Rachael Bills
Attorney by day, lost soul seeking to reconnect with the creativity that law school beat out of me by night.
Rachael Bills
Attorney by day, lost soul seeking to reconnect with the creativity that law school beat out of me by night.
Attorney by day, lost soul seeking to reconnect with the creativity that law school beat out of me by night.
Attorney by day, lost soul seeking to reconnect with the creativity that law school beat out of me by night.
Everything happens for a reason
Utter shit
A glimpse of happiness, ripped out of me Viciously Time moved at a fast crawl
There one moment and gone the next
Her eyes that never got to open and see my face. Her tiny mouth that never made a sound. Legs that didn’t stretch or run. Arms that never begged to be picked up
Sometimes in the silence I can hear her heart beating.
Only an echo.
What reason? What reason brings death and misery?
Dashing hopes makes us yearn again? There is no reason.
There will never be a reason.
I strain for reason every day. Every hour. Every minute, every second even.
She’s still gone.
My arms are heavy with the emptiness. My once blooming belly softer…flatter.
I don’t want a reason. None are enough.
She was the reason. Now she is nothing. She is the foggy memory of dreams.
She is everything. I am nothing.
Everything happens. Reason matters not. Just keep breathing.
In
Out
In
Out
Maybe some day it will make sense. But it won’t have happened for a reason.
Over.
Such weight in two syllables
She felt it first like a punch to her sternum
Quick Sharp
She was gasping for air, but getting none
She felt the word wrap around her middle like a vise The squeeze was nauseating
The tears burned her cheeks Then cooled They continued their erosive path for days Was it weeks? Sobs escaped her long after the pools of her eyes had become arid and dry
She longed for anger Give me rage! Let me beat my fists upon my chest! Let me strike him Let me fight
There was no spark to light the flame of fury
Where there once was softness, now all had turned to stone
“Can you toss me that blanket, babe?”
“Of course, you cold, hon?” He hands me the light throw off the back of the couch.
“So cold! I can feel my nose getting cold.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, my nose is cold.”
“Yeah, but you can’t feel the cold with your nose.”
“What? Of course I can!”
“No you can’t. You could touch your nose with your finger and feel that it’s cold with your finger, but you can’t feel the cold with your nose.”
I curl my knees up under the blanket and stare at him.
“Um, yes I can. I don’t have to touch my nose with my finger to know it’s cold. I can feel that it is cold.”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t have the nerve endings on your nose that would register the cold.”
I think I see a faint glimmer of teasing in his eyes. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I mean, maybe you’re special, but you can’t feel cold with your nose.”
“You absolutely can!”
He shakes his head at me, “Oooookay”
The hint of sarcasm slides under my skin, tugging the irritation into my voice. “Come on, you have to be messing with me. You don’t actually think that I can’t feel the fact that my nose is cold.”
“I mean, I believe that you think you can feel it.”
“Well isn’t that gracious of you?” He can see the heat rising to my face.
“Aw, babe don’t be like that.”
“I can feel when my nose is cold.”
“Of course you can, dear.”
“Just…ugh. I can!! I can feel my damn nose when it is cold.”
He shrugs his shoulders.
“Say it!! Say I can feel when my nose is cold.”
“You can feel when your nose is cold.”
“I’m gonna punch your nose and I am going to bet you can feel that.”
“Punching is different.”
“I cannot fathom how.”
“Fine, dear, you can feel cold with your nose…my magical baby.” He reaches forward and tweaks my nose.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No, I don’t.”
He sits down next to me and I snuggle up to him. I lean over and nuzzle his warm neck with my cold nose.
I first saw you on my birthday You were not the plan We drove miles up the mountain To the animal sanctuary, coming to see another dog…Cliff? Charlie? We brought your soon-to-be “sister” in tow, already a neurotic mess of a puppy. She fell in the pool the night we took her home. She’s never fully recovered
Living Free Animal Sanctuary Free living in rectangular outdoor cages of fencing Little princess was afraid of Chauncey on sight
“You have to see Timmy.”
“Don’t you think they would just love Timmy?”
A woman in her late 50s or 60s name drops you like you are her favorite member of the Beatles.
You run gleefully towards us, bounding along the green grass, finally getting a little of that “free” living
Your tiny chihuahua body has the miniature stockiness of a pit bull Front legs with a John Wayne, cowboy stance At first glance, you are a black and white darling, suited up in your fur coat like James Bond. As the sunlight hits your back, your coat shines chocolate brown, like a ganache glaze over a white cake
As I bend down to meet you, I’m greeted by the crookedest smile A snaggletooth underbite Bottom left teeth popping out over your top lip A permanent wry smile on your face
The hippie lady is right.
You dash around our princess You play and bark But she shows no fear.
When we drive home your tongue hangs over your snaggletooth, panting out the window. Joy radiates from your sweet face You love the car You know you’re going home.
You still love the car Walks are your favorite. You jump up and down Nearly wriggle out of your skin at the thought of the freedom that awaits outside.
Your sweet brown eyes are so smart Though they have now begun to pierce their way through the soft beginning glaze and frost of old age.
You really have to meet Timmy
Eleanor was down to her last five dollars. It had all begun as a joke. She remembered laughing as she tugged Mark to the door of the fortune tellers shop, stepping through the beaded purple curtain, not noticing the three or four beads that fell to the ground at her touch.
Her last laugh caught in her throat when she sat down at the small table and caught her distorted reflection in the large glass ball at its center: she could see herself, completely disheveled, swollen, red-rimmed eyes, haggard, tangled hair falling into her face.
“Tell me how to stop it!” She screamed at Miss Raven.
She came back day after day, week after week. She lost track of time. She burned sage in her home. She bought crystals. She went to other psychics. She prayed. She had palm readings and tarot readings, and everything she could think to try.
Nothing worked. She was haunted by herself in every mirror, in every glass window. She shattered her phone when its screen also showed this broken nearly unrecognizable woman.
This must end. She found herself walking back to the first psychic. Where was the damn place? She walked up and down the street, retracing her steps for hours as the sun sank in the sky. She mumbled to herself, or screamed, where the fuck are you Raven? She felt the fear boil inside. What could she do?
She pulled at her hair, her long fingernails catching in the tangles. Suddenly, she heard movement in the alley across the street. As she stepped closer, she caught a glimpse of purple beads, glinting in the faint light of the nearest street lamp. She flung herself down the alley, yanking the beaded figure towards her. She was incoherent, the fear bubbled into rage, unchecked and pouring out of her. She pounded the figure, screaming, “Make it go away!” She grabbed an item from the ground and began bashing the figure with it. After a few moments, she collapsed to the ground.
A bright flashlight seared her eyes, a deep voice “M’am…are you okay?”
Eleanor barely heard him. She lay, curling into herself, a bloodied crystal ball clutched in her right hand. Next to her lay the dead body of a homeless woman, cloaked in a makeshift blanket of discarded beaded purple curtains.
The officer again tried to engage Eleanor, who was looking with glazed eyes at the crystal ball in her hand. She began to laugh, hugging the ball in to her chest as if she were cradling a toddler. “I guess it was all in vain.”
When you smiled and I had to know you. When we embraced in secret, but watched our closely guarded ardor pour recklessly over our entwined hands. Were we fated to hide our beginning even from ourselves until our passion proved the dam was worthless? Ah, but what is fate, If not choice After choice, after choice?