As life flashes across

[flashesoflightblog]

　

He is truly there before me with half-closed nebula eyes and a long stretch of pale skin. I want to trace his rosy, full lips with my fingers, memorizing where the tip of his cupid's bow is. My fingers rise, fall, and dip in the reminders of his age; each and every scar is new in my memory. Wrinkles, a map. His eyes open and close in the rhythm of my touch. From deep in the hollows of his naked chest, rises a growl of pleasure, pure humanity and  carelessness in the hum of his moans. His body smells of salt and a subsiding sweetness from leftover perfume applied in an early morning haze, when sleep still exhausts the flesh and the mind. I take his damp hands between my own and examine the curves of his long, elegantly thin fingers which remind me of the pianists that surrounded my childhood and filled the stilled night skies with melodies. I take one of his fingers and taste the briny flesh knowing this may be the end. 

Love is a pathetic excuse to hide behind when one doesn't want to live and die in pleasure's arms. We were careless of our hearts and cared only for the sweet rush of breaths that our helpless bodies gave birth to. We were melodies in the silent nights, a clash of ages and memories augmented by the senses. We were entirely and undeniably alive, sparks of light in the gutter.

[cactusbloooom-blog]

“We’ve been here before.”

There’s the smile I’ve waited for-it answered a breathy yes.

His toes disappeared in the cream colored sand. There was a small space between us and vast waters before us. The warm breeze kissed our faces and opened our half-closed eyes. It smelled of rain.

Whispers in the trees. Hot sand beneath our feet during our summers in Barafundle Bay. The musky smell of the earth running through the fingers of a child. A kiss, settled. Weariness. Then darkness.

His eyes seemed paler in the light, transparent, almost. They remembered, too, our childhood. His long fingers traced the shape of my eyes and his full lips marked my eyelids with the weightlessness of a feather in the breeze.

A clock chimed and the hours seemed to fall. A drowning sensation. Lungs closed. Eyes open in water staring blankly at the darkening sky. Then life. 

Forgive me, I’m extremely rusty. Haven’t written in more than six months. This was just to get things going again. Inspired by a Benedict Cumberbatch dream I had. 

[flashesoflightblog]

The Death

His face fell and his eyes darted towards the ground. I didn’t know where to look. I was ashamed. The shine of the morning in the open ground fell directly upon me as if somehow creating a spotlight. But his eyes couldn’t be farther from mine. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“You couldn’t have prevented it.” He looked at me and I couldn’t help but notice that his eyes had become a shadow of the small creature he held in his hands. “I always knew it would happen. I just hoped.” 

“I don’t think you understand.”

“No, I do. It was fragile. I was stupid enough to believe.”

“But I believed, too.”

He smiled, a sad genuine smile. “We were both wrong, then.”

[flashesoflightblog]

The truth

“Your parents don’t say anything at all?” I asked, honestly perturbed by the fact.

He smiled his handsome devilish grin, “No.”

“Well, then, light it and play the movie.” I said, sitting on his love seat.

I was already used to the quiet austereness of his room. It was barely lit and the objects, misplaced carelessly around the roomThough this details were barely noticeable. The bed sheets were black, the walls, once white, were now painted upon, with his intricate designs, and in intervals, decorated with the faces of the dead musicians he loved. The chair was the exception to the gloominess of the room; it was a bright orange hue, which personally, I knew he hated. Why he had kept it, was alien to me.

For many afternoons I had visited this dim lit room, but this was the first time I’d done it for a specific reason, a wrong one.

I’d never seen him do it before. He lit the joint with the same delicate hands he drew and painted, with a certain kind of love. He turned towards me and smiled knowingly: I’d never smoked before. “Are you ready?”

Before answering, I stared blankly at the television set. The movie of choice had been, strangely, his, Atonement. “Yes.”

We sat down next to each other. The love seat still leaving enough space to fit two more of us. He handed me the joint and smiled. “Trust me, you’ll be okay. I’ll be here.”

