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[29 Jan 2010|03:28pm] |
Dear Friends,
Soon after seemingly fixing my computer the entire thing crashed and burned. I can't even turn it on anymore. Unfortunately, it is not in my budget at this time (or in the close future) to finance a new computer, and so I don't know when I'll be back to read/write. I'll make more of an effort to frequent the library to update, but between school, two jobs, music, and life, I don't know how often I will make it over there.
Miss you all. Hope you are well.
'Elle
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| As My Heart Ran Round / My Dreams Pulled Me From the Ground |
[29 Dec 2009|03:10pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 bouncy |
] |
| [ |
music |
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"Daniel" by Bat For Lashes |
] |
We chose Cue Stix because they wouldn't card Court. I batted my eyelashes slowly as she swept from the porch of her doll house, all the pretty rainbow lights behind her. What is she wearing? We're only going to shoot pool. And it's Monday. We listened to Infected Mushroom as the three of us raced by 1960, and she asked me to turn the radio down.
I beat Samson at pool, for the first time. "Aaron and Blue Floyd gave me lessons," I smiled at him, remembering the guys from the night before in Molly's Pub, one of their hands at my waist, pointing toward the side of the ball, muttering something about Old English.
I played straight techno on the jukebox, pop trance from the 90's. Samson combated, threw on Opeth. "You are killing my techno buzz." I was grouchy, but happy, and let him kiss me in front of everyone as I nearly spilled my beer.
A guy from a table over joined us, Jason. Kyle showed up, wrapped his arm around my waist and the other over Court's shoulders as we stood flipping through the music, throwing on Ferry Corsten, old Eiffel 65 in no shame. We joked and bonded, threw up a conversation about tabs. "I can't find X anywhere," I pouted at Kyle, asked Jason if he knew where I could find some. No avail. I was supposed to do shrooms with Pat soon, and the MDMA he's been hanging onto, but I needed X for New Year's Eve.
I needed to go into this year with the people I loved, feeling the way I love to feel, doing the things I love to do. The Silo is open after a year of being burned to the ground. I am open after a year of... Things will be different this year. No more Mike. No more band. No more chains. Just me, alone, free, and fighting for my life again. Fighting for the music, for the love of things, for the love of this life I had forgotten.
Samson and I made out in the car afterwards, Infected Mushroom pouring from my speakers. The music tingled inside my cells, beneath all my skin as he put his hand to my jaw, kissed me hard and slow and fast and so soft it threw shivers down my spine. "I'm happy," I whispered, smiling lips against his.
Fell asleep beneath the warm down comforter of my guest room, all of it white, all of it caressing my skin like some fallen cloud. My head was buzzing, and I sighed against the huge pillows.
Woke up to a text from Frank. "How many do you need?" Eight. "I'll meet you at ten. Normal spot. Bring eighty."
Holy. Fuck.
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| My Sincerest Apologies |
[29 Dec 2009|02:19pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 thankful |
] |
Ladies and gentlemen, my computer is fixed.
I will be a constant again.
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[23 Dec 2009|02:05pm] |
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The more I read of Joyce, the more I hate you.
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| Lives A Life Where Nothing Is Real |
[11 Dec 2009|06:00pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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high |
] |
| [ |
music |
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"Dark Machine" by Paul Oakenfold |
] |
I forgot.
I forgot how bad the come off was.
I forgot. I forgot how much it hurt.
But my god. It felt so. It felt while it lasted.
------------
Close your eyes. The breeze playing with your hair, the soft lap of the ocean coercing the under of your toes, drowning your ankles.
I am twenty. Summer. Standing. Alone. Almost naked. In the ocean with the moon high and huge above my head.
Satin white around my arms. Feathered white wings, pretty, glitter. The water raptures against them.
Breathe.
Tomorrow they'll be weathered.
------
Going under. You cease.
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[08 Dec 2009|11:15am] |
Considering. What there is to live for.
Counting.
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| Always Some Reason To Feel Not Good Enough |
[07 Dec 2009|04:35pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 crushed |
] |
| [ |
music |
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"Angel" by Sarah McLachlan |
] |
A frustrating day at the piano.
That's an understatement. Today. I want to quit. Mid-note I break down and let all of me, my tears, my fears, my screams rock and fall over the keys. I feel like nothing. Because I am nothing.
Optimism has broken me, perhaps. And I feel, again, the overwhelming desire to run so far and fast away. What if I cannot do this alone? What if I haven't the strength for it? The talent? What if my dreams are too big and I am not enough to fill them? I fear because even Matt's soft spoken words over the phone do nothing to comfort me.
is this the end
all our dreams cremated
before we ever began
are we defeated
Perhaps I am a stillborn.
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| A River I Could Skate Away On |
[05 Dec 2009|06:46pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 determined |
] |
| [ |
music |
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"River" by Joni Mitchell |
] |
My dear lovelies,
I have only a few minutes to write. I've stolen away to a back room at Jake's and am unsure of how long I have here until he comes to whisk me away. My computer is still under siege and I've taken to writing in a notebook for now. I miss your entries. I miss your lives filling my head with questions and doubts and your beautiful epiphanies. I miss seeing from your eyes.
My world grew, and I am finding so surely who I am, what I think I was intended for. I quit my band, officially in my head, and unofficially out loud. I haven't heard from Mike in months, and I've moved on from the idea that Asylee could make it through the fire. It was a lovely idea, could have even been the most lovely possibility, but is impossible with only my energy and faith; I cannot move them anymore.
I've moved onto a new musical endeavor. It's still finding its footing and being worked through across the notes of my piano, through the streamline of my thoughts. But it's me, in whole. It's unashamed and quick to make decisions rather than pause on the consideration of my counterparts. I am writing for me, and for every part of me. I am not confined and reduced to the boundaries of genre. I have set myself free.
I'm calling the project PrierPourElle. It's electronica driven, with circuit bending, and a splash of metal influence from my earlier band, as well as the other musical parts of me- opera, melody, pop. I will not contain. (I've taken to finishing Asylee's recordings then plan to remix them completely to fit this project. After all, I wrote those songs. They are part of me, and I want all parts of me to be apart of this.) It's all sides of me-- the good and the bad. It's broken ballads and bent pop songs, heavy mixed hard rock that doesn't even sound like itself anymore. It's still in idea stage, heavy preproduction charts with planned dates to record after the New Year. Recording will be split between the Purple and Gold studios as well as at home, which is an exciting new prospect for me. I've never imagined I could work from the comfort of my own bed, split open my dreams and open up an interface to lay them down.
I played some ideas for Jake, just to bounce them off another musician's ear. His face twisted. "I like it. It's you... but... really, really different. Not what I expected." I smiled, so fully. "This is me in color." You've never seen this before.
There is still no prospect of a writing partner, sadly, though I think I'll ask a few fellow musicians to give input on certain tracks. In the meantime, I will write, and pray for someone. Music as a solo act has never interested me, and I admit I pine for someone who fits me, who balances me. But when I find them, I will be prepared.
---
The opera with Samson. We've had such lovely nights. River Oaks Theatre, crying uncontrollably as we watch The Road. Sherlock's Bar. We talk literature, life. Walking hand in hand through the city streets of Houston. Ren Fest. One of the loveliest nights, the fireworks, the bottles of Mead, all that pot, all that music, both of us in fast forward. We discuss Ophelia as we're publicly intoxicated. Films at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, we meet the screen writer. Bottles of white wine and Havarti, blowpops, Animal Couch. He still hates that I won't define our relationship, that I won't talk to him about dating other people. But he let's me be mostly. That's all I can ask when handling his heart.
