I'm next to you on the couch, my feet tucked under your leg, your brow furrowed in some intense concentration, when I notice it.
     "Um, honey?"
     You turn away from the screen, briefly. "Yeah?"
     "You have...um..." I trail off as you see where my eyes are trained.
     "You did not." Your eyes widen as you touch your neck.
     "I didn't mean to!"
     This last part is shouted after you as you run to the bathroom. I hear a groan from behind the door as the two perfectly formed crescents on your neck are bathed in flourescent lighting. You yell, "Hooooneeeey!" making it into a three-syllable word.
     "I honestly didn't know I was biting that hard!"
     "Now I have to go to work with this!"
     You give me a glare as you walk back into the living room, my wide-eyed innocent look not as convincing above a smug, teasing grin. "Oops."
     "I am so getting shit about this."
     "No one'll even notice."
     "I haven't had a hickey on my neck in...years! I feel like a sixteen-year-old!"
     "Well, technically it's not a hickey, it's a bite mark." I become quiet as you glare again, though I know you're not angry at me. "You can hardly see it."
     "I can see it! That's bad enough!"
     I sigh as you gather your things for work. In the morning I'll ask you if anyone noticed, and you'll say you showed it off, as I knew you would. We'll laugh, and tease, and in three days it'll be gone, your first bruised neck in years.


     I stare up at the ceiling, praying for air in my lungs, as breathing doesn't seem to be a bodily priority at the moment. Your head is on my stomach, where your hair would be tickling me if I was feeling much of anything at the moment.
     You shift, grey eyes staring at my chin. "You okay?"
     I give a vague nod, blinking my eyes in rapid succession. "My eyes aren't focusing."
     You chuckle, pleased with yourself. You kiss my hip, the inside of my thigh, my stomach, then come to rest your head in my shoulder, laying your body across mine. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
     I shake my head slightly, amazed to be able to bring my hand up from where it was flung from the bed, and rest it on your back, drawing small circles with my thumb. "I'm fine. Better than fine. Fabulous. Amazing. All those other synomynyms...syno...those other words that mean the same thing."
     You chuckle again. "Want a cigarette?"
     At my vigorous nodding, you lean across the mattress to grab the ashtray, lighter, and pack from the nightstand. You hand me a cigarette, and my hands shake as I light it. I'm somewhat aware that I should not be smoking in bed in my weakened state, but I'm too exhausted to care. Too blissful.
     "I have to pee."
     I swear I can hear your eyes roll as you shift to the other side of the bed. "Alright, go pee."
     Using the walls for support, the muscles and joints of my legs liquid, I stumble my way to the bathroom.
     Later, I will lay beside you, struggling to keep my eyes open a bit longer, to have more time than the little I have to memorize the shadows in your body, the lines your eyelashes make across your cheeks in the candelight. I will see you exposed and vulnerable as we talk of dreams, and I will fall in love with you more than I thought was possible. You will tell me you love me more than life itself, and I will believe you. And then we will sleep, and we will not dream, for we have what we desire, and not even our creative minds could think of more.


     We're in the setting light, trucks and four-door sedans in the next lane. The sun flashes through the trees, bounces off your tanned skin, making it almost glow.
     "You're gorgeous."
     You spare me a glance as you change lanes. "You're crazy."
     "And you love me. What does that say about you?"
     "I don't even want to know."
     I settle back in my seat, comfortable in our two-year banter that has never changed, never will change. Opening up the center console, I search for CDs.
     "Where's the Taylor Swift CD?"
     You look down to where my hands have come up empty. "Um...in the cover thing. That you took out. Yeah, that thing," as I finally find it.
     I turn the volume up, sing along to the chorus. My hand plays with the wind, content without a cigarette for now. Besides, we smoked our last two on the freeway.
     Thinking I heard you say something below the Southern fiddles and country twang, I turn to find you smiling, wide, open, looking straight at me. "What?"
     You turn your head away, think better of it, continue to stare with that off-center smile I love so much. "Nothing."
     "What?"
     "Nothing!"
     I shake my head and grin, go back to teasing the wind. A warmth grows in me, starts in my chest and travels to my solar plexus, seems to spread through my bloodstream as it overtakes me. Being with you, I have learned, gives me this feeling. Loved. Happy. And the both together make a sweet gold mixture that never fails to give me a heady high.
     Later, I will watch you walk back to the car from the store. You will climb in and suggest pasta for dinner, having no idea that I am thinking how lucky I am, how beautiful you are, how much I love you. I will respond that we have no bread, and as we follow the winding road home, we will speak of gas and groceries, budgets and paychecks, and I will be the happiest I have ever been, for every moment with you surpasses the one before it with an intensity heretofore unknown.

