“Suicide,” I say, “is the easy way out?"
“No,” she says, “the front door is the easy way out. This is a lot more difficult.”
I hear the wind down the phone I’m speaking to her on and I wonder where she is.
“Suicide is not the answer,” I continue.
“Who’s asking questions?!” she retorts, getting angry.
I’m cradling the phone on my shoulder as I stir the cake mix. Even my sister’s imminent suicide can’t stop cake.
“I think you need to talk to someone,” I say, trying to calm her down.
“Well I’m talking to you right now and all it’s doing it pissing me off,” she shouts, “I don’t think talking is doing a great deal of fucking good right now.”
Not that I’m an expert in suicide intervention, but I figure you need to strike a good bond with the person. Like hypnotists and conmen. Not that there’s much of a distinction between hypnotists and conmen.
I need to build a link, I’m thinking, something she can’t just stop talking about so she can jump off a building. Something more interesting than the unholy departure into what counts as an afterlife these days.
“What’s the weather like up there?” I ask.
She snorts down the phone. “What’re you doing, Suicide Intervention 101? A crash course in saving the damned? I bet you’re just making it up, aren’t you?”
She’s sharp.
“You’re just fucking bluffing your way,” she says, “into stopping me jumping off this building. I bet you’re watching TV or something.”
“I’m baking a cake,” I say.
“Oh fucking brilliant! Here I am, your only sibling, on the verge of oblivion—“
“You’re at Alton Towers?” I ask jokingly. It didn’t go down well.
“Fuck you! Jesus, I’m gonna be dying here and you’re baking a cake and cracking jokes? What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
I begin greasing the cake tin with lard.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” I reply calmly, “I’m not the suicidal one in this conversation.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “Touché,” she concedes.
She’s still quiet. I decide to press on.
“So what’s bought this on, anyway? Why are you going to end it all on this lovely Saturday?”
“Oh,” she sighs, “there’s a few things. Not that you fucking care.”
I’m tearing the greaseproof paper and lining the cake tin.
“I care,” I said, “you still owe me twenty quid’s worth of petrol money.”
She’s furious. At least I’m driving her away from the edge.
“Hey fuck you, I paid that money back and you know it!”
“Did not!”
“Did!”
“Did not!”
“Did did did!”
And suddenly we’re seven years old again and she’s not on the edge of a building somewhere and I’m not checking the oven temperature.
The moment passes.
“You know why I’m not dead yet?” she says, bringing the conversation back.
“Because I’m such an awesome suicide intervener?”
“It’s because some kids are eating burgers on a bench below me. I don’t know how old they are but I know only kids eat like that.”
She’s thinking of the children.
“Maybe you should go get a burger,” I venture.
“Nice try.”
I give the cake mixture a final few turns with a wooden spoon and take the bowl to the cake tin.
I hear her moving and suddenly it seems a lot less windier. She’s gone inside?
“I’ve not gone inside,” she says, “I’m just having a lie down.”
I start pouring the cake mix into the tin slowly.
“This isn’t a call for help, you know.”
“It is. I read it on a website. You don’t really want to kill yourself.”
“Fuck,” she says, adding darkly, “the internet.”
The cake mix has been poured and I’m spooning the last of it out of the bowl into the tin.
“I went on this website earlier,” she says, “in the library. I just typed suicide into google and this was the first thing that came up. It’s all about stopping me committing suicide. I’m reading this site and then I scroll down and there’s a diagram. A fucking diagram.”
I smooth the cake mix flat in the tin.
“It’s some fucking scales and it says PAIN on one side and COPING RESOURCES on the other side. And the PAIN is outweighing the COPING RESOURCES. It’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Tone down the language, I was once young.”
“Fuck off. So I’m on this page designed to stop me killing myself and it’s giving me this patronising stupid diagram bullshit. Go to the site. Fucking look at it.”
“I will,” I assure her, “if you’re not dead, I will.”
“Shut up, I’m not finished. I go further down the page. There’s a list to some fucking books. They’re selling fucking books on this fucking website.”
“No,” I say with mock drama.
“Shut up! Do you know what they’re called? I’ll fucking tell you. The first one is SUICIDE: THE FOREVER DECISION.”
She laughs bitterly and I can’t help but smile.
“The next is called CHOOSING TO LIVE. That’s not so bad. The third is HOW I STAYED ALIVE WHEN MY BRAIN WAS TRYING TO KILL ME. Can you fucking believe that shit? It’s a fucking joke. It really is. I think the idea is to stop suicide by the sheer hilarity of the website.”
“It’s a novel idea,” I say. Pun intended.
“That was a shit joke,” she says.
I once again concede. She might be considering jumping off a building but the rest of her thought processes are making up for it.
I put the tin in the oven and slam the door shut. I look for the timer about the kitchen, tapping the faux-granite idly.
“Don’t kill yourself,” I say.
“The direct approach!” she exclaims. I hear the wind pick up again.
“I’m looking over the edge,” she says, “and those kids are gone. I could jump right now. I could do it.”
“Don’t,” I say, “they’d probably make me scrape you up.”
“That’s fucking sick,” she replies, getting angry again, “I’m on the fucking edge here and you’re making sick jokes like that. This is serious, you know. This is fucking serious!”
“That all depends on your point of view,” I reply calmly, meaning every word.
“What the fuck no! My suicide is serious!”
“Not really. I mean, everyone has to go sometime. Just some go messier than others.”
“You’re doing it again, you sick fuck!”
“Okay I’m sorry,” I say, adding a few hours to my electronic timer, “but my point still stands. Life is short and in the end, nobody cares. You know what my coping resource is? To push the fucking pain off the scales. I just don’t give a fuck.”
“That’s a pretty shitty attitude,” she says, suddenly sullen.
“My attitude’s working pretty well so far. I’m baking a cake and you’re on the edge of a building.”
She’s quiet. Maybe I got through to her.
“Look, I know you’re having problems. So am I.”
“Like fucking what?!” she shouts.
“Like my sister is going to fucking kill herself!” I shout back.
She shuts up again and I talk quietly.
“But the simple fact is that if you just don’t care about problems, they tend to go away. It’s not me being callous, I still help people and I’m still nice to people.”
She speaks quietly now. I think she’s crying. “Not everyone can think like that.”
“Then,” I say softly, “I guess evolution will see to all the suicidals off and my thought process will survive.”
“Oh for fucks sake,” she says, “this was getting fucking serious. Now look what you’ve fucking done.”
“Jesus, take a chill pill. Just don’t overdose.”
I can’t help but laugh at the joke and I’m sure she laughed too.
“You’re a fucking cunt of a brother,” she says.
I smile to myself and nod as I sit on the work surface.
“Fancy a slice of cake?” I ask.
“If you hurry it’ll still be slightly warm.”
She’s quiet on her end of the line, and there’s only that noise of her blowing her nose. The noise I used to hate so much when we were kids because she was always so loud and it always made such a horrible noise.
Right now, it’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard.
“Sure,” she says, “I’ll be right over.”
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
My Dear
My Dear,
We've come again to this. You're in the bedroom slamming drawers and packing suitcases, crying on the phone to your mother. I can hear the corners of your conversation: "Can you believe it?" and "...should've left years ago." I think I heard a "worthless son of a bitch" bounce against the closet. (Let's hope, this time, you leave it on its hinges.)
