Special: trying to be a lyric poet

Sappho,
my aching heart and pining soul have known you.
Eluding sleep, I hear your voice from days as dead as drunken memories
those always slipping from delectable speech.

Your empty fields of dancing grass,
your cleaner skies of sallow sun,
your rocky shores, the brine that lingers on my tongue
your cliffs of crag and mallow,
take root in my wild young heart.

Your heart has filled a crevice
that I never knew I had.

I picture your dark hair
like it were a wayward shadow fleeing gold-crowned Dawn
and sigh for you.

Would that I could tell you
that your will transcends the brevity of Together, Lost, or Breath
that I can taste your truth
here, on quiet lips;
when the grey air is heavy with rain,
I know you.

If today were kind to me, and we were friends
your lute would play sweet music
to curl inside my ears
the music of your ancient time
would summon free, blue birds to us
and we would send them flying from our crop,
would laugh together.

My rooms are not your fields, Sappho.

Fan plunges cool air on my half-clad body,
books whisper their secrets in a vine around my heart.
The moon will never reach me here
too far to comfort or hold me in sleep,
so I waiver
run my eyes over air inside my glass, shimmering--

I touch the table and the air dances before my eyes
like time eludes the old, like summer fleeing fall.

My staff nestles with his magic in the corner,
his great sea-green eye winking, he awaits my summons.

My knife is waiting on my wall
the horses on the hilt steadfast to warn me of danger.

Sprawled loosely on my sleeping-down,
I see these things and many more.

Poet of the ancient world,
I am peeled from your words like a star is peeled from a meager place in Heaven,
and we fall to Earth together.

My darling, how I love you, Sappho
how my feet would abandon decorum and time
to flee to your limber arm like a raven,
one singing just as poorly to a master that it loves.

So much is different, now....

I am forced from our sanctuary,
plied from your safety as abruptly as a thief can slit a heavy purse.
Indeed, such a man has cut my purse tonight, sister
my love is on the ground, to be retrieved and spent for you.

I am your faithful servant, Sappho;
And our sons will fight together,
or time will pass together, sweet
our moons will breathe together, song
and our souls will dance together--
I just wish you weren't dead.

My rooms
are not
your fields...

Special

Well, I'm allegedly new. Except not at all.

I have my laptop back, nobody's on chat when I wish they were,
all that stuff.

Only real difference
is that I opened my windows media player, for music, and found a whole bunch of new stuff on there
Schiffy must have given it to me
what a nice guy

and I close my eyes and make love to that music
all music, new and old
that I have heard from nowhere except my new voice


aside from that, I'm re-reading East.
That book always manages to catch up with me,
even before Sappho.

"It's a funny thing. I think it was Mother and I who had the hardest time with Rose's wandering ways. But we both had different ways of living with it. Mother tried always to reel her in. To keep her close by. But for me, I knew it couldn't be done, so I just ached and felt sorry for myself when she'd disappear. That's the trouble with loving a wild thing: you're always left watching the door.
But you also kind of get used to it."

-p. 12, Neddy (on Rose)

Special

On my last day as a high school studentI spent more time than average in the sun
felt no less myself or more someone else
I carry East with me tonight, my Gorgonite friend in my bed next to Finley
I am a marvelous, difficult child
an excellent liar during Bullshit games
extremely odd
annoyed with people who correct me when not needed

excited and scared
scared and excited
happy for the happiness for those I love
and a little overwhelmed by the circumstances surrounding the present
driving, college, two-to-three new jobs, moving, all that stuff

Today, I drew a picture of Russ with a pokeball
he said, "JESUS! I choose you!"
And I saw the fellow laugh when I showed it to him
big guffaws of kind laughter, like Santa on a good day

Danielle Sherman took it to Sam and Kevin, the ''accepting'' ones
who frowned at me like I didn't belong anywhere but on the ground in front of them
ignored me


and then I walked away.

Tomorrow I start classes.

SCHIFFY! YOU FIXED MY COMPUTER! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

I like chocolate milk and sparkling grape juice, the Welch's variety particularly
fantasy is my hide-away, and it will not overtake my life again
I will not forget that time, and to you the line may seem non-existant,
but to me, the difference is a clear one.

If my choice is not definitive,
the line always is:
I will live that line.


I miss my friends and my old life
like a shell swept on the tide to a new place in vast waters
I am going to new places.

Also like that shell
I have no choice...
but I am going.


I love you, world.

That part, I think
will never change.



Tomorrow, I am new....

Special: Thinking through my eyes

A cellphone in my kitchen.
"Get a ride and come here, then, if it means so much to you."
"Then I will walk."
And walk, and walk.
"No you won't! Don't you dare!"

And then I am walking.

A car pulls up, and my friend runs to me
and grabs my arm as though to stop me
and my face---so hollow and wane, like I'd never seen sun--
Breathes like I've been resuscitated, and golden dust seeps from my lips like a powder

I become beautiful, suddenly, impossibly beautiful.

Too much of that. It's so wonderful it aches, but I can't dwell on it. It isn't here.

A table at how I imagine the inside of the Fireside, since I've never seen beyond the outerwall and the inner first chamber

Low-lit tables with white table cloths, red lampshades on mini-lamps
classy-dressed people, like in a ballroom
and the workers, too
And I am eating there.
I see myself in a sparkling red dress, like Jessica Rabbit's only less whore--trollop--like
My golden hair like stars, like light


Finley said, "I don't want to leave you without light, Payton."
I said, "There are lights everywhere, Fin. Just look around you!"
And he gazed at me very seriously as if I were a child and in trouble and responded, "You know what I mean." 

My eyes bright blue, my skin so pale
and I am thin, with deer-like limbs
that star-hair only lightly grappled back from my face, which is somehow elf-like

This impossibly lovely me picks at food with a fork, most of it gone
not important.

Across from me, a man I do not recognize
A curled mustache, black, to match a fine tophat and combed-back hair, like night
a suit from Holmes' time, down to the waistcoat and the cane
paler skin than my white, snow white, snow white like only one other I know
eyes that are blue and pierces me, a different type of blue than mine


I look up. LiL' Wayne is on the tele for MTV. 

And his voice, charming and suave as his mannerisms and movements, says, "You know why we are here, my lady."

"Do I?" My own vocals are far smoother and beautiful than normal, like a siren's song, rich and beautiful; "And what reason is that, that I know of?"

"Because you fear me, sun-ward. Because you fear who I am, and what I can do to you." His hand wraps around my own, lightly, but his eyes flash. Ravens dance across that deep, deep blue of his gaze.

"Dessert tonight?"

The waitress is one who does not believe
not in ravens of the eyes.

"Yes" I begin, in too high-pitched a voice and she eyes with me with an intense and utter anger, "Yes. Please." My gaze searches hers. Gold powder on my lips. "Kate, Listen to me--"

"My friend here has always had an eye for things that are sweet, haven't you, my lady?" My charming friend chortles; his gun digging into my exposed thighs threateningly.

Kate looks at me with judgment. Am I cheating on Finley?

"Run," I mouth, "Run, Kate."

The nameless one with the black thief says, "You are a friend of Eliac's! How... charming. How sweet. Why, if it weren't delight herself, knocking at my front door!" He pulls out a wad of hundred-dollar bills and hands them to her, his fingers lingering on her hand; and she sinks into a flawless smile.

She sways and I catch her. "Arsene! Stop!" I plead, "She hasn't done anything wrong. Please!"

Schiffy is fixing my computer. I tell him my system name through a relay system involving cellphones, other minor details. Fucking viruses.

Kate's eyes open. "E-eliac.... doesn't.... not..." Not real. Not mine.

I breathe on him, the gold powder scattering; and he grabs me. Kate bumbles to the floor.

And he kisses me, eyes hungry, and suddenly a huge dragon emerges from his empty flesh and blows fire.

"Real," I say to Kate, hugging her to me, and hold up my hand; and a great blue ball of light surrounds us--we are the only three there. The others have vanished. When I lower it, Kate's eyes are closed. The top bill from Arsene's pile is slightly burned, but still usable. Others are still there. The dragon is gone, and so is the building, ruins flickering faintly.


