Chronicle of the Sisters: Fire (Part 1)

“Sometime, we just need someone to lean on.  In our loneliness, in our sorrow; we trip and fall and we get lost in our way, but if there is someone there - maybe, just maybe - we can learn to stand on our own again.”

“When are you going to come see them?  You said your wife couldn’t have a baby, so I had your babies for you!  What do you mean you can’t get a divorce!?  Then why do I want these kids then!?  Listen to me, come see me now or you will be sorry!” they heard their mom screamed into the phone as they pretended to be asleep.  Rita and Mika are twins.  Cute twin girls with adorable round face and big gorgeous eyes with eyelashes that girls could only dream of.  They are 6 years old, with Rita being 5 minutes older than Mika, but even at this young age, they knew they were unwanted children.  They are two stars born to a woman that only wanted to use them to gain the affection of another.  When that failed, where does that leave the twin?  Rita held on to Mika tightly, trying to protect her from such thought as she gently whispered into her little sister’s ear, “Don’t worry Mika, I’m here.” as they fell asleep.

The day shined a brilliant jubilant in the eyes of the twins; they felt it within their tiny little bones as they smile from ear to ear for the first time in their life.  On that rare day, their mother was taking them shopping for new clothes, something that she had never done before.  Mika felt especially happy about this strange occurrence   Maybe their mother finally changed her mind about them, maybe she is finally going to love them.  “Ok girls, try these dresses on.  I think they’ll look especially cute on you.” their mother said to them.  Rita and Mika’s heart bursts with joys when they heard those words from their mother.  They quickly took the dresses, hoping to please their mother ever so much.  They rushed to the changing room; Rita turned to Mika with tears rolling down her her innocent's eyes and gave her sister a big hug.  Mika whispered to Rita as they separate into different changing room, “Rita, I know she’ll change her mind about us.”

“Oh my! You girls look so adorable, I love it!” their mother said in great excitement.  “We will buy these.  My little girls are just the cutest in the world!”  Rita and Mika beamed the brightest smiles toward each other.  Rita and Mika had never seen their mother so happy nor had they ever had so much attention paid onto them.  They could only remember the lonely night with just themselves in the dark, often time hungry, as their mother go about her business acting as if they were invisible.  The only time she looked at them was when she needed to feed them, which was a chore that she resented very much, and she lets Mika and Rita know that with a pinch here and a slap there.  To these two little girls that had been deprived all their life, this little gesture was a culmination of dreams and tears coming together; and they promised each other that they will do whatever it take to keep their mother happy like this.  “Ok girls, don’t change out of those.  We’re buying them now, and I want to take you two to a very special place.  We’re going to get your daddy to come live with us.  Won’t that be great?”

Mika and Rita stood in front of a beautiful gated house, white and splendid with a flower garden in front, and nice trim brushes along nice green lawn juxtapose to a clean cemented driveway leading up into a garage.  It was a very picturesque view.  They were told by their mother that this is their dad’s home, and if they follow her instructions, it will also be their home. The material home matter little to the girls, but the idea of finally meeting their father for the first time is very precious to them, and that this will also make their mom happy make their task that much more important to them.  “Rita, I’m scare.” Mika confined in her sister as they held each other’s hand tightly in front of the large pearly gate.

Rita presses on the buzzer next to the gate while holding on to her sister’s hand.  “Hello?” a lady responded from the intercom.  Rita and Mika did not answer.  They waited for a short moment, and then Rita presses the buzzer again.  The intercom responded, “Hello? Who is out there?” This time, Rita got up enough courage to response.  She said in a weakly shy voice, “We are here to see our dad.” “You are here to see who?” the lady asked.  The girls responded in unison this time, “Our dad.”  The lady behind the intercom seem a bit confuse, “And who is your dad?”  The girls shyly said, “We don’t know, but our mom said he live in this house.”  The intercom went silent.  There was no response for quite a time, and Rita was force to press the buzzer again, but there as still no answer.  The girls was confuse as to what they should do, but they wanted to see their father and to make their mother happy; so they took a stand, and waited.