Taking French next semester.
Reading Virgina Woolf, and falling so in love. Watching TCM like a last fix. A Streetcar Named Desire, A Christmas Carol, The Petrified Forest. Bette Davis and Leslie Howard. Judy Garland. I should have been an actress in the thirties. Maybe I was.
I hear the words and the music and the art all day long and they pour over me. The only thing I fight for is my freedom, every day ensuring I am not comfortable, I am not caged, I am not tied to any soul that I could not pull easily away from.
Christmas is coming so fast and I watch the lights, watch the soft snow outside the window fogging over the glass of my car as ice; it sparkles. Walk in my cranberry hooker coat under the street lights smoking cinnamon, peppermint, blackberry flavored papers. I sing in my head. I'll sing out loud. Soon.
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[01 Dec 2009|04:01pm] |
My computer has a virus.
Have been trying to get rid of it for weeks to no avail.
No back up computer available at this time.
All appologies.
xoxo
'Elle
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| I've Been Out of My Body With You |
[16 Nov 2009|12:05pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 confused |
] |
| [ |
music |
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"Ghosts n' Stuff" by Deadmau5 |
] |
Left Samson's at three thirty that morning, had to be at work at seven. Adam text me on the way home, stoned, asking if I wanted to smoke with him after the store meeting later that day. We exchanged a few confused texts, both of us high, me a little drunk. I decided we'd both forget the plans by late morning, as we usually did.
Work. Shower. Four o' clock rolled around and I arrived a little early, chatted with Scott and Daniele at the end of the bar as he made me a triple tall creme brulee. "You look nice," Shannon said, sipping iced coffee, sizing me up and down. I detected a hint of suspicion in her as she eyed my zebra print skirt, my black studded belt, a red ribbon tied in a bow about my waist. I shook off the feeling, decided it was paranoia in me, nervousness.
I sat outside alone for a few minutes, sipping on my latte, smoking, listened on to the conversation of the table beside me. Something about a car seat, about a motorcycle, some college, some irresponsible young father. I walked into the meeting just as it began, stole an arm chair next to Sara. "Did you bring any to share?" Patrick asked me as I unwrapped a cherry blow pop, stuck it in my mouth. I smiled wickedly, pulled out a second.
Then turned my head. And. God. Adam.
Faded green, collared. Fitted jeans. Hair a clean mess of spiked blonde. I could hardly look him in the eyes, they were so fiercely blue. He muttered something about a barista giving him a black eye instead of a red eye, his feet jittering like a nervous tick lived inside them. He sat beside me, and I forced myself to ignore him, to not stare too much out of the corner of my eye. But. God. I wanted to.
Everything about him, every word, every cell of his even skin screamed youth and living. I could see us then, beside one another in the dark, raging to the music, some glowing lights, some overwhelming sounds. I could see us dancing together, smiling with eyes so knowing, pushing one another further into that world we both loved so well. He broke my thoughts. "Are those from last weekend?" The blow pop, out of the bag I had bought for Crystal Castles, the night of that epic roll. I cracked a smile, nodded, and he laughed so knowingly, all the empathy dripping out and over his grin.
I tried so hard then to keep composure, to concentrate on what was being said during the meeting, Patrick's hurried voice, something about free CDs, something about discounts, global fund, barista bears. We talked about the store party, made a French press of Christmas blend. I watched Sara's smile, Alexa's pointed nose, Clayton's mouth. Still, the meeting ended, and I found myself stalling, chatting with Sara inside, slipping out the door to smoke a square with everyone on the patio.
I balanced cigarette and blow pop in hand, coffee in the other as Patrick, Clayton, Sara, Adam, and I stood in a smoker's circle. "Everyone smokes now," Patrick said, looking around at all of us, Sara's only empty hand. Sara turned to me, told me she had just found out I smoked at all. I shrugged. "You don't like for people to know you smoke," Patrick said, always observant, always picking apart everyone's motivations. He eyed my red bow then. "Are you a present?" and I laughed, nodded. "Yes. I am a gift."
We joked for a while about a conversation Patrick and I had in front of a few customers, everyone laughing at the story, picking on me for the way I dress, the bows and the prints and the layers of lace and fishnets. It felt like family then, all of us teasing one another, cracking up over inside jokes, giving nick names to our regulars then tearing into them. Sara and I rambled on about going to high school together. "You bring out the crazy in me, 'Elle," she said. "I'm pretty sure you bring out the crazy in everyone," Clayton laughed, and everyone joined in. I felt so warm, so loved.
People dispersed, and Sara, Adam, and I were the only ones left outside talking. Adam played with his hands, kept looking over at me expectantly. "Well... I'm gonna go," he said, staring me down. "Your car?" I asked. He nodded, I nodded back and he walked away. Sara looked down at me, confused slightly. "You should join us," I said cooly, hiding the nerves in me, hoping she'd say yes, not leave me there alone with Adam and his eyes burning through me. "I'll go if Clayton does," she said, and scampered off to find him. I downed the rest of my coffee, walked to Adam's car, climbed inside. He stared down at my blow pop, then at his rearview window as Clayton and Sara opened the car door. I breathed a soft sigh of relief and Adam began to drive.
It all went so quickly, Adam handing me the dugout, inhaling, passing it back to Clayton. "It's called amnesia hash," Adam told me, watching as I pressed my lips again around the faux cigarette. It had been a wedding present, and this was the last of it, his best shit. A wave coiled through me as I recognized what that meant. I tried to hand the lighter to Adam, and he shook his head. "It's cool," he said, and I knew my face fell, the disappointment poison on my wiry mouth. I wondered then if it was okay that I invited Sara along, Clayton, could think of no other reason Adam refused to light up with me. A quick turn around in a neighborhood and we were back to the parking lot, Adam telling us all goodbye. I climbed out of the car, sat inside mine, breathed out.
Stillness.
Turned up the noise, Pendulum, Eiffel 65. That happiness fell over me again, the insatiable joy that ate and cloaked everything it touched. It was the same strain from Crystal Castles, that pure bliss, pure ecstacy when everything felt all right. I drove to a cemetery in Tomball, turned up the radio, got out, danced in the dark with the fireflies.
After the rush, I called Courtney, sitting among the graves, smoking a cigarette and rambling like a drunken fool. "He didn't even look like himself, Court. He was gorgeous. He was like... a little rave kid, so perfect for me." My eyes fell to the ground, and I sighed. "Him and I, we have everything in common. The music, the drugs, the constant movement of our lives and our souls. Court, he understands. He understands because we're the same." Sloppy sadness drooping from my eyes. "Court," I said, my voice harrowed and soft, "usually he's drained, anemic and ashen. That pale skin, and his voice... just, doughy and faded." Stillness on the other side of the line, a breeze pushed over me. "But today. Court, today he was color." I could hear her on the other line consoling me. "Tomorrow, you will see him at work, and he will be back to normal. In his khakis and brown shoes and that white shirt that makes him look washed out. He'll look old and married like he always does, and you'll forget all this. You'll forget that you think he's perfect for you."
