Micah Park Biffle

   The Wild West  My father sprung from the porch and swept me up in his arms. At first I was not alarmed, as a young girl I thought for a moment he was playing with me. But as he picked me up and I giggled he gave no equal response.   I looked up, his face was stern with worry. His eyes gazed into the horizon as the sun started to sink behind the short cascade of desert hills. I then looked over as well and there in the distance like walking shadows, were six men riding horses.   We often got visitors at our home. We were near a central road for travelers. Which we often gave them a place to rest as long as they respected our rules. But these visitors, if you could even call them that were not the usual kind.   My father rushed me into the house and told me to lock the door in stay inside. I was then overcome with fear. My father shut the door and I locked it. As he shut it I saw him reaching for his pistol that was slung over his chair on the ...

   Imagination to Change    High up we take to our imagination, for the world around us is poor. Broken, an apocalyptic spectacle that teeters on the unforgivable. Hundreds of abandoned buildings stand with dark and dreary faces. Broken windows form with jagged edges. Doors hang like  loose nails upon fingers and the walls slowly cave to the unwavering season of winter.   Empty lots of concrete split by the hand of nature. Weeds sprout like appendages reaching desperately for air. Once covered in the crust of  heavy darkness they now breach with a chance of breath.   But how foreign they appear to us, to me and my brother. We have been here our entire lives, in this, dark phantasmal place. This cryptic realm of what we are told is reality. But something we have always felt lingers in our heads, this thought of a better place.    A place where people smile as you pass by. A place where the efforts of man are not st...

A Mountain Tragedy  It's an early morning, the sun has yet to crest over the mountain tops as we drive down from their man made veins. It has just rained, the water is settled upon the dark asphalt with gentle reflections. Ahead of our view is endless trees.  They hug the sides of the streets with great command. They stand silent, expressing a magnitude of brilliance, brilliance nature has built over millions of years. It has been three days since we were last home. The weekend spent in the flesh of the mountains has been amazing.  There is nothing quite like the views that the teeth of the world bare. You feel so small when you reach the top, overlooking the vast expanse of nature. Its bristled hair of green, its pools of tears and clouds of mist resonate deep in the soul.  You know you belong among it, yet there is an unfamiliarity of it. Like a distant cousin you have never met till today. You know your blood is of the same line, yet you know nothing o...

 A Fathers Twist For Love   The old man sinks his teeth into the bloody stake. His jaw moves slowly as age has taken to this old mans body. He sits alone as his somber face looks to an empty seat. His hair slicked back, his glasses sitting snug upon his face.   He wears a black tie and a black suit. Appearing as if from a funeral. As I sit from my table I watch  with a strange feeling of sadness. I know nothing of this old man, but he sits alone, challenging himself with each motion.   His frail body postures in a slump as I assume his bones are not longer a concern of his. As he sits chewing his steak he places down his fork and reaches into his suit pocket. From it he pulls out a rose, with a stem no longer that of a finger.   On the other end of the table sits an empty glass and other dining amenities. He carefully stands up and starts to walk, doing his best not to strain himself. Each step is merely inches, his hand reaches out with the ros...

 Sophia's Love    "Let your umbrella unfold, dance beneath the rain when others won't shelter you with the echoes of love my dear." Her mother said as she kissed her upon the forehead.   Sophia looking up at her mother smiles as she holds her pink umbrella above her head. Her mother, raising up from the kiss takes Sophia by the hand and they begin to walk. Sophia, only five and her father off on a business trip, her mother becomes lonely.   And so they walk, they walk through evenings, mornings, dusk's and dawns. Watching the graceful colors of sunsets and sunrises. Sophia's mother teach's her to admire the colors before them. Not just the wonderful vibrant colors, but also the dull. The gloomy streaks of darkness.   For everything has a purpose in this world. From the thunder storms to clear skies. Sophia, holding her mother's hands as they walk through the rain looks and up and asks, "Mother, why do you cry? Do the colors of this clo...

   A Spanish Paradise  It is a start, a new seeking of life. Her heart has never been the same and how badly she wants it back. How dearly she wants to caress the moon with her lips and the sun her heart. Delicately letting her soul unfold like the blooming of a flower beneath the cool rain of spring.   And so Melody takes to the skies with a one way ticket to her paradise. To a small town in South America where she had gone once before as a child, visiting her grandfather. She remembers the buildings, how warm their sandstone colors were.   How elegantly the sun danced off the artistry of the horizon against the mountains covered in the lushness of nature. How beautifully the glow of the moon glittered upon the stone streets after a rainy day.   So much beauty, so much history in each curve, each arch, each stone. Everything is painted so well in her memory. She looks down from her seat through the window of the plane and sees the cascade of fl...

