Until the Words

"Will this work?" He asks.
"Will this stand?
These Words," he says.
"I breathed life into them.
How do I know when this is ready."

"Does it breathe?" I ask.

"What?"

You gave them your breath.
Do the Words breathe back.
They are ready, they are ready,
When they breathe back.

It's an intricate dance
Of intercourse and flow.
Rhythm in the verse
And moments we ride.
Straddled, harnessed.
Owned.

"How?"

You choose them.
You write with certain Words.

Like the ones that reduce you
To the animal basic
To the earth and the ground.

Or the ones that inflate you
That bring you someplace higher.
The Words that point the way.

"Does it breathe back?" I ask.
"Can you hear it on the page...
The sighing.
The breathing."

"Yes." He whispers.
"Yes..."

He takes his time and he reads it again.
I can see him taking it in.
"Is this what it's like for you all the time, Veronica?
You work on something, you breathe life in,
until you hear it breathing back?"

I grin. I remember.
And no other intensity
shall ever touch the passion I feel
for each and every Word.
"They all breathe for me.
They all breathe back at me now."

You have a story. You have a moment. A feeling. A truth. An epiphany.
And it is what it is.
Until you give it Words.
Then it's more.
Then,
it's More.

"Then how do you know when your Words are finished?" He asks.
"When you're done. When they're ready.
How do you know when they're ready?" -

What can I tell you about the writing.
What can I tell you about the Words.
What can I tell you.
about anything
but this.

- When I have to stop breathing.
When I have to die a little bit to let them go.

LD Two For Tuesday

This is LD:


LD - "Would you have sex with Alec Baldwin?"

Steve - "Not against his will."

LD - "Seriously. Would you have sex with Alec Baldwin?"

Steve - "Ohhh. Seriously. Because I thought we were just messing around."

LD - "Come on. Would you or would you not have sex with Alec Baldwin?"

Steve - "Why? Can you make a call?"

LD - "Why won't you answer the question!"

Steve - "Yes! What is wrong with you?! Yes! I would have sex with Alec Baldwin! Why was that so important?"

LD - "I guess it's not."

Steve - "Would you have sex with Alec Baldwin?

LD - "I don't know. Why?"


*****************************************


LD - "Look at that lady, she looks just like your ex-girlfriend."

Me - "That lady?"

LD - "Yeah."

Me - "Which ex-girlfriend?"

LD - "The one you showed me all those photos of, with the two of you at a baseball game."

Me - "I don't have any photos of me and any ex at a baseball game. I hate baseball."

LD - "Oh. I guess it wasn't you that showed me those pics. Hmm. I wonder whose ex she looks like then."

Me - "Why don't you go over there and ask her?"

LD - "OK. Do you really think she'd know?"

Eric Balfour

Mmmmmmm...
Gabriel Dimas....

BORN AS GHOSTS

Pics are on my

HUB.

Seriously, check out the song Sweet Sixteen:



"If today
I could have another life some way
Would this feeling go?
Could I say
Everybody love me now this way?
Won't you say
Won't you say I'm OK?"
- Born as Ghosts

T-SHIRTS

You asked for it, you got it. The Shirts are here.
They are Beefy Hanes Preshrunk 100% cotton, black. Nice quality, pretty soft.
The front has the Eye, and the name of the blog: Lonely Roads & Psycho Paths.
The back reads~
Veronica: Ghostwriter. Writer. Ghost.
Because Words are Everything
www.lonelyroadsandpsychopaths.com
Feel Free to Write

As promised, I will have photos of LD with the shirt next week.

Meanwhile, while supplies last, they are here.
$26 each, which includes shipping within the USA. Yes, that includes Rutgers. Go Knights.
I have S, M, L, XL and a few XXL.

Click the paypal donate icon in the sidebar to order.

Once you are in Paypal, please open up the dialogue box that says "Your Words Welcomed" to give me the 411.
Make sure you include:
1 - Your mailing address
2 - The size you want
3 - And a valid email where I can reach you if there are any questions.

By the way, you can always go to my profile here on blogspot and click on "Contact Me" to email me for any reason.
For International shipping please email me through that link with your country and I will get back to you with the shipping cost.

Thanks for your readership for the last 2 years.
Here's to many more.
Veronica

We Agree

I didn't know who he was until after. I didn't know what the writing would become.

