You both took a hand, one side and then the other, and it was like an electrical current running through me, complete, filling my heart. Something clicked, so clear it was nearly audible. And I lowered my head, closed my eyes hard on sudden wetness, smiled in the dark.
Beautiful, passionate lady making the art of her heart in one of my favorite places on this rock. I don't think I could love this any more if I tried.
I always drink my coffee black the morning after. You would probably call it a penance, a way of balancing out the bitter and the sweet. Something as delicious as last night must be paid for.
Anyone who knows me at all knows I thrive on poetry and ritual. I kiss the girls once on each cheek, the same for the boys with a whisper, just for him. "Hey, Mister..." I do not drink, except for red wine, and my clothes are always black. I am consistent in the details and you adore that, so silly. If you know what to expect in my wardrobe, you seem to forgive me all my despicable little faults.
For lust grows by any means necessary and when you give in to that sweetness, I am always there. I am desire in the face of desperation, a final salty-sweet kiss before the firing squad or the hangman's rope. You know me in the furtive embrace in the wee hours of the morning just before despair creeps into your heart.
Sit. Have a cup of coffee with me.
Sugar?
I thought so.
Grab your toothbrush and an extra pair of socks.
Pick a direction. Flip a coin. Whatever.
Climb in, don't bother with the map. GPS? What's that?
We've got snacks and bottled water and a stretch of pavement in front of us so wide we can't be sure where the road stops and the sky begins.
A full tank of gas, my sunglasses, and your hand on my knee.
I'm ready. Let's go.
You leaf through your thick, leather-bound herbology and a page flutters to the floor. You retrieve it, distracted, take a sip of your coffee, and make a small sound of discovery as you put down your mug. You read to me. "The heather plant thrives in barren lands..." I snort. You look up and frown. I grin to show I'm still listening. "It is a hardy plant. And yet delicate." I can't help it. "Oh, yeah. That's me. A delicate freakin' blossom." I take a long swallow of coffee and wave you on. You smirk. "It is a flower that also is symbolic of solitude -- " "That's fitting." "-- beauty and admiration. The tender roots provide grazing for wild life." "Lions, tigers, bears..." "Resistant to most pest and diseases." "Thank goodness for that." "It is prized for its toughness and the color it provides all year." I look down at my black t-shirt and jeans, the standard-issue uniform these days. "Well, it got the tough part right." "In history it was prized for it was used as roofing material, and bedding. Shelter and rest, see?" I recognize your tone and I stop cracking wise. "Heather is the essence for sympathy and concern for others. Just try and argue that one." I roll my eyes and wrap my fingers around my mug and say nothing more. "It also smells divine." My lips twist somewhere between a grin and a smirk as I raise my arm and take a deep sniff, finally make you laugh. We finish our drinks in silence, companionable as always. Stories By Sun & Candlelight is an ongoing work by H. S. Moore -- fragments, ink-blots, love letters, & vagaries collected together by whatever means necessary and shared as they come to Light. New Stories are posted every Friday.
It's storming here and I'm curled up in bed with one coward of a dog, dosed out of my gourd on benadryl and forcing all the pretty little words to fall in line...
There's no point in laying blame or arguing. Spit and chewing gum can only hold things together for so long. Sometimes there's just not enough glue in this world and the only choice left is to admit that some things simply cannot be fixed.
That doesn't mean there's no beauty inherent in the color, the form of the pieces. The sun shines still, even on the wreckage left behind.
At some point, he must have decided that playing by the expected rules was no longer an option, that no matter how he tried to force himself into the mould the world desires him to squeeze into, he is simply not the right shape or size and cannot make himself so.
He's been wearing the Clark Kent glasses for so long now, cut his hair and wore the proper shoes. He lost weight, gained weight, bled and sweated out the night terrors and the confidence-sucking doubts. He read all the right books, chanted the mantras, all to no avail. He even -- in a convulsion of last-ditch desperation -- put on a suit, a noose-tight tie, and carried a briefcase made of animal skin he despises full of papers he knows mean nothing.
None of it has fixed the fundamental flaw that makes him so intrinsically different from every other person he brushes shoulders with on the daily zombie commute to a job he despises. At least he has that in common with the rest of the masses.
I think he may be more alive today than he's ever been before. I hover above and watch him, I hear him curse as he slips off the tie, tosses away the glasses. Then he sets down the briefcase and simply walks away.
If you're reading this, chances are you already know the story.
I heard a woman say recently that the more she tells the story, the more she heals. Not me. After a certain point I just grew tired of my own story and my place in it.
So, I changed it.
I told a different story, a story with more sunshine and less razorblades, more lazy snow days in front of the fireplace and not quite so many despairing 4AMs. I pictured a girl who stayed up all night just to see the dawn, not one that ended the night dead drunk on yet another random couch. Or at least not often.
And I'll tell you a secret now; in telling the story, I made it true.
I recreated myself yet again, always the phoenix, always smelling of sulfur and char, but generally in one piece, time after time. There is the flame and the devastation, the burns and the scars, but then there is still the woman left behind, whole if not sound.
And there, among the ashes of a story she can tell no more, she begins yet another story, her own.
Sometimes in the early morning when the light through my eyelids is still pink, I think I am anywhere but here. Depending on the day: my childhood bed, a hotel room in Santa Cruz, a sleeping bag, a tent, my brother’s down comforter, after I have wandered down the hall and found my place on the cooler side of the mattress, I nudge the pillow next to me to remind him it is time to get up. -- Sarah Kay
|
RSS Feed
