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[24 Oct 2006|02:03am] |
We function better in pairs.
The thought comes to her suddenly in the dark of her friend's room, late at night. The girl, her friend, rests against her heavily, in a comfortable, almost sisterly manner. Her sadness is soft and gentle, the kind touching can allay... And her hands tangle in her friends hair as they pet her back. It's reassuring to know, in some small way, that everyone hates to be alone, and how beautiful and sad and transient the pairings are. The friend whispers, softly, "I miss her" and leans hard with her shoulder and forehead. At once, she feels both strong and comforted, and even the dark room seems a little less dismal. There is nothing like realizing with a sense of dawning revelation how flawed the people around you are, and how close and sweet it makes them seem.
Maybe that's why pairs work so well, two people who understand each other's flaws and have no worry, and no need, for anyone else.
The friend sighs, and leans back on the bed.. And they talk, quietly, in hushed tones, of far away friends, and far away weddings, and all too perfect couples.
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| Cats in Black |
[06 Oct 2006|02:11pm] |
Soul stuff isn't divine and intangible; the best soul-searchers will tell you that it's malleable like fuzzy clay and slightly sticky, and smells faintly like almonds. Okay, yeah, sure, it's hard to find, but that doesn't stop people from fiding massive quantaties of it, and paying only slightly more for it than one would for lark's tongue, or liquid autum. No,many things are far moer valuable and rare, and as such, people treat bushels of souls like bales of cotton, and some just happen to fall out of the truck.
Souls are connected to the owner, and contrary to popular belief they are a renewable reasource. Nothing about human life is infinate, and nothing is permanent. Souls grow back over time, burning bright and growing fast like Kudzu whent he owner is happy or blessed, growing slow and sickly when the owner is depressed. Sometimes, people kill themselves inside, and their souls die from lack of affection, effort, and love.. But your soul can't be taken in any meaningful way that it won't grow back.
Of course, you don't know this. Maybe, sometimes, in netting of yarn strewn across your lap makes you think of the deeper things, and sometimes you wonder why your creations come forth with such a violent and vigorous life. Sometimes, after a proud and strong work, you feel weak with the effort. Some days, sometimes, you can feel the energy in your fingertips infusing everything you do.
It's close to magic. Close.
But mostly? You only have the hints of your true power.
For example, when you found the balck fuzzy yarn last week, you could feel it was special. Sure, it was so soft it felt like it clung to your fingers, and sure, it smelled like almonds and smoke, but it was warm and almost alive, like the furr of a sleeping beast. It seemed to beg to knit to be a feasrome guardian, some creature that would protect you till death, with sewn button eyes and thick sharp white shark teeth, from your trip to the short last summer...
Instead, your winsome monster seemed to want to be.. smaller. After a few hours, there was no denying it. The tiny paws, the fluffy tail, the green button eyes that were staring at you, waiting to be sewn on.. In your hands was a cat, soft and floofy, bigger than a kitten but not yet full grown. It purred into yuor hand, nuzzled at your neck, put its stuffed small paws on your chest and licked with a pink wool tongue. Mew!
Maybe it was the adorable little face, or the love it was pouring on you.. But you couldn't help but feel energized. Excited! You had never felt so full of life, after making anything so vibrant!
Of course, it wouldn't sit still, or be affectionate, for long. After a few minutes of running around and rubbing agaisnt you, it grabbed the hem of your skirt and pulled, pulled you out the door with tiny tiny knit teeth. Despite its comical lightness, despite the absolute strength in your arms.. You can't help but follow.
It is -so- cute.
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[01 Oct 2006|03:23pm] |
The fact the world is made of song is.. stronger than science, and needs no blind faith. The world is music, and everyone marches to the beat of it, drums, chimes, flute or keytar.
However, it's a strange and beautiful things when people dance and sing to the same song at the same time, like a song in a dozen parts, a musical Musical moments where the perfect convergence of energy and time and passion and soul and power are one.
It's a rare and beautiful thing, and it's something that make concerts and chorales and drunken singalongs, something that makes music in the whole so very compelling.
It's more confusing, really, when a noticable portion of people are reverbarating with the same snatches of song, like a musical number spread across a city, mumbling and humming the same words and the same songs, buzzing with the same energy, their note convergering as smiles meet.
Singing the same song, about a song that changed their lives, with the bruises and the kisses to prove it.
