Define Beauty

You sit there fuming, when really you're sad.
You give credit to the world for making you mad,
While you pity yourself, think of all that you had,
Disrespect yourself, why don't you think a tad?

The masks you put on are paper thin.
Start peeling them off, stop falling for sin.
Unmask your true self, let the ones who care in.
The ones who care can only try until you want to win.

Beauty shouldn't be defined by how much skin you reveal,
But rather, by the heart you show is real.
Stop yourself from doing something now, feel,
That you know you'll regret later on, deal?

An excerpt from a book I wrote...

Antoinette Valentine slipped gracefully out of her black BMW and walked up the steps into the building before her. Just another day at work. She took the elevator up to the fourth floor of the tall office building and bypassed security with a simple flash of her badge to the security guard. She opened the door at the far left of the hallway by sliding her card through the slot and entered into her familiar office space that she shared with her three other teammates: Ryan King, Noah Jimms, and their "leader" of sorts, Jake Freeman. She was the second person to arrive at work that morning, after Freeman. He was at his desk, actually doing his paperwork for once.
"Morning, boss," she greeted him with a smirk as she settled in behind her own desk and began organizing herself.
"Valentine. No coffee this morning?" he asked, with only a quick glance up from his desk.
"Traffic was awful today - I bypassed. Sorry, boss," she shrugged. She usually brought in coffee for the team, including herself, but hadn't had the chance, "No one else decided to show yet?" she enquired and booted up her computer.
"Not yet. You're second, as usual," he replied.
"One of these days, I'll have to be first," she sighed.
"Then you'll most likely have to stay here all night, but even then, chances are slim," he responded, signing a paper with a flourish and slamming it down onto an increasing stack before him. Antoinette chuckled. The scary thing was, it was true. Sometimes, Freeman never left the office. It was almost like he lived there.
The door beeped and in walked Ryan King, carrying a tray of four coffees.
"I assumed right!" he called over his shoulder and Noah Jimms sauntered in behind him, looking as mischievous as ever.
"Assumed right in what?" Antoinette demanded. He set a coffee carefully on her desk, then on Freeman's, Jimms', and took the final one for himself.
"That since there was so much traffic today, you wouldn't be bringing us coffee this morning," he answered, and sat down behind his desk that sat across from hers and next to Noah's, who's desk sat across from Freeman's. The boss' was situated next to Antoinette's.
Presently, Freeman's cell phone rang. He answered quietly, never taking his eyes off of his paperwork, said yes and okay a couple times, and hung up, grabbing his coffee and standing from his desk in one fluid movement. Antoinette grabbed her small back pack before he could even say "Time to go" and followed him out. Ryan and Noah scrambled after them, coffee in hand, back packs over their shoulders.
"I'm gonna' guess a double murder in an underground parking lot, each stabbed," Ryan said as they hurried to the elevator and descended to the underground parking where their team car awaited, "And I get to drive."
Freeman threw the keys and Antoinette caught them and headed for the driver's seat.
"Guess not, Ryan," she smirked, and unlatched the door and slipped in. Freeman got into the passenger side and the other two hunkered down in the back.
"And I thought my premonitions were on a roll...was I at least right about the case call?" he complained.
"No," Freeman answered simply, not bothering to elaborate. He gave Antoinette the address and fell into pensive silence, no doubt preparing himself for the crime investigation.
"Does the boss seem a little more moody than usual?" Antoinette heard Ryan murmur to Noah. She grinned.
"How would you like to do my paperwork all night, King?" Freeman asked slyly. The backseat fell silent. No secrets were kept from the Boss, "Better prepare yourselves this morning: triple homicide, two of the victims are children and the third is their mother. Ayesha is already on the scene."
"Great..." Ryan mumbled, already apprehensive. No matter how many times you saw or heard about it, you never got used to seeing murdered children. Not that it was any different with adults either. Children were just...harder to deal with as murdered.


