Rhiannon Raventhorn's blog: "Raven Haven"

I am a Child:

Self-aware, curious, inquisitive, creative, corolful, honest, amused, intrigued, submersive, expressive; reflective, ignorant, lazy.

I am a Mother:

Attentive, protective, compassionate, kind, resourceful, thoughtful, selfless, considerate, simple, persistant; complex, stubborn.

 I am a Warrior:

Fractured, broken; mended, self-reliant, industrious, disiplined, fierce, courageous, loyal, driven.

I am Human:

Fallible, uncertain, weak, arrogant, mortal; passionate, generous, affectionate.

I laugh, cry, love, hate, hope, fear, create, destroy, live and feel...

Just like you.

It has been over a decade

since I laid you to rest

Yet I can close my eyes

and see your head resting lazily upon my breast

The late summer rains

murmur softly

a bittersweet reminder to my heart

Oh! How i loved you...

Once upon a time,

our fairy tale

tragic as the Brothers Grimm

Ageless

You're looking at me like I'm suppose to care
Whether your hair is braided
or free to hang 'round your shoulders

As if my opinion of that dress
would make you change your mind
You change often enough for my liking

You should know by now....
It only matters to me,
that you return in a few days

To refill my food dish with
something tantalizing and grand
Make sure my water has not
grown stale and tasteless

And leave the bed covers
exactly as they have been
You know how i detest
having to remake my sleepy spot

Yes, yes you are running late
Don't trip on your way to the car
The last thing I need to do
is take care of you

Not that I'd mind
keeping you warm
Or having you stuck
on the couch with only me to pet

Hrmm...
Maybe you should run to the car
In those thinly made three inch heels
And be so worried you forget to watch your step

What? 

Turn the key..

Your heart roars to life,

as the fluid begins to seep

into your lungs.

Dehydration,

the fever,

bogs you down.

It's so hard to let you go

I have been your

Mechanic,

Caregiver,

Friend.

Futile, I tried,,

to protect you.

Repaired - Replaced...

The fractures, the veins.

Dialysis

Transfusions

Anything

for just a few more

Miles

Road trips

Rest stops

There is a van,

a little younger...

You're compatible.

It is time

And I become now...

Surgeon

Coroner

Undertaker

Good bye, my friend

• What is neurofibromatosis type 1? (Back to Top)

• Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an inherited condition characterized by changes in skin coloring (pigmentation) and the growth of tumors along nerves in the skin, brain, and other parts of the body. The signs and symptoms of this condition vary widely among affected people. Mutations in the NF1 gene cause neurofibromatosis type 1. This condition is considered to have an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance.^[1]
• Last Reviewed: 11/9/2011

• What are the signs and symptoms of neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1)? (Back to Top)

• Beginning in early childhood, almost all people with NF1 have multiple café-au-lait spots, which are flat patches on the skin that are darker than the surrounding area. These spots increase in size and number as the individual grows older. Freckles in the underarms and groin typically develop later in childhood.^[1]
  
  The eyes can also be affected by NF1. During childhood, benign growths called Lisch nodules often appear in the colored part of the eye (iris). Lisch nodules do not interfere with vision. Some affected individuals also develop tumors that grow along the nerve leading from the eye to the brain (the optic nerve). These tumors, which are called optic gliomas, may lead to reduced vision or total vision loss. In some cases, optic gliomas have no effect on vision.^[1]

  Most adults with NF1 develop neurofibromas, which are noncancerous (benign) tumors that are usually located on or just under the skin. These tumors may also occur in nerves near the spinal cord or along nerves elsewhere in the body. Some people with NF1 develop cancerous tumors that grow along nerves. These tumors, which usually develop in adolescence or adulthood, are called malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors. People with NF1 also have an increased risk of developing other cancers, including brain tumors and cancer of blood-forming tissue (leukemia).^[1]

  Additional signs and symptoms of NF1 include high blood pressure (hypertension), short stature, an unusually large head (macrocephaly), and skeletal abnormalities such as an abnormal curvature of the spine (scoliosis). Although most people with NF1 have normal intelligence, learning disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) occur frequently in affected individuals.^[1]

• Last Reviewed: 6/6/2012

• What causes neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1)? (Back to Top)

• Mutations in the NF1 gene cause neurofibromatosis type 1. The NF1 gene is located on the long (q) arm of chromosome 17 at position 11.2.^[2]
  