I breathed deeply and took a small, suppressed drag, then another, and another. It wasn’t long after that I started feeling differently. I was losing track of time, the minutes, the voices in the movie, and the soft M83 song playing in the background, mixed together, creating a symphony of sounds, as a movie of my own. I looked towards Callum. He was smiling wildly at me with his boyish grin. I smiled back, but noticed the pit in the bottom of my stomach. It churned at the sight of him. I knew I wasn’t in my right mind, but I also knew I’d always wanted to kiss him, and then and there would be my only opportunity. I’d never been brave. So I did. I felt my lips burn against his. The rough movements of our mouths took over our brains. I felt his hands slide towards my neck and kiss it, feverishly. I wanted him, wanted him more than anything in the world. 

[flashesoflightblog]

[flashesoflightblog]

His room

“There is nothing wrong with you.”

“Look at me when you lie.”

“I know you want to be the center of everything, but that’s enough.”

He was facing the open window, frowning as he watched the children play and sing and hop. Without another word, he stood up and dashed past me towards the last door of the apartment, which was in his world, his room and his room only. 

It was hard to remember the beginning, if there was any beginning at all. The sun had hidden early in January and darkness overtook most of our days. I remember scenes, where his worn-out boots are placed neatly by the edge of our bed, where his thin lips are stretched in a smile, and where his hair is neatly tucked behind the round frame of his ears. But I begin to doubt. The Earth had shifted, the sun had risen, the sun had drowned, the moon was born, and the moon had died. His boots have been replaced by brown slip-ons barely his size, his thin lips are packed in a thin line, and his hair, short and neat, is now long and wild, running down the crook of his neck. And I begin to think that maybe there was nothing there at all. 

Maybe it was my mind. The months of the beginning are recorded only in the bits and pieces my mind has allowed me to retain. There is no proof of our love. There is no proof of our past. Only the cold, hard floor of this rooms that contain us.

[flashesoflightblog]

Windows

I have fallen in love with windows; the possibility of life and freedom that they so easily reflect. Birds in flight. No shackles or pain. Just life.

[flashesoflightblog]

The Bones of the Sea

There was an aching distance between the bones of our hands. Cold air intertwined through our fingers and I felt the tips of our bony elbows touch, despite our unspoken efforts to keep distance from one another. The warm, full coffee cups seemed to linger in the air before us, their heat penetrating our skin being the only thing that kept us grounded.  I didn’t dare look at his face; not his rosy lips, not his sharp nose, not the sunken skin of his cheeks, and never the blank hollows of his eyes. Their newfound emptiness sunk deeper than their previous yellow brightness. A small patch of warmth fell on my left shoulder. Startled by the feeling of human warmth, I felt my head tilt towards its direction. And I saw them again. The warmth turned to cold. The cup slipped from my hand. Endless amounts of brown liquid fell; over the tribal patches that covered the worn out, plastic table; over my numb, useless hands; over the floral pattern of my mother’s summer dress. But I felt no warmth from the liquid as it steered though. His empty eyes hovered above me, but I sensed behind them a newly lit spark.

Inside them, I remembered. Stars of green, patches of red, blue, and yellow, iron fences, sunlit smiles, and laughter. The peaks of grass tickled my calves, thighs, and arms. I saw everything in a bright, clear day while my eyes darkened into the blackness of the night. White doors opened and shut at the click of my heels. Vines tangled in his tousled black curls. The water rising to meet the walls of our home. Breaking windows, falling vases, our feet twisted together at the foot of our bed, his tear falling into my left eye, our muffled voices drowned by the sea. "It's free! We're free, don't you see?" I shouted. And we kissed and kissed and kissed.

Then there was nothing left, only our touching elbows and careful hands. The silent nods of approval in the mornings when the sun hadn’t yet raised form its bed.

And I loved him, but he was gone.