After some times passed; the front door of the house opens up.  A lady and a man walked out together.  The lady is extremely stress it seem, unhappy and angry, but with a hint of pain and fear in her eyes.  Then, her vision glazes over the two girls standing in front of her gate.  It was unmistakable.  Just a quick look and she knew they were telling the truth.  She gave out a woeful cry and her knees buckled beneath her.  She fells on to the pavement of her walkway.  Tears ran down her eyes like a waterfall, and the girls could sense the pain in this poor lady falling apart in front of them, but they hardly knew why.  This was supposed to be a joyful occasion, a new start for their life.  They saw the man that was standing next to the lady, and from his look, they knew that he is their father.  There is so much resembling between them that is was uncanny.  When the lady fells on her knee, the man tried to comfort her, but that only made her angrier, knocking his hand away.  The man then made a b-line to the gate, right toward the girls.  Mika and Rita were both confuse, but they were also happy to see their father coming toward them.  They held hands and just smile.

“What are you smiling about you little freak!?” the man yells out.  “I don’t know who you are or who put you up to this, but get the hell out of here!  GET OUT!” the man screams out in a hysterical screech.   Mika wanted to run away, but her sister held on to her so tight that she could not; she could only turned her head to see her mother standing at a corner down the street.  The sight of her mother changed Mika.  Her mother was laughing hysterically in a villainous way around the corner of the street.  It was ugly in all sense of the word, bestial and inhuman, but when Mika look over at the so call father, the view was not any better.  There was so much hate and anger.  How can this be the man that Rita and Mika had dreamed of coming to their rescue?  A dark mood seeds itself into Mika.  She tightens her grip on Rita and pulled her as hard as she could and ran away as fast as she her strength would allows her to, pulling her sister along.

A year earlier, their mother had taken them to a bus station and told them that they were going on a trip, and she must get tickets therefore they must wait for her.  She told them that they must stay where they are, and mustn't go anywhere until she got back.  She then left.

Mika and Rita waited in vain until late into the night.  Then, a man working at the station noticed the two cute little girls standing idly alone.  He came up to them, acting concern, and asked them where their parents were.  Mika told him that her mom had gone to get them tickets because they were going on a trip.  He informed the two little girls that the ticket counter was already closed, and there was no one left buying any tickets.  Mika and Rita were more than just a little scared at this point, but the man offered to help them find their mom.  The man held their hands as he walked them around the station.  “Do you know your mom’s name?  Where do you live?” he asked.  Luckily, Mika understand what an address was.  She saw it on a TV program at a store once.  Ever since, she had remembered her own address from the mails at home.  She could not read, but she remembered how to write it, so she asked the man if she could write it down for him.  He told them, “Well girls, I could take you home in my car if you like, but you have to listen to what I tell you to do if you want to go home.  You want to go home right?”  Rita and Mika didn’t really have a choice; thus, they agreed to listen to him.

They followed the man to his car, but before they entered the car, the man told them, “Girls, uncle would like a kiss from each of you before I let you in.  It’s just a way to thank me for helping you out.”  Mika and Rita didn’t really understand.  They each gave the man a little kiss on the cheek.  “No girls, that is not a very good kiss at all.  I will have to show you how to thank uncle for helping you get home.  Come in the car, I’ll show you then we can go.”  Ever since that incident, Mika had always paid extra attention to the path leading away from home, and learning how to get back home on her own.  She never wanted to feel that way again, nor does she ever want to see the expression she was forced to see on her sister’s face that day.

Mika pulled hard on Rita’s and started to run from the “father” they had waited and yearned so long for.  They made their way down the street for several blocks until they came to a small little park.  Mika pulled Rita to a nearby bench and they sat down together, holding each other.  They just held on to each other until late into the night, not saying a word, but letting their warmth be each other’s support.

“Mika, it is getting really late, I think we should head home.” Rita said to her sister, with tears still barely drying off from her face.  “Do you know the way?”  Rita asked, and Mika nodded an uninterested nod in affirmation.  They stood up together, supporting each other’s weight, and started the long walk home.   Mika, however, did not want to go home, but there was nowhere else to go.  “Rita?” Mika pulled onto Rita’s hand, “Do we have to go back there?” They stop walking for a moment.  

