the time it takes to fall; chelsey

Tattletale
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hi um\????

the time it takes to fall; chelsey Jun 20, 2013 4:37:59 GMT -5

Post by Tattletale on Jun 20, 2013 4:37:59 GMT -5

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CASSANDRA LARKER

I’ve been told the quicker way around ghosts is to remember the familiar. Gran tells me it’s no use to try new things, that instead of those being the first stepping stones of a fresh start; they will mark the time of when you are most bitter, that time where you try to shut close the luggage only to have the hinges broken and your unwanted things come spilling out. “That’s not what you want, Cassandra, although you are making a good deal ignoring it --” I do, and not something I pride myself in when it’s not something I do on purpose. It comes by instinct, an automatic reflex I’d built between the stages of wishing everything that I’ve seen was just a nightmare after all and holding my breath as long as I can so I won’t have to live knowing what I already did.

Apparently I’ve been doing it all wrong, the whole business of facing whichever light was the brightest and running towards it as fast as I can to avoid the shadows resting behind me. Apparently, you turn around and embrace it.

It’s no easy task to sneak out of your home when the weak floorboards rattle you out, the rusted hinges of the door creaks and it might as well could be a scream when it’s the dead of the night. The streets are another thing -- another thing for me to ignore. Ignore the streets that blanket themselves in darkness and still manage to flick a shadow to and fro, the cold air that makes sandpaper of my bare skin (with my good sense to wear nothing but a dress) but never ignore the clearing, dusted with trees that sway and fro with the passing wind. There’s one tree that stands out among all, the willow tree with tired yet staying arms, history written on its brown skin and weeping leaves that covers me from the world.

It’s rhythmic, perhaps perfect synchronization as my feet digs in the knotholes and my hands grab at the branches, as I pull myself up and at last, rest on the crook of its arm. It only takes a second for my body to unfold and lay down, stretched out and used to the hardness of my makeshift bed -- a bitter reminder that at least there’s something out there that won’t let me fall; but something more, with my ear pressing in close to the wood and maybe, just maybe, persistent to hear and relieve once again what I buried before.

One, trees talk to each other at night. Father was always the one to lead me away from asking where mother was, his little stories shepherding me away from questions like “why hasn’t Mommy come home yet?” coming out of my mouth. “They’re all around us, Cassandra, and it’s too bad you fall asleep early. If you stay still in your bed and pretend to go to sleep, you’ll hear the trees talk to each other.” Seeing my raised eyebrow, persistent but pulling towards fascination already before I knew it, he said, “Oh, they talk almost every night. I heard it myself, and they talk about the weather and, ‘Hey, did that blue-eyed girl tried to climb you again?’” And there would be laughter and the late night misadventures before it was another silent game in --

Two: “If you listen very closely,” and already I had my neck outstretched, “you can hear the clouds rub against each other.” “I knew it, Daddy, I knew it! The clouds are too big not to make a noise up there! Do they say sorry once they do bump?” “They do, but you won’t be able to hear it all the way down here --”

Three -- “but if you jump high enough, you’ll touch the sky with the tips of your fingers.” I’d pout because I knew I was short and, “it’d take ages for me to get up there!” “Oh, but you’ll grow up soon. Everyone does. You’ll grow up and soon you’ll forget the friends you made --” “But I don’t want to forget my friends!” (Four.) “No one ever does, honey, but I’ll tell you a little secret: somewhere in a secret door inside everyone’s houses are secret passageways for you to see your old friends. You’ll never grow lonely.”

