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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.
The London sun shimmered above like a polished shield, as if it could shelter me from my past. Yet the buildings dominating the land and skyline were cold, monochrome - not a hint of green anywhere. This city was so different from my home, so claustrophobic. I abandoned looking upward to gaze through the crowd: business people, tourists, students, kids and dossers (just what I hoped not to be). Everyone knew what to do... except me.
Selene ran, bare feet gliding through the cold grass. A swift wind blew her long, brown hair out behind her like a cape. The eerie glow of the half moon glanced off the silver necklace that adorned her neck. She glanced up, her feet never missing a step as she gazed at the night sky. The light of the stars was hidden by the shadows of the clouds. Adrenaline pushed its way into her veins filling her with the thrill of adventure.
Suddenly, to her left, a tree shook and a white ghostly bird swooped down to fly beside her. Selene ran so close to the bird’s moon glinting feathers she could almost touch them. She put her arms out like she did when she was young, and let the wind pull her after the fading image of the bird.
The Me I Want To Be
The me that I am cowers behind her broken interior,
Terrified to look at herself in the mirror.
For she is scared that what she might see,
Is not who she wants to be.
So she surrenders herself to the chains of her sorrow,
And lies down to weep for the pain of tomorrow.
The me I want be is not afraid to plant her foot down,
And stand her ground.
She isn’t afraid to look herself in the eye,
And say, “Quit believing this lie!”
She may have enemies, but at least she stood up for something.
Her presence gives people courage to rise up out of nothing.
She doesn’t care what people think,
She trusts in God, believing that he will work out every kink.
The me I want to be, is not so far away,
If I ask God for the courage to break out of my fear, and for the strength never to stray.
~Twilightlover77
I trace his lip lightly with the tip of my finger. It pouts slightly, and I have such an urge to bite it, to kiss it, to wrap us up in a quilt and listen to our gentle breathing, watching the cotton ripple like skipping stones and sharing crooked smiles. His lip feels slightly chapped under my feather light touches but I simply cannot bring myself to give a damn. I gaze so intently at each divot of that lip, as if it could map out ancient seas and college plans and tell me everything I don't know. And I don't want to look up. Because if I look up, I may find myself at the mercy of questioning eyes, pleading, begging to know what I was doing, and I'm not at liberty to say because I simply do not know. "Do I love you?" I cannot form an answer with my lips because I am so focused on yours.
Then the memory passes, my eyes seeing once more, my ears hearing the here and now. I wish I had known just how painful my fixation on your lip would be, because loving the rest of you was torture, and sometimes I look back and wonder if i could have even stopped myself, warned myself away from such elegant heartbreak. Would I have even listened?
Or would the slight tickle of your breath expelling from that goddamn lip cause my words to stick to my throat, plastering themselves to my trachea and refusing to dispel into the palpable air. And the silence would have carried on forever and ever, until we dispersed into dust and scattered ourselves between remains of atoms of an age long gone - until a time I might hear your voice echo through the nothing.
A letter to my love,
I have never been very good at talking. Whenever I try to express the emotions whirling in my soul, my throat tightens blocking me from saying anything. So I will write. I never should have let you go, I realize that now. I chased after things that looked good, or women who were pretty but never truly had a place in my heart. You were always there for me every time I chased after one obsession or another. You quietly stood by my side supporting me. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I loved you, you were more than just a best friend to me. I could tell you things easily and you just listened. You always made me laugh. I thought I had my life figured out, but I didn’t. Without my knowing from the moment I first saw you real love began to take shape in my heart. I only truly realized it when I saw you at the homeless shelter. You didn’t know I was there, but I looked at you then and realized that I loved you. You were so different from the other girls I chased. You cared. Love radiated in your heart spilling out into the lives of all those around you. You weren’t just pretty on the outside you had a beauty somewhere deep within.
~B
There are days my head just doesn't work. I try so hard to focus and it's like trying to run through water. My brain fogs up and thoughts go nowhere at all. Sometimes I think its natures anaesthesia, anything to numb the pain, to wipe out the trauma. Then there are the times of clarity, sudden moments when I can see every detail and feel every feeling. The trigger can be something like sports on TV, a turn of phrase, a smell. At the start I hoped it was a process to wipe out the bad memories, to stop me reliving them to well meaning askers. Now I know it's not so simple. It provides some protection, but the price is the flashbacks and the times of confusion; the stronger the blocks become the more intense the flashbacks are - as if the neurones are fighting for their lives, anything not to wither away.