Rita looked at her sister, and she could senses that Mika no long care to see their home or mother, and she could senses a certain detachment from the world as Mika look back at her.  Rita wanted so much to just hold on to her sister, and to tell her how everything will be fine because they got each other, but at her age, she just did not know how.  She just hugs her sister as tight as she could.  It was at this moment that she promises herself that she will always look over Mika.  Mika, on the other hand, just wanted all the pains to disappear.  The bad man, the father that she never knew but love, and the mother that was always hurting her; Mika just wanted them all to disappear into the abyss of nothingness, to have never existed, to never had hurt her. “We have to go home Mika, we have to.” Rita finally said to her sister, “Please leads the way Mika.”  They held each other’s small little hand, and walked home together in the dark.

It was late into the quiet miserable night when the two got home.  The moon is high in the sky, a tiny perfect pearl looking down on the girls; setting a melancholic mood to the tumultuous existence of two precious baby girls.  The silent night reaches out to the girls in a sense of divine sympathy as it wrap them in her embrace, protecting them from the danger of the darkness.  The girls stepped out of the dark street they been walking down, and stepped into the moonlight as they made their way toward the door leading into the house.

The door cricked open as the girls made their way into the house using the key that was hidden under a rock on the porch.  The house radiated with an ominous greyness as the moon shines an emotionless light through the windows.  All the lights in the house were off with no sound or sign of life anywhere in sight as the girls made their way into the living room. 

When they got into the living room, on the floor, still and motionless, laid their mother.  She did not move when the girls walked closer to her.  Looking down at her mother on the floor, Mika could see that there was no life, and nearby were some pills spilled over.  She reached out her small little foot and pushed her mother’s body a little, but there was no response.  She tried once more.  Nothing.  “Mika, stop it.” Rita said in a quiet voice. 

Mika did not knew what got into her suddenly, but she ran into the kitchen and got some matches.  She started to light everything on fire.  Rita did not know what her sister was doing, but she decided to just watch.  Rita had decided to watch over her sister, and protect her, and that is what she will do.  The house slowly light up in flames as Mika ran about here and there burning whatever she could. She then grabbed her sister’s hand and got out. 

They stood there together, looking as the flames engulf their home, their mother.  There is a pain in Rita’s eyes, but when she turned to Mika, she could see a smile on her sister as if she been unshackled from everything.  She just held on tight to Mika’s hand as they stood there in the brightening ember glow of the fire, with Mika staring bright eyes and with great exuberance. 

(To be continue...)

A Reflection on Life and Relationships

The things we do in our life, the paths that we take and the people that we meet help us grow in some way.  Life come in so many flavors due to these many interactions: sometime it is joyful, painful, sorrowful, gleeful, surprising, and even enlightening.  In the end, it all does one thing, it built a bond between people/humanity.  Thus; at the end of a day, we must not forget that it is the relationships that we have in our life that are most important.  Without it, we have nothing worth fighting for.

1) Once should never need to fight for a spot in someone's life.

I find that if someone really value the relationship they have with you, be it friendship or a romantic relationship, you should never have to fight for a spot in their life.  If they see the value in the relationship, they should automatically make room in their life for you.  If they don't, then it just mean they really don't value you at all.

2) You get what you put in.

This is very simple.  How much you invest in a relationship is how much you get back.  If you want to be understood, then you must learn to understand other.  If you want to be love, then you must first learn to love.  If you want friendship, then you must learn to be friendly.  Relationships, at least healthy working one, are two ways street; it is all about giving and taking by both sides, not just one side doing all the giving or taking.

3) Everything good in life require work.

Nothing in life is worth having without working for it.  It is the same with all relationships.  People are not mind reader, we cannot understand another perfectly all the time, and there will be misunderstanding.  This is why relationships that are worth having are the one worth fighting for.  It take courage to admit a mistake, it take tenacity to overcome stubbornness, and it take a lot of communication to make things work out.  Everyone need to be willing to put in the work for any relationships they cherish.

 4) Your happiness is in your hand.

