The Old Woman - A short story by Collin Jones (advice is appreciated)

The smell of fresh cut grass permeated the old Victorian farmhouse. The kitchen especially, with it's open windows, hardwood floors, and the screen door to the mud room. It was a mundane room, but a cozy room, one most noted for the scent of fresh bread being baked during the winter. But alas, it was mid-summer and the only odor was of the freshly mowed lawn. The owner of the house, an old woman, perhaps an octogenarian, sat in front of the window for hours listening to the birds chirp and the wind blow through the leaves of the old oak trees surrounding her property. Once in a while she would comment on the state of the house or the neighborhood, muttering almost silently to herself.

She was known once in the community for being a sprightly young dancer but had given up such things for a simple life at home. She married her since deceased husband, raised three boys, all who moved out years ago and had resolved to sit in her kitchen she loved so much until they came home. Summers and winters would pass with no sign of her boys, but her steely resolve never wandered. She would wait.

That's what she did, for twenty years she sat, the only company being her nurse who would come around once a day to give her medication and make sure she was still alive. The nurse, Jacqueline was her name, would indulge the woman in conversation most days, but it was too superficial. Jacqueline would comment on the weather and maybe tell the woman about happenings in the middle east or the west coast depending on the state of the world at the time. The old woman looked forward to the visits, but it was nothing compared the the joy she would feel when her sons returned to take her away from the house that had become a crypt for her disintegrating body.

The woman yearned for her youth, for the years she spent dancing for princes and dignitaries. She was a performer at heart and she never really forgave herself for giving it up to raise a family. Most likely, the woman wouldn't have done it any other way, she loved her sons more than she loved life. She toyed with the notion of ending her life, perhaps what came next would be preferable to the pain she was enduring now, but she couldn't bring herself to find out. She had plenty of pills, plenty of knives, plenty of electronics to drop in the tub when the nurse wasn't looking... but she couldn't conquer the fear of the unknown long enough to change her current state.

On this current afternoon, however, with the nurse having left for the day to tend to her many other patients, the old woman was toying with the notion once again. Her heart would skip a beat thinking about how much her children would miss her when she was gone. How upset they would be to think that they had neglected their mother and she died thinking that they didn't love her. Of course, she knew they loved her, they were just busy with their lives and their children that she had never met. She knew, but they would never know. So instead of staring at the sloping lawns of her humble property, today she decided she would spite her children by using the only method to kill the pain of being at rock bottom.

She slowly stood up, arthritis was wreaking havoc on her joints so it took her a minute, but she was eventually standing. The old woman then shuffled to her living room where the nurse left her medication. She reached for her pills, knowing that these breaths were among the last she would take on this earth. The woman had become accustomed to taking pills and swallowed them without needing any water at all. They went down and she laid down on the oriental rug to wait for the pills to take effect.

She closed her eyes and immediately saw an ethereal vision. One of magnificent proportions with vivid colors she hadn't seen with her eyes open since her eyes were young and she had the vitality of a woman in her twenties. She watched as she soared free through a surreal expanse of people and places she had seen long before she became an old woman. She regretted spending so long sitting in her chair, so much time wasted longing for her boys. She regretted not seeing more of the world in her old age while she had less responsibilities and more time. She should have caught up with all of her living friends and family. She should have put forth the effort.

Suddenly her vision ended. The old woman was ripped back into reality by a suffocating feeling. Her body was paralyzed as she opened her eyes and for a moment realized she was choking on the contents of her stomach.

There was so much regret. She needed this to stop so she could go see her boys. She wanted to see the grand canyon. She wasn't ready to go. She wants to see her grandchildren but all she could see was the ceiling. All she could feel was the stifling thickness of lungs full of vomit. She twitched for several seconds, eventually breaking her resolve and letting a single tear fall from her right eye. Her body gave a final shudder.

And then there was emptiness.

I Want A Cliche

What if it's you?
The one I've been looking for
The one that I had adored
The one that I knew before
You

What have we become?
The things we said we'd never do
The things I've done to you
The things we've lost all the way
Through

Where did you go?
I lost you so far along the way
I lost you to the things you'd say
I lost you to the words you wrote
To me

Now we long for each other
Drinking for the sufferer
Never letting go of the things we should have done
And forgetting all the good we've done
Just living for the past.

Random Unfiltered Thoughts

I shall take a break from my normal sub-par anti-poetry.
I shall now write a brief summary of my thoughts.
Here goes:

a journey of the imagination is what is lying under my eyelids. i can drop a small amount of liquid on my tongue and be another person inside another world for hours upon hours. i need this to get out of where i am. i need a new look a new place a new speak for those who spake out against the crimson wave of establishment. i have thoughts too deep to turn in to words. i need to create words to express the feelings that are lying under the surface of this man. i have feelings coursing through my nervous system from the top of my head to the tip of my cock. i have feelings. i have hate. i have love. i have despair and poetry. i have nothing left but despair and poetry to fill the voids left from the lack of drugs. i yearn for the drugs that opened up my mind years ago. the drugs have been taken away. i need words. i need drugs. i need necessity. i need a wanton desire for lust to break the wall of love. i am confused by my own mind. where is my mind? where is my brain? two and the same until the split between the frame. love. hate. debate. shame.

Serotonin/Dopamine Pendulum

I need a place to lay my head at night
I need to escape this awful daily dread
The necessary evil that I fight with
Every day should have killed me years ago
But I persevere and drink daily
Drop the needles and pick up the bottles
Drop the powder and pick up the smoke
I feel a yearning to be free from it
But a connection deeper than karma
A connection through the years
Caressing my body and querying my fears
Lines of ancestral blood coursing through
I have all I want, but I still want you
To kiss my hands and fondle my heart
To slit my wrists and to feel smart
The pain is secondary to the happiness
The serotonin-dopamine receptor
Necessary to quell the urges inside
While my brain tries to run and hide
I just need a place to rest
Lay my head down
And let this pass.

Woman.

Never seen
in plain sight
But once again
never had the delight
Of meeting a woman
so cute and bold
One that makes me feel young,
And at the same time old.

Heroin v2.0

The neverending yearning for desire
was lit like an eternal fire
Dripping wax congeals on the floor
Next to my needle and my whore.

I cradle my arm
The blood dripping down
Pooling in my hand.

Cigarette smoke lingers on high
Intertwining with the night sky
The dusky haze that confuses
Day and night rarely loses

But when they do
We all know who's next
The dark figure silently waiting.

This grips me tighter than a vice
The one that kills men and mice
Maybe Steinbeck will be proud
But now I'm left crying loud.