From overheard conversation, people are talking are talking about gigs and parties, and the same gril who tells them were it is. She works in a coffee shop, they mumble and laugh, and they wonder if she has 'tickets'. They take long sips of strangely foreign smelling coffee from their refillable plastic black mugs, white letters picking out, "Digg Street's Finest". It's a bit of a joke, and they're only too happy, too proud, to tell you where they got it. "Try the Jamacian-Atlantis blend. It's fantastic!"
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| To Dylan |
[01 Oct 2006|02:55pm] |
The hand skitters across a page, the pencil doodling vauge and uneasy shapes as the mind wanders.. Wanders into the place where loneliness is forgotten, where every touch didn't mean panic and reliving the memories and dreams and futures. They felt so awkward, so naked, so exposed, so betrayed, and left him so, so alone.
On the paper, a scene was forming. A modern city street, that could have so easily been one a few blocks over. The sidewalks were spotted with dirt and blackended gum, a set of stairs led into a basement. Walking up from the stairs was a woman, one hand on the railing, the other reaching just barely forward, fingers slightly twisted.. Her face was kind and ageless in the way of small sketches everywhere, her eyes light and strangely alive, liquid. Her hair fall past her shoulders, straight and long and thick. She was just barely smiling, but her face was open and gentle. She looked expectant.
A closer look revealed light from the stairs below her, and a half-scrawled name in the side of the building read "D--g -tree- --undry".. And.. Her hands.. Was she pointing? Yes, she must. She could only be pointing--and staring--outward, and forward, and directly, utterly, only at Dylan.
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[27 Sep 2006|11:01pm] |
"You'll never believe what I just heard, Annester!"
Mira slid around the table to sit opposite her friend, a huge smile on her freckled face. She slid into the chair, long arms tapping aginst the table, leaning conspiritorially. "It's right up your alley.. You know, freaky shit."
Mira Meriweather fancied herself the eyes and ears of the newspaper, and as such did very little writing... And it was indeed, for the good of the paper. Her grammar made the editor cry, and she took some small pride in it. Flighty, hyper, and mildly ADHD, she was almost always good company for the strong of heart and patience.
"You know Jamesy Collins, the girl with the hair? Well, she told me last week she was exploring Digg Street, and found an awesome little hole in the wall shop, with steps going downstairs into the basement. Downstairs, it was nothing but a coffee shop.. Except one wall was covered ENTIRELY in flyers for shows and rooms for rent and new shops and people selling things she didn't recognize, and half of them weren't even in English. There was a bar, you know, and the ceiling was strung with tiny multicolored lights that she thought moved. She said the tea and coffe were flavored with things she'd never heard of, and some low music filled the room with a kind of bass that makes her teeth ache, and you know Jamesy and her teeth. So she's feeling uncomfortable, and most of the people are either cooing over laptops or reading huge books or staring straight at her, but she's thirsty anyway and also feeling a bit peckish so she orders a Fortune cookie (apparently they're huge gold cookies made from some mold with a queen's face) and some "Extra Strong" coffee.. When she hears someone call her name. Not "Jamesy" but her real name, the name her mother probably doesn't even know anymore.. And she wants to run, but she's curious and waiting for her coffee besides, so she walks over.. And some little old lady tellls her to not to take a bus home, and pats her on the shoulder. By then her coffee is ready, so she takes it, and runs out... And tries to go back home, but taking the lady's advice, decides to walk even though Digg Street is like, out past Maeryl Center and half an hour walking to even get to the nearest dorm, and it's a nice day...
"Well don't you know, she's halfway home when she finds some guy's wallet on the ground.. And he lives just down the street from her. She returns it, exhausted, her coffee long gone, and she's feeling dizzy and and happy, and he invites her in, offers to pay her.. And every time she refuses and says it was her pleasure he gets sweeter and sweeter, and apparently he's a Philosophy major just like her, and they got into some ontological debate about I don't even know, and she has a date with him for next Wednesday, and said she'd been up ever since, worried and happy for thinking of him. Chronic happy insomnia."
Mira raised a brow, and panted softly. She leaned back in her chair, and knotted her fingers behind her head. The girl was trying to be helpful, and the occult (or brevity) was not her strong point. "At the very least, it could be a good review, a weird little basement coffee shop."
