#dg.nevermore.

[terranoctis]

[terranoctis]

[terranoctis]

and it is gold

I had a dream last night of you standing in the rice fields I've written so intimately in memory. I've been here countless times in my mind, in words I've crafted, in strokes I've painted, to a memory that never existed, and a memory that always exists for me. The fields are the place where you met her, and it is the first place I wrote for the two of you.

There you are staring up at open blue skies, a sparrow and a heron caught in your gaze. Your partner is there with you, smooth black hair so characteristically her that it is a wonder to me and you that no one sees her for who truly is. I smile when you whisper calmly to her as you always do. I laugh a little when she makes the whimsical response of a cat lying in the afternoon sun.

I smile when your favorite person runs up to you, calling your name as if it is the only existence in this entire field. The smile you give her is the one I've committed to memory. I am happy to just be there when she takes your hand and I am happy to know that this existed for you.

That this has existed for me.

Thank you. I love you. I'll finish our story someday.

Happy birthday, us.

[terranoctis]

the drowned tree

A long time ago, there was a girl who asked me how I came up with the stories I did. She loved them, you see. The good, the bad, and the unfinished--she loved them all. It had been both joyous and terrifying to understand how much someone could relate to your words. Isn’t it something to know that she too could understand the way I felt?

Fiction is a truth and a lie. You have imagination plucked from the crevices of your mind. You have foundations built from the experiences in your life. And you have colors painted, taking influence from everything about you. You were always the color I started with.

I could only smile as she waited for my answer, some kind of wonder in her eyes as she wanted to get to know me better. Even then, I thought about how I probably looked at you once like that, in days when I didn’t know better.

I don’t think you really ever have friends again like how we were then, do you?

The best of my stories, if one knew how to look for it between the lines, have always started with you. This one is no different. I see you in her, running through open fields to the next adventure and horizon. I see me in her, running after you, laughing and eyes open to it all. I see us in the pair of them, wanting nothing more than to live and change. I see the blue so deep below, reconciling the world for what it is. I see the way the world shifts them and the unfailing way in which a promise is held.

Perhaps you’d be unhappy with the ending, but it would be so true to us. Sometimes the truth is only that--but the journey there and after matters infinitely as much. 

It’s a promise.

[terranoctis]

between heaven and earth

I sometimes think of how much she loved you and it is why everything happened for her afterwards. She didn’t regret that part of her, though there were times she had wanted to. Even if she hadn’t understood what it was, she believed in you and her memories with you. And to love someone and lose someone in that way is heavy.

I trace my fingers across her hair, stroking them behind her left ear in hopes to understand. I’m rewriting the future she has with you over and over, looking for one that fits. Stories are all arbitrary what-ifs, but I’d like to believe once in awhile the finality of what is meant to be. What is meant to be derives from our choices, from her choice, and from you. Nothing is ever meant to be, but our choices make it so. 

After all, isn’t it what made you love her too?

[terranoctis]

Daydream by Marika Takeuchi

[terranoctis]

nothing’s lost forever

I’ve been thinking about the moments in stories, whether it’s a wonderful novel or a scene in a movie, that stick with you for a long time. One of the scenes I think about occasionally is Harper’s monologue from Angels in America. It’s true that somehow stories are analyzed differently in your mind depending on what period of your life you’re in. I read Angels in America during a period of transition, as an assignment for one of my upper division college classes. I was enamored, quite frankly, by Tony Kushner’s writing of the play. I never grew up reading much plays as a child, for all that I read and read. For all that I loved Shakespeare. It was a contemporary play that left me thinking and quite grateful for many things. 

My professor played us a few scenes of the HBO special to let us see how actors and directors interpret what we’ve read on a page to the screen. It’s one of the first classes that I got to that made me appreciate how much people interpret differently and how actors translate from paper to screen. It’s quite a beautiful adaptation of the play as well, if I might add. Maybe the play in some way calls out to me as someone as well who’s known for years that she’s attracted to both men and women, yet also was raised in a religious environment that’s interpreted queer relationships as some unholy sin. We witness characters suffering from the AIDS epidemic, characters being persecuted for their sexuality, characters persecuting themselves for their own repressed natures. Yet there’s a cyclical nature to it all, in the way the play calls back to pestilences and plagues of times past, how humans of all kinds suffered before. Even so, there is a hope that rises above it all, in that ozone layer Harper’s monologue talks about. Nothing’s lost forever. We look forward and miss the things we’ve lost, but there’s always such hope in this world. Night flight to San Francisco, and...

It’s a faraway thought because I haven’t written anything fully that could be adapted yet to a stage or screen, but if I had a choice to ask an actress to prepare something for their audition for a certain character, I’d ask them to prepare Harper’s Monologue.

I hope you never forget that hope, even after everything you’ve been through, little bird. 

[terranoctis]

world-walkers

You laugh quietly when I spin around in this non-existent world where we’re walking side-by-side. I’m telling you about my day and all the people I love, a beautiful simplicity finally realized. That world of mine still exists and its problems that break my heart are still there, but you talk me through them in a way that’s ours. 

I smile and ask why you’re with me today. You shrug with a small grin, and there’s no right answer to that. There’s no wrong answer to that. We sidle up to one another and stare up at the sky, breathing in deeply. 

We fall asleep facing one another, cheeks pressed against the same bedsheets. We hear the steady rhythm of another pulse. I feel like I love you.

We’re watching my world go by, tucked into the corner of yours, knowing that we’re travelers meant for different lands.

When I walk through the doorway to my world, I look back to see you grinning. Some day, we’ll find each other again. As many times as it takes, we’ll say our goodbyes and journey through these woods of ours. At the end of this long journey, I’ll find you at the crossroads and we’ll board the same metal dragon to the edges of the universe.