mayday

Box of tissues. Yes. I do remember being impressed with your vivid dialogues. They make these scenes not easier to read. I am happy for Jason in his brother and dad and I wonder when Barbara will remember her eldest son and not the embarrassment and image of the sick or deformed he has become to her.

Right decision? It is the easy way out. When will he start seeing what he wants, is attracted to? What will make him see that? You are keeping us on tenterhooks, MericCotton!

I have just found this story. Well written, fun to read and lots going on...

This is full of strong images difficult to forget Let me send you this: White wispy clouds are drifting high The first blue sky for days This morning the rain stopped and the air is fresh and crisp Birdsong from the trees on the river banks The first promise of spring in the clear light may be gone with the dusk in an hour's time No matter. Its promise is enough for now.

Yes, it is, but are we always up to weathering them?

I am on that journey into the past, chapter 7 so far. Phew! Storms? Gales?

Ok. I have just read this and normally I would go back to the stories I have obviously missed. But not today. This feels so real. Not knowing the main characters now - I'm going to do something about that in a minute - I cannot imagine what will evolve. How can Don make such a change up to his husband? How can anybody? The right thing to do is usually not the easy one. Angry the young man will be. Lost. In need of help and all sorts of support. What his years as a child and a teenager so far have been like will be crucial. How will he learn to live a new life? Thank you for another journey into the unknown...

Beautiful and sooo moving

Confusing.. or I do not get it. Suddenly so many feelings? How blind can one be?

"And my fear is my shield" We do need those... I do not know where we would be without fear, without remembering pain...

you make it easy to feel with / for your characters... I love how Eric is becoming more and more daring. And how our two young men are helping him along. I still remember how it all started...

Yep, lots of promise, now even more. We know more about Jared and that Paul still has a lot to learn about himself... nice twist with Tommy

Oh Tim! this is the first time I have read this. I am devastated to read what you have gone through even after everything else that man had done to you and you had to survive. The past is with us, for a long time, but not for ever. Time does heal wounds. But it does so at its own pace. And depending on how deep the wounds go. My mother was badly hurt when she was a teenager. She has not been able to forgive yet, even at 80. My father, who is even older, still has trouble discarding food that has gone off because as a child he suffered hunger for weeks while he was fleeing enemy troops during WWII. Some wounds, those we would not normally call wounds, stay with us, it seems. The losses I myself have suffered are with me, but their hurts have been lessening over time. I know that I remember the pain in some cases but that pain itself has lost its sting. Time has been my friend. Your life, however, is on another scale. Your hurts are deeper, and it will take longer for you to remember the pain as a memory, I guess, if at all possible. My losses have never been life-threatening. There has not been trauma in my life. So I cannot really answer your question for you unless: we own our past. But what we do with our possessions is a different matter. Nobody can help us there. We have to give it its own place and keep it there. Sometimes we can only do it after facing it again and again and again. The good thing about us is that what we think of as eternity is not that. It simply seems too long. Forgive me for rambling...

lot's of promise and a good read so far!

there was no choice. - critical words You cannot help who you love. There is never any question in here about your love being returned. And yet, is not the one we keep at arm's length the one we keep there, we do not let come closer? In your verses the universe is blamed for not letting him come closer... The ache I feel is real and I know you feel it also; How can you know that about him, too? unless you just believe that about him instead of knowing. Maybe this is due to the dream it originates from... Strong feelings but no certain conclusions. Like life is sometimes....

Thank you, Parker, for this delightful Christmas present! Merry Christmas to you and all your loved ones!

In the beginning I could see no way out of the darkness. None. I am not sure how you have changed that but you have or your story has ? There is hope now. And life and warmth.

Lovely. And lovely cliff hanger, too!

they go together, seem to belong to each other, feed from each other. They breathe simple joy and love and care and awareness of what is. The birds embody life in oh so many forms - loud, brazen, shy, flitting... and the watcher is part of it all - beautiful -

Sweet!

You have made me weep again, with joy at the first and at the beauty of your images in the second. If words can alter the fate of those we love and hold dear yours may have all the power to do so.

I wish I was a native speaker of English...

So impressed with your rhymes! Do not ask me to understand the ideas - too many gaps of knowledge here.. but I love the way it sounds...

this hurts... somehow what is happening is so wrong - I feel for these guys

Do feel hugged.