I wonder what you're wearing. You ripped your blouse getting out of the car tonight—caught it on that three carat platinum bracelet I bought you for Valentine's Day—so I can't imagine it's survived your vanity. The bedroom is off limits, of course, but I've seen you angry before—fists tight and nails digging, stomping around in pantyhose and a lace bra. When you notice a runner you'll curse and hop about until you've tugged the tights off, scowling at those hardwood floors you wanted. Your diamond earrings are probably thrown bitterly beside your five hundred dollar purse, both trying to find cover under that special edition mahogany bureau. I'm sure you have every Versace dress packed in its plastic and placed with care across the custom comforter we had to order to match the custom paint marring our once-white walls. (It still only looks "green" to me.)
You've quieted down now. I've seen this, too. You're backed against the bathroom wall, knees to your chest, sobbing beside that picture we took in Nice. Your hair has run free of its star-bought stylist and is tickling your chin, with one little curl trapped around your nose (the way it used to be when we were in college and Cancun was exotic). Your mother has since hung up, and you've left the phone atop the toilet. Any minute now you'll turn the shower on, believing it will mask the tears, and you'll spend the next hour or so sending our hot water (and our money) right down the drain. Our marriage, however, will meet a different fate.
Closer to morning, in that blue-gray light reserved for young lovers, you'll tip-toe down the stairs and pause on the very last step. Here, you'll lean as far as you can without letting go of the banister, imagining you're quiet despite the final hiccups of a night gone wrong. Your voice will tremble through my name, but I won't reply. You know I'm awake, and I tired of games long ago. Apologetic and vulnerable, in those cotton pajamas you dug out of your past-lives drawer, you'll wander into the living room and curl up on the couch, thin fingers shaking as they slide around my waist. You'll nudge your cheek against my chest and close your eyes with a soft sigh, and despite the protestations, defenses, and clever comebacks I've been devising for hours—despite the anger, the hurt, the embarrassment next time we see your mother (Sunday for dinner, right?)—I'll notice your perfume and those adorable ankle socks with the blue teddy-bear border. I'll feel your wedding band pressed against my ribs and listen to you shudder out the last of your grief—and I'll forgive you.
"I'm sorry," I whisper now in the dark, but you don't hear me. It's hardly Midnight and the shower's on. But it's okay; I'll wait. You've always been well worth waiting for.
Simply,
Yours.
We've come again to this. You're in the bedroom slamming drawers and packing suitcases, crying on the phone to your mother. I can hear the corners of your conversation: "Can you believe it?" and "...should've left years ago." I think I heard a "worthless son of a bitch" bounce against the closet. (Let's hope, this time, you leave it on its hinges.)
I wonder what you're wearing. You ripped your blouse getting out of the car tonight—caught it on that three carat platinum bracelet I bought you for Valentine's Day—so I can't imagine it's survived your vanity. The bedroom is off limits, of course, but I've seen you angry before—fists tight and nails digging, stomping around in pantyhose and a lace bra. When you notice a runner you'll curse and hop about until you've tugged the tights off, scowling at those hardwood floors you wanted. Your diamond earrings are probably thrown bitterly beside your five hundred dollar purse, both trying to find cover under that special edition mahogany bureau. I'm sure you have every Versace dress packed in its plastic and placed with care across the custom comforter we had to order to match the custom paint marring our once-white walls. (It still only looks "green" to me.)
You've quieted down now. I've seen this, too. You're backed against the bathroom wall, knees to your chest, sobbing beside that picture we took in Nice. Your hair has run free of its star-bought stylist and is tickling your chin, with one little curl trapped around your nose (the way it used to be when we were in college and Cancun was exotic). Your mother has since hung up, and you've left the phone atop the toilet. Any minute now you'll turn the shower on, believing it will mask the tears, and you'll spend the next hour or so sending our hot water (and our money) right down the drain. Our marriage, however, will meet a different fate.
Closer to morning, in that blue-gray light reserved for young lovers, you'll tip-toe down the stairs and pause on the very last step. Here, you'll lean as far as you can without letting go of the banister, imagining you're quiet despite the final hiccups of a night gone wrong. Your voice will tremble through my name, but I won't reply. You know I'm awake, and I tired of games long ago. Apologetic and vulnerable, in those cotton pajamas you dug out of your past-lives drawer, you'll wander into the living room and curl up on the couch, thin fingers shaking as they slide around my waist. You'll nudge your cheek against my chest and close your eyes with a soft sigh, and despite the protestations, defenses, and clever comebacks I've been devising for hours—despite the anger, the hurt, the embarrassment next time we see your mother (Sunday for dinner, right?)—I'll notice your perfume and those adorable ankle socks with the blue teddy-bear border. I'll feel your wedding band pressed against my ribs and listen to you shudder out the last of your grief—and I'll forgive you.
"I'm sorry," I whisper now in the dark, but you don't hear me. It's hardly Midnight and the shower's on. But it's okay; I'll wait. You've always been well worth waiting for.
Simply,
Yours.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Emotions with Longer Names
“Why are you holding a camera?” Her eyes flickered to look at his. She possessed no poker face—her discomfort made him smile, even now.
“I don’t know,” replied a disembodied voice. The sound of his words made his heart beat faster, made the memories come rushing back in some horrific nightmarish image of a carnival ride.
She displayed her white teeth to him in an awkward smile, the flashing red light reflected in her eyes. They weren’t looking at the camera—they were looking at him.
“Talk to me,” he said, loving to film the shape of her face in all that silence but knowing her awkward quirks.
“I don’t know what to say.” Her voice was quieter than normal, and scarlet stop signs were ebbing at her cheeks.
“Say anything,” he commanded in a voice heavy with anticipation. His vowels were richer than a gourmet bagel caked in strawberry cheesecake cream cheese.
She bit her lip, and he could see the cartoon bubble appearing above her furrowed brow—I’m thinking.
“John Cusack,” she whispered to the floor.
“What?” he snapped to attention idiotically.
She cleared her throat. “John Cusack,” she said again, with more confidence. “Say Anything. Famous for the scene when he held the boom box outside her window.”
He heard himself smile and imagined his circulatory system settling down for a relaxing game of chess, even though his current pulse was more like monarchs with sledgehammers—jackhammers, too.
“I love that you said ‘boom box’ instead of ‘stereo.’”
She was turning red again but didn’t want him to stop. He could tell that her eyes were looking at his own again. Lost in a moment where the existence of the camera was forgotten, she let her guard down, and a genuine smile grew from the corners of her lips that commanded the fluorescent lights to halo her bright blonde head.
He paused the tape so that her happiness occupied the dimensions of his bedroom television. This was hard. No, this was more than hard. He had known it was going to be. Her incandescent smile warded off his tears and coaxed him to hit play.
“You look beautiful,” he said along with himself as he stared at her.
Her smile grew larger, and he bathed in the melody of her laughter.
“What?” he said, laughing along with her. He never could keep a straight face when hers was so happy. He knew that her happiness was meant as an invitation, and he was a loyal party-goer who R.S.V.P.-ed almost as soon as he heard the clang of the mailbox and the echo of the postman’s footsteps on the little stretch of concrete path in front of his house.
“Well Mr. Filmmaker,” she looked at him again. He could see the girl who wasn’t afraid of being on camera or eating octopus on a first date appearing before him. “You should be very familiar with the rating system, yes?”
