I've started selling my jewelry @ a day spa called "Victoria's."  It's been four days and my new line called "Body Candii" is selling like hot cakes  I've been teaching theater prior to this experience so it's been a while since making jewelry  It’s a euphoric experience to get paid to do what you love  beyond the commerce it's been very spiritual.  I'm near George Washington University so some of my clients are very young.  They initially dig my jewelry but an hour after their purchase they stay and we talk.  Once a teacher always a teacher.  I see that jewelry may be the vehicle but the journey is the interaction I have with the people that pass by.  This experience reminds me that nothing is ever as it appears. If anything intriguing happens I'll write about it.

Last Words of a Dying Love

By the time you read the last word, I’ll probably be dead.  It’s getting harder to breath as the cool dirt mixes with the blood in my throat.  The choking sensation is frightening because it makes me acutely aware of my eminent death.  He buried me under a thin layer of damp soil and rotting leaves.  As I suffocate, I can still hear the muffled sounds of life above ground.  For instance, I think I heard him crying-THE BASTARD WHO KILLED ME WEPT over his handiwork, before he drove off.  What makes this scenario morbid is how much I loved him. 

We met last summer at Shimmer Lake where best friend Charla spotted Javier with his boys.  I know she’s gonna cry like a baby at my funeral.  She nudged me and whispered “Hottie at 12 o’clock!”  Just as I glanced over her shoulder, he looked in my direction and I knew I was in trouble.  His smile would make the Devil himself repent.  We locked into each other’s leer and I made a decision.  Without thinking, I walked over to him on impulse.  Impulse is either the slippery slope leading to the best idea you ever had or this.  It was dusk when he dragged me out here.  This boyfriend I loved up until an hour ago, homicidal maniac, is also a sentimental fool.  He buried me in the wooded area that edges Shimmer Lake.  Talk about returning to the scene of the crime . . .

From the moment we spoke, destiny took the reins.  He told me he saw me when Charla and I first laid out.  He knew I was the one.  The longing look of those hazel eyes were the backdrop he used to convince me that we had to be together.  As my last will and testament, I leave this world with clarity and discernment.  I’m pissed that I’ll never get to utilize these newfound skills.  The soil in my throat seeps with blood as form an iron tasting mud that bubbles every time I take a weak breath.  Just as my mind used poor judgment with Javier, my body betrays me with this slow dying.  I’d read stories where people who survived near death experiences felt no pain as they entered the “tunnel of light.”  Both my ass and vagina burns from the friction of the rubbers he used to rape me.  The knife wound in the chest doesn’t hurt as much as the stomach wound-That’s throbbing LIKE A BITCH!  I hope they find me soon so that my grieving mother doesn’t have to identify decomposing remains-What if I’m never found? . . .I could end up being another face on those mail circulars most people throw away.  Allow me a moment of self-pity if you will . . . For no apparent reason, my loving boyfriend who appeared normal up until an hour ago, brutally beat, raped, and knifed me a few times, rapped me in a plastic drop cloth and buried me a live a few yards away from where we met.  Despite my best efforts I’m not dying fast enough and I’m lying here in a pool of my own blood and shit-  This is not the day I had planned.

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;         & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;         & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;         & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;    Mel Taylor copyright 2004

American Scream

Marie sat in quiet mortification as her stepdaughter Dorence showed off the new outfit she suckered her father into buying.   Her positive reactions veiled avoidance.  “The color compliments your light complexion.”  As she chewed her eggs, she allowed the more realistic comments their freedom as they screamed in her head.  "Dorence . . . you’re too fat to wear cropped shirts.  Don’t you see the stomach hanging over your skirt looks like a pouting BOTTOM LIP?”  You look like you’re stuffed in a lilac colored sausage casing."  She’d start WWIII in her kitchen by speaking these thoughts.  She could tell Lawrence shared her sentiments but he hid the truth behind a divorced parent's guilt.  "Coward", Maria thought.  She has watched Dorence work her father like a pimp since their marriage.  They argued quite a bit and just like Dorence's ill-fitting outfit, Lawrence doesn't wear the truth well.  Maria walked into this marriage with realistic expectations draped in naiveté.  She really, though the heartfelt conservations she had with Lawrence and Dorence regarding blended families made a difference.  Dorence newfound respect for the relationship between Maria and Lawrence seemed sincere.  It's six months later and clearly, the honeymoon between all three is over.  Every way possible, Dorence schemes, manipulates and guilt her father in to meeting every unreasonable need she has.  Lawrence futile attempts to appease the women in his life have him on the brink of insanity but his fear exceeds his ability to be honest-To be free.  Maria chewing her eggs with conviction realizes that no matter what she does to ease the tension in both relationships nothing will change.  So how's your morning?

    & nbsp;   &n bsp;   &nb sp;   &nbs p;     ;         & nbsp;   &n bsp;        & nbsp;   &n bsp;   Mel Taylor copyright 2004

Thoughts eaten like cotton candy

@ the fair

Not relished but devoured

in spun sugar tufts with

no regard

as he stood like the discarded

cone with remnants of longing

sticking  along the edge

unrequited

Mel Taylor copyright 2004