Tag Archives: nobody

85. cherry soda loves

there was a line in streetcar named desire that i remember. it said it’s touching to notice them making their first discovery of love! As if nobody had ever known it before.  it resonates, for now the time has come for the bud to be broken and flowers to bloom in the late-spring night air.

the risk is nothing. nothing, really. there are only the long sprawling afternoons this side of summer, when paper is scrunched up into tiny little balls and burnt with a magnifying glass or matches. whichever, the result is all that matters. words are nothing: this air requires action! 
and there are trees, so beautiful this time of year. they remind me of walking to school in the summer and inhaling the scent of apple tree blossom with T. those were the days, eh?

but now, no now, those buds will open and blossom will scatter into the hands of a handsome young man that we choose. for me, this sweltering summer, it’ll be you. and, god willing (an expression i borrowed from an altogether more believing friend of mine), next summer also. for T (if we were boys, she’d be a brother from another mother) it will be someone else. Her new beau (a rather lovely Tenessee expression!). her very first. amazing stength and will and beauty.

so here we are, and isn’t it queer to think we shall be here always? in the arms of another, in the throes of spring, the coming summer alighting hopes in every single one of us, as if petards were thrown at the pavement before us, at our feet, at our willing young hearts?

and we can’t help this feeling hopeful. and we can’t pretend we didn’t want this life.
so every year, like clockwork, we will be discoving those cherry soda loves and shedding blossom in each other’s arms.

84. that will be all

it’s time for answers. or questions. whichever. 
a fellow writer inspired me to think about a few. and they started the clock tick-tocking inside my mind: what did a girl like me want anyhow? what is the dream, the true ideal?

 

1. i’d like a picture of you on my windowsill by my bed: to keep, to hold, to treasure. it will be my reminder that you exist and when i wake up in the middle of the night, wondering if i dreamt up my whole life, i want it there to touch. it’ll be solid in my hands. a relic. and it’ll be in a mosaic picture-frame we’ve yet to buy. in barcelona or in paris (just because i like the way you say it) or in a magic place far away.

2. i’d like to have you on call, running to me whenever i need you there and sometimes just because. you know: for no reason, just because i want to be in your arms where it’s never lonely.  

3. and i want you to have eyes for nobody else but me, following me, stalking me, penetrating me anew with every gaze. i want them to ask me for affirmation of my love every morning and i want them to drown me whole, as if they were not eyes but lagoons of clear-blue water in devon, on hot summer afternoon, when all you want is to immerse yourself whole in water .

4. but more than anything, i’d like to know that this is where you want to be: here with me.

5. that will be all.

78. i have decided that i will be cold tonight

do you reckon we could make snow angels without snow? we could scrape ourselves against the ground, delirium of cold seeping through our pores. then, maybe then, our bodies would scrape away the frost from the pavement without drawing blood. maybe the ice will shatter somewhere inside of us. i’m cold tonight and nothing will warm me.

more than anything, i’d like for the sunset to come around again.
more violent this time, more primitive, innate; heat firing my synapses all at once with broken impulses. and i want it to smell of freshly brewed coffee in a little cafe on a little hidden street nobody knows but stumbles onto by chance. we must always roll the die of life. it’s in the eyes. always in the eyes.

like silence.
yesterday i would have told you it never comes around, but silence came. and now i know true silence is that which lies in the inevitability of it being broken any moment now. suppose it’s like cutting a cake. don’t ask me why.
and when it comes around you can see it lurking like a shadow in the eyes. a vapid corner of pitch black dark. but we are burning embers in the shadows of the light.
come with me: it will be alright.
i have decided that i will be cold tonight.

but i will try to warm you up.

i live thence

no one replies.
and in this deadly silence,
i sit alone,
my suitors lost in time.
the pain’s misplaced.
never mine.

      and i can fall all i want
cos nobody would hear the noise |

socially unacceptable.
murdering your life.
taking risks at your expense.
not knowing how to live, i live thence.

      and i can fall all i want
cos nobody would hear the noise |

i am that tree in the forest.
you want romance?
you never had a chance.

67. just alive

how is it that i still haven’t learnt to recieve compliments? years gone by and i’m still the ugly duckling waiting to become the swan. i’m told i’m there, but how can i believe my luck? nobody’s born lucky enough to have it all.

on friday we were at the first party either of us have been to in ages.
it was a success.
my nude dress, hair let loose on the wind and glittering stilettos, yes i was there. and you couldn’t stop staring. i had a ball: i danced and danced all night. jamming. grinding. skanking. crude is better than not at all. and it was a hit. i danced with guys and girls alike. 
i danced with you too, but that was more intimate, more reserved.

an hour before midnight, not even tipsy, i sat by your side, drinking. i was not exhaused, just alive. and a boy approached us. almost everyone there knew we were together.
he didn’t. he told me you look goregeous and you’re the hottest girl at the party and smiling politely i froze inside.

me?
gorgeous? … me?

he continued: i suppose this is your boyfriend? i retorted yes, without hesitation. YES. and then, i asked him to dance. he was awkward, kept saying you’d probably be better at dancing than him. i told him he danced well. then one of your friends came and talked to me. the boy slid away.

at the end of the night i saw him again. i said a few polite comments about the night and then, as i saw a vaquishing look in his eyes, we were gone.
i – the cinderella, you – my prince.