And he loved me, but I was gone.

This probably makes no sense, but it means so much to me.

I hope that is enough.

[flashesoflightblog]

The cripple, the earth, and the waters.

It was not liberation that I was seeking. My mind felt at peace. My soul was steady. It was life, the partial stillness of the leaves in the late afternoon, the sun grinning down at me early in the morning, the quiet whispers beneath the moonlit skies.

It was the act of labored breathing that aroused the rebellion in me. His legs dangled over his edge of the bed. His face was peacefully intact, unscathed by the wear and tear of the fiend who preyed on his body; but his breathing was a shallow murmur.  The curve of his chest rose and fell gracefully, reminding me of the fluttering of a bird’s wings, light and perfect. I disappeared from the darkness of the interminable room, with the thought of never showing again.

The cold, evanescent currents of the river were in front of me. One by one, I stripped my clothes and laid them down on the dry surface of the soil. My body was wrecked with anticipation. I smiled to myself, knowing that this was it, the moment I had been waiting for.

I jumped in. It was no longer than a second before the knowledge retained over the years awakened.  I could hear everything; I could see everything, clear as day, still as night. The freezing waters penetrated my pores, reconstructing my every miniature cell to a joint force in the waters that carried me. Every living creature twisted and turned around me, creating small whirlpools.

I was alive. The transparent waters were me and I them, the cripple, the earth, and the cold silenced waters.

[flashesoflightblog]

I want more than I can get.

I want to kiss him, but I hold back, fearing an almost inevitable rejection. I want to curve his dreads of coal hair and feel the lingering sensation of softness penetrate and grow into my skin. I want to carve my fingers into his, creating a wave, of life, of love. I want to feel the fiery morning sun shine against my skin, as the melody of his voice resonates in my ears. I want to feel, to know, his presence as a part of me and not as another being.

But there’s so much fear accumulated in the trivial actions of my everyday life, I fear, this will never happen.

[flashesoflightblog]

Days

Arrived then, the day of chapped, broken lips and tangled sheets. The sun seeped through the window, spilling over our bare legs and arms. The light hairs in our arms glinted and shone, holy in our blessed bodies.

I’ll never forget the memories of the days-the memories of our breaths mixed together in the closed room. Our bodies intertwined with a cotton sea. We came and went with laughs and sadness. Our lips crashed breathlessly. We were so alive. You and me, you said, forever.

[flashesoflightblog]

Flare

It's been nothing but a dream of satisfaction. I am sure of it. There is no reality in the blaze of his eyes or in the purity of his gentle laughter. There is a circle of grace that surrounds the walls of the house. The light spills through the pillars and creates at spectacle of shadows. Our world is leaves and sunlight and I almost can't believe it. There's no grace in my movements. I am ungainly, bare, and unadorned and I wonder why would he possibly be here with me, beneath this flaring world. But he catches my gaze and smiles, a rare and simple sight. And this sight, I understand, is enough because there is nothing more important in the world than to love and hopefully, to be loved in return. 

[flashesoflightblog]

All the world says thin.

She merely wanted sensations; the weightlessness of a Bible's torn page, the shallow brink of hunger and bliss, the coldness of an everlasting winter, the brittleness of skin, the hollowness of bones, a cage of teeth inside her empty mouth that chews and chews only when it's empty, the gaps between her thighs, the faces of strangers as they admired her ultimately achieved perfection. Isolation. Satisfaction. Emptiness. Thin. She wants nothing more, she knows of nothing more. And nothing could hurt her more.

[heartversushead-deactivated2013]

[oncewild]

Because, in truth, I didn’t become a writer the first time I put pen to paper or when I finished my first book (easy) or second one (hard). You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.

Junot Diaz, the author of the stunningly beautiful The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (via oncewild)

[whorebucket-blog-blog]

[viennaviaspetta]

In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed- But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted. -Edgar Allan Poe, The Dream