Antoinette pulled up to the curb next to the blue gabled house labeled 330283 in black metal numbers on the side and cut the engine. Everyone removed their seatbelts and climbed out of the car. There were a couple police cars out front, two ambulances, and one black car belonging to Ayesha Malestre, their fifth team member who occupied herself with the dead bodies and what had caused their deaths. There was yellow tape lining the front yard. Freeman slipped under it, showing his badge to the cop on the other side, and Antoinette and her two co-workers followed suit. They entered the house and showed their badges to the cop inside the front door.
"Second floor, in the bedrooms. You can't miss it," he told them solemnly. Whatever it was, it wasn't going to be pretty, "And the husband and his daughter are outside," he added.
"Ryan, Noah," Freeman ordered.
"Yes, boss," they said, and headed back outside to question the remaining family members. Antoinette followed him up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom where Ayesha had already started working. The sight of the body made Antoinette's stomach turn, but she managed to keep her expression neutral.
"Morning Ayesha," Freeman announced his presence to the deeply engrossed Ayesha.
"Morning boss. Antoinette," she called, barely glancing up from her work at hand.
"So...what've you got?" Freeman asked.
"Well, by the looks of precision and care and ritual appearance, we've got a homicidal maniac who had personal connection with this particular victim...but that's only premonition," she replied. Antoinette couldn't help but agree. The way the eyes and mouth had been stitched shut; the position of the hands over the chest. It was definitely ritualistic.
"Time and cause of death?" Freeman questioned.
"Sometime between 1 and 4 in the morning. Cause is yet to be determined, but I'd guess that it was the slit throat," Ayesha replied nonchalantly.
"Tell me when you know for sure. You've already checked the other two victims?"
"Yeah, they were in the other bedroom. I had them wrapped up already and just got to work here," she said, and resumed the pace of her work. Freeman nodded and led Antoinette out of the master bedroom and down the hall to the kids' bedroom. They'd also been assaulted in their beds.
"Remind you of anything, Valentine?" Freeman enquired.
"No, boss," she frowned, "You've seen this before?"
"This is how my sister was found," he responded simply. Antoinette stared for a minute. How could she have forgotten? Of course...and they still hadn't caught the murderer. That explained his silent behavior, "Maybe you can help me solve it this time, Valentine," he murmured, and headed out of the room. She followed him, after snapping out of her initial revelation, and descended the staircase on his tail. He led her outside towards where Ryan and Noah were speaking with a tearful man who was holding a young teenager close to him, who was also crying. They turned and walked to meet Antoinette and Freeman, leaving the crying ones behind them at a safe distance.
"The daughter came home at around eight this morning from a field trip with her grade ten class and found her mom and siblings in...the state they were in," Ryan recounted immediately.
"What about the dad?" Freeman asked.
"He came when she called him. He'd been at work all night. He's a surgeon at the hospital and he was on his break when the girl called. She'd already called the police and was waiting for them to come but she was panicking and all. He came down immediately and arrived shortly after the authorities," he replied.
"They said that they didn't know if it had anything to do with it, but the mother, the victim? She'd been receiving odd phone calls. All she would hear was heavy breathing at the other end of the phone. They reported them in but no one did anything about them," Noah added on.
"Well, you don't have to tell them yet, but that has everything to do with the case," Freeman told them quietly, "This exact scenario has happened before, except that there were no children involved and the woman was single living alone in the country. She got the same calls once a week - they started a month before she was found," he explained, "They never found the killer."
His light grey eyes bored into each of his team's meaningfully.
"It's time we did."

Goodbye

Sit here and cry for a while in my arms.

Don’t hold it in,

Just let it go.

Let the tears flow,

Like a waterfall of sorrow and goodbyes,

Don’t hold it in,

Just let it go.

The worst pain there is,

Is pain of abandonment.

Can saying goodbye compare

In any way at all?

The throat constricting,

Heart is pounding,

Sorrow screaming to be heard.

And they don’t come back,

They can’t come back at all.

Sit here and cry for a while in my arms.

Don’t hold it in,

Just let it go.

Let the tears flow,

Like a waterfall of sorrow and goodbyes,

Don’t hold it in,

Just let it go.

How do you handle

The pain raging in your heart?

Do you cry so quietly,

Lock yourself away?

Or do you scream out to the heavens

Asking why, why, why?

Can you stand it,

Can you take it?

Aren’t you like everybody else?

