Dear Diary …. by Kellianne Sweeney

I wait.

Dressed in gray, the sky is gray, the water is gray

No breath of a ripple.

I once

frantically screamed your name into the muddy waters

Knowing you had succumbed.

My voice descending to your deaf ears

Echoing back to me

Creating silence.

I stood breathlessly on the edge

of the cropped, stubbled grass

That melded into slippery mud as it slid inside

The murky waters.

I agonized whether to dive in to try to save you.

I whispered for you to raise your hand up to me.

I waited.

No breath of a ripple.

The fog encased sky remained gray.

I was cold

My bare arms mud splattered

My hair half tied and wispy

My white dress streaked in gray

A ragged wind snatched at my hair and dress fitfully.

I step back from the slick ledge of the endless pond

And donned a cloak.

I am covered in the dampness

But I still feel the cold stinging my face.

Now, instead of watching only the filthy water,

I also watch the sky

Knowing the sun will eventually break through

Sometimes, I think I almost see it.

But not yet.

I wait.

Having faith

That I will know when my waiting will end

And that the sun will pierce through the grayness.

If not here,

Then somewhere else that my path leads.

Dear Diary,

Ah, the weeds that grow in a Garden Untended.

Didn’t I just yank a few out

As I was passing by the other day?

Certainly, pulling a couple should have helped?

But no.

Where did this ugly jungle come from?

Their roots are long and thick and coiled.

Where are my flowers?

Their delicate fragrance is not to be found.

I anxiously search to assure myself that they still exist.

There.

Deep within the mass of angry, threatening growth

Are the tiny, white wild flowers

Of hope and fresh joy

Waiting patiently amongst the chaos.

And so the work begins.

Each weed extracted is painful to

Endure with their thorns and clutching roots.

But, the Garden must be cleared

Of suffocating weeds

To allow hope and joy to grow and breathe.

And so I toil.

Didn’t I have to do this before?

Yes, I did. Now, again.

And I remember the beauty of the Cleared Garden

With only the fresh, white wild flowers

Released.

I must not allow my Garden to be ransacked thus, again.

I must be diligent

And recognize and banish the weeds

As they creep in before they own

My Beautiful Garden.

Dear Diary,

I had awaken with what I will call a Balloon Face. Yes, I am exaggerating, but that was what came to mind. My eyelids were puffy and when I glanced downward, I could see the left side of my face poking out. A look in the mirror confirmed my ghastly appearance. I had diligently scrubbed and rescrubbed my face the night before. My face had been deeply caked with artfully applied makeup the day before to render my face appropriate for a professional looking photograph. Amazing stuff, that makeup. The resulting pictures were quite impressive. I believe that my face trauma was due to the fact that under normal circumstances it is generally naked. I am not a big makeup person. Eyeliner and mascara complete my look. When I was in high school my face was occasionally splattered with stage makeup for plays, and I will admit to experimenting with some more extensive looks, but ultimately my face became used to a minimalistic approach to embellishment. My face was now rebelling and swelling.

This instance took me back in history to the only other time that my face reacted in such a way. The culprit, surprisingly, was chocolate cake; Black Forest chocolate cake. I have no idea why it’s called that, but it does sound rather eerie, doesn’t it? It wasn’t because I ate the cake, it was because the cake was smeared on my face by my friend Carol. We were not children. We were adults with our own children, and we basically had a food fight, or a chocolate cake smear to be more exact. I will admit that I started it. It was a beautiful chocolate cake that had not yet been touched. Carol said something very funny to me that demanded an extremely witty, sarcastic reply. Instead, I completely startled her by gouging the cake and depositing it on her surprised face. I will have to say that her expression was absolutely priceless and it was worth everything that I received as a result of my action. Of course she retaliated. Our other girlfriend and all three husbands watched in disbelief. They were sure that we had lost our giggling, childish minds. When playtime was over, we dutifully cleaned up our mess as all mature adults should do. That’s when my face began to swell. The ballooning of my face only made everything more hilarious to us.

The chocolate cake incident became the cornerstone of future practical jokes that Mandy and I would play on each other throughout the years. It is a fond, distant memory brought suddenly to my mind by my recent makeup induced face expansion. It is odd what can trigger vivid memories. I just hope that whatever was in the makeup that made my face swell is not the same ingredient that we were eating in that cake!