#092209

[deference-for-darkness]

the visceral feeling of having hands tangled in stray wet hairs is something indescribably uncomfortable to me. you know the ones– the strays that end up somehow on your hands while youre washing them in the sink, and the tiny things wont leave, and youre viciously scrubbing and picking and swiping to get it off and into the basin. sometimes they get in your mouth and when you notice you start sputtering and scratching at your lips and teeth to grab hold of it or spit it out to get rid of it– y'know the feeling that feels like wriggling worms have filled your psyche when that shit happens?

its quite common for me- not necessarily the hair situation- but that exact squeamish feeling. it's because i get it all the time when i think about you.

[deference-for-darkness]

if beauty were in the eyes of the beholder, you’d know the beholder was him.

his possibly effortless patience for others and the generous amount of care and time he gives to listen and learn; to always give the benefit of the doubt to anyone he can. he sees beauty and celebration in places you wish you could.

but that does not make him a pushover.

you note his humbleness and humility and how voraciously he enforces it: there is no way around it and no way to convince him otherwise. to him, he is nothing but simple, he can’t compare to anyone around him, he’s the background character to his own anthology; you wonder how deep that goes before it touches the harder times and difficult learnings he’d gone through to get to this point of hiding what good he has worth cherishing behind a wall of deference.

he has a story and you want to read it so badly, but you know you could never afford a page. you take snippets in passing words and try to read between the lines in the scraps you’re given.

[deference-for-darkness]

dream 2022/02/19-20 val

everything was blocky, like minecraft almost. but all the cubed landscape was cavernous around me and rosy and pink and many shades of that warm soft valentines colors, slowly dissolving into a blood crimson that felt ominous. there was a slight magenta haze around the surroundings too.

like i said, cavernous, and the (minecraft cube-y) wall curved up and over, where natural light filtered in from a hole in the cave ceiling and was so soft and creamy and made the area around it pink and sweet, and the light fell riiiight onto a wood cabin. a medium warm brown wood, a cabin with a short raised porch/deck wrapping around it, still very geometric and slightly minecraft-y but a bit more realistic leaning.

i was prone, literally laying down relaxed on my stomach a bit away, looking at the cabin. i started to crawl towards it until i was close and then made my way up the steps to the wrap around porch/deck and halted when i saw him with nothing but a bath towel wrapped around his body.

he exclaimed in shock and surprise, and i turned around with a "sorry! didn't see anything, am turned around." we chattered back n forth while i waited for him to be more presentable. i dont remember what we were talking about, and i know i would've been able to say it if i just recorded this dream after i woke up like a proper fucker, but oh well.

i sat either on something like a chair or stool, or i was just kneeling and sat back on my heels; i remember facing away from him, looking out across the railing at the rosy quartz cave around the cabin after our conversation lulled into a natural quiet, i closed my eyes and tilted my head back to check if he was still with me and not asleep, i threw a few jests his way.

there was a beat or two of silence.

then on my face was the softest touch, completely shocking me and very unexpected from him, it made me internally flinch but i kept my outer appearance very very still, level, and my eyes shut. the first contact was his hands ghosting over my eyes, which i just interpreted as i should keep them closed, and i remember in that brief momentary shock my eyelashes must've fluttered against his palms.

i kept trying to imagine what his expression must've been, how he must've been looking down at me, but i didn't want to open my eyes in case he stopped. his hands went across my cheekbones under my eyes, down my cheeks to my jaw, then fingertips were lifted off my skin- and brought down across my lips. not timid. not curious or exploring. tracing. bold. my closed eyes, the stillness in form, the gentle lean into his palms, a silent confirmation that gave him the confidence to express how he felt, and all i felt was relief, a 'finally, finally i now know i can do this to you.'

there was this overwhelming emotion i remember; something strong and forceful. like he was saying 'fuck, you have no idea how much i've wanted this. you have no fucking idea how much desire i've been holding back.' like the boldness and directness of his touch came from him taking this unbridled hunger he just couldn't resist anymore and trying to have me understand it.

but i realized i didn't just feel that from him alone- that relief. i remember letting out a deep sigh, a tiny breath following it through my parted lips. like the precipice of a kiss when you don't know whether you’re both going to do it, and once you finally do, you know. you know it's okay to let everything out, every fucking ounce of desire and yearning you held back.

yearning. that's the right word.

his hands left my parted lips with a tug, back to my cheeks and down onto my neck, one hand cradling the bottom of my chin with a finger and a thumb on my jaw. my head was still tilted back from when i was trying to chat at him, eyes still closed.

god, i wanted to see his expression.

/

notes from me: he had blond hair, wispy, pale as hell, like kinda nordic blond? also fair skin with many blemishes and large red patches along his arms and legs. average height, i knew him only as reserved, held back, apathetic; someone who took my shit and threw it right back but never betrayed anything else he might’ve felt.

this fucking dream though. this was overwhelming. god his feelings were fucking overwhelming. everything he felt and that desire and that yearning and relief and hunger and fire. like a burning path that was stopped by a glass wall. delicate. poised. right. appropriate. and he was just waiting for the moment that he didn’t have to be delicate, poised, right, appropriate. where he could feel and consume and tear everything apart and give all that he could and take everything he wished he could for so so long.