Sit here and cry for a while in my arms,

Don’t hold it in,

Just let it go.

Let the tears flow,

Like a waterfall of sorrow and goodbyes,

Don’t hold it in,

Just let it go.

And know

That if you need me,

I’m there, forever there.

In you heart,

You can always find me and see,

We’re not that far apart.

But still…

Small consolation…

So you sit here and cry for a while,

In my arms.

You will be,

Warm and safe and dry,

Ready to see.

It’s not forever nor

Forever and a day.

So take your pain and wash it all away.

Please take my pain,

And wash it all away.

The Star Song

I had a plan

That I developed last night

To keep you safe, your world bright.

I had a ploy

That I hang on to even now,

To keep you safe from all kinds of harm.

Do you know

The safest place for you

Would be up in the stars, beyond the trees.

To get you there

I'll have to do what it takes,

Even if what it takes causes me break.

The worst crime

The world can condemn me to

Is letting it touch you and mar your perfection.

So what I'll do

Is take you away from them

I'll send you away and let you live with the stars

And to punish myself, I'll have to stay behind...

Some Random Writing of Mine: Alone

Alone, beneath the moon. The stars. The black void, sparkling above, forever spreading out into the distance. No end to the darkness...The dead of night was the death of sound. Silence engulfed, enveloped, smothered him. He could think of nothing else, and he allowed it to eat away at him, to slowly, relentlessly, eat him up from the inside.

What had he done?

The lapping of waves, just below the rocky cliff. A beam of moonlight shone down, illuminating a patch of water near the cliff, showing the doorway to that deep, dark, not blue but black subterranean abyss. Should he throw himself in? Should he throw caution to the winds and punish himself for his unforgivable sin? Or would remaining alive, with that now empty space in his heart, be better punishment?

What had he done?

He raised his eyes to the sky. The ends of his straw-coloured hair rustled like distant whispers in a breeze. His blue eyes; they had been gentle once; were squeezed shut now. And the tears still flowed down his cheeks, glistening, shining, glittering in the crystal light of the moon against his skin. His pain screamed out as a silent wail, coming forth inaudibly from his wide open mouth – stretched wide from his pain. His self-inflicted pain.

What had he done?

And he finally screamed into the night, breaking the void of silence that had so carefully covered his ears like a stifling blanket. He screamed out to the black sky, the crystal moon, the blinking stars. His throat grew raw and he screamed still. His lungs begged for breath and he screamed still. The sound of the most devastated of men. The most dead of men. Dead while alive. He was dead.

Dead.

          Dead!

What had he done? How could he have…?

And he slowly lowered his head, ashamed that he had been so bold as to look to the heavens after what he had done. And he slowly opened his eyes, wet and misted over with tears, flowing because of his pain. His faze fell upon the water, the black engulfing, washing surface. His gaze fell upon the moonlit patch where the darkness seemed to swallow him whole…

A wave.

          A beat.

A wave was all it took.

          A beat was all that followed.

Scraping the dark surface from beneath, barely reaching for the sky beyond. Was it in his mind? He saw it…the white skin of a pale hand, hardly clinging to life as it fought to surface. It fought for its life, its right to live. It fought for this right, the very way she had…he had snuffed it out, had he not?

What had he done?

          …what would he do?

It was his body and lungs that would scream in protest to the heavens as he leapt, throwing his arms out, straightening his legs. It was his body and lungs that would cry out as the cold water suffocated him, as the waves crashed around, behind him, above him, against the cliff’s face. His body screamed against the cold that froze to the bone, and further as he broke surface. His lungs burned from the exertion, the cold air. The water tried to jump down his throat, to drown him. The waves tried to slam him back into the cliff, to pull him under, over and over, as he stretched out flat and worked his arms, his legs, in desperation. Perhaps he had taken too much time already…but he reached out, despair trying to squeeze the life out of him – whatever kind of life that may be. A great surge brought him to the patch of crystal light. Now only his wet limbs occupied the space.

No…no…no! Where?

Water dripped down his face, his nose, his chin, his hair, stinging his eyes.

Where?

          Where?

                   Where?!