I fell asleep in the grass, my head rested on my grey jacket, the stars so close now. Even in my dreams I felt the hash, felt my body alive. I dreamed three years into the future, some darkened corner of a back stage. Some rave, some soft reflections of strobes and the reverb of a bass, voices and screams from the other side of a curtain. He's there, sitting on a dusty couch. He's there, and I'm there, walking over to him. "That was a crazy set," he smiled, "You guys were sick." His blown pupils, his fingers, my hip bone. I closed my eyes and could see the dust of tabs colorful inside my blood, flowing through the blue of my veins. Sitting, he reached a hand delicately about my wrist, pulled me on top of him. Our lips, we kissed. And the rest was darkened shadows, his hands pressed against my back, a haze of darkened color and sight, just our bodies moving, just our souls a blur.
-----
I didn't look at him at first when he came into work, just pulled shots, steamed breve, handed him a quick hello. He clocked in, came and stood close beside me. "Have fun yesterday?" I finally looked up at him, smiled, and he laughed. He began to talk to a customer, some older woman. I watched his face, his mouth, saw his eyes, his pupils huge and dilated. I choked as I tried to hide my gasp. He looked down at me and laughed, asked if I was okay. I nodded. The customer walked away, told us goodbye. The whisper of his voice brushed against my cheek, my ear. "I love talking to old people when I'm rolling."
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| If It Makes You Happy / It Can't Be That Bad |
[12 Nov 2009|04:07pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 happy |
] |
| [ |
music |
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"If It Makes You Happy" by Sheryl Crow |
] |
"I'm going to start a thrash band," I told Matt and Andy. Matt looked taken aback, confused. Andy laughed, "Well... you always did want to be Britney Spears." Matt shook his head, almost angrily at Andy, "Britney Spears isn't exactly thrash, fucker. She's techno fucking light."
I was surprised at Matt's response. "So, what? No more rock? No more metal? No more of the shit you've given everything to for the past seven years or so?" I was annoyed, hadn't expected to be attacked, especially by the person who understood me most. "You're right. I gave fucking everything. And what did it give back?"
Later I sat with Andy on the back porch, sipping pink lemonade, dipping my blow pop in the glass. Andy asked about the music, why I had so suddenly changed my mind. "It wasn't suddenly. My band's been falling apart for over a year. And I found this place that makes me happy, makes me feel alive and whole. A place where I don't feel restricted artistically, where I don't have to write fucking ABABCB, or whatever." I turned to him, hoping he'd read the seriousness in my eyes. "Andy, I fell hard in love this weekend. You don't fall in love over night. It takes time, it takes getting to know something, but after you really know it, know about it, know its insides and outsides, it's such a fragile final jump into giving your heart away." He nodded, almost understanding.
"When I'm working on this stuff, listening to it, writing lyrics or sitting at my piano banging out sounds, banging out hooks, I don't need drugs. I don't need some stupid boy. Not that I don't still want those things, will take them if they come along. But I don't need them. I don't need anything to make me happy but this music, this feeling. I've fallen head over for electronica, for thrash and noise bands. Why is that such a big fucking deal?"
No answer. And I don't care.
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| It's Spitting / Angels Die With You |
[12 Nov 2009|03:58pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 indescribable |
] |
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music |
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"Knights" by Crystal Castles |
] |
Sunday night. Rain pounding out the sound on the freeway, a thousand lights on ither side. Popped two tabs each, downed an orange juice, cracked open a Red Bull and was blown away by the fruity smell. Bled tires across the soggy road, prayed to a god I wasn't sure I believed in that we would somehow arrive alive. And we did.
Smoked a bowl in the car as we gathered our things, decided over whether to take our phones, the camera. "Okay, explain x to me," Court said, biting on the side of her lip. "You're nervous, yeah?" I asked, handing her the extra she bought. "I was nervous the first time I did coke, and molly. It's okay to feel that way." She nodded, asked, "Is it dangerous?" I smiled at her wickedly, "Court... they're drugs," I laughed, "There's always danger. But, mostly people die on this shit because they don't hydrate. Make sure to drink plenty of water, listen to your body, and don't be one of those idiots who fucking dies because they didn't drink enough fucking H2O." She laughed, promised. "Since you've only ever smoked pot, I'll explain it to you this way: Pot makes you feel like you're fucked up, all inside your head. E makes the rest of the world feel different, but in a really beautiful way... You probably won't understand that now, but you will. Trust me. You'll love it."
I shoved the excess inside a hollowed out tin pill: two tabs, a small pouch of coke, and enough dro to last us through the evening. Pushed the pill and O'Ryan between my cleavage. We walked. Court giggled beside me. "Oh my god, 'Elle..." she breathed. Her first time to roll, and it finally hit. "This is... this is amazing..." she coughed as we walked through the parking garage toward the event. "'Elle... if the night ended now, and all we got to do was walk through this garage, I would still be so happy." I smiled at her, laughed, realized I was getting off to her first time like some dirty old frat boy chasing after virgins. She was sweet then in that moment, even more so than usual, and I bit down on my lip as I watched her eyes light and flicker out forever.
We walked the rainy, muddy path to pick up our tickets, a wrist band. People walked too quickly behind us, I felt rushed, run over, had to stop and catch my breath slightly. "Are you okay?" she asked, slightly alarmed. "I'm fine," I breathed out, settling myself, talking me down in my head. Pushing forward we moved through the line, through security where they didn't check me at all. I sighed relief as I made it through the gate, my entire body sagging with a soft lift, the tension released.
Two feet of mud everywhere, guys in orange and blue ponchos, little Austin girls in boots and folk-styled dresses, the virtual uniform of college chicks that I just didn't submit to or fully understand. Taco stands and boothes with pipes, fedoras. We moved quickly and carefully through the slosh and slurm, ankle deep. Over and down a mound, Courtney tripped and fell on her ass into a puddle. She picked herself up, laughing, horribly embarrassed and hating herself, all of the sadness in her body language, her annoyed eyes, the way she looked as if she was trying not to cry, as if she was trying to hide it all away until later, when she would use it. Covered in thick mud, two drunk girls ran up to her, screaming, "Three others have done it too! It's okay!" They're free and loud and purring and screaming like two cats in some back alley, some strays. I smiled at them, loving them instantly, so glad they could return Court's smile, let her hide the shame just a little more.
We finally made it to the orange stage, bobbed our heads to the mediocre rock band. The sound guys were not stellar, and I scrunched my nose at the feedback, the muddy sound around 600k. I noticed the massive stage was in two parts, a right and left. The band was playing to the left, and since Crystal Castles was on next, I moved us to the right. "Don't you think we should have stayed?" Court asked nervously as we found a decent place to stand in the crowd on the right. "I'm thinking purely from a sound tech's pov," I said, "so this could be wrong. But I'm thinking they split the stage for easy setup, so they could already have the band ready on the other side." She nodded, unsure, "Okay... I mean, I guess we're probably stuck here anyway..."
