southern comfort.

ind. roland west from true detective s3. ( hiatus )

[maelsong]

couldn’t hide from the thunder / in a sky full of song . est . july 2013 / revamp aug. 2019 .

[rclandwest]

@maelsong

    “ — wait . you’re really going out wearin’ THOSE ? ”

@rclandwest​ / sc ( one liners ) .

    “You got somethin’ you wanna say — you say it.” After he's stomped into his boots, he rises, and the edge in his tone is blunted: “Ought to invest in a pair yourself, be singin’ a different tune.”

[rclandwest]

dustroads:

the first time joe sees him is at the clubhouse some miles from the farm. from the stool to his right she watches him, watching somebody else, and remarks with gentle amusement : ❛ you catch more flies with honey. ❜ somehow, they get past the fact that it is none of her business. they pass the minutes with talk of bulls and broncos and the lonesome texan plains. huffs of laughter pass through guarded smiles, and much later, with a blued-eyed working girl on her arm and halfway out the door, she calls out to him — ❛ we should do this again next week.❜

the second time is at an ace hardware store in town. there are others with him, and her eye contact elicits horror from him that takes the form of a clenched jaw and tensed shoulders. joe feels the blush rise to her cheeks ; can taste shame on the back of her tongue as she brushes past the posse to the next aisle. it is so strong in her because it is mirrored in him. one glance, she marvels on the ride back to the farm. that was all it took to see the boy in him, pleading.

the third time is what’s landed them outside this taqueria in the hours before dawn. joey had been minding her business, hauling a sack full of goodies across the liquor store parking lot, when the taunts had started coming from a ford truck full of teenagers. words morphed into blows — ruthless, bloodied, from both sides — which eventually had her on the concrete. it escapes her now, what moment he showed up and just how he intervened. all she knows is her anger is hot, his car hood cool, and the spiced beef in her mouth painful to chew on.

         ❛ what the fuck we are doin’ here ? ❜ she asks eventually, tossing the food back into its aluminum foil wrapper. ❛ i’m not hungry. milkshake would’ve made more sense. ❜ the breaths come hard through her nose. she glances at him, bruised and begrudging. | @rclandwest

   “Shit. You know someplace else, got operatin’ hours runnin’ til four in the fuckin’ mornin’?” It’s a half-joke in a town like this, where most businesses are early to close; Roland lifts his brows at Joe as he swirls the ice in his paper cup. He’s due at the station in a few hours and the soda’s doing a piss-poor job at giving him a caffeine kick. It’ll just end up ancillary, anyway, he figures, to a cup of coffee and his glovebox stash of bennies.

   There’s a sick feeling in his stomach and an anger that’s well-concealed because the concealment is well-practiced. It's only when he sees the bruises blooming along Joe’s face that a frown betrays him. The joint was dead when he’d led her to the single-stall bathroom upon arrival, where she could wash away the blood but not the sting – never the sting. He still carries the sting of Texas: macadam in his mouth and his blood on the macadam, a terse paternal threat when word got to the family ranch, and the draft that got him out when he’d been ousted.

   In the still-dark, the eyes of town are yet to open, but Roland averts his gaze out of habit. His stare hardens and his jaw tenses as he looks off into the vicinity of the taqueria’s eaves, clears his throat before he asks, “you wanna come on back to mine? Ought to get some ice on that.” He’d grab some from inside if ice was all there was to it.

[bassiter]

Visit Original Link

Luckenbach, Texas by Waylon Jennings except it’s playing in a roadhouse at 3am and the only people for miles to hear it are you, the old truck driver three stools down, and the bartender cleaning glasses. You stare at your drink wistfully, missing your boyfriend and wishing he was there. 

[rafikecoyote]

[rclandwest]

lghtsup:

 “ you know you don’t have to stay here , right ? don’t get me wrong , i appreciate it , it’s just … jonathan & i can handle ourselves . you don’t have to stay . ”

@rclandwest / one - liners sc , acc .

    “Hold on now. You think I come all this way, just to get sent packin’? That your idea of hospitality, nowadays? Sister, I’m stayin'.”

[rclandwest]

girlsouth:

RCLANDWEST  LIKED  FOR  A  LYRICAL  STARTER .

          ❛  i  crawled  down  from  high  hopes,   back  to  the  ground.  i  left  him  long  ago,   following  you. ❜    there was  no  way  out.  she  felt,   with  her  heart  and  soul  so  tightly  fastened  to  his.  her  husband,   who  was  not  her  husband,   not  anymore.   now  she  lives  alone  with  nothing  on  the  walls  but  a  bouquet  of  dried  flowers  fastened  to  a  pair  of  baby  shoes.   she  looks  at  roland.    ❛  nature  will  get  her  way,   and  we  take  her  for  a  fool. ❜  

@rclandwest   —–   run  cried  the  crawling  by  agnes  obel  .