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| Your Tattoos, They're Gonna Fade |
[16 Sep 2006|07:54pm] |
Zombie, the kids all called her when she was little, back when she didn't have the heart to disagree. Her teachers would mumble about her strangely blank and penetrating stares, about her sullen quiet, about her almost inhuman lack of friends. The loneliness made her feel like crying sometimes, but she never did, she never made a sound.
Her isolation was voluntary now; the music that flooded her ears kept the cacaphony of the painful world away. Her headphones were huge and loud, and they warmed her ears in winter and kept the tangle of dark hair from her eyes. She only ever took them off for class, and even then only if she couldn't get away with it. She hated to be away from the only thing that had ever made sense...
Her love of music started young, when the low notes from the apartment below would drift up and make her insides hum. She would lay outstretched, feeling the music drizzle on her like backwards rain, and warm her from the core. It took her months to meet the cellist in person, another handful before she could say a word. He was seven years older than her, already in high school, and dashing and dark and spoke English thick with a Chinese accent. She would visit, and they would listen to records, and he would practice while she lay on the floor, eyes closed, humming in tune.
Years later, he left for college, leaving her a good portion of his music collection and a brand new CD player. She devored music whole, consuming albums and singles. Her love landed her a job in a record shop, where she spent her week and her paycheck. Her first live show almost broke her in pieces, and she smiled for days, wondering city blocks eyed closed, singing.
She followed the band still, and each time she felt higher and higher, full of a dizziness caused from more than the press of bodies and the power of bruises and the exhaustion of heat and dancing.
She felt like she was home. She felt alive, and it was all that mattered.
Red and white striped tights caught in her dented black boots, she danced, and danced, and danced...
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[17 Jul 2006|11:22pm] |
Her soft hands would stroke the cool skin with a lover's tenderness, her long thin fingers would press so lightly into the flesh in sweet exploration. "I will love you better than anyone else ever has," she would croon to the empty room, her mantra and prayer.
She would drags her fingers from each colorbone to down the chest with her fingertips first, bending low so her dark hair brushed against the pale chest. She didn't wear gloves anymore, they god in the way. the currupted the moment. Male or female, old or young, it didn't matter. She practiced the highest form of intimacy. Her breath would steam in the air, and she would say, "You've opened up more to me than you have to anyone, and I barely even asked."
They loved her, silently, and she bathed in their adoration, acceptance. For every heart she touched, they touched hers just as hard, just as profoundly. They must have numbered in the hundreds now, the thousands perhaps, but every one made her heart flutter like the first time.
When they were finished, she would sign her name in stitches; a toekn of her affection. She would kiss their lips and eyes, taking with her their most well kept secrets, and leaving them whole again. Her lovers.
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[11 Jul 2006|09:40pm] |
My mother would wake me before the sunrise, shaking me awake. Her eyes were wide and dark, smiling. She would kneel by my bed, as a rubbed my eyes. Tugging an oversized T-shirt over my head, she repeated the same soft mantra; "You father is a good man," she would whisper, in gentle explanation, "But he doesn't believe in in fairies or magic."
She would take my hand in mine, and walk low so I could keep up. The grass was wet and cold, and the birds always seemed too loud. The hill behind our house was far and high, and the grass was as tall as I was, but my mother hand my hand tight. When we would get to the top, she would stop and half-kneel, spinning me around so I could sit on her leg and lean aginast her body. Her hands would fold over mine, keeping my hands warm. I would swing my feet a little, whisper, "Is it time? Is it time?"
Her hands would squeeze around mine, and she would shush me in that same soft whisper "Sssh! They won't come if they hear you." She would rest her cheek against my head, and rock back and forth. I would watch the stars until they were almost all gone, until my eyes felt heavy. My mom would always see them first, inhaling sharply and then holding her breath. "There," she would exhale, and hold me so tight..
Drifting across the grass, starting from the lower lefthand woods, were little green spots of light. They would twist and dance, swirl and dive into the dew, trailing a green glow behind them. There were dozens, and they filled the sky like huge lightning bugs, disappearing into the trees just as the first rays of light hit the feild.
We would wait a few minutes, and walk back in silence. The grass didn't bother me, as we went toward the house. I always got french toast, those mornings, and she always left a saucer of milk on the back steps. "For the little lost cats," she would say to my father, and wink at me.