  The NF1 gene provides instructions for making a protein called neurofibromin. This protein is produced in many cells, including nerve cells and specialized cells surrounding nerves (oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells). Neurofibromin acts as a tumor suppressor, which means that it keeps cells from growing and dividing too rapidly or in an uncontrolled way. Mutations in the NF1 gene lead to the production of a non-functional version of neurofibromin that cannot regulate cell growth and division. As a result, tumors such as neurofibromas can form along nerves throughout the body. It is unclear how mutations in the NF1 gene lead to the other features of neurofibromatosis type 1, such as café-au-lait spots and learning disabilities.^[1]
• Last Reviewed: 11/9/2011

• How is neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) inherited? (Back to Top)

• Neurofibromatosis type 1 is considered to have an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance.^[1] People with this condition are born with one mutation in the NF1 gene in each cell of the body. In about half of cases, the altered gene is inherited from an affected parent. The remaining cases result from new mutations in the NF1 gene and occur in people with no history of the disorder in their family.^[1]
  
  Unlike most other autosomal dominant conditions, in which one altered copy of a gene in each cell is sufficient to cause the disorder, two copies of the NF1 gene must be altered to trigger tumor formation in neurofibromatosis type 1.^[1] A mutation in the second copy of the NF1 gene occurs during a person's lifetime in specialized cells surrounding nerves. Almost everyone who is born with one NF1 mutation acquires a second mutation in many cells and develops the tumors characteristic of neurofibromatosis type 1.^[1]
• Last Reviewed: 11/9/2011

• How is neurofibromatosis type 1 diagnosed? (Back to Top)

• The diagnosis of NF1 is usually made after a clinical exam and does not require laboratory tests.^[4] To make a diagnosis, a doctor looks for two or more of the following features:^[3]

  •  
    • Six or more light brown spots on the skin (“cafe-au-lait” spots), measuring more than 5 millimeters across in children, or more than 15 millimeters across in adolescents and adults
    • Two or more neurofibromas, or one plexiform neurofibroma (a neurofibroma that involves many nerves)
    • Freckling in the area of the armpit or the groin
    • Two or more growths on the iris of the eye (known as Lisch nodules or iris hamartomas)
    • A tumor on the optic nerve (optic glioma)
    • Abnormal development of the spine (scoliosis), the temple (sphenoid) bone of the skull, or the tibia (one of the long bones of the shin)
    • A parent, sibling, or child has been diagnosed with NF1

  Symptoms such as café-au-lait spots, neurofibromas, Lisch nodules, and freckling are often seen at birth or shortly afterwards, and almost always by the time a child is 10 years old. Because many features do not develop until a person is older, it can take several years to make a diagnosis.^[3]

• Last Reviewed: 6/6/2012

• How might neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) be treated? (Back to Top)

• There is currently no way to prevent or stop the growth of neurofibromas associated with NF1. Those that are disfiguring or irritating may be surgically removed. Treatment for malignant neurofibromas (occurring in 3 to 5 percent of cases) may also include radiation therapy or chemotherapy.^[3][4] Optic gliomas that threaten vision may be reduced in size by surgery or chemotherapy in some cases. Surgery can also correct some of the bone malformations (such as scoliosis) associated with NF1.^[3][4]
• Last Reviewed: 6/6/2012

My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But at last, one night, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognized messenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, set the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart.

Next day I stepped into the chief jeweler's to set it by the exact time, and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to set it for me. Then he said,

"She is four minutes slow-regulator wants pushing up."

I tried to stop him--tried to make him understand that the watch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see was that the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed up a little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. My watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within the week it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all the timepieces of the town far in the rear, and was a fraction over thirteen days ahead of the almanac. It was away into November enjoying the snow, while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent, bills payable, and such things, in such a ruinous way that I could not abide it.

I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if I had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing. He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open, and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery. He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating--come in a week. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down to that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to be left by trains, I failed all appointments, I got to missing my dinner; my watch strung out three days' grace to four and let me go to protest; I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then day before, then into last week, and by and by the comprehension came upon me that all solitary and alone I was lingering along in week before last, and the world was out of sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow-feeling for the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I went to a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited, and then said the barrel was "swelled." He said he could reduce it in three days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more.

For half a day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting, that I could not hear myself think for the disturbance; and as long as it held out there was not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But the rest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until all the clocks it had left behind caught up again. So at last, at the end of twenty-four hours, it would trot up to the judges' stand all right and just in time. It would show a fair and square average, and no man could say it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average is only a mild virtue in a watch, and I took this instrument to another watchmaker. He said the king-bolt was broken. I said I was glad it was nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea what the king-bolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger. He repaired the king-bolt, but what the watch gained in one way it lost in another. It would run awhile and then stop awhile, and then run awhile again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals. And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket.

