Author: Susan McElhaney

I love my kids, NYC, writing, photography, movies, baseball and cream cheese. I am a mom and a wife. I have a bachelors degree in English and Journalism and a masters degree in School Counseling. For over 20 years, I have served as the Communications and Marketing Director at a trade school. I love travelling, and dreaming.

Mommas, Boys and Valentine’s Day

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It was Valentines Day 2009. I was asleep in my bed but could hear whispers. I woke with the two of you standing beside me as I slept, smiling with pride and eager for me to notice the gift you had left on my pillow.

It was a plastic rose.

“We were playing cowboys and Indians, and we accidentally hit that wreath thing, and this rose fell out. It is just plastic, but it won’t die so you can have it forever.”

So to my dear friends and passing strangers – I wish you good days filled with plastic roses that will never die!

The Boots

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They were a gift with rules, an ordinance to conform and convert. But the falling snow summoned me to come play. Restless and burdened with sure death, I pulled on my new boot straps ’til each heel was snuggly in place.

I didn’t have to look up to know you hovered over me, watching my every move. Your admonishments reached me loud and clear as every heavy breath of yours weighted down on my neck, condemning everything about me.

And I sat there shaking with defiance in my gut and fear embedded in my heart, knowing I would pay dearly for any act against the man who was determined to shape me into my better self and his better half.

But I surprised myself and wore those damn boots in the snow that day – and I’ve never looked back.

Oklahoma

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Picture of Oklahoma

Hell beckons me home where the promise of comfort soothes my restless feet and calms my aimless heart. The demons speak in familiar tones reminding me that I belong to this desolate, dying land where only the slightly insane can exist but never live. It is here that generations regenerate the myth that this is somehow  a reality worth preserving.

It’s a strange and difficult place that grips my throat and clinches down on my gut, a constant reminder that it is both my lifeline and my impending death.

Strangers

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While I could not cry in front of you,
I cried once for you – in front of strangers.
But then again it could have just been
the vodka, or life’s regrets – perhaps
it was only allergies that caused
such a commotion of compulsion.
Who knows what God’s thinking in
these rare moments of humility.
I suppose we all must pay our dues
for living and dying and breathing
and trying. Who knows but God,
the devil and that damn song
that keeps playing in my head?

Sitting at Powell’s

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I sit in this bookstore
where I feel detached
from the young and
too young to be the old.
Miles away, memories
come in with the fog
and rest their toes at
the edge of the water.
The only promise of life
is the sound of fury
from beyond what
only the lost can see.
I can only hope my
ghost is always there,
walking the shoreline
and dreaming, neither
young nor old, but
timeless in this melody
that never leaves us.