Going, Going...Gone!

Nellie sensed fear in their voices, their worn work glove faces told of foreboding.

The orphaned shell, once her farmhouse, spit her out in disgust and anger

So, Nellie and her best friend, Roger cat, found their safe place on a tractor in the desolate wasteland where crops once flourished.

She recalled fun times riding with her dad, and longed to have him beside her again.

But the world was turning, life was becoming cold, and Nellie knelt on that seat, vice grip hands clinging to the wheel of her flying machine.

As her parents moved toward her with suitcases and tears, she was the beautiful bird soaring high and far away.

Art by Mike Handley

The Plan

She was a 25 year old mother of six children, waiting for the next to happen.
She married the son of her father's good friend, and they lived on a farm they didn't own.
The soil was rich, the cows gave milk faithfully, and the chickens provided eggs for breakfast.
Every day was the same; there was nothing more to life.
So, in the early hours of that morning, before he arose to tend to the chickens, and while the children dreamed in their beds, she took her carefully-packed suitcase from under their bed, and disappeared into history.
The note she left explained, "sometimes it's better to walk away." and she did.

We're Not Out of the Woods

It was a lifetime ago I was with him; and even today, I love him.
Just being with him, I instantly sizzled inside, I wanted to swallow every part of him so he would stay.
For years we enjoyed sharing life, with an ever-present distance that could not be explained.
I did not understand when he said, "We are not out of the woods", knowing I wanted more; fearful this is where we would stay.
It ended, sadly; He left the woods, with me behind missing him in my life; maybe today.
But I took with me a sense of giving and patience he doesn't know he gave me; because I was left alone, in the woods; He could not hear me tell him