He heard himself exhale quickly, the way he did when he was in a laughing mood. “Of course.”
“Well then. Due to the fact that your parents could stumble upon this—I mean, anything is a possibility—I’d say we’d do best to keep this PG, correct?”
He laughed. “Correctamundo.” He flinched at the memory of saying that. It was so passé, and he remembered how she used to give him a hard time about his vocabulary.
She raised her eyebrows with a half smile, a flag that told him the vocabulary rip was understood.
There was a glint in her eye, and he anticipated her line. “Then you do know that we’re going to have to turn this camera off in order for me to do what I want to do to you, right?”
She didn’t need his confirmation but immediately stood up from her spot on the couch that was, at present, three feet away from his quivering hands.
The camera spun in a series of bizarre angles that brought on nausea similar to that found during a bad bout with a tilt-o-whirl.
Then static decorated the reflections in his pupils. He didn’t notice, because he was still remembering her. Recalling the delicate pressure of her lips against his and wondering if it was wrong to love something so much. She made him feel every emotion, even the ones with longer names that he didn’t know existed, and still more.
He snapped out of his stupor, hastily wiping his face on his gray-sleeved forearm and wondering how long the static had been there until it was replaced a second later with her image again.
Her hair was just slightly longer. Her clothes were different. The grass visible through the living room window said that it was a mild winter. It was a new day. A new memory.
“And so the camera makes a dutiful reappearance,” she announced in an upper-class British accent.
“You don’t hate it, do you?” he asked sincerely.
“No,” she assured him. “It’s part of you—how could I?”
He smiled in front of the television set. She was so wonderful. He imagined her feeling as intensely for him as he did for her. He couldn’t believe it logically, but his romantic understanding had accepted the answer long before, and so he had to move on.
“How about now?” He flipped the miniature display screen so that it was facing her and she was forced to look at her own image.
Her eyes widened. “It’s weird…”
“How is it weird?” They always asked each other millions of questions, him especially. “Don’t even try to tell me you don’t like the way you look—that is so angst-ridden teenager.” He was using her words to keep the mood light, and her slight smile told him she knew it.
“It’s just…”she trailed off. He knew she was concentrating and not avoiding him, so he let her think.
“It’s different,” she started again. “Like…I know that I’ve seen myself in movie clips and even seen myself talking in front of a mirror. But. I’m not seeing a reflection right now. I’m seeing me in my real form. Forwards. It’s weird thinking about how easy it is to capture the real me so easily, especially right now. And two seconds from now, this will be me two seconds ago. It seems like film is one of humankind’s many attempts at achieving immortality. It’s weird to think how simple it is to achieve. That I could live forever in this memory. That we could be impermeable to change in this little setting. This nanoblip of our lives. It’s almost scary, but at the same time kind of comforting, you know?”
“Wow,” he breathed.
“What?” she asked, her mind bobbing to the surface of her thoughts.
“You never cease to amaze me.”
She smiled. She smiled a lot. She had an archive of smiles that she could use to fit every emotion and every situation. A number of them were exclusive to him, and he knew that. It just made him love her more.
“I’m glad that you let yourself be amazed,” she said with a mind and heart for only him.
He stopped recording, and the screen went black this time. His heart was screaming in agony while his mind was racking the carousels of memories and the photo booth picture strips he had kept in his bedside drawer.
He needed her closer to him. With every tape he watched, the more badly his body yearned for her touch, and the stronger his heart ached since it knew all of the dramatic irony that the videotapes were establishing.
But in the spaces where he forgot that he knew the ending, it felt like falling in love again. He noticed how she got used to the presence of the camera. Her blonde hair stretched more and more for her shoulders until it overcame its goal, and her soul seemed to be flying, no matter the time or the place or the situation. She was with him always, and so slowly she taught his soul to fly and his heart to race. She taught him how to work her Canon, and he developed an admiration for her photography. She breathed inspiration into his film, and he etched emotion into her still-life. They completed themselves with parts of each other, and they never tired of laughing. She still surprised him, and he still admired her.
It was getting to the end of his stack of tapes. His mind needed the resolution, but his heart was begging for mercy.
He delicately placed the last tape in the VCR and observed it blink into motion.
She was silent and dreaming underneath the covers of his bed. He hungrily watched her stomach rise and fall, his ears straining for the muffled sound of her even, spaced breathing. He felt as though he had melted into her, to understand and love her even while she was asleep.
He watched his prerecorded fingertips gingerly caress her shoulder, gently brushing away a few strands of that luminescent hair.
“I love you,” he whispered to her sleeping form.
He continued to watch the relaxation in her body. He knew she was comfortable and knew she was happy. And he understood that the calmness of her breathing was telling him that she loved him too.
The shot ended. It was the next day. They had both showered, and he was watching her shamelessly as she slipped into her clothing. He could hear her excitement as she literally sproinged all over his bedroom.
“We’re going for a drive,” she declared, as though it had been predetermined for years.
“Where to?” he asked her curiously, sensing an adventure on the way.
“You’ll see once we get there—it’s one of my favorite places in the world.”
“So I take it you’re driving? I better grab a helmet.” It was customary to joke like this, no matter the mood. Their record of conversations included many that contained every emotion. They could start crying and always end up laughing. It came standard with loving each other.
“Unless your extremely sexist mind has a problem?” she replied, knowing she had won a long time ago but having a good time through and through.
The camera followed them into her car. The weather outside was perfect, but they kept the windows up for the sake of the video camera.
They were just out of the driveway when the camera jostled around as he tried to click his seatbelt.
“Seatbelt?” He asked her as though he was the surgeon and she was the nurse. Maybe she was thinking of him being sexist again as she replied, “Nah, I live life on the edge.”
He heard himself laughing as the tears started to flow.
The radio played their favorite station, and he laughed as she developed driving dance routines.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “You’ll always be main stage—Justin Timberlake style. I could so be a back-up dancer.”
He laughed again, more and more. Being with her was everything.
She stopped at a red light.
“You know, I really hate this intersection. One-too-many roads go through it. People speed like crazy. Super annoying.” She was in her driving mode, the one where she said rather boring things to no one in particular—mostly to the windshield and, occasionally, a fire hydrant.
He stared at her. “I love you more than anything or anyone I’ve ever known,” he told her.
She looked him deep in the eyes.
The light turned green, so she stepped on the gas but didn’t eject him from her stare. So she didn’t see the truck in her rearview mirror. Her cerulean blue eyes looked their most sincere, their most genuine. She loved him so much.
“I lo-“ she started, but his yells drowned her out as he tried to grab the steering wheel. They were both terrified and screaming and then the crash happened. He was shaking to relive this, the noise of it was deafening—something like what he thought a tornado would be like. He heard the crunching of the metal as the camera was thrown from his hands—he wished that it had been destroyed so that he didn’t have to be here again. This was hell. Worse than hell. It was him breaking. He even heard the bones snapping, some of hers too. Nothing would stop moving. Eventually his screaming stopped as he lost consciousness.
Then everything grew silent. Well, almost silent. It sounded as though he could hear someone whispering, someone coughing.
His body went rigid. He felt like his heart had gotten switched in place of the human cannonball and was now miles away from him, speeding through the sky.
He could make out her words. Just barely.
“I…lo…(cough)…I love…you…”
Lying miles away in a deserted field, his heart shattered into twenty-one-billion pieces.