I pulled the pipe from my shirt, a little green, asked if she wanted to smoke. She looked around, nervous still, shook her head. "I don't think we should." I rolled my eyes at the ground, pushed the lighter close to the herb so you couldn't see the flame at all as I lit, inhaled, pushed my face to the sky as I let out. Suddenly all around me people were pulling out blunts, joints, their own one hitters. Court watched, bit her lip some more, asked tentatively, "Could I?" I passed the pipe into her hands, watched as she hunched down a bit, lit the lighter bright and loud. She jumped a bit, and I looked at her curiously. "Holy fuck... I...," her face turned bright red, even under the dark sky, whispered, "I think I just singed off my eyebrow... I lit my hair on fire." I tried so hard not to laugh, kept composure as I told her I couldn't tell, it didn't look that way, though I was lying completely through my teeth. Still, it's not what I wanted her to focus on, figured it would be better if she just forget it until later. I finished off the bowl as I chatted with the guy beside me, cute and scruffy and offering me some of his beer, which I declined politely. I didn't want anything to ruin my roll, which I was now starting to feel slightly, knew it would peak just as the show began.
Then suddenly, a circuit, bent and falling from the dark stage on the right side. The bass, the tension that fell over us all as we waited, saw them emerge, and broke us all into the music, fluid, like ice that melts and melts. Court kept pulling us in to the center, and I wondered if she knew exactly what she was doing, but I shrugged, decided to let the night happen instead of trying to control it. We ended up in the pit, as I knew we would, moving without moving at all, just letting the wave and the crowd take us like a giant ocean of arms and hands and flickering, bursting light. Court screamed and grabbed onto me, a wreck of emotion and fear, unsure of herself. I laughed, dancing as much as I could against the bodies beside me, closing and opening my eyes, letting myself go, letting the x rupture and implode inside me, felt it gush forth, showering all my insides. "I don't want to lose you!" she screamed, her arm still clutching itself around me. I barely heard her, the soft voice just a reverb against my skull. She'll let go soon, I thought, and it'll be amazing. Still, I remembered the night we smoked before going on a carnival ride, Samson screaming at her through the rush of it all to just let her body go, like some ragdoll, and she refused, never let herself experience the ultimate high of not being in control.
I saw a girl two rows in front of us go down, never saw her resurface, and started pushing back. Court had alarm sweating from all parts of her face. "I'm pushing out," I yelled at her, smiling, trying to reassure her in anyway I could. I wanted desperately to stay where we were, but would never forgive myself if she fell, got trampled beneath the wave. It took several minutes as I gently moved our way out, broke free and nearly fell, catching myself and laughing. The rush was almost too much, filling me, wanting to tear, erupt, explode through my fingers, eyes, lips. Court looked thoroughly freaked out. "Are you okay?" she asked, and I smiled from ear to ear, nodded, decided not to embarrass her by asking the same thing. We danced out most of the set, and I watched Alice Glass intensely for a few moments, the stage flashing white, then dark, then red. Alice grabbed a strobe, danced and raved with it across the stage as the massive crowd screamed and moved to her splitting cries, her vocal fractures of bent, ethereal light. I felt Courtney's hand soft beside me, pulling me gently. I turned and saw her, saw only his hand around her, couldn't really see the boy, but smiled away from her, glad.
I felt selfish in that moment, knowing she was about to give her night away to some cheap feeling of lust. It was the reason I had to so sweetly sit Andy down and tell him I didn't want him to go with me. "I know we'd have fun..." I said, my eyelashes petting my cheeks as I looked down into my hands, "but... I want this to be about me. I want to really experience this, instead of being distracted by other things. I'm sorry." He had understood completely, and I loved him for it. Still, as Courtney moved against the boy I sprouted joy, loving that I wouldn't have to worry about her any longer, could move away, be alone completely with this moment. I moved stronger, bravery slipping into me, the sort that always finds me at these types of shows when I have only myself to impress, to entertain, to fuel. I could feel my mouth grow dry, knew I was in danger of being one of those idiots I told Courtney about, but couldn't imagine leaving this for a fucking bottle of water. I moved harder, faster, the music breaking me in ways I have never rendered, burned me away and then blew away my ashes to bore something new.
In a moment. I felt it. A pause. I reached up into the sky and felt the stars around me. This was it. I was new.
-----
"Can we stay?" she asked, completely involved with this boy. I didn't mind, knew the feeling, knew how little this happened for her. Still, I was saddened, knew she missed most of the show rubbing up against him. I nodded, told her I just had to find some water. The boy led the way, and they chatted awkwardly. She bought my water and the three of us moved to the left side of the orange stage, waiting for Of Montreal. "Wanna smoke?" he asked, and Court turned to me eagerly for approval. I shrugged, "Sure." We puffed out of his tiny one hitter for a few rounds as Of Montreal came on stage, the lights up, all of them in funky costumes, pink and winged, bright blue like a pilot or some sailor from Funky Town. A screen of lights and color and pretty techno images flashed behind them. There were streamers and dancers, men in red alien-type costumes blowing huge mounds of smoke from inside them, out. Gimmick after gimmick as the band would pick up, fall apart. The sound guys seemed confused, tried to recover for them. It would all run together as a disaster, then someone would find it, the rest would catch on, and it would be okay again for a while.
We smoked another bowl of mine, finished out the set. Court wanted to stay, but I couldn't any longer. "We still have to get to Jacqui's," I said, feeling like a bitch, but not really caring. I spoke low so he couldn't hear me, told her, "I'm the one who still has to drive back to Copperas Cove so we can change out of these muddy clothes, to Jacqui's in San Marcos, then back to Copperas Cove afterwards." She nodded, knowing we were both remembering that she refused to drive behind me with her car to Jacqui's so we could just crash there, how she was completely putting the work of the night on my shoulders by making me drive the entire time. "If he wants to follow us, that's cool," I said, "but we still have a lot more of this night to go." She nodded, and he followed us out, said goodbye to her at the street. I rolled my eyes at them both, like puppies. "Aren't you going to exchange numbers or something?" I sighed, obviously annoyed. And they did.
Back to my sister's to change, as we hadn't expected all the mud. I lost my extra tabs and coke somewhere between my sister's and the car, was pissed for about an hour until I let it go, wouldn't let it ruin my night. I called my sister, let her know, and was satisfied enough that she said she'd look for it. We arrived at Jacqui's in pj's, sucked down water and passed my pipe around, cracked off glow sticks in all different colors. I unwrapped a blow pop, stuck it in my mouth and bobbed my head, Crystal Castles still dancing around in there. The three of us decided on a play list, cut the lights, and let the fun begin as Jacqui danced across her living room like a professional raver, covered in different colored bracelets, dancing to Britney's 3, MSI, some techno mix of Lady Gaga that shot shivers down my spine. Courtney and I watched in awe, tripping out, clapping at the performance, even dancing ourselves toward the end.
Back toward Copperas Cove, Court fell asleep as I drove through the morning. I could feel the break in me still, the pieces of something rattling around inside my torso. I felt different, changed, though I was unsure how just yet. It would take me days to discover, decide. We didn't arrive home until the sun began to rise behind us. Crashing into bed, my body only let me sleep for a few hours, three. I laid beneath the sheets warm and lovely, still contemplating, still wondering what had happened to me, what this was exactly.
-----
We dressed. Courtney was hungry, amazingly. "I usually can't eat for at least twenty four hours after," I told her, shrugging, watching video from the night before on my laptop. "'Elle... that was the best night of my life," she said so seriously, solemn in every word. I stopped what I was doing, looked in her eyes. "Me too, Court. Me too." And it wasn't the drugs, wasn't the exstacy that made us, because Jacqui called later to make sure we got home safe, told me exactly the same thing. "Last night was the first time I've been so happy in such a long while." I told her I knew exactly how she felt, as if we had been renewed somehow in that night, that morning.