But sometimes I did, even though you were right beside me and we’d lay down outside and watch the night sky or the sunrise, I’d tell you how I feel just like the sun and the moon, awfully lonely, and you told me about -- five -- how stars were just little holes cut through, and how a black cloth covered the earth and in reality all that surrounded us were light (that whoever was Up There wanted us to rest even just for measly hours but no one wanted complete darkness and so stars were reminders of the light we’ll get if we just close our eyes for a while) -- six -- how the sun and the moon had a fight a long, long time ago, even before the was the earth and the people that lived in it. You never told me what it was about, except that there are some things not worth knowing, you told me silently -- and there was another thing you told me through ink, scrawled on the corner of my notebook: the first ever one, do you remember? I do, I always do, and it said: Someday I’ll tell you about the story of how the sun loved the moon so much, he died every day just to let her breathe. You never did, but I know the story now.

That didn’t make me feel less lonely at all, so you sighed and smiled and finally told me the seventh: “We’re all tied with invisible threads -- you and I and Mommy and Gran and everyone,” but that didn’t make me feel better because I’ve seen mother sew a million times and how easily she can cut a thread, and you said ‘I give up I give up’ and I shrieked ‘don’t say that, you’ll cut our thread!’ and then: “but remember,” he said, his teasing eyes now fading (to the warmth I longed to see when I looked out to where his body lay, under the heavy rain and the darkness that carved the hollows of his cheeks, and there’s no helping the mangled cry inside of me as reach for him but touch the glass, cold, so cold -- but not as cold as his empty eyes looked) with the wrinkles around his eyes and the corners of his mouth turning gentle (they now lay ebbed forever, if his skin had not yet rotten to reveal bones of what once tucked me in bed and whispered, “goodnight.”)

“I will always be here for you.”

That was the eighth lie he told me, and this is will be the last I listen to Gran’s voice again, with her ill advice and his “goodnight, sleep tight,” words that comes spilling out of the dark. I hate this, I hate this -- when the night comes back and the atmosphere drops. All of a sudden I’m fifteen and watching my parents fall apart. There’s nothing I could do because I’m -- damn it, I’m fifteen and all I’m wishing for is for everything to get over with and for time to jump like those frogs in the books and maybe when I’m older it will mean things will get better.

I’ll give you a hint: it doesn’t.

It’s the same hard grip as I wish I could crush my chest but crumple the dress and my eyes instead. Make it stop. People look at me all funny -- “look, Mommy, she can’t breathe,” and all I could do is stifle a laugh because that’s what I wish was happening in exchange of realizing that from the young age of seven all the way to seventeen, the trees are still silent, the threads are all cut out and frayed, and you’re dead and gone and nowhere near me. Seven to seventeen, there is no change at all. Rip out my lungs, drown me in the lake, please, just -- “make it stop.”

OOC
oh my god it's finally happening oh my god someone hold me

Last Edit: Aug 9, 2013 10:45:57 GMT -5 by Tattletale

I. THE WILD YOUTH

chelsey
District Mayor

[M:-650]

728 POSTS
Pronouns: she/her
last seen Jul 2, 2016 17:22:46 GMT -5

queen of inactivity

the time it takes to fall; chelsey Jun 20, 2013 13:32:51 GMT -5

Post by chelsey on Jun 20, 2013 13:32:51 GMT -5

C E D R I C L A N E

ASTRID USED TO TELL ME about the stars. We watched them stretched out on our backs during warm summer nights, our hands entwined between us as if that physical connection was the only thing still harboring us to the crust of this earth, and she whispered to me how man once left footprints on the moon, and how she wanted to do the same. And leave me here? I asked her in a moment of feigned hurt, and she'd kiss my lips and whisper back, Don't worry, I'll send you the stars. When she died I wanted to bury her body in the soil of the moon's dust, but the men in the graveyard just piled shovel after shovel of wet dirt over her wooden coffin. ('Dammit!,' I screeched at one of them, tears pricking my eyes and clawing at my throat, 'Can't you be more careful with that?' The man kept shoveling without raising his eyes - he was used to doing his job - and shrugged to me. 'She can't feel a thing by this point, anymore, kid.' We both left the cemetery that day with bruises - his on his right eye, and mine on my knuckles.)

