In the Darkness

In the Darkness

Your hair smells of jasmine, and something else I can’t put my finger on and though I don’t know what it is, my senses can’t seem to get enough of it.

I take care that my fingers are warm when I touch you, after all I’d feel guilty if I woke you from your peace.

In the dark, my fingers start to trace the lines of your face every curve, every bend as you lay quietly in the bed next to me, your face towards mine.

I start at the top of your brow and slowly move down to the bridge of your nose, high but petite in relation to your face and the tiny eyes that move around under their lids.

I turn my hand on its back and I slide it down the side of your nose onto your pillow like cheeks .They feel like their covered in silk and though that description seems unreal it’s as accurate as I can think of.

You move.

You must have felt my hand because you’re smiling. I know because I can feel the deep hollowness of sunken flesh as a dimple forms just below your upper cheek as I glide my hand over it.

“O” God you’re beautiful when you smile.

My fingers now make their way down to your cupids bow lips small as most of your features and rosy as I feel the hot air that escapes your lungs as your breath. I let my hand rest on the corner of your mouth for a while that’s when you smile again and my heart jumps at the thought of waking you so I move my hand to your jaw line beautifully curved, arched perfectly from one side to the other.

“I love you” I whisper softly to you, knowing by your deep and heavy inhalations that your consciousness has been carried away by your dreams.

My hand moves down to your cute chin circling once and then moves on down to your neck, soft as your lips and warm as your breath. I reach your collarbone & I realize strangely for the first time that you’re of a relatively small  size.

I don’t much mind it’s just that I never noticed before or maybe it just feels that way in the dark. 
My hand is now on your chest feeling it's motion as it rises and falls to your slow sleepy breathing and the steady rhythm of your heart beat.

I pause once again wondering what you’re thinking, what your dreaming and that you’re the most beautiful creature ever created.

 I know this in my heart and in my head it’s OK, even though I am blind you will always be beautiful in the darkness.

                                                                                                By: Leonie Adonis 

The Daughters Story

The Daughters Story

His blond mushroom cut hair hangs into his eyes and he wipes it away with his small soft hands.

He kneels by the side of his bed in his blue and red Spider-man pj’s. In the dark bedroom, he crouches and searches for the candle he hid under it a few nights ago and lets out a faint smile when he feels it beneath his bony fingers. He slides it out from under the bed along with daddy’s lighter which he hopes daddy doesn’t notice is gone before it can be replaced. He lights the candle and puts it on the chest of drawers next to his bed. In its faint light the clock on the wall reads 23:40.

Mommy usually goes to sleep at 21:00, right after she tucks him into bed gently kissing and singing her baby boy to sleep. By now her dreams have swept her from this world over the rainbow and daddy, he went to sleep hours ago, drunk but asleep. With the distant sound of a cars alarm and dogs barking he continues, sliding a piece of paper from under the bed sheets in front  of him, he unfolds it cautiously as if touching the wings of a beautiful butterfly, trying hard not to break it or make a sound.

By the light of the candle his cold grey eyes move effortlessly over the words as if memorised and he returns the page to where it was found. A sudden creak in the floor boards cause him to freeze with fear. He looks handsome as the golden candle light glazes his cheeks and creates shadows of his small nose and the tiny upturned corners of his mouth and soft pink lips. His hair once again falls into his eyes but he doesn’t wipe it away, too afraid to move he waits, waits until his heartbeat steadies and breathing slows, until he’s completely convinced that there is no one outside the bedroom door. When he is, he lets out a soft breath of relief and continues. Placing his elbows on the bed in front of him he clasps his hands and starts to pray:

“Dear Lord I know that mommy prayed already tonight but I want to ask a special favor, I go to church every Sunday and really do listen to what the pastor is saying and I don’t fall asleep like the others only when I’m really tired form cleaning the garden that daddy never does, I’m saying this cause, well because, I know I shouldn’t ask anything I don’t deserve.”

He’s quiet for a long while, pulling his lips tightly together, frowning, as if the hardest part is now right in front of him. His deep tense frown relaxes and a single tear spills onto his cheek form the corner of his eye.

“Lord, Mommy is like an angel and she is very smart.”

 Pausing once more he reflects upon his next words.