Driving home alone to Houston I kept running the night through my head, pushing my player from Crystal Castles to Deadmau5 and on. I smoked a small bowl, watched the night fall over my car, the road ahead. Something was different in this music, in these people. They made me feel alive. I kept remembering that moment when my arms and hands reaching for the sky, attaining it. And suddenly, I couldn't stop myself from crying. The tears flooded over me as I realized it was over, I was headed back into the real world now. Yet that seemed backwards, that my job and class and the monotony was real. No, this felt real, that night felt real, as if I breached some wall and fell completely into the actual reality, a place where you feel and come alive.
-----
"How was the show?"
"Life affirming."
I told Samson I had cried, that I felt a sort of mourning walking away from that place. "It was as if nothing could be home again." He smiled into his bottle of red wine, sighed, "You're a burner." He said it as fact, as if there were no other definition of what I could be. I remembered how he had spoken of Burning Man only a few short months after he had returned home from the desert. "I had understood what you mean. I understood, but I didn't really know what you meant until now. It's so strong... the pull. But as if you're not really being pulled to a place, more to... I don't know... a feeling. A state of being." He nodded, ranted more and more about that week the more inebriated he became. I decided then I needed more, and I would have it.
-----
I didn't expect to find anything, searched the listings carefully, and wasn't disappointed when I came up empty; it's exactly as I thought it would happen. Still, I warily typed in the search bar, just in case: techno. And then, there he was.
David, from my area almost exactly, looking for a writing partner, or even just a vocalist to record over some of his tracks. I sent him an e-mail, anxiously awaiting, skipped down to the living room, danced and spun some poi slow sticks to Reckless in the dark after smoking a joint. Checked my e-mail a few hours later, a response, and he says he's very interested, thinks perhaps I am the reason he posted in the first place. He sends me his myspace, some tracks, some I love, some I hate, offers next week for a time we can get together. I agree, we exchange some words about Deadmau5, Crystal Castles, Justice.
It was so, so easy. As if he were there, waiting for me.
-----
School. Could hardly concentrate. Sat on the couch in a back room staring out the window. Jacob was concerned, talked to me about grades, about the lab I never turned in. I nodded, absent. He tried to ask how I was. I can't remember if I responded. He disappeared into another room, emerged, threw some tiny fruit my way. I asked what it was, he told me, then disappeared. Tore away its skin, ate all that was inside.
-----
Class was at Riverpointe on Wednesday. I met Frank at his apartment before hand so we could smoke, carpool. "What the hell was wrong with you yesterday?" he laughed. I shrugged. "I'm not sure what people mean... all day everyone looked at me as if something was wrong. Joe, Adam, Jacob... they all asked me. Like they were concerned. I guess I had a lot of my mind, a lot from this weekend." Frank nodded, smiled, amused. "What were you on?" For the first time I was offended at the accusation, promised him I wasn't on anything. "You looked strung out," he laughed, then became serious, pondering. "Actually... 'Elle... to be honest. You looked as if you'd lost your soul."
"Maybe I did."
In some way.
-----
In all the days to follow I felt alive, as if the core of me was strong once again like I haven't felt in years. I felt confident, surges of happiness exploding through me. And yet it wasn't a sort of faux happiness, fake change, because there was a nervous, almost depressing side to it too, not exactly doubt, but maybe fear, maybe reluctance to change. You see, the feeling had both sides, good and bad. It was balanced, solid, and so I knew it was real.
I can't describe how these past few days have been... how I've woken up and jumped out of bed some days, and some days stayed curled up. I've danced and laughed and screamed at the top of my lungs for no reason except I felt good. Sat on a couch and wrote five new songs worth of lyrics, pulled out ideas for two more. Felt freed, as if I could be exactly who I wanted now in this music, this scene, this place. Rock and metal had taken from me, made me work to be someone I wasn't really sure I was, but wanted to be. But this, all this, feels as if it's exactly who I am already.
I'm alive. I'M FUCKING ALIVE.
|
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| Heaven Should Interfere |
[10 Nov 2009|06:59pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 anxious |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
"Courtship Dating" by Crystal Castles |
] |
I can't even explain it right now, have too much of this adrenaline pumping through me.
But I keep checking my e-mail, hoping it might come. Maybe. And hoping I might find my fate sealed in some little electronic envelope. So fitting.
Right now, I will turn out all the lights, smoke a bowl, crack some rave sticks, and dance so hard all over the darkened house to Crystal Castles / You Love Her Coz She's Dead / Does It Offend You, Yeah? / Dead Mau5 / Justice / Ladytron / etc.
And will write about everything that happened later.
Because everything has changed in me.
|
|
| Bore Me As A Miscarried Child |
[06 Nov 2009|04:16pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
confused |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
"Stillborn" by Asylee |
] |
I thought I'd be getting drinks with Adam and his wife at Olde City Pub, waited a while for the text that never came. He did only say maybe, and so I drove to Samson's, parked on the side of the curb, two fat lines that tasted so much like battery acid I could hardly stand it. The taste didn't typically bother me, since the rush was almost immediate. I kept waiting for it to come, that little soft pick me up that flew so fast. Never came.
We smoked over coffee, bought Pop Rocks, Blow Pops that I unwrapped immediately and sucked down to the cardboard. "You really are a candy kid," he laughed. We laid in his bed, half watching The Big Lebowski. Slipped his hand up my skirt, around my waist. Breathed heavy in as his face burrowed into my neck, the valley of my chest, my torso naked and open. He removed my cardigan, my shirt. I pulled off his t-shirt. He removed my boots, his belt, my bra, his pants. Left in only black sequenced thigh highs and soft pleated skirt, he fingered the lace and chiffon. "Leave these on," he demanded, voice deep and hushed, like the dark room holding us. My hands traced the tattoos on ither sides of his arms, dropped to his thigh, traced that star over and over and over as he tore into my flesh, slipped his fingers through my hair, down the small of my back, across my ass, between my legs.
I lost myself in him, the sharp curve of his jaw, his strong broad shoulders, his hair pulled back into a knotted bun. He was some Viking, some warrior; mine. Tattooed with tribal power, moving his strong, sure fingers across my body as if signing all my hopes. And then he was inside me, warm and filling and holding my neck against the wall. Then on my knees, his hands played with my hair as my tongue circled all around him, my mouth warm and wet as he met my eyes, tried to breathe steady. Stopped, pulled me on top of him. Choked him out, watched his eyes roll back as he breathed out, harsh and weighted as I moved on top of him, all the pleasure of watching him burning behind my eyes. Pushed me off of him, held me down, came all over my chest, my abs, my collar bones. Licked it off with his firm, eager tongue.
Two hours. Came two, three, four times each.
We laid in the dark, breathing out I love you's. The theology of Hey Arnold! German. Coffee. Drugs. Miscarriages.