I don't know a lot of things, but I do know love, and I do know pain, and I do know that if you want to avoid one you will also have to avoid the other. Avoiding doesn't mean you succeed in your tasks, though, because everyday feels like there is a weight pressing down on my chest that I must cover with leather jackets and dark shades and the naked bosom of a girl I had just met three hours before. I miss Astrid, like how I miss looking at stars without flinching or smiling at someone without feeling guilty, I miss her more than I loved her and that is a fearful sin to myself I'm afraid to ever confess. And it is because, not only do I miss loving her, I miss having her love me back.

Astrid said she would send me the stars, but I'm left staring at withering grass and a gravestone that hardly even etches the outline of her name. (Years from now, someone will walk over her body and see that Here Lies Astrid Lyra, but they will not see that here lies a daughter, a lover, a story teller, a star gazer. And the fact that the world will never know this is what hurts the most.) Yesterday was her death anniversary, and I left roses I picked from a neighbor's garden on her tombstone. We have funny ways of honoring our dead, here, because we give them things we could not give them when they were alive.

Astrid once told me there are a million ways to live, and dared me to try to live them all in one night. I'm afraid, dearie, I said back to her, You only taught me how to live one. And we kissed, and we loved, and we were invincible until the moment we weren't.

It's not easy trying to forget, and for a while, I did try. Every time I crashed my lips against the lips of another girl whose name I already forgot, I'd see Astrid laughing in the sunlight - her eyes bright and her skin healthy - and I'd kiss the girl harder to make Astrid go away. I never wanted Astrid to leave me, but I needed her to. I became the boy with the dark shades and banged up guitar and a voice that fell like rain, and whispers on the street told of a mystery I hid between the fingers of my coal dusted hands (but what I actually held was the ghost of Astrid's hand entwined with mine). Everyone loves a mystery, because when they unravel it, they expect it to be beautiful and everlasting, but my mystery is a black pit I've been condemned to that I'm still trying to find a way out of. The world and I became opposite ends of a magnet, and every time they came towards me, I'd push them away until the distance between us was settled again.

I serenade girls, now, with songs my mom used to sing me to bed with, lullabies from a time before our world was painted black with corruption and poverty and hatred. The songs stood for hope, but even while I sung them into the lips of a girl who I'd leave in the morning, they did not rekindle any kind of hope within me.

When I settle down at the base of a willow tree, with my guitar in my lap and my voice in my throat, I sing lyrics that have words so sharp and painful that they cut the flesh of my cheeks and bring burning blisters to my tongue. The words are too big to fit in my mouth, but my heart is too small to contain them any longer. So, when I sing, I hope she knows these words are for her.

"All this feels strange and untrue
And I won't waste a minute without you
My bones ache, my skin feels cold
And I'm getting so tired and so old"

My mouth was bleeding sorrows my eyes could not bleed, and every syllable felt a step closer to falling off an edge I knew was waiting for me. Every strum of my guitar was a push closer to the edge - a siren's call guiding me to my downfall - and every tap of my fingers were just counting the seconds of the time it'd take to get there.

"The anger swells in my guts
And I won't feel these slices and cuts
I want so much to open your eyes
'Cause I need you to look into mine"

I was pushing into old wounds, ripping away the stitches and forcing myself to bleed again in places where I'd begun to heal. (I did not want to heal, but I still wanted to live.) The world was spinning beneath me, and I was too slow to catch up, because I had been too busy trying to catch the stars with open hands instead of leaning down to pick the flowers (so, now, when I do lean down, the flowers are for someone who is no longer alive).

"Tell me that you'll open your eyes
Tell me that you'll open your eyes."

I hid behind the black lens of these shades for so long, that when I finally take them off, I could no longer recognize my surroundings. The world is a blur to me now, and all I want is for someone to

"Make it stop."

"Tell me that you'll open your eyes
Tell me that you'll open your eyes."

(When I look up, there is the figure of a girl amidst the mesh of branches and leaves, and she seems to sway as one with them when the breeze flutters through her. She looks like a summer day but her voice sounds like a winter storm.)