     She grabs another flower, almost losing it to the wind as she holds it up for my approval. I smile and take it through the chain-link fence, adding it to the bouquet that's already wilting in my green-stained hand.
     I motion to the other side of the field, where the opposing coach has finally convinced the batter to stop picking his nose. She whips her head around, shaking her waist-length hair that she refuses to let you cut. As the ball slowly rolls to the outfield, I watch the dimple above her right eyebrow appear as she bites her lower lip in concentration.
     I search the stands for your face, seeing the same look reflected there as you watch her again become distracted by the cluster of daisies at her feet. You catch my eye and give a small wave, smiling; I return it and look back at our daughter just in time to catch her lopsided grin. Her knee-length T-shirt has been pulled up like an apron to aid her in collecting more flowers.
     Chuckling to myself, I remember our conversation yesterday:
     "Alexandra Lyn!"
     Her head turned, a guilty look on her face as she balanced on the edge of the porch.
     "You know better, young lady. Use the stairs."
     She heaved her patented five-year-old sigh and made her way down to the yard safely.
     I heard the front door open and close, your footsteps approaching behind me. You stood beside me, wrapping your arm around my waist and watching Alex traipse through the grass, stopping occasionally to look down before picking up a flower.
     "What is she doing?"
     I turned to you and smiled. "Picking daisies. I taught her how to make daisy chains." 
     You jokingly rolled your eyes and groaned. "Our house is going to be overtaken by flowers, I hope you know this. You got her started on something."
     "I know," I reply, my smile growing, "she is your daughter after all. With your deadly concentration and inability to focus on more than one thing at once."
     I got a playful punch in the arm for my tease. I laughed and grabbed your hand, kissing your fingers.
     I'm brought back to the present by a loud yell from the stands. I recognize our neighbor's voice, cheering on his son. You haven't moved from your spot. Alex's concentration is back on the game, which is nearly over.
     After dropping off the wilted flowers in the car, I carefully step over food, drinks, and people to sit next to you in the spot you've saved. You give me a quick kiss hello.
     "I just called your mom, she says Michael's tugging at his ear again."
     "Damn." All we need is another trip to the pediatrician this month.
     "She said she called the doctor, he said it should be fine. Probably just the antibiotics haven't fully kicked it yet."
     "Okay," I sigh.
     You take my hand, rubbing your thumb over my knuckles. "He'll be alright, sweetie. He's got his mom's toughness," you say with a smile.
     I smile back. "Yeah, and his mama's horrible immune system."
     We're distracted by Alex catching a ball and throwing it over into left field, about five yards left of her goal of first base. She looks into the stands and sees us, waves, as we yell encouragement.
     Sitting back down, a breeze has begun. You automatically wrap your arm around me to stop my shivering. I huddle into your side, kissing your cheek before laying my head on your shoulder, cringing as your yells travel directly to my ear.
     I look up at your face from my awkward position. Your dark hair, just beginning to get bits of grey around the temple. The lines of your face not completely disappearing when you relax. Above it all, the beauty I have seen since I first knew you. "I love you."
     The response I have heard a million times before, but that never seems to have a lessened effect. "I love you too."

She's in love with me.

=]

Today she asked why I loved her.
I thought it might be important to save the following in case she, or anyone else, ever wonders why again.
This is not an exhaustive list.
But it is a true one.

Because you make me happier than I've been in years. Because when I'm with you, you make me want to do better, make me believe I can be better. Because you make me feel like the most gorgeous being on the planet. Because I act like an idiot around you and you still love me. Because you love to read. Because you challenge me. Because you're as stubborn as I am. Because I believe with all that I am that your arms are the arms I'll sleep in, dance in, make love in for the rest of our lives. Because I don't know how to do anything but survive without you. Because after two years you still give me butterflies. Because you smile at me like I'm all you've ever wanted and all you'll ever need. Because the scent of your skin makes me high. Because your eyes say a million things to me about how much you love me. Because every time you touch me it's easier to breathe.

Because you're meant to be mine, and I'm meant to be yours, and I'm meant to love you.