It's in the dark I remember. Third grade. In the shower. Wasn't really sure what it was, what it meant. Still don't.
|
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| Now I Want To Come Again And Stay |
[05 Nov 2009|03:01pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 busy |
] |
| [ |
music |
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"I'm Going Home" from The Rock Horror Picture Show |
] |
Friday night. Rocky Horror. We drive down 45, and I try not to cry. It sucks, I think, to be in such close proximity to someone who has broken your heart. And he didn't even know it. His words are still breaking against my insides, their pieces scarring out my soul. I miss your presence. Why couldn't he tell me he loved me? Perhaps I had dodged a bullet, perhaps this was all there was for us: plays and pros and all the pretty words. But nothing else at all.
We walk across campus. He lights my cigarette, has one of his own. "I like your jacket," he says. "You mean my hooker coat?" It's loud cranberry-magenta fur, huge and swallowing me. It's something I imagine a prostitute was blown away in, found it at a resale store for thirteen bucks, loved the idea of death inside it, now hung on my shoulders.
Buy tickets. The show is outstanding. Riff-Raff is the best there is, and I'm wetting my lips at his slick, broken movements, the timbre of his silky edged voice. Boys in corsetry and thigh highs, tits and ass in every scene. I wonder how much sex goes on backstage.
Intermission. I walk outside alone, stand on a bench below a lamp light, light up. A few minutes later he's beside me, on the ground. I light his cigarette, and he pulls me close, kisses me. I die a little inside. "You know I like going with you to things like this..." he says, uncomfortably. I shake my head. "You don't know that?... Well, I do." Tongue and lips and smoke, the taste of his stale gum, the soft light above us. I fall in and out of love so many times.
The show ends. We walk back to his car, humming I'm Going Home. He takes my hand in his. He's never done this. And I fall into him completely.
-----
After Rocky Horror. Courtney picks me up. It's after midnight. We pull around the bend, see Kyle swaying drunkenly in mustache and tool belt. I wear no shoes, just feathers and lace and faux fur. We drink loudly until I walk quietly to the bathroom and throw up; I haven't eaten all day. I feel empty. I feel good. Courtney is too loud and she's becoming that girl, that obnoxiously loud drunk who needs the attention in the corner of the room. And so I save her from herself, annoyed now that I have to drive her fucking car home. She rambles on drunkenly about Kyle and his wife. "Just fuck 'em both," I say, pulling over to the side of the road, throwing her the keys. "Don't kill yourself on the way home." Walk a few blocks over with a bag on my shoulder, smoking from my pipe, bare foot, all the cold, all the frost, all the pretty smoke furling from my lungs. I am stoned. Walk to Samson's door.
-----
Jacqui's late, and I'm glad, pushing myself from Samson's bed. The windows are open, and I'm still dressed stupid from the night before. He's being quiet, being weird. I'm sitting against the wall on his bed, texting Jacqui, about to leave. He crawls up to me, tucks his hand at my cheek, behind my hair. "Don't get mad at me," he says, my eyes burrowing forward. I'm not sure whether to be annoyed or alarmed. He kisses me soft, whispers it low. "But I think I'm falling in love with you."
"I know... But don't you dare take it back."
-----
Jeans and a soft cotton tank top, some head band I wore to a rave. I meet Jacqui at her house, and we drive away to the Renaissance Festival, smoking, getting so comfortably high as we go. The day is more about pina coladas and pot than anything, tearing through the harsh branches to squat and smoke as the clueless pass us by. We can't stop pushing our faces into our hands, trying to prevent our erupting laughter.
Around seven thirty we drop molly. I'm nervous, and so is she. "This shit better work," she laughs, and it does, it really does. We drive to the carnival, watch the lights dance to the beat of the music-- MSI, Britney Spears' 3. Courtney arrives with more dro and I load it all, passing it around, plug up my iPod. I show Jacqui Alice Practice and You Love Her Coz She's Dead; she's thrilled, like I knew she would be. Courtney hands me a little white pill, rectangle, some numbers, asks what it is. "Xanax," I tell her. The lights on the carnival keep blacking away, the rides stuck, people freaked out and chilly at the top of the ferris wheel. We watch in silence, Alice Glass pumping hard from the car speakers. A dark grey puff of smoke rises out behind the fun house, and the lights go up. We cheer incredibly.
This happens five times before we break from the car, survey the rides, decide what we all want to go on. We try to buy tickets, and the woman tells us she can't sell anymore, they're trying to shut down. Courtney goes home. Jacqui and I drive back to the Renaissance Festival camp ground, watch for the bon fire. She dances with one of the rave sticks I bought, and I watch thoughtfully, lost in all this music, all that light.
She rambles on about ALT.com, about her new guy, the way they met: she had written instructions, to walk into the room, get on all fours, and put her head to the ground. She couldn't even see his face before he fucked her senseless. "'Elle... you can say no. And, of course, we could talk about it first. There could be a lot of talking, about concerns and questions and everything. There could be rules... whatever you wanted. But... would you be our third?"
Popped Valium and codeine and Zofran, some downers from my uppers. Sleep disjointed, her soft bed, the way the sun didn't rise but just appeared without my noticing. Jacqui awakes beside me, smiles. We get coffee. We get dressed, in feathers and lace and faux fur. Back to Ren Fest and the day is about shopping and booze, because we've run completely out of drugs. I buy a leather whip and something for Samson, wear curled rave sticks around my wrists, eat mushrooms on a stick. We sit in the back row and watch a show, becom those loud cheering drunks. A British boy sitting next to me smiles, nods toward my cup, says something about poison, not unkindly.
The sun sets and I'm playing the wooden flute I bought as Jacqui chops away at pork on a stick that looks more like road kill, flattened by the heel of a boot. Some Renaissance band, violins and wooden drums and acoustic guitars, they begin to play a soft cover of Kashmir and I melt away, so happy, so drunk, so in love with the sky and the clouds and this weekend, pulling me into bliss.
-----
I wrap the button in stock paper, write the lyrics to Tiamat's Wings of Heaven, Mortiis lyrics, Emperor, Peccatum's Veils of Blue and Black Star. I write them scribbled and pretty all on top of one another, running from all corners, until you can read nothing except Danny Filth's words: racing Heaven out of reach, bold and clear and the only legible thing in all the lovely mess of words. They're from Cradle of Filth's Amor E Morte, the first song on the first CD Samson ever burned me. I was fifteen, sitting next to him in German class.
He unwrapped the button in the dark, read it by the light of my glow stick bracelet, and laughed incredibly. Thanked me. Kissed me. Fucked me wet 'til dry.
-----
Our heavy breath. Skin to skin. "Don't be mad," I tell him as he thrusts into me hard. "But... I love you... too." A reaction, physical, as he grabs me hard, all my hair, our lips, hands, his teeth. His arms, strong, holding me down. "Just don't take it back."
-----
Therapy. Coke. Class. Work.
Mechanical Boy. Running sound for the side stage alone as everyone else is huddled at the front of house board. Jacob tells me I did a good job. "Really?" He nods. "They didn't feedback once." Beaming with absolute pride.
Coke. Work. Class. Coke. Church. KC's words burned into me every time I bend over, plug one nostril, inhale. I'd say coke is your drug of choice. Didn't believe her, thought for sure X would be my surest downfall. After all, I was a candy kid, that chick you see on Saturday nights, lost in a fit of molly and colors and beads and lights, thinking everything is soft and wanting everybody's skin all over.
