THOUGHTS ON A SUNSET

Maggie wished she was the kind of woman who could settle a broken heart with a shot glass and a bottle of whisky, but she wasn’t the destructive type. No. Maggie would sit with it. She’d always been a woman who stood in her power, and just as steady as she stood in her pain. Maggie’s strength was a curse just as much as it was a blessing. She always took the high road. It usually wasn’t an easy option, or the most attractive to the average man, but it was the only option that would satisfy her spirit.

“Jesus.” She said. Her words lost in the emptiness surrounding her as she soaked in the massive landscape that cemented the lone cowboy type she had become. Maggie could handle the hurt. She’d been through so much of it. But who was she to complain, she thought. She certainly wasn’t the only wounded soul out there. Love generally requires a certain amount of ability to handle pain. She was okay with that. Maggie just wondered when she would find the one that didn’t hurt so much or if that even existed.

Maggie didn’t really drink and she wasn’t the destructive type so she pondered the concept of the existence of true love as she sat on her porch and let herself get lost in the bliss of the sunset and the rise of the evening star.

thoughts on a sunset awgryphon©

ALL FIRED UP

Dyanna slipped a tape into the boom box on her dresser. She hit play with her long acrylic nails covered in Revlon’s blackberry polish and Pat Benetar rocked out of the speaker. It was 7am. Time to start the day.

After a quick shower, a mountain of Vidal Sassoon mousse and a thorough blow out of her hair Dyanna stood in a black satin kimono staring into her closet. She didn’t know what she wanted to wear, but it had to be perfect. The mixed tape playing transitioned from Pat to Motley Crew and something clicked. Dyanna was inspired. The perfect outfit came to her like a song from heaven.

She fell back on her bed, negotiated her legs into her jeans, held her breath to zip up then rolled off the edge and stood up, letting her body settle into the skin tight black denim. Dyanna pulled on a black cut-up half-sleeve sweat shirt, stepped into her favorite high-hell black suede boots and turned to the mirror. She couldn’t breathe yet, but she looked hot.

The crimping iron, big curling iron and tiny curling iron were all ready. It was time to make a decision. Dyanna stared down at the vanity and finally went for reliable comfort; the top-of-the-line pink and gray Conair crimping option. Fifteen minutes of the waffle shaped heat combined with just the right amount of Aqua Net and Dyanna had the perfect hair day she had hoped for. Next came the make-up kit. Layers of blue, magenta and lavender eye shadow held up by liquid black eye-liner and aqua marine mascara showcased Dyanna’s big brown eyes. Two strokes of frosted brownie lip stick and her face was complete. She grabbed her black leather bag by the chain link strap, lit a Marlboro Light 100 and cracked open a Tab just in time to hear her friend Michelle pull up outside. That was it. Dyanna was ready. She was ready for another day at school. It was March 29th 1988. awgryphon©

RACHEL FALLING

Rachel was falling. It was a place she’d been before. A place that had made her stronger in the past. That had brought her new opportunities. It didn’t make the situation at hand any easier, but knowing there would be an end to it certainly made things more manageable.

Where at one time she would have cried, Rachel found herself numb; making her way through another sticky and overwhelming situation that makes life what it is.

The good part about it, numb or not, was that she’d taken it all head on knowing that she was at the beginning, that there would be a middle and at some point an end. As the thoughts rolled through Rachel’s mind, she continued falling. She told herself to breathe. She focused on anything she could to keep herself from spinning out of control.

Rachel was a dreamer. Not the kind of dreamer who thought about things all day, the kind of dreamer who put things into action and made them a reality. Rachel was the kind of girl who would crawl through glass to make things happen, to make rights wrong and to get through whatever situation life threw in front of her. Life can be as wonderful as it can be tough and Rachel knew in some ways she would always be falling. Rachel also knew that she had wings.

awgryphon© photograph courtesy of visualizeus.com

CLAUDETTE’S “IF”

And then Claudette said, “If you have no room for happy then I have no room for you.” The End

photo courtosey of flicker.com. CLAUDETTE’S “IF” awgryphon©

SUZIE’S ROSE COLORED GLASSES

It was a Tuesday. Not a Tuesday of note, just your average ordinary Tuesday. However it was, in fact, the Tuesday on which one Suzie Carmichael was certain something spectacular would happen. Suzie put on her favorite everyday dress along with her most comfortable boots and a brilliant scarf and then Suzie did it. The unthinkable. Suzie slipped on her rose colored glasses and stepped out into the day. The most fantastical Tuesday that would ever be. That’s what Suzie had decided. Suzie had been told to be careful with the rose colored glasses. That they were okay for sometimes, but not for all the time and certainly not for an entire day. That’s what they’d said, but on that particular Tuesday Suzie decided not to listen to them. Who were they anyway? Those people who spent all their time saying things about what people should and shouldn’t do rather than doing something themselves. Suzie wasn’t interested in hearing any more of those people talking. No. Suzie had no time for such nonsense. For Suzie, life was about doing things not talking about doing things or, even worse, not doing things at all; so if putting on a pair of rose colored glasses for an entire day was truly a bad idea, she would find that out for herself… and Suzie was quite sure, as she stood on her front porch at the break of day looking out into the wonder she new it would bring, that she already had the answer. photo courtosey of flicker.com. SUZIE’S ROSE COLORED GLASSES awgryphon©

HOLLY’S WALKS ON THE BEACH

Holly was fierce. She was smart, wise. Her impenetrable strength radiated a force of life only found in legends. She pulled at her skin and ripped at her hair in a frenzy, screaming from the depths of her soul; weeping from the very fibers that held her together. The insanity had struck. The madness for life, for living. For one more walk on the beach without a care in the world. Just one. Holly wanted a simple moment of untainted bliss, of calm, of peace. But that wouldn’t happen. No matter how the journey before her unfolded things would never be the same for Holly.

Her walks on the beach were forever changed. Because that’s how it works. That’s what cancer does.

ELEANOR

Darkness. Nothing was more inviting to Eleanor than the blanket of inexplicable possibility that was night sky. Moonlit mornings, as she called the dusk, brought out all of who she was. As a woman. As an artist. As the magical being few realized thrived within her soul.

ELEANOR AWGRYPHON© PHOTOGRAPH CURTOSEY OF HILDAFROMM.BLOGG.SE