The battery of his camera died as the last memory he could ever have of her went black.
It was raining outside, but he didn’t seem to notice the dull pattering against his window panes. He fumbled in his pocket in search of his keys, found them, and rushed for the garage.
He didn’t buckle his seatbelt, almost wanting to die this time. Instinct led his car to the cemetery.
Raindrops mingled with the tears on his face as he searched for the headstone.
Her name was there, carved out in letters that were too stiff and too formal. He traced them with his quaking fingertips. They felt nothing like any part of her.
Finally he collapsed onto his knees, sobbing into the mud before his feet. For a while he cried too hard to speak. The words would get caught on their way up and would emerge as choked, passionate yells.
“I’m so sorry,” he coughed into the grass. “This is all my fault. I’m the one who never had the dreams! It’s because of me that you’ll never grow up to be a psychologist! It’s because of me that you’ll never see France! Everything turned out wrong. This isn’t how the story was supposed to end. I’m so sorry,” he choked and sputtered, consumed for several minutes by his tears. “I love you,” he whispered to the grass.
“I love you,” he repeated, louder. He recalled the memory of her confidence.
“I love you!” he shouted again and again, screaming himself hoarse into the vast emptiness of the black night.
It was a while before he noticed that the rain stopped. This calmed him suddenly and quieted his repeated proclamation.
He knew he needed to go home. When he got in the car, he fastened his seatbelt. His mind had done so much thinking that it was almost impossible to take in anything more. When he reached his room, he fell instantly into a long and sound sleep.
He dreamed of her sleeping body, of watching her chest rise and fall. He never drew his eyes away from her.
Just as he was waking up, she spoke to him. The memory of her voice felt old and untouched, like a sepia photograph in the recesses of ancient wedding albums.
“It’s weird to think how simple it is to achieve. That I could live forever in this memory. That we could be impermeable to change in this little setting. This nanoblip of our lives. It’s almost scary, but at the same time kind of comforting, you know?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I do know.”
The weather that day was perfect, and in the evening, the falling sunlight hit his couch cushions in golden stripes, delivering one of those exclusive smiles that only he would understand. It just made him love her more.
“I don’t know,” replied a disembodied voice. The sound of his words made his heart beat faster, made the memories come rushing back in some horrific nightmarish image of a carnival ride.
She displayed her white teeth to him in an awkward smile, the flashing red light reflected in her eyes. They weren’t looking at the camera—they were looking at him.
“Talk to me,” he said, loving to film the shape of her face in all that silence but knowing her awkward quirks.
“I don’t know what to say.” Her voice was quieter than normal, and scarlet stop signs were ebbing at her cheeks.
“Say anything,” he commanded in a voice heavy with anticipation. His vowels were richer than a gourmet bagel caked in strawberry cheesecake cream cheese.
She bit her lip, and he could see the cartoon bubble appearing above her furrowed brow—I’m thinking.
“John Cusack,” she whispered to the floor.
“What?” he snapped to attention idiotically.
She cleared her throat. “John Cusack,” she said again, with more confidence. “Say Anything. Famous for the scene when he held the boom box outside her window.”
He heard himself smile and imagined his circulatory system settling down for a relaxing game of chess, even though his current pulse was more like monarchs with sledgehammers—jackhammers, too.
“I love that you said ‘boom box’ instead of ‘stereo.’”
She was turning red again but didn’t want him to stop. He could tell that her eyes were looking at his own again. Lost in a moment where the existence of the camera was forgotten, she let her guard down, and a genuine smile grew from the corners of her lips that commanded the fluorescent lights to halo her bright blonde head.
He paused the tape so that her happiness occupied the dimensions of his bedroom television. This was hard. No, this was more than hard. He had known it was going to be. Her incandescent smile warded off his tears and coaxed him to hit play.
“You look beautiful,” he said along with himself as he stared at her.
Her smile grew larger, and he bathed in the melody of her laughter.
“What?” he said, laughing along with her. He never could keep a straight face when hers was so happy. He knew that her happiness was meant as an invitation, and he was a loyal party-goer who R.S.V.P.-ed almost as soon as he heard the clang of the mailbox and the echo of the postman’s footsteps on the little stretch of concrete path in front of his house.
“Well Mr. Filmmaker,” she looked at him again. He could see the girl who wasn’t afraid of being on camera or eating octopus on a first date appearing before him. “You should be very familiar with the rating system, yes?”
He heard himself exhale quickly, the way he did when he was in a laughing mood. “Of course.”
“Well then. Due to the fact that your parents could stumble upon this—I mean, anything is a possibility—I’d say we’d do best to keep this PG, correct?”
He laughed. “Correctamundo.” He flinched at the memory of saying that. It was so passé, and he remembered how she used to give him a hard time about his vocabulary.
She raised her eyebrows with a half smile, a flag that told him the vocabulary rip was understood.
There was a glint in her eye, and he anticipated her line. “Then you do know that we’re going to have to turn this camera off in order for me to do what I want to do to you, right?”
She didn’t need his confirmation but immediately stood up from her spot on the couch that was, at present, three feet away from his quivering hands.
The camera spun in a series of bizarre angles that brought on nausea similar to that found during a bad bout with a tilt-o-whirl.
Then static decorated the reflections in his pupils. He didn’t notice, because he was still remembering her. Recalling the delicate pressure of her lips against his and wondering if it was wrong to love something so much. She made him feel every emotion, even the ones with longer names that he didn’t know existed, and still more.
He snapped out of his stupor, hastily wiping his face on his gray-sleeved forearm and wondering how long the static had been there until it was replaced a second later with her image again.
Her hair was just slightly longer. Her clothes were different. The grass visible through the living room window said that it was a mild winter. It was a new day. A new memory.
“And so the camera makes a dutiful reappearance,” she announced in an upper-class British accent.
“You don’t hate it, do you?” he asked sincerely.
“No,” she assured him. “It’s part of you—how could I?”
He smiled in front of the television set. She was so wonderful. He imagined her feeling as intensely for him as he did for her. He couldn’t believe it logically, but his romantic understanding had accepted the answer long before, and so he had to move on.
“How about now?” He flipped the miniature display screen so that it was facing her and she was forced to look at her own image.
Her eyes widened. “It’s weird…”
“How is it weird?” They always asked each other millions of questions, him especially. “Don’t even try to tell me you don’t like the way you look—that is so angst-ridden teenager.” He was using her words to keep the mood light, and her slight smile told him she knew it.
“It’s just…”she trailed off. He knew she was concentrating and not avoiding him, so he let her think.
“It’s different,” she started again. “Like…I know that I’ve seen myself in movie clips and even seen myself talking in front of a mirror. But. I’m not seeing a reflection right now. I’m seeing me in my real form. Forwards. It’s weird thinking about how easy it is to capture the real me so easily, especially right now. And two seconds from now, this will be me two seconds ago. It seems like film is one of humankind’s many attempts at achieving immortality. It’s weird to think how simple it is to achieve. That I could live forever in this memory. That we could be impermeable to change in this little setting. This nanoblip of our lives. It’s almost scary, but at the same time kind of comforting, you know?”
“Wow,” he breathed.
“What?” she asked, her mind bobbing to the surface of her thoughts.
“You never cease to amaze me.”
