brave } lysette and olive blitz

Curious, oh curiosity -- Ma calls it a sin, the gentle wisdom of curious eyes and tiny hands. Not a complete sin, only a dangerous one, but I've always been growing out of old skin; I can grow out of old sin. I hold old aunt Helena's hands before I leave, and she kisses my forehead before I tell her I'll sleep through the day in the back room with the peeling white wooden walls. And minutes later, I creak the cracked window open wide enough in that room for me to sneak out with paint under my nails, curious, oh curiosity. 

Hours tick on my lungs too, dried flowers in my braid tight like the smile on my face - I sneak out often. There's so much life to live outside of peeling walls, and with each breathe I'm reminded of it. "You'll grow out of it," and I take a path to the field, passing rotting and my hands in each other beside my back I walk. But (curious, oh curiosity) there's a boy, creaking through an abandoned house barely breathing distance from me - this is something I could grow into. 

Two wanderers are more fun than one. 

I watch him take into the house with the expertise of a newborn, I'm no different. But I'm quieter, the planks creak less on my way to reopen the door, and "hello?"

Dried flowers are still tight as my smile as I hold my breath - this could be fun. 

l y s e t t e

Strange, I absolutely love strangers, it makes my heart race and the tips of my fingers go numb like when my father would throw me in the air; he loved them too, I like to think. They're all different novels, words etched on spines and dust collecting under my nails while I trace the letters. A man at the seam is named Mikhail, and he'd speak to me about the different cats he'd pet, and the different color patters on their spine and when I snuck back through the window with the broken latch I wrote on the back of old notes different stories about him and I scrawled the title "Mikhail and the Feline Throne," before stabbing a tack through the pile.

I wonder what the title of my story would be.

"Hello!" Aye! He has wide eyes, and I didn't scare him at all and I don't really know if I wanted to, but he has chubby cheeks like my mom told me good children do so he can't be much older than me. "I'm going monster hunting, care to join me ma'am?" And there's my chubby cheeks blush and there's ghosts in the margins of his stories, and - "that's a great idea!" As I lean forward with the creek of the floorboard beneath me, strangers and strange stories and I want to make my own for my father to read when he gets the chance. 

And I take the worlds smallest step as I size up the interior of the house; "this house is bound to be riddled with monsters."
 

l y s e t t e

My face is hot, and I clench my mouth as closed as I can get it when I feel something grab my hand - monsters have a limited concept of personal space. And I can't hardly blame them for not wanting to get lost again, it's something I constantly become too. But I make eye contact with the boy instead, and "It's best to stay together, if we're hunting monsters." He looks at our hands and I do too, his paler and bonier, and he smiles when I look back and I smile too. 

The easiest way to tame a monster, apparently. 

"So we don't get lost uhmm..." he begins again, before I start walking to inspect more of the house, I'm less scared with him here, that's one less hand for monsters to grab. "Ah! I forgot to ask for your name," and I blush making eye contact again, still with clenched lips, "oh, uh." I'm pretty sure I read somewhere never to give your name to monsters - they'll steal your identity and eat you, I'm pretty sure. And I choke, before chuckling quietly, this boy can't eat me, but still he could try and I don't want to live like a skeleton. 

"Uh, just call me, uh" and I look around the living room, craning my neck to see through doorways for anything acceptable for a name, with one of the smallest monsters still holding my hand and my face isn't as hot as it was, and I breathe. "Hmm, call me the littlest monster!" And I shoot him a grin to grin smile, and I don't need a name back really. I don't want him to think I'm a cannibal or anything.

And we stand there for a second, a second, still before I point to the stairs, "that way- ghosts rise, right? So they'd in the higher floors."

l y s e t t e