Yet, as my love said one day on a train with the countryside flying by, "There will be a future, there will be a future." And so that keeps me living, breathing, loving. I walk, each day another step onward, always hoping to arrive in that future, in a meadow for our souls, at peace. Should I ever find the end of a rainbow, it'll be him sitting there with a cheeky grin. He's my gold; I'm his angel, always.
An abstract sculpture of bones, donned with brown skin. He was inferior, he was deemed under. He was but a drizzle of the wrong paint, which ruined the vast canvas of the world, transforming pastel and bright dyes into a cool grey.
His father was young and broken, mended with the cheapest quality of cellotape, left half-stuck by the ever-coming, ever-leaving women, women whose eyes glowered , stashing their secrets in the hook of their garter belts. His father, though, would look upon him with a shadow of a faint smile, and a flame in his eyes, like sunlight shining through Dom's whiskey.
His sister, pretty and wholesome, cracking like a porcelain doll, would purchase cassettes and bury them in the deep creases of her mother's dress. Her hair, splayed with black, mirrored his forlorn face as he looked upon it. Her, as she twirled daintily to the fortes of rock and mimicked the sax at the zenith of a blues tune. She described herself to be rain,frequent and limited, vital and ignored. She would be like raindrops on the dry verandah, crackling like an old radio coming to life.
He would hold her honeyed hand, and walk through the lanes of the favela, and the asphalt streets of Providence, to protect her. He would tower over the lust of weathered men, who've done their time, the cry of the desperate, the acts of the criminals.
Nonetheless, she would return to her father, holding his dark hand, promising a tomorrow. He would watch from behind drapes and sigh.He would play tunes on a kitchen knife, a true actor in melancholic comedy. He was made of forged steel, but steel, after all, attracts. He was a mere magnet, he enticed all, he was enticed by all. He was ruined by all.
The old man sat there, dominated by a profound sadness, fatigue engraved on his worn face. He warmed his shivering hands against the crackling fire. The sorrow grew more profound each year he spent in his quiet, lonely house, the solemn walls reviving the memory of the losses he'd encountered in a previous life. "It's somewhat morbid" he would say to himself as he stared in the mirror, lost in its reflection. No longer could he see that inquisitiveness, that desire, that fire in his eyes. All that remained was the deceiving hollow soul that reflected in the tear-stained glass, the marks leaving no room to see his true self anymore. He was just a shell of a man.
Sunlight filled the sky, pure scattered light; its hue ambitiously illuminating each crevice of the land. Sparrows chirped an explicit background melody. With breath paused in my lungs, I wished time would halt. The trees shone as if they were wearing golden crowns and the vast sea was not able to absorb the bright sparks of the sun.The tides on the sea were racing among each other to reach the horizon from where the mighty godlike sun appeared. And though time continued, the emotions that flowed stilled my soul.
Words might just be blots of ink on a page, but they have power. They might be simple sounds carelessly uttered from a mouth, but they can crush confidence and provoke anger. Words might be soft and emotional, cried in the midst of war, but they have the power to arise courage in the hearts of men. Words might be sung from the bottom of a hurting heart with no one listening, but they have the power to reach the ear of a great God who can turn sorrow into dancing. Words might be little things written on a little square piece of paper, but they have the power to bind hearts or separate them. They have the power to start wars or end them.
The South Pacific at daybreak was indeed a sight for sore eyes. The sun peeked above the horizon, causing red streaks to cut into the awakening sky. The sea was clothed in a million shimmering stars that twinkled whenever the next wave came. Blue; blue was everywhere, it covered the ocean’s surface and, skipping the sunrise, traveled up into the sky for as far as the eye could see. In the middle of the ocean sat a little boat, out of place in the endless blue, like a black blotch on an artist’s blue canvas. It had three small sails and a little cabin in the center of its wooden deck; a steel rail ran around the edge of the deck. A girl stood at the rail, gripping it with both hands while she closed her eyes and tilted her head back to catch the sun’s emerging warmth. Her auburn hair flowed free around her face, and a slight smile curved her lips. She had the appearance of someone completely at peace, without a care in the world.