…writes Marcus.
A short piece.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
she’s heartbroken
and I feel it too
though it isn’t mine
I feel it too
warriors, wounded from wars that don’t belong to them experience phantom pains from missing appendages. fumbling along, still grasping at body parts that no longer belong to them.
one loss following another
and I feel it too.
© 2021 writesmarcus.com All Rights Reserved
A short poem.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
This heart
belongs in a zoo
next to hyenas and baboons
next to lizards and bones
it
thumps boorish grunts
beats, cleaved,
in the curling tines of its cage
This heart
pumps
fossils and weeds
dying wheelbarrows
squeezing out rust
this heart
presses
black coffee
shatters windows
splinters doors
this heart
pulls from barbs
lights Molotov’s
rolls in whiskey and glass
this heart
hisses and smokes
© 2020 writesmarcus.com All Rights Reserved.
A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
An ocean of booze is not enough to forget. It’ll still spit you up on shore and you’ll squint at the sun wondering how you got there. But you don’t forget. You never forget. So you jump back in, swim as far as your arms and legs will let you and stop, maybe thinking of something else, but you’ll eventually crawl back up the sand and feel the hot sun.
You wade back into the water, jumping the small waves, diving under the big ones until again, you’ve reached the chop of the ocean. Then you find yourself spitting out sand and protecting your eyes from the sun. You take a skiff out until the engine runs out of gas. You can’t see the shore and so you think this enough. So with no life preserver you jump into the water, moving your arms and legs just enough to keep your mouth free for air. You don’t want to die, just forget. Yet you find yourself stuck in the rocky crags at the mouth of the bay. Hands, feet, sides and head bleeding from the beating your body took to get back to shore.
After climbing back to the sand, you lay down, exhausted. The tide begins lapping at your feet, your legs, your thighs, your hands and you remember. You jump in a plane and fly for hours until the view below is all blue with ocean. You jump and think you’ll never remember again. Your body slaps the water, bruising all over. Later you wake up with coast guard above you and family members crying. And still the waves lap at your feet, you can’t forget. You never forget.
Now you hobble back down to the waters edge, your legs are wobbly, arms feel like lead and that little ball of light inside you is dimming. You fall into the water pushing yourself crawling into the deep of the ocean. Why not just turn around and forget the water completely? Why keep trying to find the deep?
How do you cope with what you can’t forget? How do you manage what you remember? How do you prevent the memories from drowning you if you never stop jumping into the ocean?
A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
Was it false? Her posture said yes when eventually she did leave. Her slow steps, that quick glance at the dogs, the fumbling with the lock she had opened hundreds, even thousands of times. Was she trying to convince herself of something? Something that she didn’t want in her mind but that her heart couldn’t support; not making the effort to pump blood to fingers, feet and eyes to make her way confidently out of the house.
I couldn’t know either but I suspected she wasn’t quite sure either. Decisions of the heart are never made in confidence. We may tell ourselves they are prudent choices but the heart plants a seed of doubt and only time will tell us if that doubt will grow into regret or die buried deep. I imagine that small unborn seed remains there, not growing but never truly dying, keeping its small hardness somewhere in the chest.
I wonder if it gets easier. Growth, nurturing, planting, giving, sharing time and energy. Or do those nutrients get lost with those seeds that never grow? Does the soil around those seeds grow into dust, leaving less and less space in the heart?
Then the weeds come. What did I do wrong? Was it this? Was it that? Was it all the things I was blind to? Was I selfish? Did I lose myself and become someone else? Will I be enough for anyone?
I’m only at the beginning but it already hurts to open up. It hurts to moisten and till the soil for new plantings. The first time, there was no pain in preparing for love but the more it happens, the more pain seeps into the process. The more those seeds of doubt poison what’s left of the soil around them.
What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me.
A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
Through the peep hole, all I could see was that big blue window into her soul. I smiled and knocked again. She opened the door but the chain kept the door open just a crack. Maybe she didn’t recognize me. Maybe I had the wrong house. Then her head peaked through the crack.
I smiled a little wider this time.