"I don't want you to write this. I want you to teach me how to write this." He looks distraught. Confused. "I need this to be mine. I just need to be better." He looks committed.

And I know that look. "OK."

I sit down next to him at the table. He looks surprised that I didn't take my seat across from him. He looks surprised. At everything.

I put my hand on the hand written pages that he has laid out in front of him and I slide them a little to the left, toward me. I look.

I think about Kurt Vonnegut. You can't teach someone to write. They either can or they can't. I can help him but he has to have something with which to work.

I read.

He has it. He has something.

He's sweating. He's quiet for a while and he lets me read. His hand shakes as he places it on the pages which stops me from turning them. He clears his throat. "It's about a guy who gets even with all these people that have hurt him. It starts with him killing his father. It goes through his boss, his friends, his girlfriend."

"His killing." I nod, I glance through the pages. I don't react."Possessive pronoun before a gerundial phrase. Not an objective pronoun."

He smiles. I mean, this really big beautiful smile. Because he sees. He sees I'm not going to judge him. He sees I'm going to help him write.

He sits back removing his hand, allowing me to continue. I look the Words over for a handful of silent minutes. I don't ask about truth or memoir. I don't ask about conscience or repercussion. I don't ask.

"Have you thought about starting with the last killing?" That's what I ask instead.

"What?"

"Building up to the killing of his father. Moving backwards. Starting with the girlfriend. Instead of using chronology you could use importance. Which, is probably what happened in reverse."

He looks confused. "I didn't think of that. No."

"It may not work. But even if it doesn't, if you write it out in that way you may see things you can use in another way. In your way. Also, since you have it in third person, I'd try it out in first, as if you're telling the story yourself in a first hand account. I'd probably do that from several angles. First person as the killer. First person as a peripheral friend. Or therapist. Or cop." I shrug.

He is captivated.

"Again, it may not work. But looking in at your story from different angles might reveal just some little thing. A line, or even just one Word. One Word that makes all the difference. That you can use in the way that works. Your way. Whatever that turns out to be."

He smiles. He nods. He sits back. "Tell me something."

"OK. What."

"Tell me something private." There is a genuineness about him. There is also something scary.

"I'm afraid."

"Of what."

I hesitate. And it speaks volumes. "Of other people. Other people's insanity. This is why I don't get close. This is why I disappear. "

He exhales deeply. "Ghost Writer. Writer. Ghost. Being the ghost is just about as important as being the writer."

He quoted me. He has me memorized. My eyes are wide.

"Does that scare you?"

"Yes." Almost as much as not being quoted. "I don't really want people that read me to know me."

He nods. "I don't really want people that read me to judge me."

I know that's not really possible. But it goes to distancing and I suddenly realize he understands. Of all places, of all people, he got it.

Visiting hours are over and an alarm sounds. An alarming sound.

He scoops up his papers with care. "Will you come back?" He looks anxious, nervous, and oddly he looks good in the orange jumpsuit.

There are grooves in the Earth, places in time, where it all comes together: what you know, what you do, what you feel... who you are. There are moments where you shine. And there are moments where you can't. You just can't.



"All I see turns to brown
As the sun burns the ground
And my eyes fill with sand
As I scan this wasted land
Trying to find
Trying to find where I've been."
- Led Zeppelin

OCD

“This is the book I never read.
These are the words I never said.
This is the path I'll never tread.
These are the dreams I'll dream instead."
- Annie Lennox


She was too little.
Too little.
The morning. The mourning.
She says she only remembers "shitty stuff"
Like when they carried her mother out.
And having her own bed at Mt Sinai.

And it is a logical reaction.
It is because she knows
This is wrong.
Something,
Something is terribly wrong.
Something needs to be fixed.
Whatever this thing is, it's out of place.
So she obsesses (according to the definition.)
She looks for the something in the news,
She protects her son from the something.

Because we all need the world to make sense.
We all have the picture in our heads
Of how things should be.
Everything in it's proper place.

None of our worlds would make the cut.

At least she's doing something about it.
At least she's looking, and trying.
If you ask me,
She's the healthiest of all of us.

Go ahead and obsess, Katrina.
Make the picture in your head match the world around you,
Around us all.
Fix the something.
Try.


