Don't you dare look at me like I was the only something that crossed your minds all those nights. How dare you think yourself worthy of forgiveness now? Don't you for one second think of us as equals here. You screwed up. You say it's in the past, you say I should move on and allow you to make amends.
How ironic, even now as I seethe with rage, you make me laugh. A short, hysterical, bitter laugh. A self deprecating breath of air. Of course you don't see what's happened. Of course I've lead you to believe that things can be prepared. With my sarcasm, with my optimism, with the way smiles creep up my face at your presence. I am sorry for misguiding you. What you now believe is simply untrue. I will not forgive you. I will not move on and allow you to make amends. I will muster all the power I have to take back all the parts of myself I gave to you. I know I cannot retract all my love so quickly, but I will continue to try. I do not want to love you. I will fight until I have my heart whole in my chest. I will patch up all the holes you left in it and clean up the place, ridding it of your dirty shoes left in the corner. I will make it a home again; slamming down the toilet seat you always left up. I cannot erase my memories of you, but day in and out I will look at the world and not think of you. Moving on and breathing out. Perhaps I'll take some time to repair, or perhaps I'll see no use. Simply; someone will knock on the door, and maybe I'll let them in. They'll ask to check out the place, ask if it is vacant. How's the price, why did the last person leave? I'll tell them you were evicted, you couldn't keep the home functional. You laid in the beds you made. They'll ask how the house is now, any problems? Occasional leaks, a crack or two in the foundation. I promise it's nothing that cannot be fixed. "Hard work," they'll sigh, I'll open the door; disappointed but understanding. However, they suprise me. Their lips turn up. "I like to work hard, keeps me on my toes and feet. I need something like this to remind me to move and yet, stay still and patient." I dare to hope. I dare. -- sorry this is out of order ; cheaters, eh?
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The sporadic sounds of the frogs hopping in and out of the water did not frighten me. They warmed the day with proof of the living. I began to relax into the sharp grass, damp with the kiss of the morning's dew. With the lack of fabric in between us, the sharp blades of grass cut lightly into my back and chilled my skin instantly.
The sun shined, though brightly, not warmly. It only proved to rob me of my view of the scene I lied in. I did not need my eyes. I heard, with my ears his footsteps turning grass to ground. I felt with my body the earth shaking at his movement. I tasted with my tongue the morning fresh air turn to bitter feud. And I smelled with my nose the end of the serenity, the beginning of a war. "Dragonfly," he whispered like only a bullhorn knows how. "You seem to have mistaken my pond for yours." I stay silent for this. I close my eyes and envision the animals scurrying away from this creature in front of me. Speaking to me. There was an eerie silence about now, the frogs weren't hopping and the grass seemed to grow even cooler. I thought perhaps the sun was running away from him, too. The grass went from sharp to blade-like. I'd not dare move. I wouldn't even open an eye to confirm my suspicion about the sun's escape. "Deaf are you, dragonfly?" I feel his gaze, unlike any other. He looked with taste, with sin. "Broken wing?" He asked in almost humorous tone. I stayed still for a long time then. Eventually, I felt heat on my face and carefully blinked open my eyes to a burning sun in a white sky. My body was covered in silk, so soft and thin it was barely there. The frogs were still missing but a single blue bird flew high in the sky. His wings outstretched and his chest out. He let out a call and was met with no return. He let out another or two before landing on the ground and calling some more. Eventually, he flew off. Moments later a sound like death, an evil noise of blasphemy rung out and hung there in the land. A gunshot. I sat upright and thought to myself that perhaps this was a new place, the wrong meadow. Not the wrong meadow I had chosen to attend, but a pond that pursued me more wrong. I stood to move, only to be yanked back down. I was chained to a tree I hadn't seen before. Surely it wasn't there when I arrived. I could only struggle with the tree for so long before I became immobile. Before he came before me and knelt, his eyes flames. Suddenly, so was he. He was fire. A source of heat that kept me alive, but a dangerous furnace that burned me when I got too close. Suddenly the pond was gone. Not gone. In my eyes. Tears. Understanding. I had made this mistake before and I had been burned previously and I would be burned again. I reached out with my heart to touch the creature and his flames jumped at me with a growl. The fire blinded me. I did not care, I did not need my eyes. I heard him with my ears; breath fast and heart pounding. I felt him with my body, his body warm and human and touching. I tasted with my tongue, his. I smelled with my nose the ending of a war zone and the beginning of the bittersweet stage of reconstruction. Each time we touched was something old and forgotten being rebuilt and brought back to life and love. He was a man again, fire gone from his eyes, but I knew it was still in him. I could not burn myself again. I would not see him as change and perfection. I would see him as all he was. The fire that contained the beast, the boy that was innocent and pure, the man that was all of that. "Dragonfly," he whispered. My eyes opened to his pond, frogs leaping. To our pond. "I do not wish to remove you, but I can't let you wander too far from home, dragonfly. You'll certainly end up in the wrong meadow." I looked into the creature's eyes and smiled. "The wrong meadow," I agreed, "The right garden." Untitled/Unfinished