Dopplegangers. Doctor Who. River Song. 
Jack. "I am always your temptation, Eliac. Don't try to tell me different; don't you try to say I'm not!" 
"Weigh the pros and cons." 
Shit, I need one of you here for this! Where are my heavens?!


Dinner at the Fireside, the way I've always imagined it.
I am eating alone, quite plain.

"Hello, Kate."

She punches me in the face.

I look down on my hand, see no magic, and weep.



I close my eyes. A treehouse. Love. Hugging Katie, Finley. Safe, safe.

"You seem to think you have a choice, Payton. I can tell you to do whatever I want."

"If I, Lord Tolien, want something I'm damn well getting it regardless of what the council thinks...and I want you."


Lost. Lost. Lost.

My brain and heart are conflicted with themselves, and I keep running through the difference, not the answer.


I want my friend. I want my heart.






Can't get them.

Special

Today I went to Ben's for Nymph-time.
Blinded a few people with my beauty as Carys (prenounced: Caris) Goldhand,
was offered to a few men... killed a few men for being offered.
Freed innocents, all that jazz.

Not the interesting part, really. The interesting part involves
the glances of the men in the real world, staring at my peacock feather,
the gold on my face, my blue eyes
the not-so fitting red mini-dress, which is all I wore aside from the underarmor
all their looks a balm
to my always-wounded pride...


Kate is angrier than I thought she'd be
I didn't really think she'd care I knew her since she didn't believe I did
and the fact I was right amuses me.

Still, I feel regret.....

But I love my sun, my moon.
I love my sun, my moon.
I love my moon, my sun.
I love the night, the dancing daylight.
I love the heavens.
My sun, my moon....

Special

Some shit's going to hit the fan today.
Things are going to change, and my words smith's hammer will be useless
in the face of tears, the face of pain
but there is power in my voice
power in my wishes,
power from my choice


and I will abide my heart
when it wraps around your heart
when our hearts do touch today
I will protect you;
now, always.

Special: one of the last Kate-to-Payton posts

My final letter was this:
"Since we’re done talking after this anyway, I have nothing to lose. I have no reason not to fucking tear my talons into you over what you did to Katie.

Who I love. A lot. Who I’d do anything for.  I love her easily as much as I love Finley. She’s my best and only true friend. She’s one of the only people I’ve talked to all summer, and she, unlike you, has not failed or left me. She smiles when I’m different and helps me when I’m said. She is, in essence, the perfect friend; the best friend… one you do not deserve. At all.

So let me tell you, Kate.

Katie thought I was crazy, too. The difference between you two is that she gave enough of a rat’s ass to realize I WASN’T.

When I got honors and went to that Dinner thing, I don’t know if you were there, I got a text from Katie. Seriously. Katie. I was so happy to hear from her until I saw that she was, even in text form, totally heartbroken.  The butterflies *don’t* last, Kate. Ever.

Anyway, Katie texted me. Why? Because she loves me. More than she does you. Because while you were grinding her ass into the ground and having pity parties over your ‘terrible life,’ I was offering my hand. I was diverting her away from mentioning your name in our soul-searching talks together, because I didn’t want to look into her eyes and see that hurt there again. That pain you bestowed was a power you had no right to have, Kate, and one I feared you--a truly dangerous ‘rose’--would use if you found out about it… and you did. Often. Without even caring or accepting it, you did that.  And I found her in her broken self, and helped her start to mend. Which you would never, never have done.

Short term, you were a lying manipulative bitch who hurt my friend and I had to pull her ass out of trouble. I had to help her pull the pieces you left lying around together, because there were times where she cried. That might be hard to accept, the whole ‘she’s not a piece of meat but a human being who loved you more than most people will ever really understand unless they’re ‘crazy’ like me’ thing, but it’s true. Just because I reminded her she WASN’T a piece of shit to other people, her heart felt a smidgin better. That she was WORTH something. That you WEREN’T what she thought you were--which at times I said just for her, because at that point, I actually believed you a human being with feelings and consideration for others. Clearly, that illusion was later disbanded.

I helped her. She let me, she’s a lot more complicated, wonderful, and pure-hearted than you’ll ever be, and I did it. Which sure as fuck means I could have helped you if you’d let me, which you won’t. Which I cry over at night more often than I’ll ever tell you, because given what I know of you, you’ll find some way to make me look like an obsessive shit hole over those tears. 

Every word you told me in fear I knew was right, I swallowed in the name of good will, but I have no reason or purpose to protect you from yourself now. You DID hurt her. I DO think you did it on purpose, because you won’t tell me differently. You DID do the wrong thing. And it was my greatest honor in the entire world to be chosen as somebody who deserved to help somebody as wonderful as Katie is…

Especially since I envy the flying fuck out of you. I envy how pretty you are and the opportunities you’ve wasted--every opportunity from not having to dig puss out of your sibling’s ass to eating sugary foods just for shits and giggles to looking beautiful without even trying to what you could have had with Katie if you’d had the guts to take it--especially for those reasons. Many, many reasons, Kate. I’d tell them to you, but that would involve me telling you why I like you, and you don’t give a shit whether or not the sane person likes you, so I’ll leave them out.

Katie and I had sleepovers. She beat me at connect four when I was trying, which I did not have to do when playing you. Katie and I would watch movies and I’d fall asleep curled up next to her, happy and full of light, just because she was there. You see, unlike you, when Katie is upset, she cares enough to help other people. She isn’t a conceited ball of shit, she CARES. My Katie cares and you HURT her. You eclipsed THE SUN. And oh, oh, did I want to hurt you for it, Kate. She was so empty when you were gone. It was to me--the ‘crazy’ one--to fill her with love and light and music and memories, was to me to build her back up when you GOT BORED and LEFT HER. Just because it wasn’t EASY.

And here’s me, defending you from the play people who got sick of your shit day after day. Here’s me, trying and kicking and screaming to give you a hug when you’re down, and there’s you, walking away, and never caring. Ever. Calling me a crazy liar behind my back, because that’s what cool people do.

I have to live with the knowledge that you are nothing like me and apparently want to be nothing alike. Even if it’d be better for a lot of people if you did try that, try to change from who you are now…. And when I say ‘a lot of people’, I’m including you in there. It’d be better for you, too.

Not to mention what I know about Dan. No, I’m not talking about our conversation, but I am sure talking about Dan. I should really tell you exactly what I know about him, but I won’t. Won’t tell you what I know about what you did to Katie, either, besides that you fucking shook her up and I wanted to wring that swan-white neck.

Snow white. I didn’t notice it until you said something, but you’re right; Kate. You ARE that cold.

Except that I think cold is too kind. ‘Cold’ implies that you have feelings, and I’m not sure that you have even that. At the very least, not the way I do, Kate. Katie does. Katie’s my sun for a reason. Katie’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me and every time she mentions your name without that pain creeping into her eyes, I hear the angels singing in the heavens for my pride. I am so proud that she saw past your manipulative bullshit--which is what everyone said, by the way, Kate, your friends and hers both, and I heard it. When you hurt her, I picked her up. I saved her. And you are the villain, Kate. You were right there, too.

We all heard it, and didn’t tell you. Why? Because people think you keep too much inside like some fucking volcano. Why? BECAUSE YOU DO.

I also notice that Katie’s other friends don’t trick me into tears when I go to their house for sleepovers. Maybe that’s just me.

Since you hate me anyway, why not throw some truth in there?

Payton"

I'm done hearing I'm crazy. I am all done. I'm done hearing that you aren't listening just because you don't feel like it, done with that too.

I asked my hero, and was told I had done the right thing by telling the truth. I did it as tactlessly as possible. This will hurt her. Hurt her like she hurt me. I feel so sad and kick myself over it until I remember staring at Katie one of the first times she came over.

I remember feeling her big heart and realizing I loved her. More than I should love anyone. Dangerously more than. I remember looking at her tree-trapped eyes and seeing how much she'd been hurt, and vowing to myself to change it.