"You don't know what I feel."
- Annie Lennox



.

This is Why

“Flies are buzzing round my head.
Vultures circling the dead.
Picking up every last crumb.
The big fish eat the little ones.”
-Radiohead


Vito Bratelli waited. Most of Company C1 had finished showering, and the third floor of Woodburne Prison was closing down for lights out. Vito’s arms folded over his towel as he peaked in through the running water. The days hadn’t been too bad. Programs kept most of the inmates busy. Since Vito had some advanced education he was allowed access to the legal library all day, basically hiding from everyone. The evenings were another story. During night programs, especially movement times when the inmates were allowed to use communal rooms, Vito was most vulnerable.

Like he was now.

He was a good looking kid. Nineteen years old, brown stringy shoulder length hair in his eyes. Skinny. And obviously not very tough. He had been scared to take a shower, scared to go to meals. He never went to the communal rooms. He limited his interaction with the prisoners as much as he could. For very good reason.

This was his third day in prison. He hadn’t eaten, hadn’t showered. Barely slept. He was hungry and scared.

He waited until almost everyone was out when he finally got the nerve to go in. The remaining men in the shower were also thin, young. Fearful. He stood under the water naked, and closed his eyes. He pressed his hands against the white tiled wall and bowed his head, letting the water run down his back. No one would see his eyes tearing in here. No one would hear him. He took a deep breath. His hands were trembling. His lip quivered as he tried not to cry.

He didn’t hear them. He didn’t see them. The closest CO was in the dorm room which may as well have been a hundred miles away. It was fast. Many hands. Many strong hands. Before he knew what was happening he had been pushed into the tile wall with great force. His face smashed, his nose broken and his left cheek bone shattered. He felt his flesh split. He could barely catch his breath before he was thrown down to the floor, hitting the back of his head on the drain. The punches were relentless, continuous. Deadly. One after the other. To the face and the gut.

He was yanked by his hair and forced over onto his stomach. Hands on his arms and legs, weight crushing down on his back. He clenched his muscles helplessly. Petrified. Pinned. Beaten. He couldn’t beg, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t do anything. He thought he would drown as he felt a hand clamp onto the back of his head, pressing his bloodied face down into the cement floor of the shower, into about two inches of water and blood. The pain was only surpassed by the raw fear. His heart racing in his chest, he tried to scream, using every strained and horrified cell in his body.

There were five of them.

A Private Tour of Woodbourne Prison

I looked down at my feet, at the stairs. At the wear. At the worn places from years of shuffling up and down, up and down. I looked down at my shoes in the grooves left behind. And I stepped in the footsteps. Looking down. Looking down.

They'd pass me in the halls. They wanted to look. They didn't speak.
He held the door open for me as we reached the landing. "They won't speak to you first. They don't know who you are. You could be an official from Albany. They don't know."

I paid careful attention to the windows. To the glimpses. And the light.

Pay phones, hot plates, common areas, computers. Books, chapels, classrooms, a closed wood shop. Weights. A store. Double cells. Singles. And open rooms with many beds. Specific colors, specific shirts. The kitchen. The long hallways.

I wasn't getting it. I wasn't scared.

"Can I see the showers?"
He lead the way. He gestured. So far away from the guard's station. So far away from help. From glimpses. And windows.
Just wear. Just footsteps.

A prisoner walks passed us. I make eye contact. I look. I step. In the grooves, in the floor. "How's it going?" I initiate. I do it.

He looks at me and nods. "Good thanks. How are you?"

"Good, thanks." Pleasant enough.

He passes. He's gone.
I whisper to the CO. "What's he in for?"

The CO grins. "Serial Killer."

We reach the showers. He checks. No one is in there. I ask him. He agrees, and he waits outside. He waits for me. And I go in.

I go in alone.
I stand in the quiet. On the tile. Alone.
And I feel it. Slowly descending. Vulnerable. Maximum.
I feel my skin moving. I feel my heart racing. I flatten my hand against the tile underneath the shower heads.
I close my eyes and I feel it. Isolated.
In the fear and the wear, without glimpse without window, of the grooves and the steps
And the time left behind.
I'm there. I'm petrified. I'm there.
I'm there.


"And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting."
-Edgar Allan Poe