The most important relationship you will have in life, the most important relationship anyone will have in their life, is the one with the self.  Happiness start with the self, and when one cannot be happy with oneself, then there is no chance of happiness with anyone else.  No body else in the world can make you happy until you make yourself happy.  It sound cliche, but until we each accept our own happiness, it is impossible otherwise.  If you ever feel like it is someone else fault that you are unhappy, think again.  Your partner cannot or should not complete you as you should already be completed.  We control our own happiness.  This is especially true for those that are pressure to find a romantic relationship because they feel incomplete.  STOP!  Look in the mirror and figure out why you feel this way first before unloading those baggage on to someone else.

5) Learn to forgive.

Forgiving someone is not for their sake, but it is for your sake.  We each live happier life when our resentments and pain does not shackle us down.  To forgive someone is not to say that you forget their actions, but it is to say that you had let go of the pain.  It is you saying that you will not let their actions get in the way of your happiness.  So, learn to forgive.  It only make the relationships in your life that much stronger and easier to maintain.

6) Don't try to change people.

The only person you can change is yourself.  Instead of trying to change other, the only thing you can do is to lend them your supports and be a role model in their life.  They have to change themselves.

7) Don't waste your energy arguing.

Use your time and energy on those that love you instead of wasting it arguing with those that hurt you.

8) Respect yourself.

When there are those around you that hurt you, that force you to compromise your value and belief, and mistreat or abuse you; have some respect for yourself and get them out of your life.  It will hurt, that is a certainty, but it will hurt less in the long run.

9) Nothing last forever.

People die, and nothing last forever, even the greatest of relationship.  Cherish the one that care for you, that love you, and that bring the best out of you. Appreciate these people as much as you can because you never know when they will disappear from your life.  Take nothing for granted in life.  Love deeply and fully, and when it is all over, it will have been a worthwhile journey.

10) Small gestures of kindness mean a whole lot.

Your kindness and gratitude matter.  Every chance you get to honor that special relationship in your life, you should take it.  Making someone smiles can change the world; maybe not everyone's world but at least it change that someone's world.

Thank you for sharing in my reflection, and this help me see clearer the relationships in my life.  I hope that it too has helped you in some way.

Connection

A trap is a contraption that lures in unsuspecting victims with a promise of a reward: sometime it is something nourishing while other time it is something comforting.  The victims would foolishly seek out these rewards and inevitably find themselves in pain and misery.  Love, a euphorically comical joke played upon us all and dreadfully horrendous in nature; a trap for men and women everywhere, and yet we find that we rather meet our fated eventual demise instead of living without it.  That is the comedy of human existence.   We live to suffer, and in our suffering, we progress.  It is a sick and twisted logic that is an unalterable course of death and life; that is love, that is pain, and that is birth.

Eve sit quietly in her room reading the letter her boyfriend Abe had sent her from Equatorial Guinea.

Dear Eve,

My love, there had not been a day that had gone by without my memories of you.  When I wake up each morning to the scream of a child going hungry nearby, your smile gave me strength to continue on.  Each day that passes by without you feel like a thousand needles prickling at my heart, with each drop of blood trickling away the life that is mine, a sorrow that is only healed by your embrace.  But each thought of you, the time we shared and the happiness that we had together, they are the bandages that kept me going.  I wish there is more I could do besides missing you my dear, but I will have to keep you in my heart and mind for now.

My work will be done soon.  The project to bring much needed clean water to this desolate land will surely save hundreds of thousands of people here.  I am so sorry to have left you for so long, but I will be back in a month.  I love you with all my heart and soul; there is nothing I want more than to embrace you in my arm right now and to tries to make you feel like the queen that you are each and every day of our life together.  You are the reason why I love, and I will show you the bountifulness of my love for you, from now to the very end of time, from this life to the next.  I love you baby, see you soon.

Yearning for you,

Abe.

Eve slowly covers her face as droplet of tears rain down upon her once innocent tired cheek.  Anguish torments her with each word of affection.  “Why did you have to leave me for so long my love?” she questions an imaginary Abe, but she knew full well that it was a calling that he must answer.  Abe was not your average individual that could see the suffering of the world go by without offering to help.  His love for humanity is his most admirable quality, and Eve knew she would never deny him of such passion.  “But why did he have to leave me!?” she screams inside her head.

“It had been so long…” Eve thinks to herself,” I am no longer the same person he left many years ago.  When he sees me as I am now, will I still be his queen?”  Fear run down her spine as thought of his rejection froze her heart in its place.