Today, I did.


But I do not revel in the pain required to keep that oath, Kate. Not that it matters since you'll hold it in, anyways...

Special: featuring Akhmatova

"White Night	User Rating: 6.0 /10 (21 votes) - vote - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10   Print friendly version   E-mail this poem to e friend   Send this poem as eCard   Add this poem to MyPoemList
I haven't locked the door, Nor lit the candles, You don't know, don't care, That tired I haven't the strength To decide to go to bed. Seeing the fields fade in The sunset murk of pine-needles, And to know all is lost, That life is a cursed hell: I've got drunk On your voice in the doorway. I was sure you'd come back."

Special: a heart with no armour

Arrows pierce a heart with no armor,
fire burns and blazes it,
your  powerful hammer crushes it to the sallow grass;
it is doomed to immortal love.

Sometimes when I am sitting without activity, everything that's about to change clogs in my heart like metal, and I sink to the bottom of the abyss. I think about things like Kate hating my lying, crazy ass, I think about Katie and Renee, I think about Hannah and her poor family right now, I think about Schultz curled in bed in some swanky Madison apartment, alone and missing us terribly, college, Taylor and Kelly, Taylor without Kelly, Finley being angry, things like that.

If you know me at all, I could go on.

I could tell you about the lingering gaze of Mrs. Parks on the beebalm when she found the news from us, that it wasn't her home anymore, and it was like she wanted to cling to that plant. Like it were home, instead. I could tell you how hoarse my mother was with disbelief and general disbelief from my sisters' stupidity, too. So many things like that, I could tell you.


But the thing is, I talk about them all the time to people I Trust. People like Finley.

And today all I wanted from sunrise to sunset was Finley, and I didn't get him. I didn't get him at all. I got him cranky, and cheered him up. I got him remorseful about WASTING that money on me (Remind me why the fuck I allowed him to do that? Oh yeah, that's right. Because I'm an idiot). I got him talking to everybody about characters when my mine had been done since fucking snow-time.

Nope, not him at all.

And then I'm seriously begging him to come back, seriously grovelling because I can't sit in my basement hugging his picture and whatever I find from Katie another night, wishing they were there and he sighs--like I were some stubborn, spoiled child--and says, "It's late, Pay." He goes on to explain that this would be a waste of his time.

I start to cry. Quiet, deadly Payton tears.

"What is it?" he snaps, "what's wrong?"

"If I have to tell you again," I stammer, tears making rivers down my cheekbones, "then there's no point."

"Pay--Pay! You tell me what's wrong!" he says, grabbing my arm and pulling me back into my seat as I pick up my bag and make to leave. He pulls me hard. Like, it hurts.

Great. Now I don't get Finley, either. Now he's just pissed.

I wish I had even my phone charger, but he has that too. I'm isolated. All I want is to not be by myself, surrounded by thinking, right now. I'm frightened by change. I'm really, really scared of my future.

And there's no one there to listen.


Here, Paper written with words from my friend;
here, picture with a frozen smile not made for me
come into my arms
be a balm unto my fear, as no one else notices tonight
who notices a single star,
unless if it is falling?

Special: May as well post the rest of this

Kate Murley

I am very sorry that I hurt you Payton. That was never my intent. Please forgive me.

Payton Thompson

If hanging out with me seriously was the worst night of your life... *Sighs* I'm not angry with you, Kate. It is not in me to stay angry. Especially not to someone who means that much to someone I love so, most especially not then. I just want that letter. I just want to know I didn't fuck you up too bad when I tried to be myself around you, because I feel guilt and remorse over that.

Kate Murley

You didn't mess me up. You're "stories" (sorry I have no other word for them) are simply too fantastic for me to believe. I know that hurts you but thats how it is for me. And all your desire to "help" me.....I don't look to people to do that, I look to God. So no I don't want you to feel you need to help me. I don't know if I will write you the letter because the letter I was ging to write is drastically different from what I would wirte now.

Payton Thompson

You asked me about them, and I told you. Why did you ask if you didn't want to hear? If you were different, I'd offer proof. I'd offer Rose meetings or Rose pictures, I'd offer the Law. It doesn't matter, Kate! They kicked me out, remember? I'm all done with that shit now. I answer the occasional, 'This isn't real, is it?' or political ploy that's sailing for problems, and that's it. I fell in love with a 'human'. Like it or not, though, I helped a lot of people with those stories. Many, many, many people.

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n305/eliac_2006/wowoa.png

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n305/eliac_2006/Wow-1.png

And I'd be offended if I gave a shit about anything but the people... but I don't. It's the people I care about, Kate. I tried SO HARD not to bring that up! So hard! I tried really hard just to be who I am NOW. Right now. As for God.... of course he wants to help you, Kate. I understand you don't want it to be me, and I respect that choice. I just don't understand why you brought all that up, but I knew you didn't want me to prove any points, so I played idiot for an hour. Because that's what you wanted me to do. It was an overstrechted game of Othello.

That doesn't mean I give up on you, or that I'll try to help you again. I won't make that mistake. But at least give me some idea what you would have said if you didn't think I was coocoo bananas, Kate? If you believed me when I said I was done with that shit (because I am), and you hadn't trapped me with my own bumblebee tongue? Can't I ask that?

Let me be clear: I am not done with helping those in the Roses. Just the Roses themselves.

Payton Thompson

Another tidbit, just for the shits and giggles of it: how is He going to help you, if not by sending people who care and want to help you anyway? You think He's going to give you the knowledge and you'll just wake up and be better, Kate?

It won't change your mind, but it's sure something to think about.

Special: stupid, stupid hot-head... you robbed me of my cuddle buddy! D:

There's a bat in the church, aside from the dead one. I couldn't find him, no matter how I looked, pleaded, sang, and called, and it occurred to me that this was very much like getting a friend to come over. From then on, I continued to mentally call the bat 'Kate', if only to amuse myself.

That's not the point of this, but I don't need to say what that point is. If you know me, you'll infer it.

-I am good, I am a light
-Finley has told me that he will be happy to change WITH me
-I curse like a teething pup. Just... not stereotypically
+I am proud of who I am
-I am really, honestly different if you get to know me--and if you take that time, you might be surprised to learn how much you'll like that
-Katie is proud of me
-Oy, daylight. I need my belt and shirt back eventually. I don't actually care about the clothing, but I am always looking for an excuse to be near you. Be safe enough to not think and just falling asleep is rare for me.
-I am encouraged in the fact that my friendships, at least the ones I maintain, are strong
-I am weak in how much this effects me (?)
-Because my few friendships are busy elsewhere, my lonely life attempts to confuse me far too often
-"...and loving kindness, both day AND night..."



+Sun
-bright, happy, colorful
-has occasional dark periods
-burns those who are not prepared to embrace the shine and light
-Trusting, willing to offer herself to those she trusts
-"OCD"
-Strong, endurance is high
-Afraid to feel ''weak''
-beautiful
-kind, good, valiant
-clever and funny
-clings to good qualities
-judges each situation differently
-fears the moon, which is surrounded by dark

+Moon
-dark parts
-light is there, too
-you need to know the moon well enough to search for it
-kindness, gentleness, undying loyalty and love
-a warrior of both the mind and body, the Moon defends the one he loves
-The dark color spectrum makes the bright color appearances from the moon more rare and wonderful
-the Moon has itself trapped in its eyes, those who look will fall in love instantly
-the Moon secretly envies the Sun
-mythology lives and breathes through this one, if also recognized by Sun
-can speak the way I speak
-Mediates in times of trouble; the moon can cast light where it seeks
-The moon has Phases; the sun does not


There is much to list, many complexes to think about, when faced with this comparison. Many metaphors, many efforts, many layers. Layers on layers on layers on layers on layers, each a thread in a tapestry that stretches a wall.

It would take many words and many hours to be fulfilled with your worth, my heavens.... but you are my heart.

With you behind me, I am confident we will move forward. You will both be characters in my new novel, because I'm in there, too...