    “Don’t know that nature’s got anything to do with it.” Roland says, and it’s a moment of raw honesty. There's a sliver of whiskey left in his glass, honey-colored and glowing beneath the lamplight. As he burns off the day, he tries his best to follow, keep up, because sometimes, Claire talks in poems that he just can’t make head nor tail of. “Everybody’s got choices. Make ‘em everyday. You start seein’ nature, or whatever, as culpable for the actions of people – you let 'em off.”

[lifeinpoetry]

We spend the day arranging ourselves to avoid contact             but you linger on my mouth                         my eyes touch                             exposed clavicle under your loosened shirt

                                                           A wound reopens

— Seema Reza, from “This Poem Is Want—,” A Constellation of Half-Lives

[rclandwest]

maelsong:

     there should be a more vigorous smile on her lips , perhaps , but this is more a medley of amusement & embarrassment , ‘cause , god , really — he’s a grown man & he’s acting more or less like a kid setting up a tea party for their toys . or , at least , that’s the image his focused expression conjures : somehow , it’s no less believable than him licking frosting off her birthday cake . “ seriously ? ”

  eyebrow perked up , she can imagine how childish she must look : but she’s smiling . this is more than she’s ever asked for , more than she’s ever gotten . a birthday like a celebration & not a memorial day . god , this is a new taste of life , for sure . “ what if i wish for a serenade , what then ? ”

    “Uh-huh,” Roland affirms after the candles are lit. He pockets his lighter, then walks across the kitchen to flick off the lights. It’s not late enough for night to smother the apartment in pitch-black; rather, the warm arm of dusk slides in, filters through the blinds and streaks orange glows across the table, over them.

    “Be a waste of a wish,” he could angle his face away from her to hide the smirk that’s betraying his cool front, but he doesn’t; he thinks about their living-room duets, the guitar that had been collecting dust in his closet until Morgan came along, now tuned good and ready to talk. He locks his eyes on hers, smirking still, as if to communicate all of this by expression alone. Because he knows, now, that he can.

    “C’mon, now,” he snaps his fingers, swinging his arm. “Better get to it. Unless you wanna be eatin’ wax.”

[moviesludge]

[rclandwest]

maelsong:

   these days she’s an animal in the wild . she watches him move out of the corner of her eyes — silently evaluating each motion , planning strategies . if he’s expecting anything of her , she’s puzzled as to what : she believed her list of people she’s disappointed had been done & archived years ago .

  morgan accepts the cigarette either way , telling herself it’s only ‘cause of the price & the depressing amount of tips she’s received this week . she rolls the window down , low enough to rest her arm on it — she does this slowly , like it’ll somehow delay the inevitable conversation . it doesn’t . his words arrive precisely when she expects them , like clockwork .

  for a while she doesn’t answer . she fixates on the smoke instead , aimlessly trying to follow its trail as it vanishes somewhere into nothing . perhaps she likes that idea . it’d make for a change of pace for sure , maybe a goddamn decent meal for once . maybe . morgan smirks , though it looks more like an acidic afterthought .“ ain’t much to talk through though , is there ? ” she takes a long , lazy drag & puffs a cloud of smoke out the window . “ besides , i got a place ” . a coffin - sized shithole with a life sentence of asbestos , but she makes it work .” i don’t need charity , so — ”

    “Looks like we’re just gonna have to disagree on that.” Roland keeps his voice level as he looks at Morgan, cigarette burning slow between his fingers. It’s a mild way of calling bullshit, because he's having a hard time believing that even she believes what she’s saying: that there ain't much to talk through. There's no truth in it. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be in the safety of his car, in the small hours of the morning, with the windows down to dissipate the fumes of booze.

    He buys time with a long drag, time to think over what he should say next – what will keep her there, with him, and not send her running back into the darkness, digging herself deeper into this hole she's in.

    “It ain’t charity,” he tries to work with her. That’s all he wants to do. Roland’s gaze drifts out the windshield, toward the half-moon that will soon dissolve into the approaching dawn. He feels his eyes begin to burn, demanding sleep. When he returns his gaze to her, his fingers butterfly beside his keys, graze the cool metal dangling from the ignition. “All this, right now, what you’re goin’ through, there’s a way out of. I wanna help you get there. But I can’t do that, if you don’t let me. All you gotta do, is ask.”

[rclandwest]

the overlap between stranger things and true detective s3 is actually ridiculous and pizzolatto has some explaining to do. boys named will? disappearing on their bikes in the woods? after playing dungeons & dragons? an 80′s timeline? will byers goes missing on nov 6. will purcell goes missing on nov 7. mike wheeler + mike ardoin, friends of the missing kids? the drawings of kids being integral to the plot?

[saltblues]

▶ I AM EASY TO FIND / THE NATIONAL.

PART ONE / starters taken from various lyrics off the national’s 2019 album i am easy to find . feel free to adapt pronouns where necessary ( part two ). 

❝ you had your soul with you ❞ .