Eve’s life had not been easy since Abe left on his journey.  She lost her job and was force back to living with her father, an abusive drunker that had been the source of much pain in her life growing up.  But she was strong.  She had saved money for a long time, and without many opportunities for a new job in her old profession as an auto worker, she had started to go back to school to study social psychology.  She wanted to be like Abe, to help individual in need, she want to become a mediator for runaway youth; something she had experienced herself.  She studied hard while working as a server at a local diner, and the people there love her, but money was still tight, and since her parents are retired, she help to take up the bulk of the bills.  Her father remained an alcoholic for most of her time in college, but her mother was somehow still in love with the old fool. 

Tragedy struck Eve during her 3^rd years in college, her dad got into an accident with her mom in the car.  It was really bad as the news put it.  They rushed them both to the ER and the doctor was able to temporarily stabilize her mother while here dad barely made it.  Her mom, however, died in her arm three days later, and Eve hatred for her dad grew to an inferno that she must live with, because her mom’s dying wish was for her to take care of dad.  “He is alone in this world without me." her mom weakly spoke out in her dying moment. "Without you, he would have no one.  No matter his mistake and the pain he had caused us both, I still love him with all my soul.  Please don’t abandon him.  The love I had given you these many years, I know I was not able to always protect you, but the bond we have…I know it is much to ask of you, but please I ask you to take care of him for me.  I love you both so much, don’t abandon each other.”  Mom passed away with tears still shedding from her eyes.  And thus, with a sense of loyalty to her mother, she continues to take care of her father.

After her mom’s passing, life got a lot harder as her dad needed extra attention during his recovery.  He quit drinking, and was always angry and mad at the world.  He heavily blame himself for everything, and rightly so, but he could not die because he had promised mom that he would live.  Combining all of these issues, life became a living hell at home.  During this time, Eve struggled with school but she was able to graduate among the top of her class.  She got a job as a social worker with the States and went back to get her master to increase the kind of work she could do.  Life, thought, was miserable with her father and their relationship got worst each day.  Being at home with him was a loneliness that shredded her mind apart each night as she cried herself to sleep missing her Abe.

Being apart from Abe was the hardest thing for her, even with all the adversity she faces day to day or the pain she sees in those she help.  He was her soul, and she yearns for him every second of every day, just to feel his touch, to have his fingers touching her lips.  She wants to hear his voice telling her how much he loves her, and how they will spend the rest of their life together.  Her love for him torments her every day, and at time, she even grow to hate him for how much she loves him.  But it is also the memories they share and the future they promised each other that kept her going all these years; that however did not make the night any less lonely. 

Again she buries her face into her hands and cries.  “He will not love me anymore.  The dream that had kept me going is gone.  How can I live without him?  Is the bond that we shared something imaginary?” she cries.  Eve slowly rubs her six months old belly, hoping to gives herself a new courage.

A Few New One

"The Winds"

The winds blow about in gentle fleeing moments.

Love, pain, and sorrow are but a breeze in a life.

Give me your anguish, and I will blow it away.

Give me your misery, and I will set it fluttering free.

Life is a moment that passes in a blink of an eye.

Don't blink to the winds or life will pass you by.

"You"

Your eyes shine of the heavenly bodies.

It is a mirror of the endless dancing stars.

Just a glimmer and I can see the sea of fireflies,

Dancing in harmony in an ocean of spectral lights.

When I stare at the moon, you are staring back at me.

Under this sky, you are the heaven, perfection’s embodied.

Your constant present within my mind,

You heal away this lonely heart of mine.

There is nothing more to life than your embraces,

I’ll walk a thousand miles to brush the tears off of your face.

I’ll hold you dear within my soul every night as I stare upon starlight’s glow.

You are the only one I want, my one and only living Sun.

"At the End of a Journey"

The quiet wind gently touches his face.

His feelings, his thoughts, the longings of the ages

Quietly pass by as the warmth of the setting sun

Embraces his ending travels.

Tired and worn-out from the twisting paths,

Wrong roads taken, unforeseen dangers that passed,

Pitfalls and traps that consumed his loves,

Lost sites and wonders that he could not turn back for.

The clouds darken as it hang upon invisible hands.

