I asked her to watch the stars with me tonight, over a bottle of wine, and I’m not sure why she said yes.
She is black and white like the front and back of the moon. I never know what side will flip to face me. I know trust is hard. I know times are turbulent and terrible. I just wonder if it hurts, shutting herself away.
She brings the bottle to her pink lips and the stars reflect in her eyes. I’d like to see her with her hair down sometime.
-
Everyone makes mistakes. He was young and desperate, who could blame him?
His regret flatters him, like a new suit. He is raw, crackling power, and yet when night falls, he belongs only to himself. I can’t help but feel we’re sharing an inside joke over the campfire. Cosmic energy snaps between our fingers like twigs when we reach for the same slice of apple.
The morning comes too soon. But I stand at the ready for him, always.
-
I want her with me wherever I go. The crazy thing is, she doesn't mind being towed along, even when I feel like I rely on her too much and burn her down to cinders. She talks, I listen. I lead, she follows.
How does she do that? How does she burst, again and again, like an infinite firework?
She tells me she wants me to live while I’m alive, but I feel like I’m already dead. I don’t just want her, I want to be her.
-
Her devotion scares me. The way she meets my gaze makes me freeze up, as though she’s a captain giving a command, and I’ve never been on the battlefield before.
Is that how she looks at herself in the mirror in the morning, when she’s smearing on war paint? Is she her own captain? Is she her own devotion-worthy God?
Is she alright? I should ask, right?
-
The way he talks grates on my nerves. He’s petulant, but way older than I am. He’s so angry all the time. I hate his slimy compliments, and snide comments, and ruthless sense of humor, and most of all, I hate his stupid fucking smile, because it’s always at someone else’s expense, most often mine. I try to be nice. Keeping the peace is what I’m supposed to be good at. I just hate seeing his smugness when he knows he’s crawled under my skin.
I think I might have a crush on him…
-
We make coffee with honey, because we’re the only two people around who like it that way. We sit cross-legged with our warm mugs, facing each other, because who needs tables when you have a grassy hill? We’re quiet for a while, because the blue jays have something very important to say today. It’s nice to stop, take time from our hectic lives, just to smell the warm spring breeze.
Oh. I’m staring at his biceps again, aren’t I?
-
I never had a grandmother, but I have her. She reminds me of a graying fox at the end of the hunting season, tired and jaded, with eyes sharp as ever.
I wish I grew up hearing the legends about her. She carries them on her shoulders even now, no matter how she tries to shrug them off.
At first I thought she didn't care about me, the constant cold shoulder, the biting words, but I’m starting to understand: It’s because she loves me too that she bares her teeth.
-
I want to have a sleepover in a bookstore with him. What could be better than spreading him open in the fantasy section? Nobody would have to know; it’ll be our secret. We’ll wear our coziest pajamas (slippers too) and pack a bag of midnight snacks and something to light the way if the clouds mask the moon. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t let the police catch us. I know he wouldn’t last long in jail.