❝ i was in no mood ❞ .  

❝ i had only one thing to do , and i couldn’t do it ❞ .

❝ you said love fills you ❞ .     

❝ i got it worse than anyone else ❞ .  

❝ i just can’t find a way to forgive myself ❞ .

❝ i had only one thing left , and i couldn’t see it ❞ . 

❝ i have owed it to my heart , every word i’ve said ❞ .    

❝ you have no idea how hard i died when you left ❞ .      

❝ i’m just so tired of thinking about everything ❞ .  

❝ i’m not afraid of being alone ❞ .  

❝ i’m not afraid of being alone , i just don’t know what to do with my time ❞ .  

❝ between you and me , i thought it would all last a little while longer ❞ .  

❝ i’m not afraid of being alone ❞ .  

❝ i’m learning how not to die inside a little everytime i think about you ❞ .  

❝ you don’t know anything ❞ .

❝ i think about you way more than anything else ❞ .       

❝ i’m not that spiritual ❞ .  

❝ none of this is getting me anywhere good ❞ .  

❝ i still fall apart at the thought of your voice ❞ .  

❝ i’m learning to live without the heartache it gives me ❞ .  

❝ there’s nothing i wouldn’t do for another few minutes ❞ .

❝ learning how not to cry everytime there’s another sad unbearable morning ❞ .     

❝ sometimes there’s nothing i can do ❞ .  

❝ i can’t help it , it’s you that i think i hear ❞ .  

❝ tell me what to be ❞ .  

❝ i’ll take away your shame ❞ .  

❝ i’m not afraid to tell you what i want ❞ . 

❝ i want it all ❞ .    

❝ please , think the best of him ❞ .  

❝ please , think the best of me ❞ .  

❝ how i want you here ❞ .   

❝ you don’t know what it’s like to be around you ❞ .  

❝ i still got my fear ❞ .  

❝ you’re gonna stop needing to tell me you want me as much as i want you ❞ .  

❝ everything is gonna be totally okay ❞ .  

❝ it’s still always you every morning i think of ❞ .  

❝ i know i am easy to find but you know it’s never me ❞ .  

❝ my mind is made up out of nothing now ❞ . 

❝ you won’t walk away , won’t you ? ❞ .    

❝ what was it you always said ? we’re connected by a thread ❞ .  

❝ if we’re ever far apart i’ll still feel the pull of you ❞ .

❝ is this how i lose it ? everything at once ? ❞ .       

❝ whatever magical thinking you need to hang around your neck , right ? ❞ 

❝ maybe we’ll talk it out inside a car with rain falling around us ❞ .

❝ we all know this rain is hard to take ❞ .   

❝ it’s just that i’m still here ❞ .      

❝ there’s still everything you don’t know ❞ .  

❝  how often i dream about you ❞ .  

❝ you don’t know how i need you ❞ .  

❝ you got me all wrong ❞ .

❝ if i said i was sorry for always being underwater , would you stay ? ❞ .     

❝ there’s no difference between you and me ❞ .  

❝ just be here ❞ .  

❝ what was it , the story you told me ? why am i so hard to be around ? ❞ .

[hamtyler]

[rclandwest]

hazmama:

    “ pass me the —— ” word currently eluding her , joyce instead squeezes her hand open repeatedly . really , how could he not understand she needs the hammer ? she’s crouching behind the tv , manhandling a tangle of cables . the electricity’s been acting out again : she needs to know it’s just bad wiring . “ don’t give me that look ” no need to turn around to know exactly what look . he knows the one . “ either you give me a hand or you can come by later , roland , i don’t have time for small talk , now ” .

@rclandwest / sc , accepting .

   Roland hangs back, cool and cross-armed, as Joyce eviscerates her entire fucking TV. Seeing the guts of the thing spilling out, pooling around her, he’s surprised that it hasn’t struck back and bit her like a rattlesnake.

   Instead of searching for the tool he thinks she’s requested (which he'd rather never touch again in his goddamn life), he stays planted right where he is, boots on hardwood, eyes on his friend. Mid-sentence, his brows jump with the hint of a joke: “they got people for this now, you know that?”

   Bad leg aching from the flight, he sinks his weight into her couch. As he drags a hand over his face, concern sneaks into his tone. “Call ‘em up, let them deal with it. You shouldn’t be dealin’ with all this right now.”

[rclandwest]

@maelsong

    When he cracks open the plastic, the air swirls sweet with buttercream. Roland flips the lid back onto the table, uncovering the cake that’s fresh from the IGA – 'Happy Birthday, Morgan' iced between blue curlicues – and licks a spot of frosting off his thumb.

    Poking a row of candles above her name, he doesn’t give her a chance to protest. “I ain’t serenadin’ you, that we can agree on.” He brandishes his zippo, touches the flame to each wick. “But it bein’ your birthday, makes you entitled to a wish. Means, you’re makin’ one.”

[rafikecoyote]