[deference-for-darkness]

dream 2020/05/4-5 Summer-Winter Wars

some sort of apocalypse .. must've been happening. i remember vague images of a frozen-over lake in a city. an underground of stone and darkness and explosives and danger.

i remember being up on rafters in an old building formerly used as an outpost, i was using heavy artillery (rocket launchers, a fuel rod??) to fight covenant. on my own. and dodging whatever they slung at me. i had to get creative and run down the side rafters to balance myself on the lip of the large door frame that they were coming in from and surprise them from there.

once i finally got them all i was able to get out into what felt like a clash of summer and winter- i stepped across frozen snowy earth to my people, hundreds of them, who cheered at my resilience in fending off their threat. i checked my stats in a HUD only i could see, all before i saw her walking toward me; and the sight of her made my knees buckle, i could feel my throat choke up, i fell to my knees on the icy earth and started sobbing violently.

in this dream i knew she was the leader of us all. and the sight of her open grief, sorrow, told me her son had died. her son. my everything. she gently held my arms as i cried and lifted me to my feet and i remembered blabbering quietly about how i wouldnt be able to not see him live his life with his joys and his passions and himself. to not have his energy around. she soothed me and said it was time to go.

the hundreds standing on the frozen earth were looking or already moving towards the thick pine forest with sunlight streaming through with power; the leaves of undergrowth wet with melted water and the greenery so vibrant and warm. i couldn't go with them yet. she understood and extended patience to me, but a warning to not take more time than necessary, because i could lose them all if they got too far from me (i felt she wouldnt let that happen though. i'm all she has left of her son)

we (who was with me??) watched cars slide hilariously across the frozen lake before we visited his father. bedridden, in the cold winter city, he recounted the tales of him and his wife bitterly before the memories and past love took over and he talked softly about her. the father was korean, but his features weren't entirely so. my love's mother wasn't and that explained to me why he didn't look like so at all (their son had short wavy blond hair, with a tall and lean pale frame and a dazzling, cheery, smile). i had never met his father before now. (did he talk only about his wife because he knew already his son was dead? and just couldn't face it?) we said our final goodbyes with a comfortable affection after hours of reminiscing, and i left to go deal with my grief.

and i remember: being in a humble sort of barracks, passing a doorway with him in it, wearing a gray tee and darker gray sweatpants and making a jest at me about how he could- and would- protect me. i stopped and smirked at him, telling him about my confirmed kill count versus his barely existing one, and how it'd be me protecting him. he didn't seem to be offended in the slightest and just grinned at me while people behind him in the room cheered and heckled. he and i were smiling with amusement. charming camaraderie.

he was less of promises given, and more of devotion unable to be held back.

/

when i woke up from all of this, my chest ached, i felt miserable and shit and choked up. i felt like i was grieving. i felt like that for days.

[deference-for-darkness]

do you understand me when i tell you the slightest touch is some of the most beautiful things we can experience? your fingers between mine and your fingertips brushing my knuckles breaks me open like a geode and i feel as if i could fall apart in you.

some of my proudest moments are walking beside you with our fingers woven into held hands on a busy city street and just imagining the possibility that someone could look at me and think: wow– i wish i was in their place; to be so fucking lucky to have you even look at me fondly is a dizzying existence to be in.

[deference-for-darkness]

there are going to be happier times than this.

[deference-for-darkness]

shiny gold leafing curling and refracting as foliage is devoured delicate warmed cinders still shimmering orange in a heat wave's wake growing steadily gray over the melting sunbelt how do we know cooling ash is smothering the life of a fire know that it isn't just trying to cling to what gives it reason to exist?

tell a future, denied, to the ash in the air that the fire will go out no matter the hands that hold it that the ash will still have meaning without a flame that it will be the only one left when the cold digs claws into flesh that the ash will become the soles of feet passing through the souls of burnt out body-minds the feed to the kindling that'll feed the next fire how do you tell delicate warmed cinders that they have worth by simply being.

[deference-for-darkness]

i dreamt i held his face in my hands. it was so vivid, the warmth of his skin and how soft it was to touch, how natural. his smile was patient and tender and loving and for me to witness it was inconceivably undeserved. i tried so very hard to squeeze in all the reassurances i could think of to tell him while he gently breathed short breaths in affectionate amusement at my rambling, waiting for me to finish. it never feels like i have enough time.

i could never finish. i’m so so sorry. you’re so loved and so missed. it feels so empty without you. it wasn’t your fault, none of it was, you deserved better. it’s okay, you’re okay, don’t worry. you tried so hard, know that none of it is wasted. you did it. you can rest.

i’ll learn more. i’ll learn ways to tell you the things we all didn’t know we had such little time left to tell you.