July 13, 2003
A Quest For Glory
I've destroyed the sap that came before, as though some sort of premature autumn came to my bones, sugar-begging, salt-bearing. I was opened up, but I didn't fight, and my veins were sweet as molasses.
I'm a dogwood, flowering, but foul smelling.
I can feel my curls on my shoulders, and it's a strange thing, when I'm so used to them haunting my neck. My hair was a cloak, of sorts, easily slipping out of place to cover my cheeks and shadow my brow. I was hiding from everything, then.
Now I'll pull it up and pin it up, thrusting pins savagely into the dancers bun I've piled onto the crown of my head, despite the fact that I've never managed a proper step in my life. Few curls can escape this prison of sorts, though my hair will dry, twisted in place, and there is a shine to it you normally wouldn't see. I've let too much show, you see. Red highlights, and pink scalp, the crests of small, pale ears and the nape of a neck too often kissed.
Nobody can see that. Its my secret, and Ours. Here, Ours.
I watched the nostalgia run across his face as he rummaged through boxes of photographs and high school memorabilia, as he passed me the occasional ID and foreign photograph. He has a journal, hard bound, cardboard canvas with a black binding and an inked coffee cup emblazoned on the cover. I have the same exact one, amidst the three dozen others.
Mine is filled with anguish and foolishness and misinterpreted youth.
His is filled with letters, passed between he and his ex-girlfriend when he lived in Germany.
She demanded things. She recieved things. She was headstrong and overly sensitive and immature for her age.
He tried to please her in ways she could understand.
I was just scolded for leaving coffee grounds in the pot, he and I, and Fred, laughing and pointing fingers in the kitchen. The coffee was worth it, the smile on his face is not one of appeasement but one of indifference. These are little things. We're Big People.
Aren't we?
I'm this giant in a world full of thumbelina, delicate, petal clad, shivering and shaking... in indignation? In laughter? In fear? Is she afraid of me, all soft and gorgeousness and size 00?
Would I care, with these thunderous bones and these eyes capable of lakes full of tears, capable of drowning her in their sorrow?
What would she know of it, in suburbia?
I need a thousand flowers, to make my gown, instead of just her one. Too soon they will rot and fall away, but then I will see my skin, and my shape, pollen tainted, and I will know it to be beautiful.
astera at 1:20 a.m.