“Hi, it’s me.”
She only stared. Not saying anything. I could hear the sounds of a house full of living. Pots, pans, yelling kids, a TV.
“Is this a bad time.”
“What are you doing here?”
Now the words caught in my throat. I folded my hands behind my back and cleared the uncertainty welling up.
“Well, I wanted to be the first to tell you that I got that movie made. It was purchased and now there’s some director looking for actors and…well, I just wanted to tell you. You were always so supportive of that.”
She looked at me. Then closed the door. I heard something scratching and then the door opened all the way. She stepped onto the porch, shutting the door behind her. It took every ounce of social conditioning and domestication that had been thrown my way to not instantly through my arms around her shoulders and pull her head into my chest.
She crossed her arms slowly and then looked up at me.
“You couldn’t have called or texted?”
My cheeks flushed. I knew she could see that.
“I’m sorry, you’re right, this isn’t fair of me.”
“No, look, I think it’s great. That’s what you’ve always wanted. It sounds like you’re on your way to something great.”
I knew she was just extending a guilty hand. I looked around the yard and spotted chains and a lock on the lids of their trash cans.
“So you keep a pretty tight lid on your trash now, huh?”
“What?” She looked where my gaze held then laughed. That sweet laugh. “Oh, yes, well we have some pretty tenacious little bandits that dig around and spread it out every night if we don’t.”
She uncrossed her arms but took a half step backward.
“I’m sorry, again, I should have called, I just thought it would be cool for you to know when the trailers came out and stuff. You’d see them on TV and know who made the movie.”
She looked at me for what seemed like a full moon cycle. It was only a few seconds before she spoke but I could see that familiar glint, somewhere buried back behind her new life.
“Well, it’s just that, it’s hard to see…”
Another pause. I knew what she was going to say, something to the effect of it’s hard to see me but it wouldn’t work, it never worked. Despite what I thought to the contrary.
“Alright, well it sounds like you’re busy in there with the little ones. I just wanted you to know and now you do. It was great to see you.”
“It was great to see you too.”
I turned to go down the steps. She turned to go back inside.
I thought about the most memorable people in history. The presidents, kings, bishops, popes, captains, outlaws, revolutionaries and wondered how their greatness was shaped. I wondered if they didn’t have their own broken hearts and so turned the world into their anvils, beating it into the shapes that suited their desires.
As I got to the gate, she yelled out to me.
“Hey, I’m gonna see your movie the day it comes out.”
I smiled and thought about an empty theater playing my movie with only her big beautiful eyes to watch it.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
I caught a glimpse of a tower made of white brick. The squares were stacked in such a way that they spiraled all the way to the top of the spire. The tower seemed to glow, by the light of the moon or the beams of the sun. Something about the structure compelled me to see it up close, to feel the texture of the brick and get to know the inside of the building. That day, however, I was stuck on a boat. It was stormy and there were no ports on this side of the peninsula.
Through the angry clouds and assault of spray from the waves battering the boat, I stared. My eyes stung from salt. My body ached from gripping tightly to ropes and climbing rigging, all to pull us out of the deep ocean and closer to land.
Sun peaked through the clouds and shone on that white tower. I dropped my ropes and grabbed the railing. I needed to go there, it represented hope, safety, security, reassurance and warmth. It took all my instincts of self-preservation to stop me from hopping over the rail and swimming the impossible length to shore. So I stared.
Seagulls orbited the tower like nymphs dancing around a fire. Green grass and brown clumps of hairy shrubs bowed toward the tower. The storm seemed to calm but I knew that really, my focus was not on the tumult happening all around me, I was only fixated on something that I could not reach.
It wasn’t the right time so I made my way all around the boat, following the white column as we moved around the sound. I stared at the spot where I knew the tower stood long after it had disappeared over the horizon. One day I would see it again and with any luck, the conditions would allow me to explore that magnificent structure.
For now I would have to be satisfied with my cup of whiskey and the memory of having seen it. I know that a tower such as that will always be there, even if not for me, but it will be there, strong and beautiful.
Whilst making a living... 