Novelist, memoirist, screenwriter, TV writer, producer Rhonda Talbot. Amongst many hats worn, she is a writing consultant, production consultant, does work non-profit; and has even created a company to help stop municipal wrongs. Rhonda has worked as a film exec/acquisitions for many years.

Tree

Beneath the loamy earth, lives my punctured heart, buried alive
My own clandestine dirt box;
this sacred plot not to be touched
Though time creeps as surely as this vine, what grows beneath or above;
evil or divine is quite simply mine

Hack, hack, hack, the ax in his hand,
a man’s labor defines his self;
a self not aware of hidden jewels, not aware of secret histories,
not aware of my very being

Thwack, thwack, thwack,
hedge clippers,
a shriek in the wind, a cry never heard,
a tree destroyed forever

As a piece of me dies, a piece of him grows
Heaving and hauling until every last bit was gone,
leaving nothing at all.

He moved on to another,
I bolted up,
Shotgun in hand, the barrel to be emptied into his heart,
a gaping tunnel into which I would shove my despair
leaving it to rot along with his corpse;

I’m always thinking, and this is what will finally kill me in the end,
Evil thoughts gone astray, out of grip, an echo

I don’t think you like me, my first thought born

A stalker sent me to a psychic as a gift. No strings. Ha.
No easy task, years of hardened cynicism, but
I went and listened and was not entirely dismissive.
After all was said and done,
he told me I had only one thing left in this life to accomplish.

One thing left to do. To like myself. It was good I wasn’t armed.
He even gave me tips, a blueprint.

“Once this part of you starts to grow,

it will happen very

quickly,

wild,

unruly but certain,

just like nature.”

~ Rhonda Talbot

Drift Talbot

I am good at disappearing;
Being a ghost
Pain moves through air with little bother.
Boneless patience
Waiting for life to begin
The day to day is pretend.

At 3 I saw a severed head floating in mud
It was a lady,
A star beam for my mother
Jackie with the boxy hats
But now here she was, dead, drifty, hat-less
Mom would be so disappointed
So I never told
Who could she emulate now?
I held tight my stuffed, ear less dog and disappeared.

I knew it was coming
I always knew things.
Warning my sisters but they laughed
Until it happened then they cried.
But I didn’t, I had prepared.
As a ghost,
Tucked away a protected treasure.
No key.
No access; no one gets in.
The family splintered,
Fallen shards collecting at my mother’s bare feet.

So damaged, more wounds perhaps didn’t matter,
But now we would know all face danger, crimes

Like her, maybe she was a ghost too

But the hardships would arrive
Sometimes unannounced, sometimes expected
Things that break children's hearts;
forgotten birthdays, welfare Christmases,

Sleeping in cars, public bathrooms, community parks,

Hunger and hate seem to build simultaneously.

Perhaps the greatest pain is watching the sea of normalcy
You cannot penetrate

But I watched my sisters quickly build cages around their hearts,
with dirty needles, older men, their eyes turned black.

As they lay face down, skinny arms belted and bloodied, waiting death,
I became even more magical, an actual ghost; I could float

You are the fool; not me,
disappearing into some old bruised mattress,
a night creature folding itself away inside a protective leaf.

The more I was forced down, the more I would fold;
The illusion was so strong often the aggressor, deed done,
Would check to see if I had even been there at all

The memory drifted away
as quick as I passed through his door.

The problem with being a ghost is you know one day, you will have to pay.
You know the day will come, the day your real life starts, the day you will need bones.
Flipped switch, a different channel, a different show,
A different person
This is what you hold onto;

A temporary life will not only end, but will not even matter.

~ Rhonda Talbot

The Sweatshirt

He likes bitter-cold ice and frozen oranges but nothing brown or gold;
Snow beneath our feet like grinding teeth;
I tell him I like the words bone saw and superfluous;
He doesn’t respond.
Mostly because we don’t speak.
Our silence makes this all less real.
But not less irresistible
So unstoppable, a squall
Swallowed, an emotional strangle. No shelter.

He understands this passion, how deep it cuts;
We laugh, ignore any bleeding hearts.
Now he has me pinned to a concrete wall; we sink into the ice, aimless.
It’s nearing dawn.
Exhilaration has removed time, and all the things it’s meant to define.

We stagger up hills; cracked sidewalks, tree roots busting through ancient cement;
Off far away is the fiery slit of dawn; the sun grinds and grinds at the fog;
it creeps in as we slink toward some place long forgotten.

My bones ache, my feet swell; I’m a shell in a new city, a new face, a different me, a darker place.
The cautions left safe back home, because today I am a blithe, cool; and electrifying girl.

This union began with a lie, it will end on a multitude of them;
this dance will sputter out in a grimy gutter;
at first obvious, then later tattered, soiled, out to sea.

His eyes are made of broken green glass, chaotic.
He wears hoods and loves Vaseline,
Do you like my jewelry?
His scrotum is festooned with steel and chrome; a wild hog, my wicked ride.
Bold, it confronts and disturbs me but,
I am outmatched. I am in love.

Blanketed on him, he grips my ass, our hearts thump in the murky air,
Thick with deceit.
I could have stopped.
Stopped here; before all that bother.
That panic
That eventual shatter
But I don’t.

We walk outside, blinded by lights and flashing bulbs.
I’m startled,
He grins and tosses me his soft sweatshirt.
Disappears.
I breathe in his mystery.

Returning to the monotony of watching clocks and ringing phones, I wait.
For more.

Are you happy?
What?
Eight people stare;
The faces are familiar, the lighting is low,
The dinner seems fictional, the mood is normal.

Bitter-cold ice sits in my water glass;
Tormenting me.
Why are they all still staring?
Happy. I answer. Always.

Later, my jeweled lover and I will play out this grim scene;
Ride it down until the rubber burns and the rims scrape the pavement.
Sometimes the price of freedom is so huge that a sweatshirt,
A remnant,
Seems like a fair exchange.

~ Rhonda Talbot