Special: A facebook message to Kate

"Before you ignore this, it's the last one you're getting. Before I leave you in peace for what will probably be a very long time, because I'm not coming to you again until you come to me or need me for something, I just wanted to tell you... You owe me a letter. You owe me one, single letter, please. You promised me you were writing it, when I actually was mistaken enough to think you wanted me as your friend. All I want to know is why, Kate. If you have questions about Katie and I and what we talked about, I will tell you.

"That things about her that made me happy?
Gosh it seems like it's been so long since I've really though about it.."
"I don't mean to nose your personal life with a fork or anything... I just thought it might help to remember the good things.
It helps me, when I'm sad."
"Yeah? But won't it make you more sad?
remembering what you're missing?"
"Missing?
I have it to remember it at all.
If I didn't remember it, I wouldn't have had it at all.
And wouldn't that be worse?
I love what I had.
And if I wish really hard...
You'll be happy again.
Why would hope make us sad, Katie?
You didn't lose her, not really.
You keep her in your heart.
And you can remember it when it hurts.
And it does hurt.
I know it hurts."

That is what we talk about. I make her happy, and you are barely used in our conversations. If you are, it is by me, slowly steering Katie away from it. She's moved on now, and you should be proud of her, because it was very, very hard. On her. You know that already, Kate, but you should still be proud of the best friend anybody could have in the entire world.

You hurt her more than she'll admit to you. Even in the days she trusted you, I doubt she'd admit that.
All I'm asking you is the letter you promised me you would write me, and I'll leave you alone. I will not search the soul of one who repels me, no matter how much I love you--and I do, Kate. You hurt me, too. Just for sitting next to you, you took my words and spun them like riddle and they stung me. That numbness of yours is dangerous and you should know it.

Not my business. I'm here to apologize for the lie you accused me of doing, because it hurt you, and that is not my intent. I could care less about you when I am helping Katie, Kate. I love her as much as the sun. She is my sun. She is my best friend. And if mentioning you is to help her, then I will. Loyalty is not going to be flayed by you, no matter how much I want to and could help you.

Not that it matters, since you don't care about being helped at all. Not by mons--people like me.

I'm only asking the letter you promised me, Kate.
In the name of all the worrying I do for you, and all the love I have for you, and all the times you've wounded me because of the way I am, you at least owe me that.

One-word response that you've gotten this will be sufficient. It's all I've come to expect of you.

Your heart-wrenched friend,
Payton"

Spcieal

A few minutes ago--I can't tell you when or even what day it was right now--I had a low. All the sugar in my body left me like I were a fucking warzone n' they were on Vacation, and I didn't know anything. I had no coherent thought at first, but I knew to suspend my pump. I didn't want to die. Staying awake and finding food--Coherent thought one: yum, food--meant not death. So I went over to my pursmp, icked it up, and tipped it over on the ground like rice at a wedding. Actually, my gluecose tablest were in the blu-shit, green, it's green, not blue--drawstrigng bag. Only one tube was in my purse, and I ate all of them. More than I needed, but it didn't matter.

I forced myself up the stairs, and every bit of movement was hard on my body. My poor body; all it wanted was to lay down on those soft, soft stairs.... But I didn't let it. I made it to the kitchen. I wanted cookies. I wanted sugary cereal. I wanted regular soda. Coherent thought two: Pulp orange juice? No.

Cherry limeade instead. Couldn't drink it all, it was too bitter. I stole the last trix Watermelon yougurt, too.

All I want is food. Right now. That's my instinct. Even, now, my body is driving em to get up and get more food somewhere. I might go up and grab the box of cherrios, just to eat it. That's all I have when I am low. Instinct. Push for food, push for food. I was low, you know. I was having a low from the water, because it collected and made my food-meter drop quickly. That mdade me hungry, and that made me low.






.....Sunday. It's Sunday.


....That's what day it was..... Sunday.....


And now the tears will come. Silly Payton..... can't even... remember.... dtheay..... my fnges won't move....


sleep. Sleep, now, Payton. See Fnley, Katie soon.... love them....

Special: Payton

Sometimes the people we love like to leave us. For new frontiers, lives, reasons. Of course, all that is broad and philosophical. Most people, you know, have a legitimate reason, and though we miss them terribly, we sacrifice our greater good and love for that future; their hopes, wishes, and dreams.

There isn't a lot we can do about it. When you're at a waterpark surrounded by other people's friends and turn around, realize your own aren't really there, your heart aches, but that doesn't matter. There are rides, slides, tubes, adventures everywhere. Sun embraces your face, rolling on your tongue like a wine you're too young to drink, and you realize that now is the moment.

This is now. Use today. Be useful, clever, beautiful. Make those other person's friends your own for wit or the siren-call to sex, Beauty. I am decently witty. I am also... beautiful. My heart... could warm.... your heart. I... can give you... myself.

Yet the wisdom does not end with realizing that people don't want you, or that we alone can accurately judge our own worth or value to others. If we think we are nothing, then we act like nothing, we live as nothing, and thus, are nothing. Similarly, if we believe ourselves to be everything, we fill our own worlds, win every battle, find every mistake a triumph, and generally make the world a horrible, us-filled place to be. Any place in-between these two extremes is possible, common, doable.

But not mine.

Mine is an alone place. I live in the world's shadow; and shadows are wonderful places for those whose minds are overstocked with treasure.

At least, that would be true, if I had treasure in my mind. I made that part up and stole a quote from Iva Ibbotson. That's what I am, also. I am a thief. I steal feelings from other people, I twist what they don't want into what they do while giving them what they should have. My every act of theft is not for self-serving purposes, but for them. I live for the hearts of other men, the wills of other's thralls, and so on. I am, essentially, selfless.

That selflessness brings me great pain and suffering, yet I persist in it. My selfless heart will be the bane of my existence for a very long time. So will my fear and vulnerability. So will becoming attached to those who wish to leave me, or never really loved me, or--worst of all--love me too much to stay. To know me truly is to love me. To TRUST me, is to love me. I am the breath of the moon on the water! I am the dust in your eyes, in your dreams! I swirl to new places. I whimper when you feel pain.

That isn't the end, either, because nobody cares.

I am also complex. After all, I spent years living as a stereotypically powerful archetype female. I was an elf, an enchantress. The words that riled from my honey were coupled airs of honey twining. I could enchant your soul, your sexual organs, and your heart; could wrap you around my fingers. I live to be the temptation of lesser men, if only to teach them quality and reassure myself that I am not a loss for my selflessness.

After all, I am also a poison. Knowledge is sometimes poison, too, twisting into shapes and goblets you drink from your table like it were sweet, dripping with perspiration, on a hot day. But I am not that heat, no sir. Not if you are too much a coward to turn! To face me, to see me.... because there is beauty in me. A rare, wild, enchanting beauty. I may be plain outside, may not have that sought-after twenty-inch waist. Needles are a balm to my pain daily.

But there's more to me than that. I have a life to live, loves to have and lost--oh alas, I have already lost my share of loves--such is the way. Such is the common occurrence; for if man has a common thing to gift one another, what would the cheapest gift be but pain?

Yet I know there is good in men, that is what I live on, those words. I have to believe that good can corrupt the hearts of those steadfastly evil, if only for our world. I want to believe my sincere smile is accepted sincerely. I want to believe when I stub my toe and swear bloody murder in front of an Amish family, they aren't leering at ME in horror; and more the guy next to me.

The secrecy to me is that I am a little common, too. Just enough to live on, perhaps, but common.

Mostly, I am not. I love listing the normal things about myself when I am confused, because I wear your thralls like armor against the hurt you bear unto me, merely for breathing. When I love, I love totally. When I am sad, I am hurt. My heart feels physical pain for you, that is the depth of my empathy. You don't know, and you don't care. In past experience, when I offer my heart to people, they politely offer it back. I wish I could offer you some vile story of villainy to win you to my side, but no such stereotype exists. I am so complex that people dismiss me as too common, my armor too thick, and leave me behind for my slow, grueling speed.