Blueacari 9/15/’16 “She was born a slave and she’ll die a slave.” That’s what mother warned me. “Perhaps,” I begun, “her father could walk into a deal of money.” How would they do such a thing, I asked myself? People would be suspicious if I were just to give them my allowance. “No,” Mother repeated, “they won’t. They’re not like us, Henry, they’re not even human.” “But they are,” I exclaimed, “they are mother. They are every bit a human as you and daddy, and I like them! Especially Nallie, I really like Nallie mommy.” “Don’t get attached, dear boy.” Father said, looking up from his newspaper. “What you’ve fallen so deeply for is merely a matter of property.” At the age, I didn’t understand. I understood that I liked Nallie, that her family worked for mine and I didn’t want them to. I understood that I’d sell my soul for her. I understood that my parents were totally and utterly wrong about the entire situation at hand. I didn’t, however, understand that the issue was much bigger than my heart. “Nallie,” I whispered, sneaking out the back door of my house once my parents were both snoring in their bedroom. “Nallie, where are you?” “Oh,” Nallie groaned, “Oh, Henry you silly ol’ foolish boy. You can’t be down here, we’ll both be in a heap of trouble.” I smiled, despite her obvious irritation. She spoke so much clearer than the rest of her parents, she had once told me it was dangerous of her to speak the way she did. “I wanted to see you,” I explained, moving forward in the dark of the shed and waiting for my eyes to adjust so I could see her face. “Why?” She asked softly, her stern voice giving way. “Just because you have this silly ol’ crush on me, Henry, doesn’t mean you can put our lives at stake.” Though her words were harsh, her voice was too fragile for me to care about the pain in my chest. I’d be thirteen at this time- too young to understand just about anything- yet old enough to be aware of the fact that I loved Nallie. “Nallie, It’s not some old, foolish crush.” I murmured, my grin grew bigger as my eyes adjusted and I could see the brown of her eyes - a few shades lighter than her skin. “Oh, don’t you go ‘round sayin’ that word, Henry!” She exclaimed in a whisper-shout, always somehow knowing exactly what I was thinking. Somewhere close by in the shed, one of her family members stirred. “It’s true though, Nal, it really is.” “We can’t be together, Henry.” My heart skipped when she said this, I had been told this over and over but I refused to accept it. “We should run away together.” I explained with delight, letting myself get whisked away in the idea. “We’ll head down by the river, fish, sing, and have as much fun swimming as we want. The moon will hang high above our heads, one white and one black, and we’ll stay there forever.” “We both know that’s not going to happen.” I could make out the anger in her voice now, I could see the grimace stretching across her features and I didn’t like it there. I placed my palm on her cheek, but my smile dropped like a pebble being thrown in water as soon as I felt that it was wet. She was crying! I wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t cry, that I didn’t like it and it did weird things to my heart, but she didn’t like being told what to do. She honestly had quite enough reason to cry. “You’re quite beautiful.” “You’re quite blind.” “Why would you say that?” “Do you not see me, Henry? The color of my skin and the scars on it? Don’t you see at all? I’m not worth it, Henry, honestly. You should go up to bed, and dream dreams about a little white girl that you smile at in school everyday, not me.” “Oh, that’s quite a bit boring, don’t you think? Don’t you think I’m a bit more creative than that, even in dreaming? Think about it, Nal, our love story.” I traced my fingers along her face, tracing the outline and wiping tears all in the same. “A girl with rough skin, the color of the lake at night. A boy like a ghost, people see right through him and don’t see a thing. You see, I love you, and I know that - even if you never say it back - you love me too.” “Oh, Henry, you shouldn’t do this to yourself. I’m doomed to die one day from all this work, we all are. I might even be sold after a year or so, even sooner if you keep doing things like this. You have to understand that this is all my life is ever going to be.” “It isn’t fair. What’ve you done to be treated this way and not like the beauty you are?” “I think-” She closed her eyes, focusing on breathing. “I think it’s because everyone ‘round here wears glasses, ‘cept you. They can see me for who I am, a little black girl. Don’t you hear what they tell you? I’m property. See, you don’t have any glasses on that pink face of yours, so you’re seeing gold when all I am is coal.” “Well maybe it’s the glasses around here that are all messed up.” I say defensively, then taking in her words, “My face isn’t pink.” She giggles at this, a lovely sound I haven’t heard from her before. “It is when I touch you.” She explains, running a thumb across my chin. “You are quite handsome in my eyes, as I am pretty in yours. So, that’s our problem, one with no solution it seems.” “Oh, no, you’re very wrong.” I explain, looking deeply into her eyes and daring her to stop me. “Oh, silly boy,” She finally breathes, moving back. “You can’t kiss me.” “No? Why not, I want to.” “Because it isn’t right! None of this is any right, don’t you see? I can’t do this, and neither can you.” A girl on the floor, Nallie’s younger sister I believe, stirs at our conversation. I nod at Nallie, who has her eyes on the floor. I began to move to the door of the shed when I feel a hand cup my jaw and lips touch my