Viola. Joe. Waiting on seven tabs and a forty of dro. Probably by Friday. Jacqui. "Did you think about my question?" Yes. Yes, I did. Reading student sonnets with Samson in my pj's. He watches me reading. I love him. I love him, I love him. "I like you," I say. "I think we're a little past like," he says.
Leaving to go home. Work in the morning. "I love you," he says. And I can't say it back.
|
|
| Racing Heaven Out of Focus |
[01 Nov 2009|08:02pm] |
| [ |
music |
| |
"Amor E Morte" by Cradle of Filth |
] |
He told me. He loves me.
♥
|
|
| Horror At The Holes in Your Arms |
[28 Oct 2009|07:52pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 rejected |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
"Grime Crime" by Samson |
] |
"I owe you a story," he said, and so I slipped quietly out the front door to the night. I smoked half a bowl on the way, opening the moon roof in my car and staring up at the haze and the stars and into the infinite. Two streets before his house I paused at a stop sign to finish off the green, let it shake my thoughts about as white flecks of a snow globe.
He met me in the drive, walked me to his bedroom where I crashed beneath the sheets. He talked in riddled conversation and I giggled at his open thoughts, accused him of being stoned. He laughed and held me close and kissed me as we laid there, watching the naked bulb and the fan blades sketch shadows across the walls.
"So... this story," he said, and I could feel the nerves pressing down on him, the way his eyes focused so internally. This wouldn't be some anecdote, just another narrative to pass the time between us as we took each other in. He was going to tell me what it all meant, what he really said beneath his words, those pretty words that reached me beside his hands and his eyes and his cheek: I miss this. The feeling slowly split, leaked hard and fast into my brain before I could realize what I had let infect me: hope.
I laid still, thirsty for his words, for some admission I never thought would come, until now. "I kissed this girl once," he said, staring off into the ceiling, some other world, that memory we shared. The knot in my gut tightened, and I dared not breathe lest this moment pass me by in my exhale. Hungry for it, I could not look at him, could only think of what this was going to mean to me, to him, to both of us...
Then, suddenly... was Eveline. Turned back. Felt my heart turn away from him in such terror because, my god, he's going to tell me he loves me...
I never should have hoped for him.
Stared blankly at the wall, frozen as his words flattened over me, shattering everything I had let myself to want, to wonder. Could barely hear him at all.
I kissed this girl...
Freudian slip... except... not
I don't believe in...
I realized: I miss her presence.
Laid still, some corpse, some cold parted lips. Could not feel, could hardly breathe.
Had let myself hope.
I was stone. Stoned. "Are you okay?"
"There's an elephant on the ceiling." His hat, his circus, his droopy trunk. "There's an elephant in the room? Tell me what it is..." Tried to shake my head, but couldn't muster, could hardly form the letters, their sound wrapped around my tongue. "No..." sounded more like breath, "on the ceiling..."
|
|
| Veils of Blue |
[27 Oct 2009|09:44pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
confused |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
"Veils of Blue" by Peccatum |
] |
I sat in the front corner desk, listening to Jacob lecture on proximity effect, pre and post production touring. Scribbled delicately in my notebook, smooth thin blue lines that meant nothing at all. I felt like that blue, deep and cool and breathing so faintly above all the noise, all the room's words and motion. I bit down, the saliva trapped beneath the skin of my lip, broke open and could taste him there. Guinness and Camels.
-----
I walked through the icy rain with my hood pulled over my newly dyed black hair, huddled into myself, hugging my sides. Could hear the racket inside Molly's Pub, faint laughter, some singing Purple Rain. Lit low, strings of orange twinkle lights. He sat in a nook, drinking Guinness, smoking. I said hello, sat across from him, a smile coiling at the side of my mouth. "You're a smoker now?" I asked, and he let his face wrinkle up in disdain. "I've always been a smoker," Samson spat, as if this explained things. I stared at the rain through the open pub door as he told me about his week, his classes. He saw a film with his creative writing class, The Night Fernando Pessoa Met Constantine Cavafy, and I listened half interested, inhaling, staring into my Shiner until I realized who he was talking about. "Wait... who? Pessoa? Fernando Pessoa?" He nodded curiously. "I've read The Book of--" "--Book of Disquiet!" he said, finishing my sentence. He smiled at me now eagerly, impressed, though he'd never mean to show it. "I asked you about him months ago," I said, flicking bits of ash into the tray, "and you looked at me as if I was daft, had no clue who I was talking about. He's brilliant. He's a writer for writers, really, though some of the entries I could have done without..." He nodded along, telling me that, "everything was writen from a dream state," using his hands to mold the words.
I watched those hands, the way he'd lead one to his lips, breathe in deep, exhale with such commitment. I wanted to be a breath on those lips, a word, a flick of his strong tongue. Yet there was a disinterest in me that I hadn't known from him in so long, an Atlantic brush of his shoulder, the knowledge that as I spoke, I was telling him nothing real, because I couldn't bear to give myself away to him. And so I spoke of school, and work, and Buzz Fest, the manipulation of the sound across the great pavilion. I made comment of the last night we had seen one another, Where The Wild Things Are, remembered silently his soft words a faint flutter of a sigh against my cheek. I miss this. He broke through my silent thoughts. "You were really high that night." I was instantly ashamed, "No... I mean, not really." He shook his head, "You were. You talked a mile a minute." I recalled the moment in the car as I rambled on manically about nothing, laughed and heard his curious voice, asking me. "Are you stoned?" I thought he had been making fun of me, never realized it was an admission of conviction. "I'm sorry," I told him, eyelashes folded down toward the bottom of my drink. "It's okay." But I knew it wasn't really.
He talked about Goodbye Lennin, all the passion in his voice leaking out over the table, spilling all over me. I smiled back at him, noticing the soft change in him, how stable he seemed, how sure, when he was never really sure at all before. He was solid in his words, carrying the conversation since I could not, could not bear to lay so flat and grey in front of him now. "My mother turned to me the other day with a tear in her eye and told me she experienced two firsts this month. She bought her daughter her first wedding dress, and her son his first suit." I smiled at this, wanting myself to cry, thinking of that suit, how I had originally been so disgusted at the idea, that he had given so much thought, taken so much care of our opera plans, what he would wear. I realized then that my original repulsion at the gesture grew from this withered, starving place inside of me that wasn't yet used to be taken care of, thought of in any real way. After all, look at where I had come from, how I was used to being taken care of...
Three pints later he was making reference to my skin, my ass. "You have a great ass," he slurred, smiling down into the dark and the foam, told me the story of the first time he saw me walk down the fine arts hall from our German class, turned to his friend, told him, "She's fucking hot." How his friend said he should go after me, and Samson shook his head. So many years ago. And here we sat now, strangers almost, needing booze to break us of our silences. How strange it was, how close we could arrive to one another, just to fall back into the polite social graces of acquaintances only days later. We didn't belong to one another, and so we kept coming back here, resting at the site of some elegant, cordial guise. As if I had never had his cock shoved full and pulsing into the back of my throat.
We drove back to his house. I walked bare foot through the street after him, the cold and the rain sticking to my toes. Fell into his bed, curled up, closed my eyes and told him, "You realize I'm not going to make it through this movie? I'll be asleep in twenty minutes." He folded around me, the walls of our civil social mirage melting away. Our arms wrapped around each other, our legs intertwined, the side his face laid and pressed against mine. He kissed my neck, kissed my lips, and all pretense slipped away. I spoke words between each kiss, smiling widely. "You smell of Guinness and Camels," fell into some heavenly place as he smiled back at me, let myself be carried oh so far away.