“I don’t like it when daddy hits her, when he tells her his been with other woman and I hate it Lord when I have to see my mommy cry. So Lord give me the strength to do what I’m gonna and the courage to handle what happens after.”

He opens his grey eyes, now filled with tears, and slides his hand under the bed once more pulling out the missing kitchen knife.

He blows out the candle and hides it under the bed bare footed he walks to the door he opens it without a sound as if it was practiced over and over. He slips out not closing the door behind him and makes his way their room. A streak of light spills onto the bedroom floor, but mom and dad don’t wake.

That night I lay in our bedroom, paralyzed with fear, my pillow wet with salty tears.

I am only 3 years old and can do nothing to stop my 9 year old brother.

So I squeeze my eyes shut as he re enters the room with bloody hands and no knife

He kneels in front of the bed once more. With my eyes shut I listen carefully to the last sentence in his whispered prayer. 

“Now Lord, Mommy can be with You in heaven.”

Do not be fooled

Do not be fooled

Do not think of me as weak, just because I fall in love,

Rather think about your own heart that can not love to the extent I am able to, everyday.

Do not think you can control me just because I share eagerly,

Rather look at who you are for taking advantage of this generosity.

Do not think me worthless now that I’ve shared my passion with you,

Rather, remind yourself of damage caused by abuse and misuse of this flame.

Do not think of me as strange just because I dream for better every day,

Rather look to see your own growth and measure how far you’ve come and been.

Do not think of me as ignorant because of my beauty,

for my strength lay beyond the feel of my chocolate skin.

Do not perceive my tears as a symbol of weak character

Rather remember them as a product of inner strength.

For tomorrow I stand up and I go on.

I bridge the gaps you think will make me fail.

Because I am a woman, I find a way to make me better then you could ever tell me I am.

I am a woman, and my only weakness is believing you when you lessen my worth with slanderous words of untruth.

Do not be fooled for I am proud to be a woman.

By Leonie Adonis

Window shopping

Window shopping

The feeling is rather unexplained and I wish that I could let you into my head,

So that I wouldn't have to struggle so, to find the words that will make you understand, but I will try………………………………

It feels like longing, but it’s not longing because you can long for almost anything it’s much more like missing, like when you want the past to recreate it’s self into the present. The only deference is you’ve never lived that past. You’ve never experienced the very thing you’re missing.

It’s like window shopping, looking through the window of your favorite store and imagining the feel of your skin in that dress or your home with that specific tall vase standing in the corner on that shelf of the same shade, and those new plush scatter cushions. You can almost see how it brightens up the room that smells of newly polished wood, and yet, you’ve never had your own place nor the vase on the corner table of the same shade. 
You never had the comfort of scatter cushions or been in a room that’s even slightly similar to what you imagine yours to be, but  the feeling, this feeling of longing, of missing  it lingers in your chest for those moments you stand with you nose pressed up against the cold store window.

Sometimes it’s more then surreal.

It’s like closing your eyes and imagining yourself sitting on the rocks with your feet covered in sand at the beach looking out over the vast expanse of the calming ocean, the smell of ocean winds filling your lungs and then escaping on the exhale, the feeling of cool air against your skin while listening to the waves rolling onto shore.

Except your blind and you’ve never been to the beach.

Like I said on most days, It feels like longing, but it’s not longing cause my heart can long for almost anything it’s much more like missing, like when I want the past to recreate it’s self into the present. 
The only deference is I’ve never lived that past & I’ve never experienced the very thing I’m missing.

And I keep thinking ………

How is it even possible that I can miss, something that I have never had.

2 March 2011

“I forgive you”

I forgive you

For the hurt.

For the misunderstandings and frustrations

For the anger, for a lot of the anger

And for the tears, for all of the tears

For the scars that are visible and for those that are not

For the trauma of emotions,

And the beatings, and the blood

For the blue thighs and cut marks

And for the great loss, in will to live.

For the side effects I still carry with me

For the ones that I have to work through everyday

For the counseling and the guilt.

Apparently, these are the words I need to say

So …..

For a future that’s better than the past

and for the things I will succeed in too

I stand in front of the mirror today

To say that “I forgive you”.

                                                                                                                                                   By LA