She smiled. She smiled a lot. She had an archive of smiles that she could use to fit every emotion and every situation. A number of them were exclusive to him, and he knew that. It just made him love her more.
“I’m glad that you let yourself be amazed,” she said with a mind and heart for only him.
He stopped recording, and the screen went black this time. His heart was screaming in agony while his mind was racking the carousels of memories and the photo booth picture strips he had kept in his bedside drawer.
He needed her closer to him. With every tape he watched, the more badly his body yearned for her touch, and the stronger his heart ached since it knew all of the dramatic irony that the videotapes were establishing.
But in the spaces where he forgot that he knew the ending, it felt like falling in love again. He noticed how she got used to the presence of the camera. Her blonde hair stretched more and more for her shoulders until it overcame its goal, and her soul seemed to be flying, no matter the time or the place or the situation. She was with him always, and so slowly she taught his soul to fly and his heart to race. She taught him how to work her Canon, and he developed an admiration for her photography. She breathed inspiration into his film, and he etched emotion into her still-life. They completed themselves with parts of each other, and they never tired of laughing. She still surprised him, and he still admired her.
It was getting to the end of his stack of tapes. His mind needed the resolution, but his heart was begging for mercy.
He delicately placed the last tape in the VCR and observed it blink into motion.
She was silent and dreaming underneath the covers of his bed. He hungrily watched her stomach rise and fall, his ears straining for the muffled sound of her even, spaced breathing. He felt as though he had melted into her, to understand and love her even while she was asleep.
He watched his prerecorded fingertips gingerly caress her shoulder, gently brushing away a few strands of that luminescent hair.
“I love you,” he whispered to her sleeping form.
He continued to watch the relaxation in her body. He knew she was comfortable and knew she was happy. And he understood that the calmness of her breathing was telling him that she loved him too.
The shot ended. It was the next day. They had both showered, and he was watching her shamelessly as she slipped into her clothing. He could hear her excitement as she literally sproinged all over his bedroom.
“We’re going for a drive,” she declared, as though it had been predetermined for years.
“Where to?” he asked her curiously, sensing an adventure on the way.
“You’ll see once we get there—it’s one of my favorite places in the world.”
“So I take it you’re driving? I better grab a helmet.” It was customary to joke like this, no matter the mood. Their record of conversations included many that contained every emotion. They could start crying and always end up laughing. It came standard with loving each other.
“Unless your extremely sexist mind has a problem?” she replied, knowing she had won a long time ago but having a good time through and through.
The camera followed them into her car. The weather outside was perfect, but they kept the windows up for the sake of the video camera.
They were just out of the driveway when the camera jostled around as he tried to click his seatbelt.
“Seatbelt?” He asked her as though he was the surgeon and she was the nurse. Maybe she was thinking of him being sexist again as she replied, “Nah, I live life on the edge.”
He heard himself laughing as the tears started to flow.
The radio played their favorite station, and he laughed as she developed driving dance routines.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “You’ll always be main stage—Justin Timberlake style. I could so be a back-up dancer.”
He laughed again, more and more. Being with her was everything.
She stopped at a red light.
“You know, I really hate this intersection. One-too-many roads go through it. People speed like crazy. Super annoying.” She was in her driving mode, the one where she said rather boring things to no one in particular—mostly to the windshield and, occasionally, a fire hydrant.
He stared at her. “I love you more than anything or anyone I’ve ever known,” he told her.
She looked him deep in the eyes.
The light turned green, so she stepped on the gas but didn’t eject him from her stare. So she didn’t see the truck in her rearview mirror. Her cerulean blue eyes looked their most sincere, their most genuine. She loved him so much.
“I lo-“ she started, but his yells drowned her out as he tried to grab the steering wheel. They were both terrified and screaming and then the crash happened. He was shaking to relive this, the noise of it was deafening—something like what he thought a tornado would be like. He heard the crunching of the metal as the camera was thrown from his hands—he wished that it had been destroyed so that he didn’t have to be here again. This was hell. Worse than hell. It was him breaking. He even heard the bones snapping, some of hers too. Nothing would stop moving. Eventually his screaming stopped as he lost consciousness.
Then everything grew silent. Well, almost silent. It sounded as though he could hear someone whispering, someone coughing.
His body went rigid. He felt like his heart had gotten switched in place of the human cannonball and was now miles away from him, speeding through the sky.
He could make out her words. Just barely.
“I…lo…(cough)…I love…you…”
Lying miles away in a deserted field, his heart shattered into twenty-one-billion pieces.
The battery of his camera died as the last memory he could ever have of her went black.
It was raining outside, but he didn’t seem to notice the dull pattering against his window panes. He fumbled in his pocket in search of his keys, found them, and rushed for the garage.
He didn’t buckle his seatbelt, almost wanting to die this time. Instinct led his car to the cemetery.
Raindrops mingled with the tears on his face as he searched for the headstone.
Her name was there, carved out in letters that were too stiff and too formal. He traced them with his quaking fingertips. They felt nothing like any part of her.
Finally he collapsed onto his knees, sobbing into the mud before his feet. For a while he cried too hard to speak. The words would get caught on their way up and would emerge as choked, passionate yells.
“I’m so sorry,” he coughed into the grass. “This is all my fault. I’m the one who never had the dreams! It’s because of me that you’ll never grow up to be a psychologist! It’s because of me that you’ll never see France! Everything turned out wrong. This isn’t how the story was supposed to end. I’m so sorry,” he choked and sputtered, consumed for several minutes by his tears. “I love you,” he whispered to the grass.
“I love you,” he repeated, louder. He recalled the memory of her confidence.
“I love you!” he shouted again and again, screaming himself hoarse into the vast emptiness of the black night.
It was a while before he noticed that the rain stopped. This calmed him suddenly and quieted his repeated proclamation.
He knew he needed to go home. When he got in the car, he fastened his seatbelt. His mind had done so much thinking that it was almost impossible to take in anything more. When he reached his room, he fell instantly into a long and sound sleep.
He dreamed of her sleeping body, of watching her chest rise and fall. He never drew his eyes away from her.
Just as he was waking up, she spoke to him. The memory of her voice felt old and untouched, like a sepia photograph in the recesses of ancient wedding albums.
“It’s weird to think how simple it is to achieve. That I could live forever in this memory. That we could be impermeable to change in this little setting. This nanoblip of our lives. It’s almost scary, but at the same time kind of comforting, you know?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I do know.”
The weather that day was perfect, and in the evening, the falling sunlight hit his couch cushions in golden stripes, delivering one of those exclusive smiles that only he would understand. It just made him love her more.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Coffee
I’m still stuck in the old motions you taught me, the tiny movements and mannerisms that ground their way into the material of my grey matter with the sequential passing of days. They say a human forms a habit in twenty-one days. Whoever they are. I don’t think they know this kind of “habit,” this mechanic repetition that anchors me to this plane of existence, this autopilot safeguard. Whatever. I don’t need them. I’ve become something of a misanthrope anyway.
Like every other morning for the past month, I sit on the porch with two mugs of coffee and wait for you to come by and pick me up, and just like every other day I’m late to work. I don’t know why my Boss hasn’t fired me yet; maybe it’s pity? Maybe he’s just waiting for the perfect, most spectacularly miserable day to come by, so he can pat me on the shoulder with a smile: “Hey, you’re fired!”
