'DAVID"

Painting- Caspar David Friedrich's "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog"

The dust finally began to settle underneath his feet, and with it his pulse, which up until that very moment had beat beneath his skin in steady powerful, sure rushes like dragon wings. The storm too had settled, and the clouds broke backwards to their assigned seating in the sky. He had a moment to gather himself, to convince himself of his own bravery, and exceptional courage. But… after only a few beats the ground took up its former procession across the soles of his feet. Inspired by some strange new catalyst to take leave of its previous inertia, he felt his heart begin to despair, as clouds began to rush along the earth bringing with them the uncertainty of its host. He could hear the drums in the distance, just over the sound of his own anxiety scratching against the walls of his imagination. The peace which seemed but only a flicker of a candle in his mind, lost its footing along the edges of his nerve, and shattered in pieces strewn along his various extremities, which exhibited itself as a shudder. The small crowd of distant onlookers, close friends and family whose thoughts, encouragement, and prayers, he could no longer seem to remember, began to fade into deeper recesses of shadows. The air stiff and arid, slid down his lungs and took up a vice grip in his stomach. The dust now rose in a violent dance around his feet and on his side and to his front, and the silhouette of the doubt he thought he had long since slayed took form as his better across the field and over the mount of his internal strife. As he began to feel the negligible tremble that had taken residence in his hands, he clinched them into fist, beat once upon his chest to release the air trapped in his gut, looked forward, chin up, hands sure...facing the direction of his old adversary, and trembled for what he hoped would be one last time.

"NO TIME AT ALL"

Painting- “Portrait of Roman Johnson” by Emerson Burkhart

He awoke in his seat trying to find himself in that fog that guards the gate between here and the landscape of dreams. As his sight gained its proper clarity, and his limbs began to remind him of the folly of where he had chosen to lay his head - his gaze landed upon the sinewy, coal colored figure in his bed. She lay there yet to be kissed by consciousness, serene in her slumber, undoubtedly exhausted from the previous day, months years, toiling under the pre conceived notions that her labour, agency, and body belonged to someone else. He watched as the sun unseated itself from its throne in the sky to pay homage to its favorite daughter, caressing her ever so slightly on her forehead to the tufts of her black hair through the breaks in the window pane. And while the morning sang its ode to her, he thought on how many men had told him he was a friend too long. Of how he too often bent when he should’ve straightened her.. right out. And of how he was too patient. They told tales of other women, and the joys of their company, of the glory of manhood, and the feeble and fickle nature of femininity. They chided him “One woman?!” they said, - always followed by faces so twisted in disbelief and indignation they began to resemble frequently used brown paper bags - “Forever?! He let the memory tug on the muscles in his cheek, forming a wry smile, sat forward in his chair, taking in her wholeness. He pondered the lines in her face, the blackness of her skin, the way she struck down foolishness with a glare in the fashion of St George and his dragon. The way she glowed when alone, her light all that much brighter when she was left to her own devices, the way she cared and lived for herself, and how it made him realized he’d never truly done the same. How after thinking on it a bit, he’d lived for mostly other men - his father, his brothers, his friends, his pastor, - but himself…rarely…maybe..never. He pondered all this and thought “Eternity?... that's no time at all. Would you wait on nothing in this world? …Would you eliminate all the magnificence of time's laborious graces? The slow, soft, wear of patience like water on rock and mountain to form great majesty. The transition of the ash of grief to the soil of joy?… I would.. I would wait. Wait for the welcome nurturing of eternal hands as they hold me up when I'm not yet strong enough to stand.. I would Wait. Wait til those sweet hands gently wipe the smudge from the face of our friendship, gaze upon it with the infinite, and bless it with a kiss, I would ..wait. Allow forever to open its lips and breathe care into our relationship until it cooled the burning broth of our desire, allowing us to savor the ingredients of our love... I would wait. Wait for the omnipresent craftsman to fashion the proper frame with which to view the picture of my, your, our work.. I would wait, wait because eternity is no time at all.  He thought this, and refrained in his heart “No time at all”.

"OUTSIDE"

Painting - Solitude by Daler Usmonov

"I'm afraid" he whispered under his breath,  chin just barely removed from his neck in a pathetic attempt at eye contact with his own shadow, which leered over him like the imposing finger of a mother in mid form of a correction. He could still only see the light as a narrow beam reaching out to him in the darkness from under a door.  It was cold,  but he'd been there just long enough to become acclimated to it.  But every so often the bitterness,  and bite of the environment would remind him that he was never truly warm.  He adjusted his coat of familiarity around him to protect himself against the possibility of any new interruption of this latest stubborn attempt at stagnation. Outside the grayish stained windows of the room inside his head he could hear the faint whispers of the people he longed to connect with, who in turn longed to connect with him. Drowned out by the effusive noise in the collective space of his insecurity. Unsure and bedeviled, he drew his feet away from the encroaching arrow of light. Using what little strength he had preserved against his crippling ailments, he balled up further into his isolated corner, and pretended he didn't hear the knock of opportunity at the door of fate in front front of him. The volume of which made him even more petrified, as it represented the sheer number of possibilities outside the darkness of his self imposed prison. Once more uttering the melancholy refrain... "I am afraid"