cheek. “Nallie.” I whisper, feeling blood rush to my face. “See?” She whispers back, “You are as pink-faced as a pig.” “The pig and the monkey,” I say, perhaps too low for her to hear. “Quite god-awful thoughts we as people have.” She giggles again and I say my goodbye, moving back up to my room. I looked at myself in mirror, why yes, I was very pink-faced. My ears, my cheeks, and even my neck seemed to be pulsing with color. I was very much in love, and I liked being in love. … The next time I saw Nallie was right before I lost her. It was early the next morning, around six, and I snuck into the shed. She lie flat against the ground, tears rushing down her face silently. Nallie was a strong person, she didn’t cry too often and the pain in her eyes told me something was terribly wrong. I didn’t say a word, I had the feeling she didn’t want to say anything and I didn’t want to push her into telling me things I probably didn’t want to hear. It was selfish of me, I knew, but I didn’t ask. I wrapped my arms around her slim frame and she lay her head tucked into my neck as she cried. It wasn’t too long after when she raised her arm and slid her thumb down my cheek, it was then I realised that I, too, was crying. I’d never felt the kind of pain Nallie gave me, never felt the kind of love, either. She cared too much about everything, or perhaps she was just a bit smarter than I was. I didn’t care what my parents would say, I wanted to help her. I wanted to fix all the things I knew I couldn’t fix. It was later when I found the truth, I was still in the shed with her lying against my shoulder. She’d told me she should get to work and asked me where my parents were. When I explained that mother was out at the hairdresser’s and father was down in the city, and she flinched when I mentioned him, I understood. I shifted, using my hands to softly pull her away from me as I felt a sudden panic race through me. Even more tears began to flood as things begin to process inside me. A rage, I realized, I’d wanted to break something. I began to pace, to shake, to focus deeply on the way I breathed so I wouldn’t hyperventilate. I’d realized that Nallie was saying my name, begging for me to calm down, but I couldn’t. I rushed to my room, tears still flowing. I couldn’t breathe! He wouldn’t, would he? My father could never do such a terrible thing! It wasn’t true, God it was true! “Merely a matter of property” I remember his words, his callous, inhuman words. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t! As much as I told myself, the more I realized that if I truly had any belief that he wasn’t capable of doing such a horrid thing, I wouldn’t need so much convincing. My hands needed something to feel, something to break. I slung everything off of my dresser, my rage consuming me. My father had ripped apart someone that was pure and someone I wanted to make mine. Not in the way that her family was my family’s, but in the way that my mother was my father’s. Lord, my father, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill my father. My fist pushed it’s way into the wall, and I cringed back at the pain, though not really caring. The tears wouldn’t stop, it seemed they would never stop. Once I had begun to breath a bit more regularly and my rage had subsided a bit, a horrible thought floated into my mind. Something that hadn’t quite added up before. I rushed outside and searched the fields for a face, one that I knew I wouldn’t find. Once it was decided that I wouldn’t find him, I rushed back to the shed. Nallie sat straight up now, staring straight ahead. “Nallie,” I whispered, pained to ask. “Where’s your father?” Her face broke. She broke in two, and a gust of horrible sobs burst from her chest and I pulled her towards me. I shook my head, I kept shaking it as if I could make this all go away. “He died for me, he died to save me and now we’re all probably dead.” She choked between sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.” I said as she shook with tears, I rubbed her back with my good hand and tried my best to comfort the broken beauty. Though I hated myself for it, I was relieved that my father hadn’t raped her. I was proud of the integrity and loyalty in their family, one mine didn’t hold. When I heard a car pull into our drive, I let go of her and swallowed. I wiped the tears from both of our faces, kissed her forehead, and left the shed. Both my mother and father had arrived, and I barely suppressed the urge to attack my father, to simply wrap my weak hands around his throat and strangle him until his face turned blue. It was horrible of me to feel this way about my father, but I couldn’t help it. I hated him. So, when I saw my mother’s face, laughing and spread in a huge grin, I exploded. “Mother,” I said in almost a gasp - the tears already coming back. “You let him do that? You’re standing here laughing with the imbecile after what he’s done?” “Hey, you watch your mouth!” My father boomed. “What’s the fuss about now, darling?” My mother said calmly. Was it possible she didn’t know? “What's happened to your hand?” My mother held my hand in hers, but I snatched it away. “He tried to rape her,” I cried, “He tried to rape her then killed her father when he wouldn’t let him! How can you stand there like that next to him?” “Oh, Henry, you must understand-” “No! I’m sick of being told I don’t understand. I’m sick of not understanding! What you need to understand that in no way is this okay! I don’t care how society is lied out, or what the laws says, this isn’t right! He shouldn’t be allowed- he shouldn’t!” I was screaming hysterically at him now. My mother tried to tug me into an embrace, but I pulled away. I pulled away from the woman who birthed me and I ran. Leaving it all behind, I ran and ran and ran. |
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