Like both my Kates. Schultz and Murley. I am too young or too old, too wrong or too right, and neither trusts me. I have to live with that, every moment of every day. It never quite goes away, because sometimes I wake up and it aches. It pinches at my heart like many bees in a glass cage surrounded by expectation and wear it like clothing when you walk away.

And you don't care when you find out I'm not allergic. The moment the danger ends, you flee my life. When I could help you, you realize it, and you run, like cowards.

You are too brave to be a coward.

In other words, you are too cowardly to be anything, other than brave, and I know in my heart you will suffer for it someday. I will be waiting on that day, and mark you, both, for those words, my friends.

And then there's you, Katie. I say, 'I love you as much as I love Finley', but I can't put what I have for you in your soul. I can't touch you like you touch me, whenever I am sad. I have no real reason for it other than I have seen some of your darkest places and there is no true evil there. There is hurt, there is fear, there is vulnerability. There is also brilliance, like the sun dripping into our skin. There is that smile I can't make with pencils or MS paint. There are the trees trapped in your eyes that never shed their leaves. There is goodness and kindness and love.

You are everything to me. You are every friend I've ever wanted. You have many, many friends, and many, many, many you's. I have you, though. I have every you, and love you--them?--cherish you. I can't impress that on you without making it sound like obsession, because that isn't what this is. I'm just trying to tell you... I don't know. What you mean to me. Because you mean... so... much. Things like making me happy enough to cry, just because you could have walked away AGAIN and didn't, crying because you're there.... Katie, no one else can do that. I say you're my sun and light, and those are true. Do you understand why?

Do you understand that when you are with me, -I- glow? -I- shine? I sing, and dance and play and smile. Your lips form words to me, your breath forms air in my lungs. You make my life dance for happiness, and you are my music. When I am sad, I can tell you, and you make it better, even though we both know that Kate is right and I am crazy.

That is also a lesson, brothers. Love can make you crazy.

Finley.... You know. You know every time I look at you how much hope I have for our flaws and beauty and perfection. We are the remainder of a lost world, and we live it together. When I look at you with tears in my eyes, when I feel trapped, you save your money--fuck whatever else--and take me somewhere else. You hold me and make me safe. You want to beat up small black children who knock glasses from my face by rear-ending me into a rail on a go-kart track. (There's a story there. Trust me.) I say you are my moon, but I don't tell you why you are the moon. It's because I see just as much of who I COULD be as you as in Katie. I love you... I love you so much that when I wake up to cry over people who've left me--my true weakness--it is your face that first comes to mind. Forcing me to eat when all I want to do is throw up my everything onto their welcome mats.... just to prove I'm there.

I never...feel... that I am... real.

I feel immaterial. I fear not belonging because I don't, and it's what I've known.

God, I love you two. I love you two so much, I can't find words for it that mean the right things, no matter how much I try.

I could tell you that if you both were gone, the me you know would die. That is entirely, utterly, completely true. I would be destroyed if I lost either of you, possibly in an irreparable sense. You balance each other, and therefore me. My angels. My happiness. It's all in you.

I'm also overfond of the ellipsis character. Then, that's nothing to do with this.

I don't know how the three of us will change, but I will never let you go. No matter what you do to me, I'm holding on. Fin, if you leave me and have children with some Swedish supermodel, I'll send them money. I'll sit in my closet and count the thread of every sweater and fill each one with a memory of you; I'll prick my finger a hundred times with my poker and watch the blood leak out if I thought it'd bring you back. I'd scream and run everywhere. I wouldn't be... able... to.... breathe.

But I'd still love you, Finley.

Katie, if you say the words I fear you will someday--ones I am too afraid too write, even here, even for you--I will seriously curl up into a ball and cry. Fetal position all the way. I'll find you in every glance at every object, from a globe to old cartoons, and my eyes will well up. I will draw my bitten-down nails over my arms, just trying to find what leaning against you when I was lost felt like--because Finley, no matter how I love him, is and always will be different. I would not see or hear, or want to do so.

But I'd still love you, Katie.


I wanted to write about me today. I wanted to write about so much, but looking back, I don't know what to say. I can't offer myself in a box, prettily wrapped. That's the trouble with boxes; no matter how lovely they are decorated, it's what's on the inside that counts.

What do I have on the inside, Katie? Finley? Finley? Katie?

....If you don't know, then I never will.

And nobody else does aside from God--who, as I understand, will be a glorious secret keeper for a very, very long time.







What is my soul REALLY like....?

Special: Wings to fly

Today I took a quiz on what my Daemon was. My Daemon, created by Phillip Pullman, is my soul. What my soul.... speaks.... communicates. That's what they are in the book, of course. Really, it's a dress for a personality test, only the results are attached to an idea of this animal following us around.

I didn't finish it, you know. I closed the window and dreamed. Dreamed about animals as my companion. A wolf... a cheetah... and then thought about birds. I wonder what animal I would have?

Wish I could ask my friends. Wish I could be all, 'What animal do YOU think describes me?" Because I'm a teenager. The dust hasn't settled yet; my Daemon changes all the time.

A Dove, for peace making?



Then, I know my answer.

....I am... a Unicorn.

Special

How amusing. It was different at all. I kept leaving notes on boards, like, "To get your student I.D. (if you've lost it), you can go to either the library (using your student log-in and password) or the front desk. :)" I guess to remind myself I was there, but also to help other people. Other new students would see me, would be talking about it or see me writing a new new one and say, "It's you! This has been so much easier, thank you!" Or, "Shit, it's you! You always knew what the fuck was going in! Do you know how do we do ____?" From a girl who made fun of me in high school.

I helped her, though. For this particular attention I won an application in the library as an assistant from the helpful, smiling, I-won't-take-your-crap type. Nine dollars an hour, nineteen hours a week.

THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS A WEEK.

Special

Orientation tomorrow. It'll be different. I was bought some new clothes today. I got some new necklaces, perfume, jeans, shirts, that sort of thing... even some new boots. Not snow boots, but nice boots. They zip and then fold down; there's an interesting pattern on them. Today I went to the park and took some pictures with my phone. Kelly was over; I left him and Taylor alone. Walked home, my new shirt (pale creame with white pseudo lace) fluttering like wings, casting a pretty shadow.

I sweated walking home in the heat, and then came home and wrote this. Yesterday, I played Sherlock Holmes: nemesis, a game concerning Arsene Lupin, an art thief.

I can't wait to go home, but all the same, the idea of college scares me.

Special

A perfect wife sacrifices her struggles for her love.
She knows what is important.
She lives for the protection and defense of what she loves.
She is fierce, but only in the proper station.
She is skilled, and employs those skills properly;
among them are Diligence, obedience, cooking and sewing, housekeeping.
She loves her husband.
She takes care of things, she balances him in many ways and completes him in others.
She survives the stereotype but maintains her personality, strength, uniqueness, and inner purpose.

I want to be that wife.
Especially for Finley.

Special: dreaming about running

Run
Blink
Breathe
Move,
Free

Wings
White with brown tips
A leather dress with no sleeves and bad stitching
Hair that clutches at the wind
Sun-drunk arms that were once the white of angels’ conscious, covered in freckles
Running down the road, bare feet pattering the dust with prints from promise

Movement
Running
Not free, now, fleeing
An angel caught in arms
The white tipped wings soaked from ashes like pepper over white, white fish
Running
Running
Running.

Running
Running
Running….


Flying.
Throwing your arms towards the blue and knowing you can reach it,
that our ten fingers can aspire to touch the sky--
Flying
flying
flying....

Special

"Katie coming into my room randomly when she got back and saying, "Renee has me forever, because I love her. She'll see me first thing, but you know what? I'm in fort now. She might be my forever.... but that doesn't mean I can't miss you, too." and then just sitting next to me. Holding me the way I always want to hold my friends...."

I'll always remember that you came, you know. Even when I forget where you went, or you forget the path into my home, I will remember that. I will remember that and forget less trivial things; for example the creepy old man at Stop n' Go who gave me a cow-purchasing eye as I walked past him with the caffeine-free sprite.

