she is not gone

[maenaed]

private and selective interpretation of guinevere beck. 18+ experimenting with format / style. triggering themes present. dead dove! side blog, follows back from @unpossession.

[ohfiendangelical]

          “I recognize you, too.”          Zero smiles, nodding vaguely toward the mic. 

He’d been waiting for her to come to him. He knew she would. Or maybe he just wanted her to, and is so used to getting what he wants that the possibility she might not hadn’t occurred to him. Either way, here she is. 

The pretentious fucks were a little too hard on her, he thinks. Half of them—maybe even most of them—couldn’t do better, and some of them proved it. That’s one of the things he can’t stand about this city. Too self-serious. The Beat Generation may have been artistic geniuses, but they have a lot to answer for. The insufferable fallout has been nuclear.

In LA, people would have cheered her on just for being beautiful. As they should.

          “Does my smile look painted on?”         he asks, offering a playful wink.          “Yours does, a little. But it’s still pretty.” 

[maenaed]

i smile because he smiles. he has a pretty smile, and a recognisable one at that --- i rival his acting prowess with my own uncredited work as i pretend not to know that he's in movies. it's not hard, i don't remember his name. just his abs, his curls, the smile and the full-frontal nudity made immortal in my brain by the speckle of film-grain and golden hour lighting.

"oh -- please, that whole painted on smile thing, it's just... "

i'm embarrassed by my work when directly called on it. i wave a hand, laughing off my insecurities in a way that only pretty girls can. it looks effortless, like i have a thousand other perfect drafts for that single mediocre sample i just performed.

"...something i've been workshopping. your smile does not look painted on. it looks..."

now's my chance to be a real wordsmith. he's already looking at me like a pez dispenser of flowery compliments. i can be that. on the tail-end of this exchange, i hold a dainty hand out in greeting. there are no ink-smudges or signs of wear. i have a perfect manicure. soft, moisturised fingers.

"sculpted, if anything. and handsome, too. i'm beck."

[ohfiendangelical]

Despite New York’s many, many faults, Zero can appreciate its dedication to the arts. 

Every week, he takes the reality-warping shortcut through the woods to see at least one of Felix’s performances. Visiting so often—and sometimes staying for days at a time—he has taken to wandering the countless art districts in his idle hours, acclimating himself to the city. There’s a lot to see, so much that he could probably spend years exploring without a moment of rest and not cover it all. 

Today, he visited the Museum of Modern Art, then read some self-published zines at a queer anarchist cafe. After that, he visited a pop-up sculpture garden by an independent artist, where he heard about an underground jazz concert that would be happening in a few hours; naturally he attended that, too. One of the musicians recognized him from an Angelo film and invited him to an afterparty at a friend’s gallery, which he gladly accepted. Now, hazy from expensive wine and East Coast weed, he’s settled into a corner booth at a trendy late-night poetry bar. 

There’s an open mic. The girl up there now is pretty and nervous and sincere. Her voice is sweet. The poem @maenaed shares is nothing special, but there’s something there; with the right push, she might just create something worthwhile. 

She stalls in the middle of a stanza. He locks eyes with her. Feeling generous, he offers a faint, encouraging smile, then extends his will inside of her to steady her anxious pulse.

[maenaed]

my day has been a little less exciting than blondie with the dark eyes' seems to have been. i started at five-am, yoga class at six-thirty, school, grading papers, one-on-ones -- and somehow end up almost blackout at another open mic i'm woefully unprepared for.

before standing up on this stage, i scraped together what little cash i could to buy three margaritas and scrolled through my google drive to find something half decent to read out -- there are some faces i recognise and some that i don't. on the off chance that anybody remembers me from before, whatever i picked had to be new, too, so that really cut my options down.

i haven't really produced anything of value in a few weeks.

this one, though, has a little potential. if i could just get myself through the halfway point without choking up.

"you went to parties with a smile painted-on, terrified that the first person who kissed you would wipe it away to see the frown underneath. you... you wrote --..."

fuck. i am tanking. i know i am. people aren't even bothering to heckle me. it's like i don't exist on this stage.

until i do. until he sees me.

i give him a tearful smile and hope he'll listen to the end. once the stanza is over i take a bow to half-hearted applause and stumble off the stage. i sit nearby, alone, and i wait.

"i recognise you."

i am not perfect. i am impatient.