I padded my breast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker. He picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under his glass; and then he said there appeared to be something the matter with the hair-trigger. He fixed it, and gave it a fresh start. It did well now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they would travel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thing repaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent, and that the mainspring was not straight. He also remarked that part of the works needed half-soling. He made these things all right, and then my timepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and then, after working along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would let go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands would straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their individuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate spider's web over the face of the watch. She would reel off the next twenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang.

I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he took her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for this thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for repairs. While I waited and looked on I presently recognized in this watchmaker an old acquaintance--a steamboat engineer of other days, and not a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, just as the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict with the same confidence of manner.

He said:

"She makes too much steam-you want to hang the monkey-wrench on the safety-valve!"

I brained him on the spot, and had him buried at my own expense.

My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was, a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what became of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoemakers, and engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him.

-THE END-
[Samuel Clemens] Mark Twain's short story: My Watch

It's always nice to be able to dream
imagine life being another way 
but realize.. 

They are dreams.. 
fantasy.. 
non-corporeal.. 

A realm where  
our mind and heart can venture. 

You and I are a beautiful idea, 
it's a place i visit,.

Unrealistic isn't it... ?

I can see you.. 
lying with your face half tucked under my pillow in the morning. 

The sleepy, 
adorable look as you awaken... 
your lazy half smile. 

I can feel you...
as if you were,
lying here next to me. 

Strange...
how the mind can create sensations 
without experiencing them. 

Every part of me awakens... 
when I see your face, 
you don't even have to smile. 

I somehow know
how it feels
to hold you against my breast.

One hand...
caresses your hair.

The other...
lightly traces your ear.

Your arms..
Pulling me close

It's a peaceful place.. 
like the wind,
whispering through the trees. 

I would like...
nothing more than to be, 
the beginning and ending of your 'everyday'

Being around you, 
I want to be, 
both soft and vulnerable.

This feeling...
I'm not akin to, 
leaves me scattered and insecure.

I find myself...
taken aback by you,  
off balance.

Nothing matters...
yet every thought is a seam of gold
hidden below the raging river of my soul.

© Rhiannon Raventhorn, Eris Oni, All rights reserved.

What's it like...

not to cry, quietly.. 

in the dark.. 

in the night..

They're awake again..

They need to STFU now!

I scream

.....

no one hears

beyond the din of me

I crave the feeling of cold steel

Tightening against my skin...

My chains.. 

Into the earth

Dark

Cold

Suffocation

Intoxicating

I need you

Bury me

Whats it like...

*she whispers gently*

It's breathing beauty

It's not like this

This is hell

*I answer softly*

And it's all mine!

I'm safe 

I can die here

I know this...

Leaving home

BURNS

It's okay here isn't it?

It's cold.. 

Lonely sometimes..

We have our memories for company 

......

The heart stops...
a peaceful sensation settles in

The motorcycle wreck

I felt....
complete comfort and calm

I'm not afraid to die
Dying doesn't hurt...

Living hurts...

Coming back hurts...

Being here is painful...

Have you ever wondered how "she" could take the lives of her children... Then her own?

I don't...

I got close to that once..
A very long time ago...

Ever hear a bullet speed past your head?

You'd think gun fire would be bad thing...

What a RUSH... ALMOST!!!

Didn't get me that time either.. M.F.!

Ever lock yourself in the house...
Barricaded in...

No sleep...

Hearing screams from some distant place?

How many hours can you stay conscious?

When does the noise become reality?

What do you do when the shadows come?

You can see him can't you?

I can...

Hear, smell, see, feel...

The body aches,
Every insult and injury...

Addiction,
I want it..

As fuct as it sounds,
as horrible as it would be...

My entire self craves the sensations,
I'm drawn to it...

I don't want to get hurt again..
it speaks to a part of me...

I feel everything,
like a snowball rolling downhill

And like the wall which stops the speeding car,
a deafening smash...

And all is quiet

© Rhiannon Raventhorn, All rights reserved.

http://allpoetry.com/poem/9679702-Fallout-by-argyra-potameides

Let out!
Let it go!
Violence, Kiss me

Quiet noise surrounds us
I scream so loud
No one hears me

Pay attention
Nothing...
Kiss me

The demons claw at emptiness
Stillness drowns out the populace
Just space, kiss me

Ear splitting night showers in
Forgive and forget

Hold tight
All is lost
It shatters, kiss me

© Rhiannon Raventhorn, All rights reserved.