I can't remember the last time I woke up to her dark, happy eyes, or the last time I walked up the hill, or anywhere on the old farm, in silence. I don't know if she took my brother or sister; never asked, never really cared. I knew she was gone before they built those condos, and for that, I'm kind of glad. It would have taken something out of her, just like it took something out of me, to know the fairies don't fly anymore.
But I believe in magic. She made sure of that.
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[14 Jun 2006|11:41am] |
Back when we lived by the beach, I would spent my long summer afternoons prowling the neighborhood like a wolf, hunting for new games to play. It was only every me and my brother, and even then, he started working the summer I turned six. I spent a lot of time alone, making shell soilders, forming my own oyster armies.. Until the day I met Miss Grace.
Miss Grace was unmarried and lived alone and was older than anyone I had ever seen. Her hair was cloudy white, knotted behind her head. Her skin was wrinkled and dry and brown from years of living on the beach. She called herself sun-kissed, and laughed all the time,her thin knotty hands would flutter like bird's wings when she would knit, which she only ever did on rainy days. She was full of stories, and she told me what it felt like to fly, and about her brothers who had flown, and died in the Great War. Her eyes were blue, and she made great lemonade, and she never looked sad, even when she was telling me about her family, gone now. She said she made her peace a long time ago, and nothing was going to take that away from her.
On the beach we would collect sea glass, round and smooth and dull from sand. We would look for rocks with holes in them, because they were lucky. We tried to find one every day, even when it was cold and wet out. She told me the secrets of storms, and every night she left a small saucer of milk at her door. She said it never hurt, never hurt to be kind.
She made me a scarf, once, whie and stormy sea green. I still have it, but it's torn now, ripped at the edges.
When we would walk along the beach, she would tell me to pick a gull. It was my favorite game. She would close her eyes and wind her pecan fingers in her shawl, and hum. After a few moments, she would tell me a story... "Her name was Bessie Wood. She lived not to far away not too long ago, and promised herself she'd never leave. When she was little, she would wind seaweed in crowns, and set them on doorsteps. She was a Princess of the Sea, and now she watches over it, keeps it safe." And then her blue blue eyes would open, and she would smile. "When we come next, we will bring Bessie some bread. She happy here, but I think she'd like that, don't you?"
I could pick any bird, and sometimes there were children and sometimes they were ancients, sometimes their names were stuffy and long, othertimes short and accented, foreign. Sometimes the stories would wind on for hours, other times, a few words. I loved it, and I loved when we would spread bread the next day she would call them by name.
By the time I was eight, I could see their pale shapes, remember their names.. And Miss Grace, she'd smile and laugh.
Sometimes I remember that, that I used to remember, and remember her laughing, and telling me it was no trick at all, to fly...
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[01 Jun 2006|04:54am] |
Summer brings the onset of early hours between big pillows, bed stuffed, so I pretend I'm not alone. I listen to music, and it's a bad idea, because I never sleep, I listen and wrap around bears and blankets and slip through waking dreams and cry, cry like I have every summer for the past four years.
I think, for the first time, I'm not depressed. It's.. Something.
It's a big and beautiful Something.
But right now, I'm still a little sad.
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| A kiss can't change the world, but it couldn't hurt. |
[09 Apr 2006|04:52am] |
It's far far too late. I've slept 3ish hours in the past fourty, kind of forgot food for the middle twenty, and had the heaviest day of my period in a corset, entertaining people. Being depended on.
I feel so, so weak.
My mouth tastes bitter, and I'm full of this incredibly sublime crushing emotion.. I feel so sad and satisfied, so hurt and content. Can you cry yourself to sleep and still be happy? I think you can.
Jess made me a gift. It's a knitted d20, and it's a little bigger than a pomello, white and soft. It took such effort on her part, and it was made with such care.. I feel really touched by it. It's something so solid, this proof, this proof that I matter, matter to my girls, matter to the world. I've been up so long and under such conditions that I feel I'm floating away, and this helps, this helps.
