Locked in a prison with no file,
An agoraphobic exile
Misplaced in a world that’s a stage.
I rattle the bars of my cage.
A leper locked away alone,
Becoming feral on my own.
With tears of frustration and rage,
I rattle the bars of my cage.
I write to reclaim sanity,
What’s left of it inside of me.
Words scream silent upon the page.
I rattle the bars of my cage.
Photography: http://fav.me/d8xlc00
This epic begins with Waterbender, part 1. I encourage you to read that first if you have not already.
His progress was slow but
He was not crestfallen.
He labored, persevered,
Hard work did not stall him.
He would never have dreamt
To ask more of the moon,
Had it not been for
A destructive typhoon.
The cyclone struck
With all of its might,
Leaving carnage and fires
That lit up the night.
His village in flames,
He escaped to the bay,
But he was not strong enough
To keep the inferno away.
He watched helpless,
The forest was consumed.
He had to do something or
They were all doomed.
His voice pierced the darkness,
His tone do-or-die,
“Great Mentor please help,
You are stronger than I!”
The moon responded
To his desperate plea,
“The time has come,
Listen closely to me.
You are the hero
That your people need.
You have shown great honor,
Shunned excess and greed.
The incantation I utter
That shall now be cast,
Charges you with alone
With responsibility so vast…
I, Moon, agent of Mother Nature,
Powerful orb of the night,
Celestial body and
Earth’s sole satellite,
Recognize you, Brandon,
To be the Cosmos’ son.
You’re a bender of fluids,
Your planet’s Chosen One.
I bestow upon you
Capacity without limit
To protect your world,
And all that live in it.
For let it be known,
I bequeath upon thee,
The gift of the righteous
And control of the sea.”
He felt it immediately,
Vim coursed through his veins.
Finally his powers
Had broken their chains.
He lifted his hands
A mammoth wall gave rise,
This one so tall
Water stretched to the skies.
So diligently he had
Perfected his technique,
He feared not this potency,
He need not be meek.
With immense confidence
He doused the great blaze,
Reducing an inferno
To a mere smoky haze.
The villagers rejoiced.
A champion was born.
His gallant tale was spread
Before darkness became morn.
This poem & its character have spawned a new hero universe. New paladins are in the works, plus stories begin to intertwine as the waterbender meets the weather controller soon. Please check back as the saga continues and let me know what you think!
Image courtesy of documentingreality.com
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You left me to endure alone,
The only love I’d ever known.
You enticed me, pulled me astray,
Tore out my soul, left it to fray.
I am withering on my own.
There is no fire and no brimstone.
There’s just a world of monotone.
Void of color, my skies are gray.
…You left me…
Adrift within the great unknown,
My senses deadened to the bone.
You are a thief; I was your prey.
You stole my heart and went away,
A bandit with a core of stone.
…You left me…
Photography: http://fav.me/d7y8dga
When the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge began and circulated around the sports world and into the celebrity world, I felt pretty safe from its reach. I laughed at the videos, made fun of their reactions, and while I thought it was a great way to raise awareness & stimulate donations, I never really worried much about the challenge making its way all the way to me. Well, yesterday it found me. Thanks to my friend, Craig Hill, I too got to play along.
Here is a link to my video: ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: Carrie Page
(Audio in text) I am Carrie Page. I was nominated to take the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge by Craig Hill. I will be participating and donating. I now get the honor of paying forward the challenge and choose 4 of you. I’m selecting local leaders and business owners in the hopes that they will involve their staffs and employees to raise even more funds and awareness for a worthy cause. So, I challenge…
Grand Rapids Mayor, George Heartwell
DreamPoint Productions owner and Extend Your Range TV host, Justin Olk
Flees ATA Martial Arts owner, Dwayne Flees
and
Anderson EDM Services owner, Erik Anderson
You all have 24 hours. My time, unfortunately, is up.