Work passes in a mind-numbing blur of key-tapping, paper-shuffling and coffee trips. I expect you to walk in at any moment and apologize for being late, so I try to keep two hot cups of coffee on my desk at all times. By the end of the day, my garbage basket is soggy with cold coffee and filled with white indecomposable cups. I wonder what the maids think.
After work, I walk to the Acoustic and sit at our table to wait. The staff has been bringing me a cup of coffee everyday with this crestfallen, pitying look on their faces and I never understand why they don’t bring two cups, never mind the look on their faces like someone died. I wait for about two hours, give or take, in the deliciously cloying atmosphere and finally decide that you’re probably waiting for me at my place. When I get up and leave, the cup remains, full and cold and dead.
When I get to my place, I open the door, cursing the damn thing as I try to slam it shut. When are you going to fix that frame? It’s been “a few days,” y’know. Coat goes on the chair, cell phone on the table, keys in the coin tray and I’m off to the coffee pot to make sure there’s some fresh java for you when you finally show your face. I walk to the living room, toeing off my socks on the way to the couch. There I flop down bonelessly, throw down the paper I had picked up for you on the way home, and put my fine motor skills to use by pressing the power button on my television remote. The news is usually on; I never bother to change the channel from one day to the next.
From there, I move to the shower, and as always, turn the water on full blast and stand beneath it until it goes frigid. Damn the rest of the tenants of this dilapidated building; the hot shower belongs to me alone. When the water is so cold that my legs turn purple and I can’t keep my appendages from trembling, I turn it off and listen. The only sound in the apartment is the percolating of the coffee pot and the drone of the man in the screen. Dripping quietly, I look blankly at the two brown bottles boldly declaring the words “Java Shampoo” and “Java Conditioner” sitting on the counter by my own 2-in-1 unscented shampoo. Where are you?
Emerging from the bathroom, I turn the radio on and mute the television. The radio is still tuned into the rock station you love so dearly. I slip on an old t-shirt of yours that’s worn to the point of being barely legible and declares none-too-modestly in age-crackled white block letters across the chest, “Shh. No one knows I’m a lesbian” and a pair of cuff-less sweatpants. I turn the radio up the tiniest bit and walk back into the kitchen, glaring venomously at the door open a tiny crack. Shoving a chair in front of it, I hear the noise of the coffee maker stop and turn on it, brandishing the hairbrush I had forgotten to put down. I look at it for a split-second, seeing the dark hairs sticking out on the edges, knotted and broken, and I feel a strange disappointment – if you were here, you would spaz out and demand with godly might that I clean my brush out. I clean it out anyway.
Setting the brush down on the counter, I pull out your favorite mug, which says simply “i [heart] coffee.” A sip of coffee hasn’t passed my lips for almost a month now. I’ll never let you know it, but I really don’t like coffee at all – I only drink it when you’re here to drink it with. Maybe it’s because you love the black liquid so much that I endure the horrible stuff. I really don’t understand why. I grab my own blank, blue mug and then fill the two to the brim, the steam curling into the air in evanescent patterns that whisper away in a moment, folding in on themselves. The scent fills my throat and my eyes sting with it.
Walking to the living room with a mug in each hand, I have to pick my way over clothes and shoes of yours scattered on the green carpet and by the time I get to the couch I’ve decided that when you move in next weekend, you won’t have to move much. Putting the two mugs down on the folded newspaper, I smile a little crooked smile and tip one of your shoes over on its side with my bare foot – y’know, the black ones with the chunky heels you bought so you could finally be taller than me? I can remember being at the store – the only thing I foresaw you doing in them was tripping and breaking your neck or some other vital area of your skeletal structure, and when I voiced my little observation, you laughed and said that you’d get lessons from your younger sister before attempting ‘pedestrial’ travel.
When I hear the neighbor pound on the wall I know it’s 12:30 and sure enough, bam! bam! sounds the human cuckoo clock. Standing, I stretch and groan – it’s Friday night and you’re not here yet? Letting out a sigh, I grab the two coffee cups and take them to the kitchen. Pouring the coffee down the drain, I watch it swirl away and I get this nagging sense of loss that I can’t quite place my finger on. I decide abruptly for some reason to shrug it off as I set the mugs in the sink with a soft chinking noise, and retreat to the other room, snapping the light off on the way out. Back in the living room, I turn the radio off and stare blankly at the silent television for a moment, the picture not even registering over the static in my brain. I walk over to the screen and push the power button, plunging myself into a moment of oblivion then slowly swimming my way back up into the world as my eyes adjust to the shadows.
Walking into my room, I half expect to see you lying there, scrunched in a nest of sheets and blankets, but the bed is empty, the blankets cold. The fan is whirring, as usual – you and your “I can’t sleep properly without the fan going” issue. It’s all right though; I think I’m developing an “I can’t sleep properly if you’re not here by me” issue. Crawling into bed, I clutch the pillow you lay your brown-maned head on and bury my face in it. I can smell the faint remainder of your coffee-scented shampoo, and my ribcage seems to shrink around my lungs and heart as my eyes begin to sting again. My whole body tenses up, my muscles taut as bowstrings as I screw my face up, clenching my eyes shut. Why am I crying?
As the tears subside, leaving throbbing eyes and sticky cheeks, my body feels heavy and weak even though I’m not moving a muscle or twitching a tendon. The breath of the fan feels good over my flushed skin and I let my eyes slip shut. A cold, soft feeling washes over me, and I can see your vivid emerald eyes behind my swollen lids, smiling at me.
They say people can die of broken hearts and I decide hazily that maybe, for once, they might be right.
[Out in the living room, a neglected newspaper lays on a dark-wooded coffee table, unfolded not even once by its particular consumer. The headline, in all-capital Times New Roman bold font, proclaims in its own detached and formal way “HATE CRIME VICTIM’S KILLERS STILL UNKNOWN AFTER ONE MONTH.” Below the headline, a beautiful woman smiles out, her green eyes sparkling even on the thin, dull paper and her short chestnut hair curled under her cheekbones. Across her face, a ring of coffee speaks her name.]
Like every other morning for the past month, I sit on the porch with two mugs of coffee and wait for you to come by and pick me up, and just like every other day I’m late to work. I don’t know why my Boss hasn’t fired me yet; maybe it’s pity? Maybe he’s just waiting for the perfect, most spectacularly miserable day to come by, so he can pat me on the shoulder with a smile: “Hey, you’re fired!”
Work passes in a mind-numbing blur of key-tapping, paper-shuffling and coffee trips. I expect you to walk in at any moment and apologize for being late, so I try to keep two hot cups of coffee on my desk at all times. By the end of the day, my garbage basket is soggy with cold coffee and filled with white indecomposable cups. I wonder what the maids think.
After work, I walk to the Acoustic and sit at our table to wait. The staff has been bringing me a cup of coffee everyday with this crestfallen, pitying look on their faces and I never understand why they don’t bring two cups, never mind the look on their faces like someone died. I wait for about two hours, give or take, in the deliciously cloying atmosphere and finally decide that you’re probably waiting for me at my place. When I get up and leave, the cup remains, full and cold and dead.
When I get to my place, I open the door, cursing the damn thing as I try to slam it shut. When are you going to fix that frame? It’s been “a few days,” y’know. Coat goes on the chair, cell phone on the table, keys in the coin tray and I’m off to the coffee pot to make sure there’s some fresh java for you when you finally show your face. I walk to the living room, toeing off my socks on the way to the couch. There I flop down bonelessly, throw down the paper I had picked up for you on the way home, and put my fine motor skills to use by pressing the power button on my television remote. The news is usually on; I never bother to change the channel from one day to the next.