"Oh, love, is my voice really that bad?"

Last Edit: Feb 10, 2014 2:19:27 GMT -5 by chelsey

"Isn't this the point of being young?"

^ bless avalon's soul ^

Tattletale
Retired Staff

[M:3040]

488 POSTS

last seen Dec 19, 2014 11:56:13 GMT -5

hi um\????

the time it takes to fall; chelsey Jun 22, 2013 12:36:50 GMT -5

Post by Tattletale on Jun 22, 2013 12:36:50 GMT -5

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CASSANDRA LARKER

My father tells me imagination is your best bet when you're locked on ground, and so we conjured up wings and flew through clouds, side by side and hand in hand. Maybe we took flight in the wrong time, when the sun was just setting and so the sky was soaked in the glory of its descent (I didn't know blood to be an enemy -- I considered scrapes from falls as badges to be worn proudly, as if to say I'm only one step closer to finally flying.) While I lost myself in its beautiful devastation, suppose I lost my senses too, that I hadn't felt the grip on my other hand loosening -- then finally, gone. My mother's wings were misshapen, feathers clipped from being bound too tight and the bird bones already broken. Sometime in my state of numbness my father rushed down to catch her, only he never did, and maybe I flew too close to the sun that my own wings burned to ashes.

I'm left cowering since. The earth is not kind to little feet used to the air beneath them, but while happiness has left biting ghosts in its wake, I have hypocrisy to turn to. My feet now greets the soil with hardened skin, but there are consequences. Afternoons are not for sitting down on the ground and watching the clouds tell stories, but for me to chase the sun so I wouldn't be left in the dark. It's no longer beautiful -- the blood dries and the sky is left looking like a swollen bruise.

I can't forget them; I can't live. Tell me how to breathe when you're sitting on my lungs. The memory of you remains while your body is gone and so is hers, gone for shelter in another man's arms. I have none for myself; the twigs and fallen branches I have woven for wings and wrapped around my bare shoulders don't fool anyone, let alone me. The bits and pieces of last autumn's leaves remain astray in my hair, freckles and coal dust both scatter across my cheeks -- I have fallen and the scars are reminders. Blood is not welcome, it spills too easily on some dark stormy night. For the voices that run wild and echo around my head, one crawls through the rest, bringing the smell of a blossoming dawn and a broken chest -- "Oh, love, is my voice really that bad?"

Opening my eyes is easy (waking up is another thing on its own, but I find sleep evading me faster than I could chase after it. I wanted to fall in deep slumber; if I stay awake too long, standstill in my own silence, I'm left drowning in my thoughts.) Upon waking up, it's hauntingly routinary to find myself falling, but instead of looking up for one last glimpse of the glittering sky, I look down. The ground almost feels welcoming, and it's as if it has been waiting for me to fall the whole time. I could do it. Where's my father to tell me I couldn't.

But a silhouette sits on the ground, by the base of the tree. There is a boy with hair like the night sky, and perhaps he held the stars in his eyes. But if he had them, then he tucked them far away, in some distance safe from prying eyes. This is not right, and my lips part open to give way to a protest, but his gaze holds against my own. Silence settles between us, amongst the wind that whistles through the leaves, until I break it. "Who are you?"

Last Edit: Aug 9, 2013 10:50:45 GMT -5 by Tattletale

I. THE WILD YOUTH

chelsey
District Mayor

[M:-650]

728 POSTS
Pronouns: she/her
last seen Jul 2, 2016 17:22:46 GMT -5

queen of inactivity

the time it takes to fall; chelsey Jul 9, 2013 5:27:06 GMT -5

Post by chelsey on Jul 9, 2013 5:27:06 GMT -5

C E D R I C L A N E

SHE HOLDS MY GAZE, and her eyes burn through me like frost settling on my skin. She's a winter storm, all right, because her eyes fall like snow and her hair's a blizzard not waiting to be calmed. I think if people were rated on a scale from an ice cube to Antarctica, I'd be an icicle, the girl in the tree would be a frozen lake, and Astrid - well - she would be an avalanche.

