silence.

in the aching
i speak to myself what i think you would say.
but my voice sounds flat.
thin.
weakened by words that i do not understand
and hardly believe.
i would rather be mute than false.
but if i go silent, will you speak up?
or will silence once again take
hostage our conversation?
i wonder if it will be the silence of doubt -
what needs to be said? -
or the silence of peace -
it goes without saying-.

healing...?

20 years of walking on egg shells gets you used to pain. The sense of dread becoming ordinary is at once both tragic and comforting. Though your nerves are constantly on edge, you aren't aware of what it used to feel like to be relaxed, calm, unafraid. This is your life now. Why wish for anything else? Why hope for what cannot be?

Suddenly, the light, fragile egg shells become glass. It tears, cuts, makes you bleed. Your feet become calloused and unfeeling as you get used to this new ground. You've forgotten the feel of grass, and even if you were walking on it, you wouldn't recognize it. Your nerves are dead. In an effort to save what little softness of your heart remains, you put up an impenetrable armor that keeps the bad - and the good - out. You have to take care of yourself, right?

As He leads you into the green pastures, you see but cannot feel...How long will this part of the journey last? He sits beside still waters and invites you to join Him, but you remain standing, hesitant. Can you really rest here? You see the sun, but its warmth cannot get through your armor.

There is only one thing to do to resurrect this life. You must lose it.

So you shed your skin - your entire outer being - like Eustace's dragon, and come forth soft, pink, raw. You blink in the light and shiver from the sudden warmth of the sun. The cool grass underneath soothes your feet. Tears fall as you realize the darkness of the valley behind you. You look down at your new hands that were once cut and bleeding, and see that He has not allowed the rocks of the valley to scar you. In your mind's eye, you can still see deepness of the wound...but He has surely healed it. Or has He?

Sometimes just the remembrance of a wound is enough to make it bleed again.

etcetera.

I walked into a mailing establishment today to purchase a stamp and mail my car payment. This establishment shall remain nameless (it was not a post office). I walked up to the counter after being greeted by the apparent owner with a "What can I do for you, darlin'?"

"I need to buy a stamp, please."

"Alright, that'll be 55 cents."

I blinked at him. I was expecting him to laugh at his obvious and insipid joke, but I found only silence. Is it possible that he was serious? I guessed I'd better check.

"Why?"

"Because that's what I charge."

Crickets chirped.

"For a 39-cent stamp?"

"Well, I can't charge you what I pay for them!" His tone was becoming more insolent with every syllable.

Oh, right, naturally. One has to make a profit, so it's quite right that one should charge almost 50% more for a POSTAGE STAMP. What kind of profit is 16 cents?
And of course, I couldn't say any of this. Mere words of wit are no match for premeditated insanity.