My tongue sweeping across his lip, his teeth barred into the soft gauze of my neck, his hands on the small of my back, pressed to my skin, against my rib cage, my hip bone, the inner of my thigh. Felt my back arch as he laid his mouth against my collar bone, stripped me bare, pulled me around him, on top of him. My teeth across his neck, his strong shoulders, my lips soft in the place behind his ear as he wrapped his hands through my hair, around the back of my neck, kissing me so hard I couldn't breathe, never wanted to again.
And in the dark I was brave, kissed him as if all love could break free and he'd never know it at all. "What did you mean when you said 'I miss this,'" I whispered between deep, all encompassing kisses, his hands searching me, my mouth finding all of him. The air in the room grew heavy around us. "What do you think?" he muttered, as if I should know, as if the answer was so obvious I'd never need to hear it against my ears some night in the dark. I pressed my tongue to his lip, pulling my teeth softly across the crest of his mouth. "I don't know," I breathed, desperate. But he refused to tell me, "not now," he said. I recoiled. "I'm not used to not getting what I want," the venom in my voice, a threatening bite to the words.
-----
We laid bare in the dark, motionless except for the raging thoughts of two writers, his hand brushing over my side, my stomach. "Tell me a story," I sighed. And he did, some memory of his childhood, acting out the story of a firefighter he had seen on TV with action figures, becoming so obsessively involved that he hadn't realized his mom and dad were watching the entire time. I giggled in the dark, and he pulled me closer, kissing the top of my head. "Chris has a new girl friend," I told him, resting my cheek against his shoulder, folding into him, "and he said he hasn't kissed her yet... that he only once kissed her on the forehead. I told him the last time a guy did that to me I punched him in the arm I was so pissed." We both laughed, remembering the sun rising over the bend, the soft lapping of the creek, both of us so young, and his first kiss pressed to my forehead. "I was a nervous wreck," he said, sighing. "I know... I've forgiven you for not kissing me then."
My fingers swayed and danced across his chest. It was my turn for a story, and I searched my memory. I couldn't help but think of Matt, and began to tell the memoir of that night, that house, that dress. "I was dressed in white, I think," I struggled for the vision. "We were at a friend of a friend of a friend's. A theme party. Everyone was dressed like French painters, bohemian invalids. I threw up in the bush outside as Katie watched, horrified. She was always so horrified..." I paused, lost in the scene. "I kept telling her, 'Alcoholic has such a negative connotation to it. It's not fair.'" A small breath of laughter left him, and I could feel his entire body smile. "I was bare foot, remember the carpet beneath my feet like some heavenly host come to bore me, take me. I walked up and down those stairs five, six times." I could hear his smile in the dark, "OCD?" I laughed. "Yeah, I suppose it was... I tripped. Knocked a glass out of someone's hands, some porcelain thing. It broke, stained the floor. But Matt caught me. And I was so calm, faded past all of them." He rubbed his fingers through my hair, delicately across my scalp and I let out a soft moan. "I'm cold," I whispered, and pulled the blanket from our feet, wrapping it around me, him. We snuggled against one another, warm as the breeze beat against the open windows.
"Mmm... so you faded?" he whispered, and I nodded. "I walked into the kitchen. I remember the tiles on the walls... the color. I loved all the colors... there were... beer bottles in the sink...," I said, reaching for words, stumbling over some, suddenly aware that I was speaking in prose to a lit major, falling all over myself. "I cut my foot, on broken glass... my hair was in these loose braids, and I felt like dancing. So I did. I danced, all alone in the kitchen. And then Matt was there, beside me, always beside me, dancing too..." I fell silent. "And then I passed out." Samson cradled me. "Matt gets it." And I loved him, loved him completely for saying that, for understanding. "Yeah... he always did."
I apologized then, for telling a story about nothing, and he shook his head in protest. "You say more than you realize," he told me, then lifted his head, looking down at my fingers on his chest. "What are you playing?" I hadn't realized I was doing it, never did, was always fingering some tune across the surface of a desk, my jeans, the cool ivory of a piano. "Nothing," I said, flustered, embarrassed. It was what I always said, that I was playing nothing, that I was nothing. But then, I felt like something, and so I swallowed my breath, told him. "It um... it goes like... C#m, E, G#m, E," I said, my words gentle, my fingers playing his chest like a baby grand as I spoke, all of it a lullaby. "It does that, several times. Then C#m, G#m, A, E. Then the chorus. F#m, E. Three times. The verse again, then the bridge... F#m, C#m, G#m, F#m. Then B. To A... which was a big fucking deal," I smiled, laughed, and he laughed along with me. "It took me a really long time to figure out the B to A. Almost ruined it with A to E. But I saved it." We laid in silence, and I smiled in my secret, that I had just played Samson's Sunrise across his heart.
He reached his hand between my legs again, his warm breath mixing with the taste of my own, all of it a dance, a play of our emotions. "Isn't it funny," he spoke softly to my ear, "that with who we are, the times we've done this, we've been sober?" It was true. We were always ingesting, always snorting, smoking, giving into our loves and our vices. Yet we always gave into each other stone sober, empty. "Tell me what you meant," I pleaded, wanting so badly to know, his voice echoing against my chest, my heart, torturing. I miss this. And still he shook his head, so I laid my teeth against his neck, ravaging. The sharp inhale of breath, and he cringed beneath me. "Not on my neck," he said, and I laughed wickedly then. "What? Afraid your girl friend might see?"
Annoyed, I reached for my shirt, padded in the dark to his closet, reached for a pair of boxers, walked to the bathroom and locked the door. I dressed quickly, pulling the black strapless shirt over me, baggy across my torso. The boxers were huge, had to be rolled over and over just to fit at all. I looked at myself in the mirror, a mess of black hair framing ivory skin, the darkened blue plaid shorts with their thin line of cranberry bringing out the blue in my eyes, the cherry of my lips. I opened the door, reaching for a cigarette. "You..." he said, couldn't finish the sentence, but pulled me to the bed instead, holding me so close. The clock read four. He'd have to be up in three hours for class. "I should go," I murmured. "I don't want you to go."
And so I stayed all night, woke to the frost on the window pane. The entire world pale and painted in grey. "It's Autumn," he said as we searched the sky, all of it changing over night.
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| Much Like Suffocating |
[25 Oct 2009|03:06pm] |
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"Send The Pain Below" by Chevelle |
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Strained. Is all.
I've lost my camera.
And still, I have no idea where to start here, what has happened. Four days feels like a lifetime in my hands and to lay it flat and sort through its pieces is daunting.
The kid from the front desk, the one with the girl friend. He told me they broke up, as we sat in the Media Tech booth at Buzz Fest yesterday, sipping Red Stripe and vodka. I don't know... It was an awkward, lovely day/night.
I've been reading your entries between breaks at work. I'm sorry for the no comments. I'll be back soon... Life is just... coming at me so fast.
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[21 Oct 2009|12:03am] |
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I think perhaps I have had my stroke of inspiration, and have figured out my costume for Ren Fest. Ballet influenced. And black with a very small amount of red, like I typically avoid. But I think it might be okay this time... ♥
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