Maybe I should start over, blog. After all, it is perhaps an injustice to you, throwing this on you without explaining why, delving into praise for my heart like I do. My heart.... my heart. So I will tell you differently, instead.

I suppose we should start with darkness. My eyes were closed, my cellphone close in case of emergency. Finley was asleep, too. He holds on to me, even in his sleep does he do that.  And I heard my phone.

You know, I had my phone on because of the quote at the beginning of this post. Because I cling to my dreams like the scent of musk clings to a museum or old hotel sheets; always, constantly, and it never quite washes out.

And I had not one, but many! From Katie! Katie had come home, and instead of going to sleep, she came to see... me. She did it. She totally completed a dream, just because she read my blog and could. Just because she missed me, even a little.

First text.

"Wake up. (2:07 a.m.)"

I'm sorry, Katie. I did not.

Second text.

"Okay maybe that's wishful thinking. I'm going to wait out front of your house for another ten minutes and when you don't wake... you will call me first thing in the morning okay? Constant texting for ten commence. (2:12 a.m.)"

Third text. These are all very witty and funny and... you. You, you with the face! No, not you. YES, YOU! No, the other guy--Do you like tacos?

"I'll be there! With a love that will shelter yoooou! (2:12 a.m.)"

My heart, you say that like it is special... your love is always a shelter to me. It is precious. Anyone who thinks differently is going to get a murder telegram from this guy right here.

At that one, I woke. I guess it was the word 'love'. I am always awake for that! I answer.

"Here!" That text was stupid, but please understand and forgive me, words. I was semi-conscious. All I knew--without even looking I knew who it was--was that she was here. She was coming. It was okay; she was home. Even semi-conscious, I still knew it was you. I still felt that bubble that says sunlight is here. Daylight is here; I'm safe and happy again. You're home.

"Finley," I said gently, "you have to let me out of bed now."

"What?" he mumbled, and then he saw me with half-open eyes and smiled. My smile. The smile God and Finley made for me, alone in a moment of mercy on my life. "Payton," he said, snuggling into me. "Payton..."

And I slipped out of bed and put on something other than my bed clothes--a dress, grey flowers, a purple underdress. Phone again.

"I missed you. And i have book for up to oogle over! And i want to see you. NOW."

Oh dear. 'Tis in capslock. Perhaps she will beat me; I am slightly over ten minutes?

"Yes! Come outside woman!"

You know, I still thought I was dreaming. I felt my feet on the stairs and was a little confused as to how they'd gotten there, but I knew I was going somewhere important. Somewhere good.

And I did. There she was in that red shirt and the fading, darker hair just walking. Katie walking. Katie step and Katie movement. Slowly. Like it was important I knew she was walking.

And then I did not walk. Then I ran.  I ran straight for her like it was all that mattered; and at that moment, it was.

And then she hugged me. It was a real, I-missed-you hug, a real friend hug, a hug that said things I am happy to understand. A real I've-had-an-adventure, take-some-of-it hug. A real you-have-me-for-now. One of those moments where you realize how much you missed someone much more than you thought you did.

My heart ached from it. It'd been two weeks; nothing. A blink of your eyes in a life for living, and I was already hungry for my friend. My real friend. Not my pseudo friend, but my equal. Someone who knew and loved me the way Finley did, only without the encumbered part of baring my weight for eternity. You know my sunlight is MY eternity....

And I was talking to her. And I don't remember what we talked about, I surely had nothing interesting to say. I remember talking about the Doctor. I remember swaying like a Petlar (a creature from Thundercats, a flower who lives for a few hours for a human-emotionally-full lifespan and then dies), from being cold from my sleeveless dress, being tired.

Truly, while I first spoke to you, while my little young-sponge mind was soaking up the fact that you were there, I kept repeating Anna Gravinsky's words in my head: "You will wake up now, please. Completely."

And so I did.

I remember talking about our blogs. I will check yours before I return to my warm bed and my Finley; I promised you I would and I will.

I remember talking about Doctor Song. River Song.

I remember saying, "I am awake, now. I was not before, but now I am."

I remember your poor nose, stuffing in envy over your love for my cat, and not it. I remember your worry on that particular allergen given your future with it at the moment. I remember the conversation that you and I are equally, and at different reasons, done with the Murley known to us as Kate.

I remember... something...? about a tea party. Mm. I'm sorry, I wasn't listening well. I was trying, but the words were playing soccer with my ears, and my team had the better goalie. I would've won, truly and completely, against an incorporeal thing like words, but I was too busy looking at you to score. Too busy trying to understand that you were here. That you came to see me.

I remember saying silly things about the Lady Tortisa... I love that story. Sometime, I will tell it to you, if you are in a mood for listening. It is a good one. 

I remember going to my Grandparent's and that I'd be home by Wednesday, in time for Band. 

You offering Game night, I remember that. And I quite agree. Provided, of course, that we have some variety. Do you know Amanda Nevine? She has some truly interesting ones. Like Funglish. Not Whatzit. Fuck that Whatzit.

I remember talking a bit about Schuster's. And saying I might really try to scare you this you and you being miffed about it, which amused me tremendously. I won't scare you OVERTLY. Perhaps that is fair? Compromise? 

You're home, Katie. My headache doesn't matter, my closing eyelids don't matter....

You've got your stupid wrist band, and we'll listen to my C.D., and your life is and will be busy... but you're home. 

You're home, and of all the things you could have done, you came to see me. 

Remind me what I did to deserve having you around??

Heartsong,
you are my heart song
you are above me,
but you'll be in my heart.

Special

Today, when I woke up, Finley was gone.

This did not cause undue alarm. He'd been gone every day in the mornings; always came back with some sort of breakfast.

What had woken me was my cat.

She was going nuts, you know? Tail twitching like a flag in a hurricane, pawing at my window.

I squinted, not being able to see what was so special about the window, but I couldn't see anything.

Que Finley, coming in with Eggs and orange juice. "Bella's going crazy," I said, nodding at the cat. Finley set down the eggs and handed me the orange juice. I sipped. Pulp. Yuck.

"I don't see anything," he said, walking towards the window. "See something, Bells?" The cat meowed pointedly, tail twitching again.

"Well, she's a little daft--whoa!" exclaimed Finley, suddenly grinning, "there's a frog!"

And there was. Sitting in the bottom of my window with all the pebbles was a tiny frog, trapped. In case you didn't know, my window is like a bowl. My emergency exit if you will.

If he stayed down there, he'd die.

I wouldn't let that happen, so I got out of bed, threw on the first clothes I grabbed--a bright green shirt from JessePallooza and red pants from an old seventies concert--and ran upstairs, Finley lagging behind with my eggs and juice. (He's a stickler for eating.)

I caught the frog, christened him Jinkies, and put him in a bucket. Got him the usual; you know, a twig, a few pieces of bark, some leaves.

And then I took him downstairs, because I have cleaning to do. And I look in the bucket and the frog is... sad.

I know he's sad, sure as I know anything. My God, he hates that bucket.

So I pick up the bucket. It's important, important I do. I walk to the pond and set him down. Crickets are everywhere.

"Good-bye," I said to him, "you are free now."

And then I walked home; trailing my bright blue bucket, watching people on the street laugh at my silly clothes.


Let them laugh. I saved a life.

This was Schultz's status today. 

It's hard to explain to someone who has no clue. It's a daily struggle feeling sick on the inside while you look fine on the outside. Please put this as your status for at least 1 hour if you or someone you know has an invisible illness (Anxiety, Bi-Polar, Depression, Diabetes, LUPUS, Fibromyalgia, Ehlers-Danlos Syndeom, Crohn's, MS, Arthritis, Cancer, Heart Disease, etc.). "Never judge what you don't understand" "

 

Thank you, Schultz.

And Welcome home, Katie!

Special

I was wrong. Tolien IS jack; Tao is his messenger.

The Black Rose has reformed itself in the hills of the wild, illusioned by Tao's good wishes for the world.

I have work to do. More importantly, I have someone to help.


I am afraid for it, but it is needed.

Truly needed.