[maycanady]

YOU (2018 - 2025) 1.10 "Bluebeard's Castle" 5.02 "Blood Will Have Blood"

[maenaed]

@maniquinn

i am basically a very lazy girl. i don't even want to be a writer any more. i want to go to los angeles. maybe be an actress. maybe, if i don't get any work, i can write something for myself. i'll walk away and never come back. if i live, i will never say a word about--

what happened in new york can never be repeated. i will never be that girl, i will be better, a new beck, a new woman -- one that respects herself enough to at least recognise a red flag when i see it. i'm in a new city, a new place; i will leave joe behind me, and all the nightmares that accompany him.

los angeles, like new york, is full of people trying to 'make it' and is just as overpriced. i get by, though, scrambling as i always have. only there's no peach to bail me out this time, nobody to blame when i inevitably fail here, too.

i'm sick, and i kill people. sometimes, three bottles of wine deep into another lonely night (i have sworn off men until i can tolerate the thought of a hand around my throat again) i think about how maybe i should have died in that bookstore basement. i think about the taste of paper and ink bleeding into my swollen mouth, and the bruising.

i'm out on a supply run right now, looking for the perfect bottle to accompany me through another semi-suicidal alcohol binge.

"i don't know anything about wine."

i say this mostly to myself, but also to the girl to my right. pretty, brunette. a little haunted. i'm trying to make a new friend. made clear by my hopeless little smile.

[haethcliffs]

"no, i didn't —" it's like you want to see the worst in me. it's like all that time we've spent together, poring over your writing, over your father, your own special case of daddy issues and disrespecting your own body... it's like none of that happened. you look at me and i'm afraid that all you see is the man who put you in this cage. and that's not me. you know that's not me.

i am large, i contain multitudes. walt whitman. granted, i'm not one for cowboy boots and hole-in-the-wall gangster bullshit where they see women as nothing but commodities and cash cows to holster their misogyny bullets in, but if there was ever a time to crack out post-civil war literature, it's going to be when your back's up against it and i'm two wrong moves away from a cell of my own. you've seen some messed up stuff! i know! i've done some of my own brand of fucked up stuff that lends itself to prose in a way i'll never know how to capture, but that's not me. i'm joe. bookstore manager, loving boyfriend, run-of-the-mill joe.

"beck... please. i want to give you everything you need, alright? you name it, i'll get it. but you need to cooperate. i need you to hear me out... listen to me. listen to... everything. that's all. i need you, beck. please."

[maenaed]

i know that i don’t know anything about him. what i thought i did understand was a fantasy, a lie that he told to get me here. not to physically lure me into the box, sure, but into his orbit - out of reach from anybody else. there were so many red flags, but knowing who i thought i knew, i thought i would be… safe.

he saved me. my life. if he hadn’t been down in the subway that night we reconnected, i would be dead. some drunk girl on the second or third page of the paper, unnamed, splattered all over the front of the b-train.

i knew he had followed me there. i saw him. i knew. it was just nice to be wanted, to be seen. it’s all i had ever wanted.

it’s probably all he wants, too. my lip trembles and i understand and i pity and i resent. i blame myself. i do. i am a black hole. i sound exhausted when i finally respond, resign to his terms.

“tell me, i’m listening. i’ll listen.”

[haethcliffs]

"i know, beck. i know. and i'm sorry. and i will make it up to you, i swear it."

okay, well. ouch. but deserved, i guess. i hold my hands up, beck! i did do all that! and i'm going to make it right. it's all just a blip in the romantic saga that will be us — remember? us in thirty years time, all wrinkled and fleshy with hands held across dimly-lit bar tables at mom and pop restaurants while you're wearing something perfectly demure and age appropriate — no longer do you wear low-cut loose shirts with your nipples hard through something so sheer i can't help but glance down at and — god, i'm doing it again, aren't i? i'm sorry. head out of clouds and all that. i'm focused. present. i'm here with you, and there's just a little glass between what we might end up being.

"after all the time we spent together—" whether you knew about it or not, i should add, "— you know me. i'm not... that guy that you're scared of. that's not me. it's okay, just... take a deep breath, beck. you'll feel better if you have some food."

i can't let you out. not yet. you're still... a well of fear. you're a pit of despair (sorry, cliche, i know, but when inspiration slaps you so hard in the face it may as well have been that infamous warhead i talked about earlier). i just need to... dilute it. show you the good parts of myself first — the parts you fell in love with.

"we all just need to calm down, and talk. i love you, beck."

[maenaed]

that's right, label me the hysterical woman and lock me away in the attic. let me talk to the yellow wallpaper until i'm convinced i'm not alone in here, until my reflection talks back and tells me just what you want me to hear; what you want me to believe.

will he release me when i stop showing signs that i am a person with my own feelings? will he unlock the door when he believes i wont want to run, screaming, out of it?

which joe stands before me now, the loverboy, the bookseller, the killer? i see wild, wide and frantic eyes. there is no explanation for benji's phone, or peach's, or the jar of teeth -- there is no going back to how things were.

