Jayfairchild

The thing about death is that it doesn't happen all at once. It takes a long time for your heart to stop beating, and then there will still be a spontaneous respiration or two, your body hanging on. It can take minutes. It can take hours. And even after your mind is long gone, when you are no longer breathing, without a pulse or blood pressure, your heart still tries. It shoots electricity and the cardiac muscles spasm, just barely, but it is there.   You fight long past the end. That is death. You never really know when it's coming, or when it has come. It is elusive and inevitable, and it is

 There is condensation on the window, where his face is pressed, where his hot cheek touches the cold glass. I smile at his freckles, and his dimples, and his curly messy hair. I remember when people smiled at my youth, and how I hated their knowing eyes, their expectations. Now I understand it. The love that makes our hearts beat. That makes us reach out and run our fingers down the slippery slope of an upturned nose and grin. "Grandma," he looks up with his serious expression on. He is a serious boy, a pensive boy, with lips that make a hard line on his soft face. He glances back out the window, at the rain, eyes wondering, mind hesitatin

An inhaled breath, caught at the top of lungs. In. Silence. Out. That moment, a split second, between one heartbeat and the next. Ba-silence-dump. That is when their eyes meet. Blue against brown. Sky against ground. Fear and a smile. Turning, walking, (running.) Breath rushes, (Inoutinout.) but still there is that pause. That moment of hopelessness. Of nothingness. Before the body contracts, pulling in life. And it starts again. Anticipation. Fear. Relief. Feet slap the pavement, and there, somewhere between heel and toe, somewhere above black asphalt, hot and sticky in the sun, there is a moment of air-borne ballet, an almost-flight (with s

The Kelpies in the water tread, Their eyes all seeing, dark and dead. Some weary travelers stop to see, A little black pony set a-free; They sit upon its frigid back, And in their hands are reigns held slack. Towards the river together they ride, And into its depths they smoothly glide; Bewildered heads bob above the drink, Then to their deaths the riders sink. A single bubble, and exclamation, Floats past lips in exaltation; The passengers take a final breath, And with it succumb to a watery death. The Kelpie smiles gleefully, For from a fool the world is free.

The color of your skin is about as consequential as whether you have an innie or an outie belly-button. We are all united under the common goal of living. We are all citizens of the world.