Luminous lights descend upon his once distance horizon.

His eyes are weary, tired….

All he sees is a glimmering mirage, a dream, a beautiful illusion....

But slowly into darkness, everything fades away...gone.

They close slowly…finally…rest.

“Tending a Path”

Clouds passed by, no rains to fall.
A path opens up, tread not nor call.
Weeds grow and cover, a road is lost.
Friendship…and the imaginary costs.

“Friend”

Free of judgment, never condemning.
Free being stupid; not misinterpreted.
Free being furious; there are two screaming.
Truly free to be me; that…a friend should be.

“A Day of Destiny”

Dreams will hold tight,
Dust contentiously tussles with the light.
Darkness destroys weary sights,
Dawn brings renew sacrifices.

Luminous heart of justice,
Shinning soul beyond frightful night.
Embraces your heart’s omnibus,
Protects the visions of what might.

Desolate winter winds will come unabated,
The scorching summer heat is near,
Destiny and Fate at your gate,
Deliverance of most daunting fears.

Answers with honor and sincerity.
Heroes are born in quiet tranquility.
None know of immortalizing necessity.
Sacrifices forgotten…lives continue in serenity.

"Natural Link"

The stars in the sky remind me of a story I should tell you

Of the day I became the metaphorical cosmic hero.

Deep in the heart of brilliant galactic flames,

Rest thermal nuclear fusion of a losing game.

Stood to face unknown precision,

Fluctuating between differentiating positions,

Birth a child of unparallel contradiction

A creature both dead and living

Until I decided I will be breathing

Then everything is natural conditioning.

Now I am thoughts and reasons,

Controlling matter and antimatter existences,

Until the entire universe is my imagination.

Metaphorical cosmic hero, Natural Link.

"Dream and Reality"

Marching battalions
On the edge of true reasons
Among fire legions of hellions,
Electromagnetic consortiums
Vaporizing carbon-base illusions.

Automation of silent hell-raising.
Daunting sleep, futurist dreamers waking.
Reality's bit laten, ablazen,
hears not, the world a shaken.
Wakes not, true dreamers' heaven.

Fear not, the worlds forgotten.
Breathes that, your daily living.

"Make a Different"

She is now sixteen….
A birthday passed without laughter or celebration.
She now sat in class, full of desperation,
Look at a world, she only see suffering.
Unable to read, a soul forsaken;
SUCCESS? - HA! -that's not in her imagination.
She dreams of release, of returning to her parents.
Of a few drop of poisons, she’ll be happy again….

A gentle hand reached out to her shoulder.
A friend, a teacher, a brother or sister.
“You are not alone; not now, not ever.
Give me your hands, we’ll walk this life together.”
Simple compassion, simple gestures;
Saved a young girl’s precious laughter.

The color of his skin is their reasons.
Lost jobs, lost lives, lost visions in daily concessions.
Terror in his sleeps while in total isolation.
Why must he live life in unjust discrimination?
Resisting the drugs he sees on the streets,
the easier life that could be his…
“What right do they have to criminalize me?”
How much longer can he resists his needs?

A person walked up and offered him a drink…
“A man is a man no matter the color of his skin.
His fortitude, his life, his everlasting ambitions;
Can’t die from fear embedded oppositions.
The true human color is not that of racism;
We can do better for our children.”

Remember

Day by day we live life wondering,
Not seeing the impacts we are making,
Hurting from inaction,
Conflicting thoughts, entrapment.

The Golden Rule supersede,
Human souls are our deeds.
Give or take, what is misery?
Suffering can be releases.

Time is an Epitaph, Life is a Verse.
Actions are Legacies, Death can be Worst.

Success

Impossible to take a STEP;
Foot faltered, fears escalated; KEPT.
Run, run, drop. Run, run, drop. DEFEAT.
Better now that you finished, COMPLETE.

The "People's" Nation

Where is the PEOPLE’s nation?

Indignation to the incantation of human suffering,

Calculated men of represented differences

Playing games of ill soul festering.

Where is the PEOPLE’s nation?

All we do is fight in ignorance,

Fears manifest our own belligerence,

Everyday struggling to live in indifference.

WHERE IS THE people’s NATION?