Smother Me

Four years ago, this song was something sweet. Four years ago, this was ice skating in the summer and remembering the school year that came before. It was looking forward and wanting someone, wanting them and not being able to admit it to yourself. It was a request and a command. It was a mist and a wind and the waters that stirred beneath it.

This was something you played when you thought of him and something he played when he thought of you -- the piano was delicate, like the strings that held you together.

It was one of the many songs he monopolized. Now you can't listen to any of them without being overcome by an all-consuming wave of nostalgia. You never ached for him but he was a good thought, a good thought that did not resonate, just relapsed. 

You replay the idea of him over and over in your head, fumble with it awkwardly before putting it down and setting it aside, hiding it on a high up shelf hoping next time, you won't be able to reach it. 

+++

A few weeks ago, this song was something stinging. Now, someone else's face comes to mind. The thought of him makes your blood electric -- it's stronger than something built four years ago. It pushes and pushes and demands to be felt. 

The piano is persuasive. It moves and it promises, it begs and it wishes. It's no longer something you want to preserve, it's something you want to achieve. A future you know you want, a future with a boy who is surely good and right (though possibly not for you). 

Your breathing changes when he's around. You smile more. You make no sense. You're losing him and you know this and though you try to be at peace, but it nudges you in your sleep. It nudges you into dreaming -- where is he going, where has he gone.

You touch the idea of him carefully and it sends shivers through you. You keep it close to your heart so you never forget what it was like: the few moments you had with him. It hurts like the concrete pavement that's going to kill you (don't look away); but it's not falling, just flying in reverse. His memory holds you up, away into the earth.

ashes

his music made sleeping feel like water at the edge of a glass table -- the tension that kept him intact was just as fragile as the pressures that kept him asleep. his crumpled clothes reeked of sweat and cigarettes and the glorious smell of woman. soaked in the unblinking suspension of belief in dreaming, he let himself float.

Uno.

I have written about this so many times, mostly because I was in this hormone-induced stage of teenage agony and I had to let it out somehow, but now that I’m well over it, I think it’s time I tried writing a version that doesn’t contain as much emotion as comedy and sarcasm. Wish me luck. :D

Dos.

I haven’t told this one in awhile, just because it happened in the fifth grade and people usually just ask about high school. I stand by my testament to fifth grade being the most drama-filled year of my schooling life (but I’ve got a few more years of college ahead of me so I mean, we’ll see). *edited*

i think my cat has eyebrows.
seriously.

Theory.

Do you like the idea of being an idea. No past, no future, just an idea that expands and contracts to a person’s liking, existing completely in theory, and therefore perfect. You would be untouchable, on a pedestal, wanted and needed and never had. You’d be a standard, a greatness of sorts and admired. And maybe even when the person’s gone and moved on to something else, you will always haunt them. And you’ll be a ghost, a ghost of something that could’ve been magnificent.

But then, you know, you’ll probably ache as they ache (if not more). Because then you will be restrained and held back, and always bound to be without. You have to hold yourself above wanting because wanting would make you concrete and human and possible, and that would defeat the purpose. As much as you would destroy, you would also sort of be destroyed by your restlessness.

You will want to want. And be dismantled by something vivid. And had as much as craved, and satisfy as much as deprive. But then you’d be achievable, something to attain. Not painted and carved and sculpted and made immortal in art and memories and endless regret.

and shine.

I want to dance with you in the morning
when loosely we spin and stumble and start

When nothing looks as living
as slow breaths and waking hearts

When work and play are nothing 
and night is cradled close and sung to sleep

When we can barely clutch our coffees
and company's all we can manage to keep

I want the morning to belong to us
hung-over from the beauty of slumber
reveling in the light of beginning
dwelling in the constant effect of after