Archive for the ‘Penny Romance’ Category
Chasing Stars
catchingfireflies.typepad.com
I had that same dream again last night of you dressed all in ocean waves, white foam, salt spray and clear sky, while the rainbow fish swam all around you singing our song. I reached out for them and they darted away from my fingers, away and away to their cavern in the sea. And you looked at me with moonlight eyes and asked me where your fishes went, so we ran hand in hand on the beach but we never found them.
That was the year it rained all winter so we stayed indoors and explored the shadows of the firelight. You thought you saw monsters along the flames, ghouls and ghosts with white fangs and huge eyes so I wrapped my arms around you because I loved yours around me, and I never saw them but I pretended I did and I knew you were pretending too.
That was the year the stars fell from the crystal heavens so we ran with our arms spread wide catching them. You spun around with stars and planets hanging from your arms and shining in your hair like a galaxy twirling round and round until you fell onto the grass. We wove baskets from the reeds by the river while the night watched and we put the fallen stars all inside and we closed our eyes and flung them up into the darkness and watched as they rained down all around us until the field was studded with diamonds.
And when I opened my eyes it was that night again with the heavens all empty and black and that’s when I realised you had taken all the stars with you.
So I’m a wanderer now, splashing through the coast over parking lots and arcades looking for those stars and the one who took them. Sand slows my steps but I hug the sea searching for flashes of rainbow fins, but the only song I hear is the clouds drifting across the sky faster than I run. In every shadow I see monsters, and my arms my swords I use to slay the night.
I ask the moon where my stars went but she just winks and I realise you have her too. And the trees by the road whisper as I sleep under their branches and wake to a moonless sky. So I open jars of summer sun and ride the waves away, because you took the stars but I have the sun and while it burns I forget I need you.
The Outcast Prince
“I met her when I was fifteen, do you know?” The Prince said, staring deep into the fire over his cup of wine. “She was thirteen that summer, standing on the rafters throwing stones at the birds. I taught her how to throw them quickly and soundlessly and with deadly accuracy. She hit one, killed the poor thing, and then she cried and made me carry it down to the gardens so that we could give it a proper funeral.” The corners of his mouth curved upwards with the hint of a smile. “I’ve never given a crow a funeral before.”
“James,” The Prince’s best friend said, using the personal address, “You shouldn’t blame yourself. No one could have seen it coming. Your kingdom could have been betrayed a hundred ways. They were gathering around the doors, ready to pounce. It could have been anyone.”
Black and White Formal
Willowy girls in red, green, purple, gold and silver, the purest ivorys, the deepest ebonies on the arms of sharp young men black and white in tuxedos swirled around the room that wasn’t the auditorium of the city hall tonight but a magnificent ballroom hung ceiling to floor with shimmery pale blue. The music pulsed through bodies, soft and smooth and ethereal, gently guiding the dancers that flowed across the gleaming floor.
She was there, radiant and glowing in silver, a very angel casting light and hope into the faces of whoever she deigned to shine on. She was one among many, but she was the only one for him.
Lifting the Glass
He realised, as he was pouring cold milk into his bowl of cornflakes, that he no longer missed her.
It was such a foreign thought to him. For so long, for months on end, night after sleepless night, day after drab grey day spent longing for her touch, missing her had been his default setting. He’d been missing her for so long that it had become a part of him, a bone-deep ache that at turns threatened to consume him and simmered quietly in the back of his mind. He would hear her laughing next to him when he watched TV, miss her splashing him with water on purpose when she handed him the dishes to dry. He would hear phantom ringing from his cellphone and rush to pull it out of his pocket only to find no calls, no texts. Mornings were the worst. He would wake up and, still groggy from sleep, try to put his arm around the girl that wasn’t there beside him. He would blink, confused for a few seconds, and then the hurt would settle in again and he would pull himself out of bed to put himself together for work.
It had snuck up on him, this not missing her, or rather the missing her had snuck away one day and he hadn’t even realised it was gone. He had thought for so long that he would no longer be the same again, that he would be empty for the rest of his days. He had been wallowing for so long that he’d forgotten how to be happy again, even when the memory of her wasn’t here holding him back.
Breaking
“Hi Rachel,” he said, standing on her doorstep.