Special: breathing after thunderclouds

Rain has poured upon our faces
ending the river of air into our lungs,
we have suffocated
water has teemed to the end of death,
taking what we once had room for.

Today, sunlight fought hard
to free its friends from such torture
and a thin glimmer came through the clouds
onto our tongues, drying the rain and our tears
drying the water, drying the water.

And I found that I opened my arms
welcoming it back into my pale skin, my heart, even my eyes
and spun and spun and spun,
and danced and danced and danced
and smiled;
all the water'd dried up from that warmth.



Sunlight
 is a relcome respite;
from drowning....

Special: a new face

I've changed enough to change my soul,
I think, I think, I think
So today I changed it for you
show you the wild, the beauty, but still a flag for olden time civility

I hope you like it. Honestly.

...Because I do.

I think it's beautiful in a way I'm not, or maybe I am.
Half the fun is in the fact I'm not quite sure.


Today, Renee invited me on an adventure.
To Superior. She said she didn't want to drive alone.
I know what that's like. I fear driving, period.
"I'll go with if you want," I joked with a grin, elbowing her.

It's easy for me to find out why one person falls in love with another.
I feel for the person who loves, feel the pieces they've given to each other
and in that moment I saw it.

She had a grateful smile.
Like she was a little worried about her trip
and there was a little Katie in her stance and eyes
and that made me smile, too
made me feel less lonely--happy.
Happier'n I've been in awhile.

We played Nancy Drew, iSketch
we laughed and watched funny Youtube videos
and Renee wrote me a silly letter.
She let me keep it since it was in my notebook.

Here it is:

"Payton Pie :)
Hi! Hello! Good morning.
You're looking at a fantabulous treehouse online. It's beautiful.
I'm sitting next to you. Weeee!
I hope my madre says it's okay for you to come up north w/ me. It would be a splendid time. You're cat is so adorable! <3 I wish I could steal her. Lalalala.
Herman sherman werman german. Hear that sound? That's the sound of forgiveness. Let's make a quiddich (don't know how to spell?)
league, and make youtube videos every week. Apparently putting inanimate objects on your head is a way to get people to like your videos and I'll make ''the face'' in the background.
Goodnight!
<3 Renee (not Renee Armande... diff Renee)"


It made me laugh and laugh, because we'd been watching TV and she's too polite to change the channel.

I'll keep it, Katie. It's going next to our thankful sheets. I saw a little of you in her. It made me miss you a little less... have I mentioned I miss you terribly? It's okay. You're going on adventures, you're learning your heart again and conquering the bad things now that you have the courage and strength to stand up to that clawed cat of ours. You know... the one that hasn't purred in awhile.

I'm happy for that piece of you. Especially since Renee doesn't seem to mind sharing. :) Friendships are good. She even called me. Without me even doing anything. Just because she could and she was lonely, too.

But I forgot! I forgot to finish my story.

So I made that joke and she gave me that look that meant so much because it gave me hope for you two, as people and friends and lovers or whatever, and then she was all... "Would you come?"

I laughed. "Seriously?"

She thought a minute. (We were walking to Shopko to buy candy.)

"Yeah. I'd love to have you. I'd HATE to make that drive alone. And heck, I brought Katie last time and people didn't mind, they were all 'you brought a person'! So why not you?"

"And I'll get to meet your cats! And be your friend. Hell, as long as there are people who won't mind that I'm a little bit of an oddity, why not?"

"You'll get to see where I grow up," she grinned. "I'll ask my mom if it's okay. Hope it is. You'll have to find something to do during that baby shower--I'm the only friend allowed there--but besides that... you know, I'd really love to have you!"

"I'll saunter around the streets, talk a walk."

"Um. Not a good idea. You'd probably be offered a hook job."

"Ha! Let 'em try. I'll talk 'em down. I'll say, 'How much will I be paid? Is experience required? Do you smoke anything illegal? If something goes wrong, should I call the cops?' And they'll practically sprint off."

She grinned.

"I heard nobody tells the truth there," I said carefully, not pressing, just curious.

"EXACTLY!" she said, "It's ridiculous. Everybody over their asses there to lie and whatever, even over really, really stupid stuff!" Renee went on a mini-rant, not holding back. It occurred to me... she trusted me.
"It's beautiful there, in Deluth I mean, but there are just so many assholes around..."

"We should run the assholes out," I said, "tourism'd go up by fifty percent... you'd probably get the key to city."

She laughed. "Right! We should do it."

"Set me on 'em. I'll talk them up so much they'll beg you to run off." And not be by myself in the house. Not go stir-crazy. Renee I barely know you and you're offering me an adventure. It's... it's just so... Katie. It's something she'd do. Rescuing, I mean.

I was wrong. You will be happy. If only because I see in your face you'll fight, tooth and nail, until you are.

I don't know what I did to deserve another friend, Renee....

But thank you.

For the first time I don't hurt because things are changing. I'm excited to try something new. You didn't even know and you made me better. As somebody who tries to make things better, I'm stunned. And admiring.


Katie's sure in capable hands.

And trust me, Renee: if there's one compliment I can give you, the greatest honor I can leave anybody with is to protect my Katie. Not that she needs it, you know? I just worry. I just want somebody to love her the way I do, only... different. Because obviously it's not that type of relationship.


And as of right now, I'm giving it to you. Not the relationship, but the trust you'll do what is right in the end. Stuff like that.


And even though you don't read this anymore, Kate?

THAT'S how friends talk to each other. THAT'S how friends trust, and love. We tell each other secrets and laugh.... you don't make them cry.

Ever.

I've unfriended you on Facebook. It took me courage and tears to do it, but I did. You hurt me one too many times. And this girl--this pretty, kind girl who I barely known--has shown me more friendliness and love (yes, love) than you ever have. Ever. She doesn't even know my heart and she loves me.

I'll forgive you. I'll help you if you need me or want an ACTUAL friend. Or if you want to apologize. Or to talk to me, and actually listen this time. The day you aren't too much of a coward to do it. The day you stop hiding behind your dysfunctional relationship, I'll be around. I'll be waiting.


Rant aside.... Superior! A new friend!

I knew that dream meant something. I just knew it.

I love you, Katie. And the more I learn about your heart the more I love it. And I love your Renee, too.

It is nice to have a friend again...

In truth, even though I completely understand and appreciate your hard work and wishes, that I have missed from you.

After all, Katie. Even angels can't be everywhere.

Special

So my mom came home from work today and yelled at me.

A lot.

I hadn't done anything right. I hadn't cleaned as soon as I'd gotten home, I'd missed the showing she said I could miss, I was doing things too slowly for college and fucking up my life, another child is dead from diabetes and she didn't believe I was taking care of myself. It was my fault for not going to practice tonight, my fault for not knowing where Taylor was, and everything's a mess.

On and on and on.

Just once, I wish she'd say fucking hello to me. Or, you know, thank me for working hard.

Because I do.

Special

Neled! Neled! Neled Lor!

Last night, I had a dream.

To start, people I had just met--from college?--were making a movie
a documentary of sorts
starring about five people and they wanted me in it, too
but an evil man paraded the throng, wooing one of the women to him
against the movie, because it would be everything he was not, and he envied us for living human life
and I--we--went to save her,
and he got me, almost, instead, but then girls' mother came down at the right time
and he was so embarrassed he left
because dreams are illogical that way.

The next day, we moved into the dream house we've been fighting for
my family and I
and I got a beautiful room I wouldn't have really, because they'd put me in storage in the basement with Taylor
not even getting a real room until we decorated
anyway, my new room is just like the drawings I've been doing in my notebook, my dream drawings
and who should be there, helping me fix it up--but Katie, of course
she and I had a talk, and it was very, very convincing.

I'd meant to recount it for you, but I can't remember the words
even though I knew them from the tip of my tongue when I woke
I only remember fragments, things like
"we'll compromise"
and
"it'll be okay"
and
"I don't blame you, Payton"
Katie had black hair, did I mention that?
It was pretty.
"We'll work through this together, I promise... I'm pissed about you thinking I would, you know. I'm better than that. You know it. You've felt it."