"i am calm. i'm calm, joe. you're not calm. you -- kidnapped me."

perhaps the lady doth protest too much. just a little. i should tone it down. agree. play dead - emotionally, that is. god knows what he'll do to me if he thinks i'm...

"let me out. i'll eat. we'll talk. please."

[haethcliffs]

i'm not perfect, beck. i make mistakes. we all make mistakes. you sleep with the wrong guys. surround yourself with the wrong type of friends. you work, and you work, and you draw yourself into this facade of your shitty friends who'd rather throw you under the L-train than pick you up off the tracks, and i... well. i put you in a box. i told you i wasn't perfect.

but i know you. i know what's budding inside of you. i know that pretty brain of yours has more to come out of it than dreary, half-formed ideas that resemble neither poem or prose. i want to give you the time for that. but you worry. you want to make it in the big apple by yourself — i understand that. i know you want to do it all by yourself, like some strangled, infantilised version of rosie the riveter, but you don't have to. that's what i want you to see — i can take care of all of that for you. i can take care of you.

"you've gotta eat," or we can sit here all night, and i can watch you type your brains out until it's spattered across the plexiglass.

wait. shit. no. bad thought, bad thought. i don't want to hurt you. that's not my goal here — it was never my goal. (you have to believe that, right?)

"please? i'm not going to hurt you. i don't want to. we just... we need space to talk. please."

[maenaed]

"you already did hurt me, joe. you knocked me out. locked me in a-- a plastic box."

i have to be careful of my temper. i keep my tone as even as possible; a calm mother scolding a child. i do not touch the glass-plastic-whatever that my cage is made of. i sit at my makeshift desk and i ignore the temptation of the brown paper bag in his hands. i am not immune to bribery but i can't fold just yet.

i am wondering if i can leverage my wellbeing to get some kind of point across, but in my heart of hearts i know that it wont stick. he looks at me and for the first time i see clearly what you are.

wide, watery eyes. a trembling lower lip. it's all real, i can't help it. i am so scared. pity me, joe. save me. rescue me from my tower, my prison.

"i can't eat. i can't think. joe, this is a nightmare. this place is my nightmare. please. let me out. we can talk, but i can't -- i can't breathe in here."

[haethcliffs]

@maenaed.

if only i'd known how much trouble you'd bring me. you put something into motion inside of me, beck. something quiet and hungry and full of want and will. you have ignited something inside of me, beck... a desire to be. let me be the man you always wanted — let me protect you, keep you close, tucked between the rungs of my ribs and revere every second we breathe as one. i wanted to be everything for you, untangle every caught breath and anxious nerve from that scrambled brain of yours and show you exactly how to survive in a world that wants to dull your brightness.

do you know how hard it is to kill a man? i'm not talking about the ones already under my belt — they all deserved it, in their own toxic masculinity bullshit type way. but to really kill someone? all the variables, the things that could go wrong even when you're doing it for the right reasons. because that's what this is, isn't it? the right reasons.

you fucking wanted this. you flipped your hair and i'm expected to — what, ignore it? you came to me like some breath of fresh air, and you wanted me to follow you. to find you. to fix you. and that's what i did.

don't get me wrong. i don't believe moulding you in plexiglass was the best case scenario for us, but we were in love. we are in love. but this...? this gives you... clarity. a clarity that only the box can bring. it's time to write. its' time to figure out your next moves.

"are you hungry?"

it's like a warhead spinning colossally back down to earth, ready to scorch earth between us and blow up our pretty little bubble.

"come on, you've gotta eat, beck."

[maenaed]

he expects me to write in here. he expects me to be whole and fixed, a butterfly under glass and to be grateful for the isolation. he imagines me a princess in a castle, i imagine myself a world where i escape it. escape him.

angela carter once wrote:

in the turret suite he had given me for my very own, i could gaze out over the tumultuous atlantic and imagine myself the queen of the sea.

but in this little box of horrors i can only look out and see myself. the harsh fluorescent bulbs overhead drain my skin of its colour. i already look like a corpse, and i wonder how long it'll be before i actually become one. surely soon. he can't keep me in here forever.

can he? he's brought food. how long is he going to pretend that this is normal?

"i'm not hungry, joe."

i'm scared, joe.

[dailytvwomen]

GUINEVERE BECK IN YOU | S01E01 “Pilot”