"Who are you?" She asks me, and although the question implies a name, her voice asks something entirely different. "Who are you? Why are you here? Who broke you? How did she break you? Will you let yourself be fixed?"

I owe my answers to no one but myself, and I'll take these words to the grave if it meant preserving the sweetness of the last kiss I shared with Astrid. (Bury me next to her, so flowers can sprout over our resting places and life will thrive where there is none.)

The sun's hardly risen over the horizon, and I can already feel the weight of my sunglasses weighing me down. Who knew flimsy plastic and the burden of heartache could be so heavy? But, the way this girl looks at me, curiosity looming in her glassy eyes that somehow see and don't see me at the same time, makes me feel like I can't hide behind my shield any longer. Illusions can only last for so long, and maybe this is a mirage I can't deluge myself into keeping up anymore.

"I'm an awful singer, apparently," I reply, letting my voice drift in the wind to her perch upon the tree. I grin up at her, letting my lips stretch to a point where it almost feels natural. Almost. "And you're a tree climber, I suppose?"

Last Edit: Feb 10, 2014 2:20:50 GMT -5 by chelsey

"Isn't this the point of being young?"

^ bless avalon's soul ^

Tattletale
Retired Staff

[M:3040]

488 POSTS

last seen Dec 19, 2014 11:56:13 GMT -5

hi um\????

the time it takes to fall; chelsey Aug 9, 2013 14:39:17 GMT -5

Post by Tattletale on Aug 9, 2013 14:39:17 GMT -5

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CASSANDRA LARKER

"I'm an awful singer, apparently."

He speaks as if words are nothing but objects we volley back and forth. I've learnt of words differently -- first dipped in harmony as a lullaby, then the next in joy as I took my first steps. We grew hand in hand. They waited for me as I struggled to get them out, an open jaw and parting lips just like a blossoming flower ('Mama' was my first word, as she was the first one to walk out forever.)

My father taught me that if you want, you could make words live forever, and so he taught me the art of ink and paper. Or at the very least he tried to, but I was better in letting figures grow from the tip of my pen and creating a new landscape from a blank page. I was content in submerging myself in his made-up fairytales, in staying up with the moon and reading page to page of his new story. He taught me there were universes among universes, and that we matter. Every single decision we make affects our future, and I guess a child would've been fascinated by that. When I was young and barely half a trunk of a tree, with my whole hand not quite big enough to surpass their palms, knowing I had an influence over something was the best part of living. Up until you start wondering whether you should've said more prayers, should've kissed her more, should've told her she was beautiful right before she was gone.

I'm almost certain my father and I were haunted by the same questions, but he's lucky, in a way. Corpses no longer have thoughts.

The boy below me grins, and I don't know whether to return with a smile or none at all. I'm used to and skilled with deceiving happiness, but I hadn't prepared myself for interaction at the break of dawn that this throws me off my guard and I do nothing, completely nothing until he speaks.

"And you're a tree climber, I suppose?"

(He speaks as though we're in a game. I'm fond of games, and I suppose I'll be with everyone else to say that my childhood was filled with afternoons spent outside, in open fields with sunset-lit skies. Father was fond with chase and run, while my mother loved hide and seek -- she's excellent with hiding, and I still haven't found her. As for my father? I haven't stopped running since.)

Then it kicks in. It's the age-old story of distractions and losing them somewhere in the middle. I'd have to say I've got quite the experience on that. "No other way to the stars. At least, that's what someone once told me. No longer here, I'm afraid, but I remember his words well," I say, tapping my temple with a finger. "That's the great thing about memories. They stay when the person can't."