From there, I move to the shower, and as always, turn the water on full blast and stand beneath it until it goes frigid. Damn the rest of the tenants of this dilapidated building; the hot shower belongs to me alone. When the water is so cold that my legs turn purple and I can’t keep my appendages from trembling, I turn it off and listen. The only sound in the apartment is the percolating of the coffee pot and the drone of the man in the screen. Dripping quietly, I look blankly at the two brown bottles boldly declaring the words “Java Shampoo” and “Java Conditioner” sitting on the counter by my own 2-in-1 unscented shampoo. Where are you?
Emerging from the bathroom, I turn the radio on and mute the television. The radio is still tuned into the rock station you love so dearly. I slip on an old t-shirt of yours that’s worn to the point of being barely legible and declares none-too-modestly in age-crackled white block letters across the chest, “Shh. No one knows I’m a lesbian” and a pair of cuff-less sweatpants. I turn the radio up the tiniest bit and walk back into the kitchen, glaring venomously at the door open a tiny crack. Shoving a chair in front of it, I hear the noise of the coffee maker stop and turn on it, brandishing the hairbrush I had forgotten to put down. I look at it for a split-second, seeing the dark hairs sticking out on the edges, knotted and broken, and I feel a strange disappointment – if you were here, you would spaz out and demand with godly might that I clean my brush out. I clean it out anyway.
Setting the brush down on the counter, I pull out your favorite mug, which says simply “i [heart] coffee.” A sip of coffee hasn’t passed my lips for almost a month now. I’ll never let you know it, but I really don’t like coffee at all – I only drink it when you’re here to drink it with. Maybe it’s because you love the black liquid so much that I endure the horrible stuff. I really don’t understand why. I grab my own blank, blue mug and then fill the two to the brim, the steam curling into the air in evanescent patterns that whisper away in a moment, folding in on themselves. The scent fills my throat and my eyes sting with it.
Walking to the living room with a mug in each hand, I have to pick my way over clothes and shoes of yours scattered on the green carpet and by the time I get to the couch I’ve decided that when you move in next weekend, you won’t have to move much. Putting the two mugs down on the folded newspaper, I smile a little crooked smile and tip one of your shoes over on its side with my bare foot – y’know, the black ones with the chunky heels you bought so you could finally be taller than me? I can remember being at the store – the only thing I foresaw you doing in them was tripping and breaking your neck or some other vital area of your skeletal structure, and when I voiced my little observation, you laughed and said that you’d get lessons from your younger sister before attempting ‘pedestrial’ travel.
When I hear the neighbor pound on the wall I know it’s 12:30 and sure enough, bam! bam! sounds the human cuckoo clock. Standing, I stretch and groan – it’s Friday night and you’re not here yet? Letting out a sigh, I grab the two coffee cups and take them to the kitchen. Pouring the coffee down the drain, I watch it swirl away and I get this nagging sense of loss that I can’t quite place my finger on. I decide abruptly for some reason to shrug it off as I set the mugs in the sink with a soft chinking noise, and retreat to the other room, snapping the light off on the way out. Back in the living room, I turn the radio off and stare blankly at the silent television for a moment, the picture not even registering over the static in my brain. I walk over to the screen and push the power button, plunging myself into a moment of oblivion then slowly swimming my way back up into the world as my eyes adjust to the shadows.
Walking into my room, I half expect to see you lying there, scrunched in a nest of sheets and blankets, but the bed is empty, the blankets cold. The fan is whirring, as usual – you and your “I can’t sleep properly without the fan going” issue. It’s all right though; I think I’m developing an “I can’t sleep properly if you’re not here by me” issue. Crawling into bed, I clutch the pillow you lay your brown-maned head on and bury my face in it. I can smell the faint remainder of your coffee-scented shampoo, and my ribcage seems to shrink around my lungs and heart as my eyes begin to sting again. My whole body tenses up, my muscles taut as bowstrings as I screw my face up, clenching my eyes shut. Why am I crying?
As the tears subside, leaving throbbing eyes and sticky cheeks, my body feels heavy and weak even though I’m not moving a muscle or twitching a tendon. The breath of the fan feels good over my flushed skin and I let my eyes slip shut. A cold, soft feeling washes over me, and I can see your vivid emerald eyes behind my swollen lids, smiling at me.
They say people can die of broken hearts and I decide hazily that maybe, for once, they might be right.
[Out in the living room, a neglected newspaper lays on a dark-wooded coffee table, unfolded not even once by its particular consumer. The headline, in all-capital Times New Roman bold font, proclaims in its own detached and formal way “HATE CRIME VICTIM’S KILLERS STILL UNKNOWN AFTER ONE MONTH.” Below the headline, a beautiful woman smiles out, her green eyes sparkling even on the thin, dull paper and her short chestnut hair curled under her cheekbones. Across her face, a ring of coffee speaks her name.]
Thursday, July 2, 2009
This is what LOVE is ......
Some say love is overrated.
Some say love is everything, and they couldn’t bear to be apart from that special someone for more than a few hours.
Some treat love as a game, untrusting and manipulative.
And with all this speculation, you wonder how many people really understand the meaning of love. So many people try to think of ways of saying it, to make it mean so much more; some say it just because they are words of flattery – because it is what the other person wants to hear. The truth is, love is so much more than just words. Love is expressions, touches, experiences. Love is growing together as one. When you find that person, and you grow to love each other, you suddenly understand why people would die for someone, why people would kill.
This person becomes your world.
There are no flashing neon lights hovering over their head, telling you that this person is the one, just like there are no lurid signs showing you that they will become your future. No stars collide (except in your mind) - and there are no fireworks (except from within). They are a permanent part of you, always a constant ache for this person – to feel their arms hold you, their fingers entwining with your own. Just the touch of their skin gives you goose bumps, and you never want to let go..
The knowledge dawns on you that without this person you are not whole, and you will never be the same without them. Thoughts, flashbacks, memories, filling your mind at every moment, leaving you with nothing more than a desire to be with this person, hoping, praying.. and eventually knowing and trusting they feel the same.
It is impossible to pinpoint the exact moment a person realises they are in love. But there comes a time when the mask comes off, and the real person show themselves. There is no longer a need to go to the movies every Saturday night to sell the sex clinging to your arm; you’ve grown bigger than that. Suddenly you want to be the only one to see them the same way you do, to appreciate who they are. Staying at home makes you feel much closer, and you only want to share every moment with them, not the rest of the world. They wouldn’t understand anyway, they couldn’t even comprehend.
You both become oblivious to each others imperfections, not noticing the crooked teeth or extra pounds, seeing only lines of perfect symmetry tracing their way down a lover’s body – curvaceous hips, seductive lips.
The eyes that ask questions, hands that answer them.
The eyes that are mirrors, lips that seal promises.
Reflecting the feelings you both feel, but words cannot measure.
