#s;epiesque

[epiesque]

six by six

Notes: Six six-word stories (mostly about love or lack thereof).

I: Yellow roses for my returning lover.

II: He cries, “He is always hers.”

III: Love is my vice to covet.

IV: Hearts should be kissed, not polished.

V: “Hello, I’ve loved you since we—”

VI: An empty vase for a heart.

[epiesque]

olive’s jacket

notes: originally written for a creative writing course led by profesor and writer elidio la torre lagares; you can check out his work here. 

The jacket's sleek blackness wore off from years of rampant twisting and bundling. Nothing could soothe the grey vines of tear around its shoulders: not draping it over chairs or carefully cleansing it in sinks. Juliette holds it with her thin chocolate fingers against the light filtering in through her window. There the shadow of the jacket passes over her as she lays on the bed. It carries earth and grass to her nose every time she hugs it, and her thin arms still too small to bundle it up quickly. Then she lays it beside her on the bed, one leg over the patchwork of Riot Grrrl and Equality Now! slogans sewn into its black skin.

Juliette routinely washes the jacket on its own and hangs it to dry by the window where the sun cast  a shadow beside her desk. Between studying on tax paperwork and analyzing stock profitability, she peers at it from the corner of her eye. Studies the thick shoulders and sections where brown leather covered rips in the black fabric.

The jacket hangs at that light window and sometimes rests at the back of her chair, the arms held in her fingers as she read through FAFSA regulations and HR terms. Its warmth is too inviting not to keep around, and her thin frame always shook with cold save for a moment such as this; and another beautiful exception: when the owner of this second skin would rap her knuckles at Juliette's door.

The black jacket mirrors the mess of tight curls that compliments the owner's olive skin and Olive's eyes crinkle with delight when Juliette speaks of it. Tall and broad shouldered like the patchwork jacket, Olive drapes herself over Juliette to keep watch in  her dear's sleep; sometimes she stands by that light window to read out loud and lets her shadow cover the tinier woman. Olive leaves that second skin for when she's to be away, and Juliette keeps that second skin as a promise of her return.