They say if you tell a wish, it won't come true
so I'm not telling you what my wish is
but I hope you can guess if you know me...

Special

Went through and unfriended some people on the facebook. People who I don't like especially or ignore me. Especially with Murlkat, I'm playing the ''let's see how long it takes you to notice and if you'll care'' game.


Sometimes, though, Finley makes me smile so much it hurts. He turned on 'dancing in the moonlight' last night.. and we danced. Hard. Badly, with zero skill.

He still makes me laugh.

Jesse would have liked him.

Special

Sometimes when I watch Finley work, I think of our names together and marvel at them.
Finley and Payton. Payton and Finley.
Those words might not mean anything together to you, but to me, the combination means a lot.
Two old world names, lost to modern tongues, that live because we do--well, it means a lot.

We survive the old world, and sometimes--just sometimes--I like to think about that.

Finley means 'fair-haired soldier'.  Finley is a soldier, too. He fights for what is right and righteous. If all the knights from Arthur's courts are dead, and their descendants buried, and the dust from their bones on some Celtic wind; Finley survives their chivalry, their chasteness, their honesty and their grace, their skill with a sword. He denies the eradication of those values with every breath and movement. Also, he shares what I imagine to be true of those men: their charm, their occasional social awkwardness, their devoted anger, perhaps even their idealistic vanity. That is to say, the idea that doing the right thing will protect our actions from failure. He looks like a knight, too, carries himself like a knight. He has a healthy belief in magic, one that died for most long ago. His willingness to love and not confess it, save to those he trusts entirely, which are few. The willingness to fight hard for the ones he loves....

Payton is the name of an old-English town; Poega's town. No one knows why the name was remembered when all that's left of the city is ruins. I know why the name was remembered, though. Ruins don't mean something is destroyed. Besides the tangible pieces, the intangible things are just as valuable. Sighs waiting in a corner; the remains of a sign in a language we can't read still welcoming us in. I am a ruin of ladies, too. I am a remnant of times when ladies wore flowing dresses and golden hair with elegance and skillful silence. I speak like them, I decorate like them. I cook and clean. I have no skill with sewing, but I can garden. I can entertain. I can be diplomatic. I even have a beauty that would have meant something much more valuable then; it doesn't mean anything now. I would have won my knight with the ruins of a village....


Fine ideas and fine words don't end this.

Finley's a better cook than I am, just as good a cleaner. He doesn't like to drink. I'm better with a sword than he is, too, and I speak my mind. I'm dependent on modern medical technology, support those who are different.


We might fit in better, there, but we'd still be odd.


It's easy to forget that part when one is dreaming. Easy to forget that we are too strange to be heroes, even in a time when heroes were needed everywhere.


Heroes come from unexpected places, though.You need not come from any particular place or have particular friends or skills. You do not need astronomical wealth or expected skills. You need to know what you believe is right and wrong and to fight for them.

Yes, Heroes come from everywhere.

People like you. People like me.


People like us.





I
would be
an extrordinary
hero....

Special

I remember you, Achilles.
I know what it is like to lose somebody that you love
to feel as though one'd die for you;
I know how that feels, brother.

Sometimes I think you are lucky for not living, hero.
I think you are smiled upon by the mercy of the arrow which killed you
think you are fortune itself to not know the pain
that wound far beyond death, is to know the one you would die for is leaving you
that is the true reason I weep when you die for me, brother.

My tears are for the ones you lost,
the ones I lost
not because they were running like yours were, running for life
but more because they forgot me, they spat on my name,
fled when something better came along.

I made many, many friends
and lost more than I had
and all I have left now is my howling, saddened moon
heavy from my tears and angry for the weight.

My poor, poor moon
who I love so much....

He never left me.

Things better have come and he hasn't.

But anger festers in me like an infection
spikes my temperature, balls my fists together
because you have forgotten me
you who never have seen the heart I've always offered
you who have never bothered to treasure my smile
you who never have and never will want my heart
and not just people like Kate, who can't help rejecting people who love them really
but everyone I tried to befriend for these many years
I am not alone. People love me when they know me.
Two people in the world have tried to know me. Two.
One I fought for harder than most anything.... it was misfortune that brought her to me.

But fuck you for hurting me.
Fuck you, curse you, strike your hearts
for giving my poor moonlight tears...

Special

They say if you dream a thing more than once, it's sure to come true.

I hope so.

Le no an-uir nîn? Man lû vin achenitham?

Then, I know the answer to those. I'll see you soon, and no, I won't....


But I can hope.

Special

I had nightmares that kept my eyes open. I could almost sense them, waiting for me when I slept. I still wanted to sleep, though. Some basic human instinct drives us to do so. I even went to bed early, JessePalooza's today and I'll be up late and early and all that, but my body wouldn't let me sleep. And when it did let me sleep, it gave me nightmares.

Some parts, brief ones, were good. Things I know won't ever really happen. Kate and I having a snowball fight. My tree house. Katie coming into my room randomly when she got back and saying, "Renee has me forever, because I love her. She'll see me first thing, but you know what? I'm in fort now. She might be my forever.... but that doesn't mean I can't miss you, too." and then just sitting next to me. Holding me the way I always want to hold my friends.

But also, mostly, bad things. A play I'd read once suddenly had me cast in it. I didn't know the lines. I tried, but I didn't do well. And Schultz, during the interrogation scene--though it was not, from what I gather, a murder mystery--asked horrible things of the cast, who was misbehaving. I'd never seen my hero that cold, and it wounded me. Real me more than dream-me, I might add. Dream-me was like Puck, the prankster, even in appearance and clothing.

A man who climbed mountains getting trapped in different types of ice, always facing different types of monsters there. Horrible monsters, not-there readers. Frozen tails and claws and dead-flesh coloring. Details I do not want to recall; as they sent me running out of my bed when I woke up. I woke up on the floor in my downstairs living room.

Everything hurts and I am tired when my alarm goes off.

So upset. I miss so many people..... I miss Kate and Hannah, Morgan and April, Johnny and Kellie, Kya and Conner, I miss Schultz. I miss them so much my heart is sickened with it, so much it hurts.

Music will creep into me today. Music will keep me sane.


So many others have tried, but music will do it. Music always listens, even when people don't.

Even when you are like me and love people so much it hurts. Even then.




Especially then.


"Yes, I hear you. Get up, you say! Well, clock, even you can't order me to stop dreaming....." -Cinderella

Special: a parallel to Ink Exchange

"And for a moment, Leslie saw a look of longing pass over Aislinn's face, but then Aislinn caught her watching.

Aislinn's face turned impassive. 'Sometimes I wish I could... I just don't think it's a good idea.'

Rianne opened her mouth to respond, but Leslie shook her head. 'Give us a sec, Ri. I'll catch up.'

After Rianne left, Leslie caught Aislinn's gaze. 'I wish we weren't doing this...' she gestured between them.

'What do you mean?' Aislinn grew so still and silent in the din of the hall, it was like the noise around them vanished for an instant.

'Lying.' Leslie sighed. 'I miss us being real friends, Ash. I'm not going to encroach on your scene, but it'd be nice to be straight-up again. I miss it.'

'I'm not lying. I... can't lie.' She stared beyond Leslie for a moment, scowling at someone.

Leslie didn't turn to see who it was. 'You're not being honest, either. If you don't want me around....' She shrugged. 'Whatever.'

Aislinn grabbed her arms and held her close. Although she tried, Leslie actually couldn't pull away.

A jerk in the hall called, 'Dykes.' Leslie tensed, torn between the once-instantaneous urge to flip him off and the still-new fear of conflict.

The bell rang. Lockers slammed. Aislinn finally said, 'I just don't want to see you get hurt. There's.... people and things... and....'

'Sweetie, I doubt they're any worse than what--' she stopped herself, unable to say the sentences that would follow. Her heart thunked at the thought of saying those words aloud...."


Here's a clue, non-existent readers:

In this situation, in this dialogue, and in life
I
am not
the Aislinn...

I
am not
the Queen

I
just miss
my friend.