Yore Days (Excerpt Three)

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When the war came, it was a tsunami, taking with it American culture of the day--sweeping it far from its homeland. The identity of America was redefined and my mother found that she herself was forced to change. No longer was the youth of America a population of innocent and naive children of modern times. The war cut years out of a timeline giving Young America no choice but to adapt and mature. My mother was forced to grow up and view the world realistically before the age at which other generations were.

The young man that my father was let the tsunami drag him along with it, far from my mother. Then was a time of correspondence through written words and described feelings on crisp sheets of paper. Howard Stevens sent the woman he loved romance in an envelope. They are now in my possession and my heart. His fervent affection for my mother was captured in ink and I will forever hold those letters dear to me.

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Yore Days (Excerpt Two)

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The Depression became her parent, raising her as a practical young woman with dreams behind fearful eyes. She lived on nothing except her mother's and father's good-sense. It kept her spirit alive even though around her, people were being kicked to the ground--some, below the ground--by their own achievements. When everything backfired on the world, she had a shield prepared.

Then the war came marching in and her faith seemed to be being deported to men across the oceans who needed it more. She backed down only to come up a victor. She maintained hope and love, never daring to let them fall into the darkness that was consuming the lives around her. Friends, dear and beloved friends, were shipped out. Some were never seen again after their ships disappeared beyond the horizon of the shining seas.

She kept all of that certitude about everything being alright because her everything came to the forefront. And her everything--her soldier--was sent to the front.

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Thank You, My God

I don't know who to thank, what to blame, but I'm happy. I walk the streets of this teeny tiny town and have a happy-go-lucky feeling that I know no one can take away. The blue skies, the puffy white clouds, the crystal clear water slipping over my feet as I sit on the rocks overlooking the lake. It's all picturesque and perfect. I'm greeted with smiles and compliments, and those head-turns that fill me to the brim with confidence. And then there's him. He multiplies this invulnerability, these flawless moments, by a million.

I hadn't been able to write songs for a while. I guess my heart wasn't in it. It didn't have stories to tell or beauty to show. But as soon as he entered the scene, my heart kicked in and now words tumble out of me, out of my soul, into a blank storybook, empty pages of my memory, just waiting for the right character. Now that he's here, we're writing a story together. Two heads are better than one, and in the end, this story will be a bestseller. The chapters will be so beautiful that I'll run them through my mind day after day and even as I sleep. I'll dream of him. Of us.

Oh, Lordy, thank you, my God.

The Missing Flavor

(My lyrics to "Wanted You More" by Lady Antebellum.)

You left the scene with silence

But your voice echoes in the wind

You dressed your words up nicely

But the cover-up was too thin

One word from you

Sends me back a few

Thousand years to a hopeful past

That's how long I've been waiting

And felt my heart aching

Since I found this hopelessness would last

Chorus

I can taste the missing flavor

Of you and your sweetness

We used to be simply one person

Completing each other's completeness

I thought you'd see

The hints I would leave

That I just wanted what was mine

I still thought you as my one, my only

But that was a different time

Chorus

On the Subject (Of Love)

The lesson we should get from the concept of love is not to go out and find it, but to be taught to recognize it.

Some people think love should be taught or one should be exposed to it lightly. That love is almost like lemonade that's too strong and has got too much flavor. So you water it down. But I think that's what is so wonderful about love. It's supposed to jolt your senses and you're suppose to experience something completely different. Taste something you've never tasted before. Something both sweet and sour. But you love it just the same.

It's not a waste of time talking to you, but you don't know that it'd be time better spent if we were together.

Marcus (Excerpt)

Don was smitten with her--overwhelmed by her never failing charm and not just that, but he was mesmerized by her heart. She seemed to the right things and he was more than flattered when he became one of them. he was, in fact, astonished that such a seemingly flawless person could invite him into her shower of endearment and affection.
She was his junior by six years, mature yet constantly full of an innocent energy, a youthful eagerness to live in motion. His own mother was that way, acting out of the innocence she had hidden from the thieves of adolescence. Sydney, too, had this ability: to draw the freshness of life, the youthfulness of growing up, out of thin air. Don was taken on a journey with her. While the rest of the population experienced bridge burning years during the shift from childhood to adulthood, Sydney had kept the fire from destroying her path back to those figment-filled days. Imagination still intact, she traveled with Don through the portal to the beautiful world of a passionate girl, touched, but untainted by the grown-up one.
They became almost inseparable--making sure they didn't go on for too long without being in each other's arms. She insisted to her family that he was the one and he made no indication that he felt differently. He was devoted to this beautiful woman, full of endless spark. Behind his eyes, replete with adoration, everyone guessed thoughts of an endless future with her were floating about. At least, they hoped to God this was true.
Don was that one exception to the theory that nice guys finish last. He was always fussed over, either by the girls, hopeful for his tenderness, or the boys, anxious to befriend him. He was a genius in that he was a remarkably good person with high standards, but not too high hopes.

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Yore Days (Excerpt One)

They say a person's eyes are the windows to their soul. My mother's eyes used to be the color of the sea, vigorously alive with their sparks of green, gray, and those marine blue streaks. Now, they are simply gray, giving one the perception that her soul is battered and tired, much like the abandoned dinghies along the shore outside my home in Magnolia, Massachusetts.
Kodie Glouster, I am known as and I find it rather ironic given that my last name is pronounced the same as the vacation spot for Bostonians, Gloucester (a few minutes north of Magnolia). It is not, in fact, pronounced as "chester" or "cester". For a time, that was uncanny and incomprehensible to my mother who insisted in pronouncing it glawh-seh-ster. Mind you, that phonetic translation is probably incorrect.
My mother, Coral, was, as a young woman, a natural and pure beauty. Her name seemed to reflect her look and heart as though she were the sister of a goddess born from the ocean, perhaps Aphrodite. It was predestined that the sailors of Uncle Sam's navy would fall for her. They clamored for her affections and treasured as much as a moment of her attention. She was the ocean in human form--sometimes pacific and other times, outraged and invulnerable, yet always possessing that magnificent feminine beauty and majesty.

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