You become able to predict their reactions, and know every quirky little expression they have. Things they say, things they do. The smiles, gestures, the familiar routine that occurs on every adventure in the bedroom, but this repetition doesn’t bore you, it only makes you realise you don’t want things to change.. ever. You know that you have found the real person hidden inside the shell that is saved for the outside world. You create your own world between silken sheets, in each others minds and in your heart. Rooms become a safe haven, love is proven, promises are made and truths are told. The “I love you’s” never seem to do your feelings justice at times like these, because there is no way the person can know through three simple words how much you need them with you, always and forever. Even till death do us part sounds like a cheap cliché, but it’s the best you can do. In their arms, and in their heart is the only place you ever want to be.
Safe, warm and secure.
There are fights, fights that make you forget everything else, make it impossible to concentrate because all you can focus on is what the other person is thinking.
Are they still angry?
Do they still care?
Will this fight mark the end..? No! Never!
Do they miss you as much as you miss them; miss the comfort of their laughter, their reassurance that everything is ok?
So many hopeless predictions as to what they’re thinking as you try not to let the desperation get to you - the worry can drive you mad. Picking up the phone, putting it down, wanting to talk but not wanting to make things worse. One call, so much hope – so much fear. Trembling hands reach out to the buttons. But as you are ready to dial they call and you know that they’ve put away their pride, and the mutual apologies show you that your love is more than just a façade. Knowing this is one of the most beautiful feelings a person can ever experience. The anger is drowned in a wave of love for the person, and all reason is left behind. You find yourself forgetting why you were even angry in the first place.
Maybe the fights are meant to happen, just so that you remember how important this person’s love is – and so you can experience the pure bliss of making up and feeling so close to them once again, as if you have been separated for years, making up for the time of lost love with words and gestures.
There is the love making. And yes, it becomes more than just sex. Two people coming together as one in a means of expressing their feelings for each other. Not just another notch on their belt to brag about on Monday – something surreal and lasting. Soaring to new heights, both of you sure that no other couple could ever feel this way. And maybe they can’t, because each love is sacred, each love is different. Lovers moving in perfect time, knowing their partner so well, feeling the build up of passion, two bodies knowing the exact moment to let go.
Smooth, syncopated, perfect.
Free falling, too fast to stop on a one way trip to heaven. A heaven for two. Landing soft and finding yourself still in their arms, planting kisses on your face, your neck – leaving imprints on your heart. How could anyone ever challenge such a feeling as this, it is too pure to be tainted, too lovely to be a lie?
Two people, two hearts.
Both beating for the other, both keeping the love alive.
But above all this, there is the constant feeling of love that stays with you every second of the day. There really are no words that can explain it, and no way that you can understand it fully unless you have felt the feelings yourself.
Love is a dream that can make reality fade away.
A dream you never want to wake up from
Love grows, like a bud into a flower
And Love,
Becomes everything.
Some say love is everything, and they couldn’t bear to be apart from that special someone for more than a few hours.
Some treat love as a game, untrusting and manipulative.
And with all this speculation, you wonder how many people really understand the meaning of love. So many people try to think of ways of saying it, to make it mean so much more; some say it just because they are words of flattery – because it is what the other person wants to hear. The truth is, love is so much more than just words. Love is expressions, touches, experiences. Love is growing together as one. When you find that person, and you grow to love each other, you suddenly understand why people would die for someone, why people would kill.
This person becomes your world.
There are no flashing neon lights hovering over their head, telling you that this person is the one, just like there are no lurid signs showing you that they will become your future. No stars collide (except in your mind) - and there are no fireworks (except from within). They are a permanent part of you, always a constant ache for this person – to feel their arms hold you, their fingers entwining with your own. Just the touch of their skin gives you goose bumps, and you never want to let go..
The knowledge dawns on you that without this person you are not whole, and you will never be the same without them. Thoughts, flashbacks, memories, filling your mind at every moment, leaving you with nothing more than a desire to be with this person, hoping, praying.. and eventually knowing and trusting they feel the same.
It is impossible to pinpoint the exact moment a person realises they are in love. But there comes a time when the mask comes off, and the real person show themselves. There is no longer a need to go to the movies every Saturday night to sell the sex clinging to your arm; you’ve grown bigger than that. Suddenly you want to be the only one to see them the same way you do, to appreciate who they are. Staying at home makes you feel much closer, and you only want to share every moment with them, not the rest of the world. They wouldn’t understand anyway, they couldn’t even comprehend.
You both become oblivious to each others imperfections, not noticing the crooked teeth or extra pounds, seeing only lines of perfect symmetry tracing their way down a lover’s body – curvaceous hips, seductive lips.
The eyes that ask questions, hands that answer them.
The eyes that are mirrors, lips that seal promises.
Reflecting the feelings you both feel, but words cannot measure.
You become able to predict their reactions, and know every quirky little expression they have. Things they say, things they do. The smiles, gestures, the familiar routine that occurs on every adventure in the bedroom, but this repetition doesn’t bore you, it only makes you realise you don’t want things to change.. ever. You know that you have found the real person hidden inside the shell that is saved for the outside world. You create your own world between silken sheets, in each others minds and in your heart. Rooms become a safe haven, love is proven, promises are made and truths are told. The “I love you’s” never seem to do your feelings justice at times like these, because there is no way the person can know through three simple words how much you need them with you, always and forever. Even till death do us part sounds like a cheap cliché, but it’s the best you can do. In their arms, and in their heart is the only place you ever want to be.
Safe, warm and secure.
There are fights, fights that make you forget everything else, make it impossible to concentrate because all you can focus on is what the other person is thinking.
Are they still angry?
Do they still care?
Will this fight mark the end..? No! Never!
Do they miss you as much as you miss them; miss the comfort of their laughter, their reassurance that everything is ok?
So many hopeless predictions as to what they’re thinking as you try not to let the desperation get to you - the worry can drive you mad. Picking up the phone, putting it down, wanting to talk but not wanting to make things worse. One call, so much hope – so much fear. Trembling hands reach out to the buttons. But as you are ready to dial they call and you know that they’ve put away their pride, and the mutual apologies show you that your love is more than just a façade. Knowing this is one of the most beautiful feelings a person can ever experience. The anger is drowned in a wave of love for the person, and all reason is left behind. You find yourself forgetting why you were even angry in the first place.
Maybe the fights are meant to happen, just so that you remember how important this person’s love is – and so you can experience the pure bliss of making up and feeling so close to them once again, as if you have been separated for years, making up for the time of lost love with words and gestures.
There is the love making. And yes, it becomes more than just sex. Two people coming together as one in a means of expressing their feelings for each other. Not just another notch on their belt to brag about on Monday – something surreal and lasting. Soaring to new heights, both of you sure that no other couple could ever feel this way. And maybe they can’t, because each love is sacred, each love is different. Lovers moving in perfect time, knowing their partner so well, feeling the build up of passion, two bodies knowing the exact moment to let go.
Smooth, syncopated, perfect.
Free falling, too fast to stop on a one way trip to heaven. A heaven for two. Landing soft and finding yourself still in their arms, planting kisses on your face, your neck – leaving imprints on your heart. How could anyone ever challenge such a feeling as this, it is too pure to be tainted, too lovely to be a lie?
Two people, two hearts.
Both beating for the other, both keeping the love alive.
But above all this, there is the constant feeling of love that stays with you every second of the day. There really are no words that can explain it, and no way that you can understand it fully unless you have felt the feelings yourself.
Love is a dream that can make reality fade away.
A dream you never want to wake up from
Love grows, like a bud into a flower
And Love,
Becomes everything.
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