A drop of rain, carrying years of shattered hopes and promises, streaked on her pale skin to her quivering lips where it struggled to drip down onto the gravel. Today, three years after he had said goodbye, she still remembered how he first held her hand as the morning sun spilled its faint glow over the city and also, how he walked away holding hands with another woman in the pouring rain. The time her face was spattered with raindrops again, almost drenching her hair, was when she realized how the water clenched to her skin for it knew what she'd been through.
Gregory spread the avocado over the toast and sprinkled tomato on top as if it were cake decorations. There was a joy in how he did it, as if for a moment he was happily absorbed by a feeling of love that played in his subtle smile and soft gaze. Then he brought it over, his and mine, the breakfast that became a part of the rhythm of our lives together. For the first time ever I could see every day of my future and I wanted it, I wanted to stay and be apart of it more than anything I've ever wanted... for this new relationship to be something I sailed within until I am old.
When the stars come out to play and the evening takes on that aroma of the night, when the crickets sing for the joy of living, my bed awaits. I love the softness, the quiet, the sense of rest. My thoughts slow as a beautiful carousel, each dancing as ribbons from a kite string that reaches for sky, its colours embracing those lofty heights and inviting in the dreams that wear festival costumes and are formed of music. As I rest my bed is the four pillars beneath me, my safe place and cozy serenity.
His eyes were hues of the forest, surrounded with dark moss. It was the kind of earthy green that revives the grass after a cruel, unforgiving winter. Interwoven shades hiding the chaotic nature behind. Never before have eyes held such danger and beauty all at once. He was a wild fire: reckless, untamed, yet undeniably captivating.
Humans are the fastest land endurance mammal, and so when we combine that with a bicycle, we get a truly astonishing way to travel and have fun. We can take the treats out of our homes and choose a coffee shop (or a pub or a bakery!) a few miles away as the only place we will allow ourselves to get a treat at, then we soon see that amazing endurance land mammal in action, no more procrastination! We get biking. We get to our destination for the small treat we love, then bike home feeling it was worth it. The result? We get the sort of health everyone needs and deserves. It's a life-hack of sorts, a tweak, and it works.
The city spread below me, and the world suddenly felt so wide and free that I wanted to jump. Lights glittered everywhere just liked stars dropping to the earth, huge and small buildings collided in a mixture of shadow and geometry, tiny vehicles rushing along tangled lines of streets creating twisting threads of light - they all intertwined together in a magnificent mess of dream.
A breathtaking, marvellous, almost frightened dream that made me feel like some fake, unlucky living thing.
One hand scrunched into that tumble of hair, those curls that defied rules and gravity with equal contempt. As she pondered, that great brain of hers solving problems that had defied geniuses for all our age and more, she'd never been more beautiful... my philosopher...
When I was eight months old, I knew every corner of the house because I had just learnt to walk. By the time I was ten months old, I hadn’t left any spot in the sunflower field untraveled. That’s how my mother liked to say it.
She once told me, “When you took your first step in that field, when I saw how balanced those tiny feet were, I knew my baby could run; I knew I would be so proud of my baby.”
She was right; the pride in Ma’s eyes lit up like the fireworks on Fourth of July. Her baby had made her proud. I remember wrapping my fingers around the medal hanging from my neck, then letting Ma hug me so tight, almost suffocating me as always.
Two months after our chat, her baby ran again. Little did she know, I was running with a bag of weed, and almost a thousand dollars in cash. I only needed to get out of my head, and out of the town.
I haven’t seen those eyes again. Not when I had graduated middle school with all as from juvie, or even when I had decided Dusty’s life was more important than my own.
For the last six months, all I’ve seen is the disappointment in her face, dark like the sky over Carlson, all the stars dead with the death of the soldiers and the death of the veteran’s dreams
Today the sunshine is in our bones, its heat radiating outwards into the bright day. It's as if the people glow, their aura so happy on these summer days. Oscar rests in the shade, his eyes on the foliage above, on each green leaf in that vast canopy. I watch him reclined in that dappled shade, a book resting on his raised knees, his eyes following the text as if it were the soft call of a lover. Before I've quite chosen what to do, my feet have taken me under that same tree, perhaps they longed to feel the coolness of the grass around him. And as he reads, I dream and the moments stretch out into a medicinal ambiance, made all the stronger for the heat, the brilliant light and the blessing of such company.
Mourn not the passing of a life well lived, yet celebrate. Count the times your souls smiled together, reached out so invisibly yet tangibly and touched. Death is only the end of a chapter, my friend. And so as this body makes ready to return to the soil, my spirit will watch over you and live in your heart. It will bring sadness as we transform to this new way of connecting, yet this is part of living.
I can name all the colors of rainbow before you can finish counting to seven. I can name all thirty-two colors of Nate's striped dirty blanket. I know the names of all shades of orange, each faded differently from washing.
I can tell what the color of the slide was when Nate and I played there the last time as normal elementary school kids. I remember what color I was wearing when I was first stripped down, or when Nate first showed up covered in blood. I can even name all the shades of red there was on my pants, on his shirt.
When I shoot up a firecracker, colors become just a conception, not a real thing. Even the sky looses the name for its color. I wish I knew what those colors were called. The only thing I know is it will not fade away, but it will spread into infinity, each tiny bit taking a part of me, flying me through different galaxies.
But then, those little firecrackers don't go far before falling back to the ground.