Today I asked why she loved me.
I thought it might be important to save the following in case I, or anyone else, ever wonders why again.
This is not an exhaustive list.
But it is a true one.

Because you make my life so much brighter. Because you're so good to me. Because you're smart, sexy, daring, and pretty. Because you make me feel and believe things I have never felt. Because you are my best friend. Because you can deal with my attitudes and call me on my shit. Because you make me believe that all my silly dreams can come true. Because not being around you and the thought of not being with you makes my chest tighten. Because you laugh at all my jokes even when they're not funny. Because when you smile and look at me I cannot help but smile back. Because you know all of my secrets and all the bad things about me and love me anyway. Because you and I never run out of things to talk about.

Because you are you.

[Originally written April 8th]



     flash
     A car parked at the top of a hill. Lone figure in long shorts, hands in her pockets, shuffling towards me. Sweetest lips, sugar-sweet.
     flash
     Can't disconnect from each other, hands like magnets from polar opposites. Hands intertwined. Nervousness, stickiness. Music changes, DJ plays our songs.
     flash
     Freedom is so new to me, to us. I hold you close as we walk down golden streets. Exposed lighting. Flouresence isn't nice to anyone's complexion. Chivalry isn't dead.
     flash
     Delicious, falling into you. Memorizing your skin under my hands. Contours of your body, pressed together as we are, thrown into soft relief. It's impossible to be close enough.
     flash
     Up stairs, close as we can get to the lights floating on the water. Let's ride to Bainbridge, baby. Craved abandonment, finally given, their quiet footsteps fading.
     flash
     Yelling out loud, rhythm counting our precious seconds. The world should hear us, tires rolling over the pavement of my neighborhood. Point out brick buildings, try to find the slow way home. We attract each other; I feel your smile when you think I'm not looking.
     flash
     Sensation, lovely sensation, the warmth spreading from your fingertips to crowd my body. Coals burning low in my stomach. Focus on the words. We're so limited, but so limitless.
     flash
     Laughing close to midnight. The rustle of curtains. Let them look, let them see my smile. I'm flying. I've been set free.
     flash
     Goofy grin. Early morning, red flowers. Memories flood me like a dream I'll never forget. Small teases of scent, long washed away, tricked by a not-so-subconscious yearning.
     flash
     Show me what forever feels like.
     flash

[Originally written April 1st]



     I want to feel the heat of a thousand candles.
     I want to feel the chill of a million rivers.
     I want to explode in your arms
     and be sheltered in the aftermath.
     I want to look over the edge with you -
     and jump.
     I want you to invade me until the sweetest soap and harshest brush
     couldn't wish you away.
     I want to shiver from only your voice, edgy and low.
     I want to memorize how the shadows fill the valleys of your body.
     I want every morning light that floods the bed to be interrupted by an angel's unruly hair
     And slow, sleepy smile.
     I want to feel the air taken from me when you're near.
     I want to always forget where I was going,
     forget three days in a row to buy shampoo;
     I want to always be caught up in the sweet distraction that is you.
     I want whispers in my ears
     and breathless praises in the black of a still summer night.
     I want to not remember how it is to be whole without you.
     I've always wanted you;
     I still do.

                           Let's run away to Phoenix, baby.

[Originally written March 24th]



     Suddenly there's a pot of coffee brewing brewing on the kitchen counter, its scent permeating rooms, reaching the space where I lie beside you, curled under the safety of your arm. You sleep soundly; I am able to pour us large mugs of unsweetened caffeine before I sit beside you on the bed and begin the arduous task of waking you.

     Suddenly I feel the wind whipping past me, turning my hair into a mess of knots and tangles. The smell of heat rises from the asphalt, the smell of greenery comes from the numerous unnamed plants beside the road. My senses are filled as my hand plays with the wind, teasing it so it never can make it stay in one place. When I turn, you don't notice the smile, a real one, that grows on my face, nor the camera that I pull out, so focused are you on the road. I silently capture a moment when you're beautiful to me.

     Suddenly the carpet is plush beneath my feet, goosebumps rising on my bare legs as I shut the sliding glass door in the bedroom and slowly wander towards the living room where you should be. You immediately put a finger to your lips and point to the floor, indicating the apartment below; we don't want to wake her, ruin our perfect moments. Tiptoe, quiet quiet, I carefully make my way to the couch and fall into your side as though drawn by magnets I cannot control. I take your coffee cup in one of the rare times it's not glued to your lips, but you cannot protest, so wary we are to make noise. My eyes meet yours as I hand it back; we say a thousand words without taking a breath.