And then there! Left, behind him by about a foot, still floating just beneath the surface. He surged, he dove, he stretched out to reach it as it began to sink – to sink? No! – he reached out and his hand grasped…closed around…something. Solid. Cold. Thin.

Was that…a beat?

He arrived, pulled with one hand, brought the other hand around and found a hold. He pulled up, enveloped it in his arms, as he kicked to remain afloat with this new weight bearing down on him.

Hold on…hold on…don’t sink…don’t sink…don’t die!

His strength balled up and combusted in a powerful blast. His lungs. His arms. His body. They moved together without conscious thought to direct them. The shore to the right of the cliff, licked gently by the waves, was scarred by their arrival. The sand bore the marks of the passage as he dragged it along on stumbling feet, up the shore, the grit sticking to his clothes, his skin, his hair.

Collapsed.

He collapsed in the sand, breathing heavily. Hard. The water coming up in coughs as he strained for breath. His left arm, stretched over the survivor. Was it a survivor? His right arm, crushed beneath him. He breathed in…out…in…out…and finally took the time to affirm what he could maybe have accomplished. His right arm propped him up on his side as his pain lay dormant, while he tried to see if his desperation had perhaps – just perhaps – saved a life.

He had to life his left hand to wipe water from his eyes, his face, and to push back his dripping bangs.

The moon, shining brightly above, crystal in a clear sky, shone down on them, there, on the would-be-white shore. The stars twinkled gently in the dark, through the dark, upon him, as his eyes graced her fallen face. Her skin, pale and wet in the white, pale light, glistening with beads of clear water, curved from a defined jaw to a pointed chin. Her sharp cheek bones sat prominently below closed, lidded eyes. Her long, dark eyelashes tickled her white, pale forehead. Her soaked, black hair, with grains of sand clinging to the strands, splayed about her, fell away from her face, her clear, smooth, perfect face…her divine face, inlaid with the softest of curved lips…the straight, pointed nose at the visage’s centre. The very image of perfection…but for the deathly pallor that infected her. Her thin, slender figure was clung to by a thin, white under-dress. The fabric stuck to her every curve as eh lay oblivious to the world, splayed across the sand like a fallen angel.

He was…too late?

Unworthy! How unworthy was he, to so much as look upon this woman after his failures?! What was he thinking? His pain had clearly ailed his mind! How could he think himself so fortunate to lay eyes upon such a beauty as this, and still live?

Yet once again, he had failed a beautiful woman. He did deserve to die, once and for all. His unworthy eyes graced her figure again. Tears welled up in those hurt, blue eyes once more as he drew himself up, to sit on that white shore, to draw her limp, frail form into his lap, to cradle her delicate, perfect head in his arms.

Why must they encounter this way?

The thought was naught but a whisper, carried by the breath of his lungs into the still air of the night. Her life could have been so filled with beauty and fortune, and yet…and yet…

Was it he, at fault? This woman, the image of perfection, whom he had never met…was her death the consequence to his living? He was…a devil? Destined to rot in hell…was he not?

And yet…and yet! He cradled her with softness, tenderness, in his arms; ere she lay…He could not bear the thought that he had killed her! No!

No!

Again, a whisper, carried from his ungrateful lips, by a breath of wind. And this whisper alighted upon her delicate ear. The voice of a man, dying inside, revived her heart, her soul, from the depths of their slumber. Did she dare believe…did she dare? Only the purest of men could have brought her back. She knew no pure men. Who was this, then, holding her? Crying tears over her like a lover. His tears were what awoke her after all. Glittering, perfect tears…from perfect blue eyes…and a pure heart.

Her watched her eyelids flutter open, halfway, and breath flooded her lungs and her chest rose…fell…a quickening pulse pattered on within her and she caught his gaze, half-aware. Only half-aware…but aware! How unworthy was he as he buried his tear stained face in the crook of her cold, soft neck…a woman he did not know, saved by his unworthy dare…

I am sorry…

Sorry…

So sorry…

For what?

For living…

Don’t be sorry…anymore…

As her delicate arms wrapped around him, he knew he was terribly unworthy, but…he could not deny her her request, could he?

If anyone could save him, she could. And she did.

If anyone could save her, he could. And he had.