January 2009
23 posts
i knew her then
I knew her when she was sweet, and I don’t mean she isn’t now. But I knew her when she was young and sweet, when she smiled with girlish, distant innocence, when she cried at the thought of us not spending our lives together. Only I really knew her then.
the traveler
He pulled his boots off at night like everyone else, but he didn’t shake dirt out. It was something finer. If he had a kid, and he didn’t, he’d tell him to be a man long before he was supposed to. But he didn’t. So he made his mark with white chalk and he moved on.
followers
They’d walked with him through forests, trees so tall they seemed to grow from heaven down. They’d followed him through blankets of snow, leaving dark, wet footprints. They’d stayed with him under an angry sun, rays so bright they’d looked away.
And now, after all that, he’d lost one.
the thing he wrote
After writing it from his heart, he killed it himself, just to be safe, and started over, stripping it of lovingly-crafted adverbs and drowning its passive voice in poison. Across the anvil of grammar he struck with the hammer of pathos until it glowed hot and bright, ready for battle.
the flame
There was the sound of flame, distant, airy, ominous. He closed his eyes and felt it now too, a languid, caressing heat, kissing his eyelids, stroking his face, whispering warmth. He got up to look at a mirror but the smoke drifting in from under the door kept him still.
perfect
Nothing was perfect.
Tree branches spread across the sky in broken patterns. Snow turned to mush in the tide of tires and the beat of footsteps. Some prayers seemed unanswered. A murder of crows sailed beneath clouds that darkened and whitened and darkened again. Maybe everything was perfect after all.
when the fog came
We didn’t realize how we’d missed the fog until we woke up with its cotton clouds pressing on our windows. On that morning commute, every road sign, every field and boulder, every passing car unraveled in the mist like magic, only there as long as I looked, then gone again.
to keep
He’d given away the part of himself he was supposed to keep, and he’d done it knowingly and unknowingly, innocently and intentionally. You couldn’t tell by looking at him, or listening to him, or even by watching him sleep, for he drifted off as immediately as untroubled consciences often do.
darling of the tumblrverse
She dreamed she was the darling of the Tumblrverse. Likes had turned into Crushes, Followed into Followers, Posts to Reblogs. The Tumblettes parted the curtains for her, the Trends trended, the Staff picked, and the Radar now detected her slightest musings. She woke up in sheets of tangled writer’s block.
this morning
It was this morning. I saw a world. I saw a sky. I saw a crowd of faces. I saw a stone statue touching heaven. I saw a man raise one hand and lay the other. I saw a reflecting pool. I saw me. I saw you. Just this morning.
the mountaintop
Well I don’t know what will happen now.
It was cold. See the rain, sprinkling puddles in the streets. See the faces, cheering under the clear light of the Mason Temple . See King’s face, now tired, strong, serene.
I’ve been to the mountaintop, he says. And I don’t mind.
the conversation
There are some conversations we have, with words so long awaited, so hushed and fragile, so ripe with meaning and mystery, that we pause for some time afterwards, thinking, breathing, feeling the weight of our hearts in the silence. For Sam and Sarah, this was that moment after those words.
the return, after much time away
She was looking up at the winter sky with its wispy clouds, hands tucked into a dark peacoat, neck hugged warmly by a white wool scarf, cheeks flushed with cold, feet tucked into bow flats. She hadn’t yet seen him seeing her, and he enjoyed it for one more moment.
the strangers
He was you. And he was me. He was her and she was you. We sat as strangers, stood as friends, spoke as enemies. She was your nervous habit of twirling your hair, he was your fear of public speaking, and you—you were his way of making people laugh.
to the death
To the death! His eyes watered, his hands shook, his mind fuzzed. Every light was an explosion, every word a bang. He’d fought as long as he could through a night of remarkable illuminations and promising revelations, but now he would lie down, roll over, and freefall to unfettered sleep.
the surrender
Yesterday was Sufjan, the Beatles, Seabear, the Clash. Today it was Crystal Castles, M. Ward, Blitzen Trapper. Tomorrow it was My First Trumpet, Animal Collective, the Strokes, Boy Least Likely To. He saw now that it would never end, like the drop of sun born again every morning, and surrendered.
to sleep alone
He slept alone, almost. There was the night silence, fragmented by gasping heat vents and the nameless sounds of nature outside his window. His own limbs, tucked and folded around him in familiar positions. And his head, a fountain of stories told in the bright and bleeding colors of dreams.
trains
He heard a faraway train wailing hopelessly in the night. They were like antique toy models moving in miniature patterns on Christmas Day, the mode of transport for the heroes in the old classics tossing and turning in a sleeper car, destined to discover a murder in the eerie dawn.
molly
He read her clever quips, her immaculate semicolons, her careful commas, the lilting of her longer lines, cut with adjectives and adverbs in the most perfect order. Sometimes there was a picture: a thousand words depicting her at once carefree, ruminating, glamorous.
He would be horribly in love with her.
the trees
Behind the house were enough trees for Sterling to lie under and pretend he was in a forest. When he looked up, he saw stained glass—like in the church, the sun dripping between the leaves like honey. He could never fall asleep there. But at least there were trees.
another face
Everything had changed. The sun was like the moon to him, a watching white eye. When the birds rose to flight, he saw them swimming in a sea of sky. When he heard their song, it reminded him of nothing, and when he heard her name, it was another face.
the night
He slept. The night was dark. The night was oily. The night was black. The night was deep. The night was charcoal. The night was slate. The night was cotton. The night was white. The night was pink. The night was yellow. The night was gold. The night was day.
the page
The page was blank. There were no markings on it, san-serifs or otherwise, no tiny marks saying this or that or what have you, no dots gathered into symbols of meaning, pained or hushed or bold or lame or horrendous. Yes, the page was blank and it begged for writing.