     Suddenly there is light glaring brightly in my eyes, forcing me to shade them with my hand. My back is against cool metal; I am so close to you that I can't help but shiver. It causes a grin to grow on your face which does not hide the trepidation in your eyes. In my search for words I fail, but I'm saved by you tripping me, and I fall so hard and so fast that I don't know where I begin and you end, I don't know whether I'm standing or sitting, I don't know whether I'm dreaming or if all of this is real, the smell of rain and a car door slamming and everything that is now so acute and so faded.

     Suddenly your voice fills my ears as you tell me for the first time that you have never stopped loving me. My breath stops. I freeze. My mind runs to the time when you denied it, but there was so much pain that it has forced me to forget. When you repeat it, oxygen fills my lungs in a painful and relieving flurry. I don't know how to respond, how to tell you that you've missed your chance. How to tell you that I stopped loving you twelve weeks ago for the first time in the longest eighteen months of my life.

     Suddenly, I am promising to love you again.
     Suddenly, I am hoping for new memories.
     Suddenly, for the first time in twenty-one months,
     I begin to feel.

I have recently discovered that I was in such excruciating pain the two months after Krishel left me the first time that my brain has blocked off those memories.

I can't remember two months of my life.

My life,
for lack of a better term,
is a tad bat-shit insane at the moment.

But a lot of it is in a good way,
which hasn't happened for awhile,
so I suppose bat-shit insane
isn't always disaster.

I have not posted and will probably not post again for awhile because I am busy with:



and



and



and



and

I can't really remember what really started me on this train of thought today, but I was sitting around with Kaila and I talked about how, just...life is now. And it just really, really hit me. And it scared the shit out of me.

Life is what you make it, right now. People play it safe their entire lives, save up hundreds of thousands for retirement, and then die before they get a chance to use it. Can you imagine how much more living they could have done if they hadn't saved that money?

( It is late, and I am rambling, but I still think it's worth reading )

I'm breaking my own rule and actually making one, due to recent studies that show if you make one you're more likely to stick to it, especially if you announce it to friends and family.

Here it goes.



My resolution for 2009 is to move to Manhattan, sometime after completing DBT in August and before the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and to live there for at least three months.

Thanks to some prodding - some from my brain, some from my friends - I've decided to take a big ol' leap and put up a few parts of my novel up here for you to read if you like. Perhaps I'll continue if I ever get around to actually sitting down and writing again (besides, y'know, LJ posts and such XD).

Now, my huge disclaimer is two-part:
a) I have never written, as those of you who've read my writing know, purely in a "novel format." I don't like dialogue. Or interaction between people that isn't vague or that I don't have to explain. As I keep writing I'm getting a tad better, but I'm still stuck for the most part in my "old" writing mind.
b) This is a rough draft. I stress the rough part. Hopefully, if I ever get it to the point where I want to publish it, it will be cleaned up through several drafts and this one will become ancient history.

And with that...

( Le Novel! )

We must remember it is one in the morning and even though I have only been up for thirteen hours, I am half-asleep. When I am half-asleep, I act the same as when I'm tipsy, leaning dangerously over the edge into drunk. I use this to defend any statements I may make.

( Read more... )

I am pissed. I missed work today because of the snow and lack of bus work-age. I'll probably miss tomorrow for the same reason. It also means I will likely miss Chanukah services (if they're still having them, although I imagine it would take a blizzard for them not to) unless I walk. Which takes an hour. And I'm a fairly fast walker. It's a long ways.

Kaylee and Laura are in on Saturday (yay!). Plans with Kaylee for the second, her Christmas present is a walk around Seattle doing slightly expensive tourist-y things. I need to make plans to hang with Laura. Laura, if you're reading this before you go home, comment, because I have lost your cell phone number and Kaylee picks up her phone too infrequently to be of any help in the matter XD.

On a very serious note, I have had a close friend of mine have a really horrible thing happen, an injury to a very young member of her family. I'm asking for just a prayer or two, or good thoughts, crossed body parts, whatever you believe will be of most help. Just ask for help for this little, adorable boy to get better, and for her and her family to get through this as unscathed as possible. I, and she, thank you.

"We are not giving you the advice to start smiling at everyone you meet in New York. That would be dangerous."

- James Fowler, co-author of a study that found happiness is contagious