Tonight I wandered away from the river house. I wandered down the pine-lined path of twilight and emerged on the other side. A small town, in the bottom of the valley, lights from downtown. Pale orange, like the sun when it had burnt her hair. The bar was quaint, quiet. The bar tender, Irish-accented, offered me a beer. I'd never drank.
I walked back home during at dawn. The forest always looks different. Less menacing, friendly. Trees whisper good morning, dew falling onto fresh-soaked grass.
I crawl into bed. No one hears it squeak.
I would return again.






By Ashley Dodge©

Crisis

A twilight glow falls over an endless
foggy haze and rushing winds--
which sweep my heart away, leaving in its path, dust and teardrops
which
blotting out my footsteps
make it harder to keep steady

I pass signs, signals and lightning flashes,
hitting the ground
raindrops shatter
what was left of
weather-beaten harmony
on this path

to unknown destiny
to unknown cities
towns, waiting quietly
up ahead
where this dusty, broken path leads...

Mid-Winter Saturday

Spring is attempting to push winter away, colliding into the season with full force. Winter presses forward with a biting wind, remnants of a midnight snow fall the night before. But spring's sun and warm 48-degree weather fights, fights to come through too early. It continues, only seconds left before the door closes behind me. I find out later, as I return across the damp, sunshine-lit March afternoon grass, that winter has won. The wind swirls my tangled red hair round, round, in front of my face. Getting stuck to my lipgloss. My sweater and flannel pajama pants were not enough, I think to myself, bursting back through the door. All this arguing, caught in the middle for the sake of bringing to my boyfriend's house breakfast--a box of Cocoa Puffs, Folgers coffee and my laptop, to do some homework.

Samantha

Children were everywhere--on the slides, playing soccer on the fields of dying grass, on the bleachers, drinking Diet Coke because their mother's did. Samantha urged Orchid to play with her dolls everyday at recess. Today Samantha was gone. Tomorrow, Orchid was sure, Samantha would be gone again. Her absence gave Orchid nightmares. She'd remembered the quiet tears her mother had shed after Samantha's mother had called. At least, she thought her mother had called. Orchid left school early that day. It was raining.
Orchid heard shouts. She looked up from her tattered pink spiralbound journal, a birthday present from Samantha last year at her 10th birthday. The glittered butterfly, glue to the cover, made by Samantha herself, was beginning to wear away. Orchid wrote the last line to her version of pain relief--poetry. They wanted her to join in their game of tag. Orchid used the bathroom instead, hiding herself in the stall until the bell rang.
But Orchid did not cry for Samantha's absence. Samantha was in her journal, in her dreams and even the nightmares. Samantha's brown hair, strands blowing in the wind despite the crowd surrounding her broken body on the stretcher. Orchid didn't need her mother to tell. She'd been missing for two days after Orchid sleptover. Samantha had been ill, the strands of brown hair falling out in chunks. Last week, on her 11th birthday, she'd asked Orchid for one gift. That she'd never tell. Never tell anyone about the water spirits that called to her, that the Bible she kept underneath her mattress had told her not to follow. That God wouldn't want her to do this, that she had worth, purpose. But Samantha didn't know what to choose. She only felt the pain of needles, surgery and not being able to eat chocolate ice cream or pizza.
But Orchid didn't know how much she'd miss Samantha's smile. The one that made Orchid know friendship. The one who read to her poetry. The one who, before Orchid had returned home that night, whispered into her ear "don't tell, you promised. You promised you would live for me." The river had consumed her. It had been raining.
After recess, Orchid went back to her class. She answered questions when asked, turned in her math exam.
After school, she went to a small grassy grave in the cemetery down the street from the school. She laid the journal, along with an orchid she had kept in her bag, the one her mother had bought yesterday and would ask later that night where it had gone,beside the stone gray cross. She whispered goodbye. Later, she sat down by the river and watched the water flow.

By Ashley Dodge©

Alice

Lately, I've been inspired by fairytales. I went to the midnight premiere of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and it was stunning. The world of Tim Burton visually brings the fairy tale to life; brilliance at its best.
When I walk around my campus or lay awake and see stars peeking in through my blinds, I realize just how much I want to write about the beauty we miss in our lives filled with homework, computer screens, migraines and disappointment.
Alice held her own; she fought, with every ounce she had, to accomplish her goals.
"I won't cry... when the world's crashing down, when I finally hit the ground, I won't turn myself around, don't you try to stop me," Avril Lavigne sings in "Alice Underground."
Simple words.
Powerful meaning.
I'm already living my fairy tale. Sometimes it's slaying the Jabberwocky. Sometimes its realizing you've been rejected from graduate school and need to begin your career.
I'm ready to live out my goals, dreams and accomplish the impossible.