Someone IMed me tonight, while I was running Paranoia. They said to my away message:
"i'm scrolling down my buddy lest and i noticed that i haven't talkedto you in quite a while. in fact when we do talk it's like hi how are you... good you?... and then it's over and as much as that makes sense ithink i would really like to know what you're up to and where you are. or maybe i just want to tell you about me.... but regardless of that i think you know that you made an impact on my life and thanks in large part to you i am who i am. in fact a ffriend of mine asked me today how i got to be such an individual and i remembered that time when i wasn't so sure that i could be could be completely myself. you taught me i can do anyhting. i love you. i hope you're well"
And I've never seen the name. I have no idea who it is. I feel so guilty, and so thankful. How many people can hear this once in their lives? How many people wish they could? Wish they had said it? It makes me feel gifted, and special.. And guilty. Do I deserve this? I can't even figure out who it is. I don't think I'm anything remarkable, and then I think I'm retarded, because how could I not find myself as cool as other people find me? How can I see myself as so unattractive when people take great pains to tell me? I feel so consistantly selfish, so indulgent. I feel like I'm just drifting through my life sometimes. I should be trying! I should be forcing! I should be more, more more than just what I am. I should be something that deserves comments like that.
But I don't even know what I want. My most powerful desires are selfish, impossible, almost mean, and I know its not, at the same time. Feeling bad is selfish, when I'm so blessed.. Wallowing in slef-pity is so selfish, when I'm so surrounded by love..
But sometimes I really can't see it. Sometimes I don't know why people love me. Sometimes all I see is why I'm not loved, or why I could so easily hate myself, or how much I suck at the tasks people rely on me for. And I feel so stupid, so stupid, for being so blind.
I feel so stupid, for not knowing what I want, or not being able to commit to it without guilt.
And I feel so, so stupid for not being able to find strength. I feel stupid for being weak.
I actually feel stupid for not being gay, but that's something else entirely.
It's just, my bed is so lonely, and I can't even conjure fictional loves to comfort me, and I can't be satisfied with what I have, and I can't be dissatisfied either. I mean, I may grow up and do wonderful things. I am already growing up to live my life as bravely as i can, with no regrets. I want my entire life to be a some twisting dance, something passionate and real and implusive and strong. I want to protect those who want it. I want to inspire. I want to keep going. I want to do what feels right. I want to be one of Jack's, and one of Stephin's, and one of Jeff's. I know I can, I know I will make my life something that makes people want to change theirs for the better in the ways that best fit them. I want to fuck cowardice in its face. I want to risk it all for everything. I want to never stop loving. I want to face the future, I want to embrace it, I want to never be afraid. I want to be brave. I want to be brave.
I am brave. I just wish, I just wish I could want this all now. I feel so cool and so sad, so pleased and so hurt, crying and warm.
I want to wake up. I want to feel the wanting like a pain, feel more than a mix of still and stalled. I want to stop sleepwalking and I want to be alive again. I want to believe I deserve it.
And as much as I want it, it seems like a dream. And it seems so selfish, and so stupid, to be so stuck.
I want to wake up.
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| Food For Thought? HARHARHAR |
[23 Mar 2006|09:52pm] |
Is it wrong to hate Mark Summers?
Okay, I mean, he's not that bad. He's not unintelligent, he has his own charisma.. But really, I can't stand him. He's hokey, and just lacks a sort of.. Passionate drive. He seems too sleepy to be awkward, and too awkward to be really loveable as a host and entertainer... And yet, he's everywhere?
I think one of the best, and by best I mean best in a culutral capital sense, things I've done for myself in the past week has been watch a LOT of the Food Network. I think one of the things that sort of enhances imagination is know where the limits are or aren't. Just like reading fantasty helps me write better, I feel like watching the food network is helping me cook better. I am finding so much out about meat and bread and vegetables and frying and breading and salads, oh man, all I want to do is cook and make food for people.
Which is funny, because I'm kind of really sick.
However, if I wasn't sick I wouldn't watching so much sexy sexy Food Network.
If I could, I would have my own cooking show. I mean like, wanting a cooking show is RIGHT up there with wanting my own radio station, and maybe because of my recent fascination.. Maybe just a little more. I would love to host some geek cooking show.. The best in mac and cheese and ramen noodles and take-out..! Well, more like easy to cook food that doesn't involve like, food processors, giant knives, inside grills, 8 different sizes of nonstick copper plated wok-pan-dish-stove-thing. Even Rachel Ray has tons and tons of toys, and while ehr food always looks so good, she does have tons of expensive equipment you don't have in school, or in some crappy little apartment.. It's really all about, I think, fast, simple, good tasting food in real time. Simple time. With directions that don't have to be confusing. I mean, if I could get one nerdboy to eat more vegetables, that would be a victory.
