my hand, for I had not the courage to take it, for fear it was not my right.

Tschüss!

Marta Frieda Hart