“Hey,” she gushed, and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh Matt, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I forgot. I was on the phone with T–well, I lost track of the time. I’ll make it up to you. Look, let’s go out now. I know a place, an adorable Russian place, just let me grab my coat.”
She did look like she was ready for a night out, too. Satiny red dress, distractingly low cut, provocatively short, ebony curls that shone in the glow of the streetlight. She stood there like an angel, back lit and radiant, and for a moment he almost forgot that he had spent an hour sitting, waiting at a table reserved for two lit with candles and two glasses of red wine sitting growing warm. He forgot–almost–that he still had the three red roses in his hand, and that they had grown droopy now, and that he now probably smelled more like pasta than his 70-dollar cologne.
A Whiskey Lullabye
It was a warm spring day. Story-book beautiful. He, dressed in muddy combat boots and threadbare camouflage, stood at the gate to the house, all his belongings and money in the duffel bag at his side, his heart full to bursting. How long had it been? Had it only been three years? It felt like five. No, like ten. He hadn’t seen her in ten years? How had he survived off faded letters and the wrinkled picture of her he had kept in his pocket all these long years? Would she love him now? His hair was shaved short, his stubble had grown long, and he looked twenty years older; no longer a young man. No longer recognizable.
She Dreamed of Days Long Gone
She dreamed of days long gone, of endless summer nights and the moonlight dancing on still waters, the wind trickling through the grass. Stars up above and fireflies down below and the quiet warmth of the night thick all about them, pressing them closer together, blanketing them, shielding them from the world, hiding them from the harsh glare of daylight. The midnight symphony of crickets and croaking lulling them into dreams, the cool dew and caress of pale silvery blooms the only things keeping them tethered to the earth.
He Was Her Prince
He’d always known it. Ever since they were small, since she helped him rebuild his building block city block by block, after the mean boy wearing the power rangers shirt had kicked it down, he’d hung on to her. He helped her rebuild her life, piece by piece, when it came tumbling down around her. It was only fair that he be there to put it back together, because she had helped him and he owed it to her. But that’s getting too far ahead.
September Brings the Fall
She stood at his front door with his letter in her hands clasped tight to her chest, her beating heart in her throat, and all the memories of the summer past trailing behind her like a train. Dressed to the nines in his favorite summer dress, diamonds in her ears and the stars in her eyes, her soul full of “I love you” and her chest full to bursting with promise.
She ran the doorbell. The shrill, grating sound cut through the night, leaving silence echoing in its wake. She waited. Then came the soft steps of sneakers on hardwood floor and the scraping of the lock in the door before it opened to reveal the face she had missed, had loved for so long. He looked the same as she remembered, hadn’t changed an inch since she’d seen him three months past–the same deep blue see-straight-into-your-soul eyes and the same jet black hair. The strong jaw, broad shoulders, long lean profile casting a shadow over her, standing there radiant on the porch.
He Missed Her
So much. He missed her so much that it hurt. Of course, that might’ve been due partly to the fact that he’d just scaled Half Dome at near twice the rate he’d planned out without taking a break to take a swig of water, throw down a power bar, admire the view, breathe. But that wouldn’t cause this other pain, this hurt deep within him. This ache that left him breathless and mindless. He hurt. Ached. Too much to notice that he’d just achieved something great and too much for that on-top-of-the-world feeling to sink in.
She would’ve been proud of him. She would’ve been right there climbing and panting beside him, her messy brown hair pulled back in an unruly pony-tail, her face red from exertion. And she would be here, right now, with him, looking down at the world, exultant. She would have turned to him as she always did at this occasion and fall into his arms the way she always did–perfectly, just right–and they would have stood there, wordless, the both of them near bursting with happiness and revelry and shared love.
He wanted to roll all of his misery up into one tight, hateful little ball and roll it down the slope down the hill and watch as it gathered up twigs and leaves and dirt like a snowball, and watch as it finally hit the bottom with a resonating crash. And then Good Riddance, he would say, and he would smile, and turn away ready to live again, to laugh and love again. He wished, too, that it would begin raining, so that the water could wash away everything and leave him clean, pure, new.
But then–if he stripped himself off everything her and let it roll down the hill, and if he let the rain cleanse him of every part of him associated with her…he would be left with nothing, an empty carcass, a broken shell of a man. She was everything. Everything. And she had taken everything.
* There is a short note tacked to this original post, the one moved from Livejournal that I didn’t feel warrented public publishing.