But I mean, I can see the show. Making jokes, giggling at vegetables, suggesting, no, doritos are not a food group. Describing food, being honest.. I think I would be better at some of this than like, you know, these lovely kids on "Who Will Be The Next Food Network Star!" Sure, i don't know how to Juillane a carrot, sure I don't know how to fillet a fish; in fact, I'm pretty sure I can't even make pancakes would destroying the first dozen.. But There's soemthing to be said for entertaining and eating and describing food, and oh baby, and I good at describing shit. I'm fucking DESCRIPTOR.
If Giada Di Laurentiis can host a show, goddamnit, I can do it too.
That said, I'm gonna go back to bed.
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[17 Mar 2006|04:12am] |
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I am going to name my next dildo 'Pinocchio', because he sure as hell won't be a real boy.. but I'm feeling optimistic.
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[04 Mar 2006|05:26am] |
Abstract guilt;
Even when iI never promised it, advised them againt it, there is something heartwrenching about betraying people's misplaced trust.
EVen if a life is only fictional, it still bothers me to take it.
I mostly hate myself because it should have been more fun. I don't have the option to slack off, not in this.
And I don't know how to make up for it.
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| The Tracks |
[01 Mar 2006|02:05am] |
The houses on the other side of the tracks were quite literally hovels, small shacks leaning on once proud buildings. The grass was just getting tall and high and green, and the air was warm and damp with the promise of soupy haze later.
The town had brushed up against the sides of these outskirts, but the newer houses still had chipped paint and broken windows, beaten back by crime and and fear and low property rates. The streets were barely paved and moslty deserted. It was seemed like soemthing out of an old turn of the centery novel, where the plucky young heroes left their destitute homes for grand adventures and bright futures, chasing dreams.
It had been a long time since anyone here had had a bright future.
It had been a long time since anyone had bothered to dream.
Munin walked down the metal rails, bag bumping against her side. The grass was just tall enough to brush her fingertips while she walked, steps falling into the slow rhythm of soft music. Her downcast eyes picked their way along the path, half searching for holes and snags. The summer greenery bringing back memories of days spent running and hiding in the tall grass, searching for shade in the hot sun...
For a second, a lacework cloud passed and dissolved in the sunlight, leaving the ghost of a shadow.
The rumble of a truck caused her to look up, blinking in the light. The old Ford was a dusty blue and spotted with bubbles of rust, heavily dented along what remained of the right bumper. It sounded like an animal, some growling and impatient beast. It pulled by the tracks, along the side of the crumbling road. There was a measured pause while it seemed to take her in. The girl stared downward, still.
A voice called from an open window in the cab, "Whaho, girlie! Whatcha doing on the tracks? That ain't gonna get ya no where. C'm get inside, I'll drive ya ta town." After another second, a head stuck out of the window. It belonged to a deeply dark man, sun blackened on top of an already brown body. His face was creased with lines, his eyes very white with black irises. A flop of peppered wooly hair fell in his face as he nodded, his wiry arm hitting the outside of the door. When he smiled, his teeth were shockingly bright. "Mama Betta doesn't like when her childs run around like wild squirrels."
He reached over and popped open the passanger side door.
Munin, just barely blushing, walked around the truck and crawled in. She closed the door, and glanced timidly at the insistant man. "Sorry, Pa, it's just faster if I walk that way, from the bus stop, if I want to walk."
The old man reached over and gave the girl a reassuring pat on the knee with old, tough hands. She let herself smile as he continued, "Ya know betta than ta think we wouldn'ta known, girlie. Mama's gotta second sense about these thin's... Besides, ya were due a week ago, an' we've been on tha look out since. We try ta keep tha area safe, but there are sometimes a few crazies, an' I worry, especially ya without yer brother. Ya know we don't mind drivin' ya, yer our pleasure, an' I know it's not that fer ya, but make a ol' man happy an' let him treatcha ta a ride in his beautiful ol' car."
"You said 'it's not any fun if you don't get a chance to chase them' last time," Munin teased, voice low under the rumble of the car, "Remember?"
Pa chuckled from the back of his throat, "Not as well as ya do, girlie. A'that, I'm sure."