OOC
wow a full month i am one fast writer (◡ ‿ ◡ ✿)

Last Edit: Aug 15, 2013 1:32:41 GMT -5 by Tattletale

I. THE WILD YOUTH

chelsey
District Mayor

[M:-650]

728 POSTS
Pronouns: she/her
last seen Jul 2, 2016 17:22:46 GMT -5

queen of inactivity

the time it takes to fall; chelsey Aug 25, 2013 22:41:27 GMT -5

Post by chelsey on Aug 25, 2013 22:41:27 GMT -5

C E D R I C L A N E

I FEEL CHILDLIKE in this stranger's presence, almost as if we were playing a game of pretend. The singer and the tree climber meeting at the break of dawn - it'd make for a good bedtime story. Rediscovering my foolish and youthful fantasies was hard, though, especially after smothering them for years with the ashes of a fallen star. The fineness in the sweet summer air and the irises of this girl whose eyes seems to hold a universe made it easier to peel off the layers, until my lips finally twitched without the muffle of guilt. We were children, playing with strings and pulling them at the ends, again and again, just to see what it would unravel.

"No other way to the stars. At least, that's what someone once told me."

Of course, what it did unravel wasn't at all the pleasant surprise I expected.

"No longer here, I'm afraid, but I remember his words well." The girl taps her head with a finger, as if the gesture could rattle the memories in her mind, and rouse them back to life. (That wouldn't work, of course, and trust me, I've tried.) "That's the great thing about memories, they stay when the person can't."

My playful mood drains with each syllable her lips pronounce, and my shoulders sag back into the trunk of the tree until the corners of the bark are pressing against my shoulder blades through the leather jacket. Half the sky, closer to the hills cradling the rising sun, faintly glows with morning light and gossamer blue hues. The other half still clings to a nightly aura, embellishing the fading darkness with celestial caliber. Astrid once told me that when we look at the stars, they're already dead - blown out, combusted, extinguished - and are now just some monotonous gas filling in dead space in the universe. She was right, she always was.

"What're you looking at the stars for?" My voice drifts carelessly, filling in the dead space in the gaps between us. I stare at the fading starlight for a second or two before letting my eyes close, tilting my head back, and strumming an allure of chords on my guitar. "I knew a girl made of stardust, once."

The light burned holes through her skin, wrinkled the spread of her smile, seeped out the hurricanes in her words. Touching her was like putting your hand in a fire, but I held her for as long as I could, anyway. Lights don't burn forever, though, and she sure as hell made good on that.

"She crumbled in my hands."

Last Edit: Feb 10, 2014 2:22:17 GMT -5 by chelsey

"Isn't this the point of being young?"

^ bless avalon's soul ^

Tattletale
Retired Staff

[M:3040]

488 POSTS

last seen Dec 19, 2014 11:56:13 GMT -5

hi um\????

the time it takes to fall; chelsey Oct 16, 2013 14:10:34 GMT -5

Post by Tattletale on Oct 16, 2013 14:10:34 GMT -5

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CASSANDRA LARKER

"What're you looking the stars for?"

I don't know.

He is silhouetted against the yawning sky at the break point of dawn, the little pinks shedding light on the tips of his hair and nothing more from what I can see above him. He is illuminated and hidden by shadows at the same time, and I think same goes for his words. "I met a girl made of stardust once. She crumbled in my hands." I've never seen an iceberg (that's what he is, and with such sad words I'm left in front crossroads of possibilities, left to wonder what made the lines around his mouth set deeper and his gaze set much, much farther. People are universes, books, stories of their own and I'm not sure whether I smile because of wonder or of sadness that I'd never know them) suggest such melancholy, and it was as if in that moment he had undressed and I looked away, left to doubt my own actions. Whether I turned from the face of a stranger unraveling himself to me or seeing the same reflection of anguish so bitter it's paralytic, I don't know and I refused to know. The dandelions sprouted just by the edge of winter is a lighter load to carry, and so is blatant and purposeful ignorance.