 A Painters  Tragedy   Mia was an "outcast,"  an individual of different ideas and perception of life. She wore clothes that never accentuated her figure. Most were dark, baggy, and plain. She never took time to draw attention to herself. Yet attention would find her, laughter from the snarky jocks would round themselves about her.   Prodding fun of her looks, her choice of clothing and how she spoke. She spoke shyly, stuttering with unprecedented anxiety. Her eyes would dart wildly as tears would silently fall during the pressures of unwanted attention.  Their laughter would echo throughout the day in her head. Over and over she would replay the horrible moments between her and the rude abilities of bullies. Every morning she would do her best to dart to her classroom.  Scrunching herself into the smallest shape possible while hugging her books tightly. But not matter how small she made herself, no matter how dark of clothes she wore, even...

 A Father's Dream    I could have quit and all would have been fine. No one would of said I was less than I was. Many told me I should quit, I should step back. That everything I am doing will only end up in flames. Maybe it could have, but it didn't.   For each day I rose before the sun and held my children in my arms. I would look to my wife as I woke. Her beautiful complexion, her gorgeous aurora floating about the room. I could hear her heart beating gently in the calmness of every morning.   And when I look to them, when I look to my children, my wife, I think of all the wonder they have given me. I think of everything my wife has sacrificed to keep our children smiling, laughing as I step out the door every morning taking the risk to change it all.   I think of the terrible times we have had, the times food was more scarce than fuel. I think about the times when we argued over the simplest things because we would rather ignore the dragon a...

A Brothers Envy Her arms spread wide to the wind as it passes through her hair. Her locks flow with majestic breath of nature. Her eyes of emerald blue watch as the sun slowly falls. The clouds disperse as her dragons wings wave effortlessly through sky.  She feels no danger, no weight of life bearing down upon her. She is free, weightless as she sits atop her scaly friend. His skin, blazed in the colors flames. His eyes, as dark as the the unseen surface of the moon.  His wings span further than two homes side by side. He stands six stories high, he is the largest of his kind. But he is of no threat to the world, for his mother, Sasha, who sits atop him. Has bred him in peace, but he is no stranger to violence.  For once they ruled with respect, the greatest kingdom of all. The kingdom of Raulled, a place of great power, but of great love. It was a place where all could be as they wished and do as they pleased in the bounds the kingdoms law.  Sasha rul...

Sammy and the Tear   Have you heard the story of the girl who made her own world? If not, I suggest you lay back and let your heart and eyes take to the journey.   Sammy, only eight years old grew up in a home far from the rest of the world. A place pinched between two massive mountains. Mountains so high no one has ever seen the top of them. Even on clear days the highest points vanish to the sky.   Growing up, it was only her father and mother. Both whom loved her very very much. But as Sammy grew in age, she found herself to be lonely. She could not explain this concept nor understand the feeling that rested at the bottom of her heart.   But she knew something was amiss in her heart. Reaching age five she had amassed hundreds of imaginary friends. But as time progressed in the world changed in her mind, the imaginary did not suffice as well as it did a few years before.   Sammy had asked her parents numerous times if she could have a brother or...

Fall Gloom Beauty of Gray    Death has come upon our summer days. Slain are the days of warm mornings and nights of a cool breeze. We are now upon the lips of fall, slowly consumed till we are in the bitter embrace of winter.  The once open skies are now the victims of the dreary. The frigid gasp of October and the sinking eyes of November. We are now unkindly taken by darkness before our eyes open. The grey skies glaze our souls in the dim.  Our hearts become heavy as the drizzle of sorrowed clouds weep upon our streets. Our steps become cautious as we keep weary to pools of rain. Quickly can our days become uncomfortable as the steady weeping of the sky gives no hope of silence.  But in these bleak and colorless months, there is much between the grey; the cold and frozen. There are colors that only fall can birth. Oranges that cripple a leaf but bring sight to a dying season. There are moments so close to those we love, that summer cringes in jealo...

A Con Man's Lie    I could not help myself or, at least I did not want to. I became so sly in my tongue everything I said was believable or so I thought. I think my terrible habit of a slick tongue started with my father. He was a smart man. A man with great intelligence but it was used for the wrong thing.   He was a con man, the first of my family lineage. He was born into a family of nine children, him being the eighth child. I remember growing up and he would tell me the stories of his aging. The constant struggle to get attention from his parents. The lonely feeling even with his siblings.    He was born six years apart from his brother before him and four years before his younger brother. It was a family of brothers except for his one sister, who was treated very well. Being as she was the only the girl among a crowd of men.    My father, poorly given love from what he told me. Led him to be mischievous. Looking for trouble, h...

A Daughters Escape    "Come on, get the notes right, you only have one more day to the show. Father won't be pleased if you end up getting kicked out the show."  Lily turns her head back toward her sister who stands behind her. Lily's fingers remain positioned upon the harp. The sun glazes the room through thin white shades of the music room. It's dark floors resonate with a cool feel of a summereve as the sun rests upon it.  Lily, now looking to her sister Ashley, smirks and says, "Guess I will be getting kicked out, I'd rather be disliked by fathers so called friends than do something I find no passion in. Father only wants me to play because all his friends youngest daughters play instruments, but I don't want to." Lily drops her arms from the harp and stands up and turns toward Ashley.  Ashley, standing next to the window, the sun glares off her pearl skin like light upon soft ivory keys. She looks to Lily, places her hands upon h...