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[15 Feb 2006|04:39am] |
Stephin Merritt says,
"Some fall in love.. I shatter."
Broken boys sing well.
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[15 Feb 2006|04:37am] |
Tipped over alone,
Tangled sheets, wet eyes open,
Fighting gravity.
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| Canvas Bag |
[11 Feb 2006|03:20am] |
She could fit her entire life in one bag. Of course, hers was a special bag, heavy untreated canvas that had a weight to it even when it was empty, big enough to carry a child in. It had pockets and zippers, flaps and claps, and a thick single strap she wore over her shoulder. It was a part of her, worn into a gentle bend from years spent hugging the curve of her hip.
Her fingers traced over the tiny burnished brass studs along the edges of the bag, flitting absentmindedly from each metal droplet. Her eyes where elsewhere; they scanned the rapidly passing landscape as if she was speed-reading a book, head against the glass despite the bumped in the bus' path. To the keen listener, they might have heard a vague, unplaceable rhythm... A mixture of breath and touch and faint strains of lost music.
Munin was quiet, but loved the bubbling rush of headphones, of music secreted away in the folds of her sweater.
A package sat on her lap in a manilla folder, spidery words outlining the address in skittering delicacy. No postage marred the surface. Her arm rested along the side, protective and unpossessive. She adjusted; shoulder against the glass, head against the seat. She mumbled something, conversationally, her voice raising at the end as if asking a question, as if asking a responce. Her eyes closed...
..And opened. The buzz tickled her side, prompting her reaction before she had even registered when happened. Her hands were undoing a clasp, flipping open the bag tucked around her like a faithful animal guard, digging through past another oversized sweater, a shirt and a handful of various of types of undergarments, from a few books and notebooks, pencils and pens, toiletries, something small and black and leatherbound. Her fingers had flipped it open before she had even removed it, other fist yanking gently to pull the buds from her ears. Hesitant, soft, lightly accented with Midwest, something more thick, more foreign, "Hello?"
A few moments pause, and a smile rose to her lips. "Oh, no, I'm on a job, travelling now. I was just thinking of you." Another pause, and the delight faded from her face. "Again? So soon? I thought you were coming back after this last time. I'd rather see you more often, and you're so far away now.. You know I don't like to leave the mainland, let along going across a whole ocean.." A longer pause, the tired sigh of having heard it all before, a lip-bite, and suddenly soft, more mature tone.. "No no, I understand. You have to do what you do and so do I. We were raised that way, even if Mom didn't mean for us to... ..I just feel better, when you're around. .. Oh, come on! You know that's not the same! It's a.. A painting! A picture! It doesn't count, it's not the same, it doesn't make jokes it doesn't..! ... .. Yeah, I know.. ..I know.. ..Yeah, yeah I know, I know you know. ..Okay.. ... ..How long is this one for? And you're fighting.. what, again?"
Her face settled into a look of sad bemusement, her eyes moved from the package to the land that slipped so quickly by. She touched the window, making patterns in the marks left by the heat of her fingers. Voices sound so different over the phone.. And there was still the hint of a smile, those twinkling blue eyes, that dangerous witty lull in his voice that would trap you in old jokes and new compliments. Minutes passed, and she said no more than a handful of words before she look a depe breath.. "I tell you this every time, I know.. But be careful? You're the only brother I have.. The only family I have. ..Yes, I will be too, but I'm serious! It makes me uncomfortable, I just never liked this whole S-Pol thing, you know? And before you do your "Saving The World" rant again I know you want to.. just.. I don't know who else I can talk to, like I can to you. You understand me. And when you're away, it's just me and the mail and the road, you know? ...Oh, I'm going to Mama Betta's. ..Sure, I'll say hi. She still saves cornbread for you, you know. I swear, it's all I can do to stop her from setting a place.. ..Well, she's always been quite smitten with you, I wonder why, you ensorcellor." A smile, a smirk. "I love you too, you goof. Be careful, and call me as soon as you're in range of Earth, no matter when you get back, okay? I'll pick up... ..Sure, I'll save you some cornbread. Stay safe. I love you. ..Love you."
The phone clicked off, and the girl felt it in her hands, as if trying to memorize the surface, trying to preserve this moment of "bus" and "off" and "phone" and "smile" and "warmth" and "voice" and "brother". It was her little habit.
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thebrightwithin's journal