I look up to the sky in knowing the stars have vanished, and maybe it is better so. They're beautiful things, I know, but they're made of fire and we have the tendency to hold on to the things that hurt the most. I wonder if the burn marks on his palms left even a few heart lines to trace. "Why do we look at the stars, Papa?" "To remember what we're from." I blink, bringing whatever I said to falling decline then swallowed by silence. The words echo along with a memory knocking in the back of my mind and I just know those aren't my own words and rather someone else's that I've learnt by heart and grown to cherish yet despise at the same time. Repeating my father's words used to bring a certain kind of reassurance, but now it brings back memories I know I'll never have again. The silent resignation yet contentment in having to stay inside and read a book instead of stargazing out tonight because it's one of 'those days' where Mama's gone back until the trickling hours of dawn. The warmth circulating around the room, from the crackling fire to the woven rug, the bulk of a knitted sweater hugging my small frame and the temporary smile he has after gulping down cheap old wine along with the thought that she'd be home late again. It's the sixth time I've heard the story of Red Riding Hood, but the longer it goes it's starting sound less of Little Red coming over her grandmother's and more of my mother coming home. One happened and the other never did.

Settled right past the meadow are the shabby houses made of scrap wooden boards and spare metal sheets, where sleeping bodies lay. I often wish I had the same privilege, to sleep as I wish, but the days have become more of a task of getting myself worn to the bone so that I'd never have to lie in bed half-awake with my thoughts as my only company. They go places I wish they wouldn't, and bring back with them presents: memories I wish I could tug away like a lone stray thread hanging from the hem.

The night unravels slowly and so do we, but I believe I have no intention of peeling his skin and discovering the same festering love I can never run away fast enough from, a dying flower with petals he plucked, curled around his rib cage with its roots planted in his heart. Maybe he's broken, Father, like how you were, or how maybe Mama was or how I am, but I don't think I'd be willing to know. Not now.

"Well, I think Stargirl would want to smile. Suits you better than the frown you're wearing right now." I offer him a smile, and look pointedly at his guitar. "You were singing?"

Do continue, please.

I'd have anything than to hear myself think.

I. THE WILD YOUTH

chelsey
District Mayor

[M:-650]

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Pronouns: she/her
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queen of inactivity

the time it takes to fall; chelsey Feb 13, 2014 2:11:15 GMT -5

Post by chelsey on Feb 13, 2014 2:11:15 GMT -5

C E D R I C L A N E

I've done a lot in the past few years, but none of it has included smiling.

Lying, maybe, when I kissed my sorrows into the lips of girls who were craving to puncture the dams around my heart with their own floods. But, I've been cracked by a flood before, and I've reconstructed by then, and they'd all be damned fools if they thought that a sweet kiss on my forehead would bring it all crashing back down to rubble.

I feel like my skin is made out of glass, but even glass - if it's scratched hard enough - can sometimes be scarred to a point where you can no longer see through it. Yes, I've done a lot in the past few years, but kissing nameless girls and whispering false love stories seem to only scratch the surface of this glassy exterior. Glass is fragile, yet it's amazing how only one person has ever once seemed to break through to me.

The girl in the tree says, "Well, I think Stargirl would want to smile. Suits you better than the frown you're wearing right now."

A breeze whines past us and nips at the parts of our skin that we leave bare. Above, the girl is still unswayed. I envy her; a person daring enough to climb so high - without the fear of falling - must have never been shattered to the point where even smiling felt like it could fracture you.

"You were singing?"

No, I haven't smiled a lot in the past few years. In all honesty, I really haven't done much of anything. How can anyone do anything when every morning reminds them of empty beds and gray skies, even when someone else has fallen asleep next to him and the sky is so blue that it reminds him of her eyes?

But, if I've managed to keep doing one thing right, then it is that I never stopped loving Astrid.

"This one... it's for Stargirl."

"Hold me close and hold me fast
The magic spell you cast
This is la vie en rose
When you kiss me heaven sighs
And though I close my eyes
I see la vie en rose."