<pour & squeal>
A little over 12 years ago I was pregnant with my third child, my husband’s first. Things were not going entirely smoothly, so the doctors performed regular ultrasounds. During the second ultrasound we were asked, “Do you want to know the baby’s gender?” Brian and I both responded with a resounding, “YES!”.
“Let’s see here, I need to get the right angle. Ok, there it is. You are having a…<drum roll> GIRL!”
I responded, “HA! My sister was wrong. It’s a girl.” See, my sister has this uncanny knack for predicting a child’s gender in utero. She was so sure I was pregnant with a boy, she had already bought a little matching hat & onesie set covered in blue stars.
The ultrasound technician’s prediction solved a problem for us. We had settled on a girl’s name but had zero ideas for a boy. It was decided, Annika Marie would arrive soon. My husband even sent me this email shortly after we got the news:
(yes, I printed this email, cut it out, hung it near my computer, and kept it all of these years)
Subsequent ultrasounds did not change that determination, so we proceeded in setting up the pink and purple nursery. It had been 8 years since my family had a newborn around, so they were beyond excited to buy oodles and oodles of baby girl clothes. I was proud of my level of organization. All of those gifts were washed, folded, sorted by size, and placed in the nursery. We were ready. The only thing left to do was bring home our baby girl.
On the morning of August 18, 2002, it was clear that our day had finally arrived. I packed, showered, did my hair, applied a little makeup, and set my fantasy football draft order (in case I wasn’t discharged from the hospital in time for my fantasy football draft. Priorities.) While most of this was going on, my husband ran around in a state of half panic, half uncontrollable excitement. I thought he’d go off the rails when I sat at his computer to adjust my player priority for the draft. I thought his head would explode when my water broke on his office chair as I was wrapping up that task. Oops, sorry honey.
The baby wasn’t in a huge hurry once we arrived at the hospital. I watched two full Chris Farley movies before things really got going. There was only just a split second of alarm when the cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck, but the doctor managed to get the situation under control very quickly. Just a couple of short minutes later Dr. Carlson announced the delivery, “Congratulations, you have a healthy baby boy!”
<insert screeching record sound>
WHAT?!?
I looked that man square in his eyes and said this, verbatim (sorry about the language, I was REALLY surprised), “You better be f^*#ing kidding me.”
Then I looked at my husband’s face. His mouth was half agape/half smiling. His eyes were wide with shock. “No joke. He has a penis.”
Brian was so thrilled. Both his parents and mine have told me that when he walked into the waiting area to announce the big news, his feet weren’t even touching the ground. They had all brought pink gifts. They all left immediately to exchange those gifts for blue ones. Despite the fact that we never had agreed on a boy’s name and hadn’t even discussed one in at least 4 months, we didn’t hesitate to name him. He just looked like a Brandon. Guess what he wore for his newborn picture… yeah, the onesie and hat with the blue stars that my sister bought before we thought he was a she.
So my super organized preparedness was out the window. The girl clothes, which had been liberated of their tags and already washed, were all packed away. (They did not go to waste, however. A couple of short months later a friend endured a horrific tragedy. Without going into too much detail about that, she needed those baby girl clothes. Those clothes needed a baby girl. It was meant to be.) My then eight year old daughter, Kylie, moved into the pink and purple room. Brandon moved into Kylie’s more neutrally colored room. We adjusted swiftly. Our family was complete and our hearts were full. Boy, girl, it didn’t matter. We had a healthy baby.
Today that baby turns 12 years old. He has a big heart and an old soul. He’s kind, considerate, and full of hugs. He is cautious and smart, clever and funny. He loves bacon, cooking, riding quads, fishing, music, movies, and bacon. Yes, I know I said “bacon” twice. He likes it twice as much as he likes anything else. Seriously, here is a close up of that shirt he’s wearing in the featured image:
Happy birthday to my sweet, adorable, fun, smart, bacon-loving SON, Brandon!
Carrie Mayhem 