Story Snatch

So, here's the deal, my pretties...

New idea! New idea! Another pass it on manuever like PoetryMarathon, only with very very short stories or bits of stories. If you want to write, you look at the previous story, and take a sentance, or a thought, and go from there. The idea isn't necessarily to write a story, but to put a neat thought or a cool description, or whatever you want. Anyway. Enough talking. Have fun!

 You betrayed yourself today.
 You gave yourself away. I was watching you sleep and you never sleep on
your back just on your side or your stomach. and I remember that you never
sit back in your chair, just lean forward and laugh and turn your head in
such a way to light yourself and betray you again, my earth angel. don't
hide yourself too good, my girl, people need to believe in angels especially
me when it's just you who sleeps on her stomach.

 There isn't much difference between angels and devils, when you come right
down to it. Otherworldly beings with wings, who make good scapegoats. I
think human beings cling to the idea of good and evil as separate entities
because they cannot stand to see the capacity for . . . and the creation of.
. . both inside their own selves. There is a lot that human beings can't
stand to see. Silly things.

 So. I'll play the demon and you can play the angel, and when the time is
right, we'll switch. They'll never know.

 After all, our eyes are exactly the same.
 

 there isn't much difference between angels and devils.
 you always rode the fence. one day, the eyes through which i saw a 
beautiful world; the next day, the shroud over my face. one day, the sick
smoke that polluted my lungs, the next day: my very breath. one day, you
were my life. the next day, you were my death. one day you were kissing me
in the middle of the woods on a platform overlooking a dirty little creek,
right beneath the moonlight. driving me through the city, parking in front
of my house, making fun of each other in the car for hours, laughing,
smiling, being ironic and morose like always. you kissed me like you
couldn't stop and fingered me in the passenger seat right before a
semi-truck turned the corner and it's headlights flooded through your car
windows, revealing us, seeing through our lies and shining a spotlight on
the best thing that ever happened to me. the next day, you left. you flew to
california.

 so, where are we headed, you and i? heaven? or hell?
 
 -naomi

 you were never one to go out on limbs, at least not if you weren't sure
they would hold you. my fence sitter. you'd watch me take my journeys into
the woods, and the most you could bring yourself to do was call after me was
I okay, not even what's it like out there? because you didn't really care.
happy you are sitting on your fence, getting an okay view or no view at all
but then you wouldn't know that. 
 I left you out of sight some time ago. it's a little scary or maybe a lot
scary out where I can't see your concerned but expectant face but maybe I
needed that and maybe you needed not for me not to call back to you and
maybe eventually you'll follow me if you ever get bored enough.

Eventually you'll follow me, if you get bored enough. I used to sit in that office, in the dark and the smoke, and I would talk to you of beautiful things, of adventures and discoveries and my strange thoughts while you observed me with a sardonic, but indulgent, smile. I talked to a stone wall for a year, until I discovered that some walls never come down, but no longer am I angry when I see your bored and meaningless existance. Only sad. You toss a ball to me, and I toss it back... it goes on for half an hour, maybe more, because there's nothing to work on and no good will come of it anyway. "You're a sweet thing," you tell me. "A piece of candy." But candy is not what you need. Every time I stop in that place now, you're farther away. Today, I don't even get past the front door, but I hesitate on the stoop, look up at your window. And I wave goodbye.

 "You're a sweet thing," you tell me. I shift over in my seat, because
suddenly your eyes look a lot larger than they did before, now that they're
looking at me and not the wall. Walls are safer places for eyes, like mine
glued to the poster for condom use. The bus hits a bump and I jump. You
continue talking and I continue looking at the wall and pretending you're
not complimenting me on things you couldn't possibly know about me.
 I get off a stop early.

she was the reason they forgot to smile or forgot to cry. she, with her hair falling loose over her shoulders, every curve of her body a piece of poetry, every ray of sunlight, moonlight, or artifical light, kissing her with satin promises. she'll watch them until they can find nowhere to look, nowhere to hide. walls are safer places for eyes, & so they'll stare intently at the crack in one, running down the side like a waterfall, anything to distract them from her. but her, her eyes, they cannot be diverted. no distraction is great enough to break her gaze.

she brushes her hair & watches you, like she's watched all those others, & you cannot keep your gaze still. everywhere you look feels wrong, inappropriate. you blush & mumble everytime she asks you something, & it feels as though your tongue ran away with your self-control, eloping to hawaii or maybe paris, to sip champagne next to sun-kissed french beauties. all you want is your camera, to photograph every single part of her, everything, every inch of skin that covers her, silk-soft & satin-shiny. but when you try to run from the room, run & get it, before the moment is broken, she reaches out, lays her beautiful hand upon your arm, & every piece of you quivers at her touch, & you are no more capable of leaving her side than you would be of suddenly sprouting wings & flying away.

kat, the first story i've tried to write in several months. forgive me if it's a bit rusty.

A Conversation.

two people, talking, in a room. the first is calm, reconciled, the second freshly angry and trying to control or conceal it by talking distinctly and critically.

of leaving her side. that's all they had in common. the plain hard cruel act of leaving her sideways, breathless, chin up, cheek to the wall. you know they say when Zeus bowed his head, it was the very serious seal of a very great promise. and she just stuck her chin up and that was the symbolism of promises too, too many promises that others had constucted for her like stone towers yes, they led her up into those promises they had built for her, with a silken smile. not that she ever believed any of them. she had her magic, she could always leave the tower. they couldn't. no.

pause.

promises like stone towers- she broke evrey one of them. but it was beautiful. beautiful for her to think, think that she was broken hearted! hurt, all those times, when really she felt only boredom, and thought only of proving her beauty. what an actress, twining hearts about her fingers, like- she was only beautiful as a seductress, and not always then. and they amused her, at first, every one of them. but hearts grow cold and so do beds and darling, i'm sorry. she said. words like darling become ugly if you use them enough i am so so sorry. did she mean it? she didn't mean it. she thought she did. don't you see? and then they would leave. every one of us, left her side. wonder what woulda happened if you'd stayed?

 i wonder what the fuck would've happened had you stayed.
 but every single cereal box on my shelf sings advice in sweet, soft tones;
"now don't you even worry about that, dear." i try so hard to change my own
subject while i'm talking to myself, and the refrigerator echoes, "move on!"
but i can't help but fucking wonder, i mean would you have even seen this
through? my cat purrs and asks if i've met anyone new, hell i can't even
look at the new kids. all i ever do is pour milk into the potted plants, and
the other day i scrawled out a story onto the kitchen floor with my pastel
pink crayon, it said:

a girl curls up on his futon with a cup of special tea he made her. the girl wakes up hours later, and he's lying next to her. she goes to the bathroom at the foot of the bed to put on a pair of his boxers, she leaves the door open; it's too dark for him to see her, anyway. she hopes that he's wishing it were light. the girl goes back to his bed, where he inquires is she cold? his hands are on the girl, pulling her close as he suggests that they keep each other warm. her actions are almost as if she's being catious, she's making sure she stays breathing and stays still while she wonders whether or not she is dreaming. he puts his lips on this girl's ear and she stops breathing. he kissed the girl, and he kissed her. and they kissed and it lasted all night long. and that was the first time, while it wasn't the last time, though it was the time that would lead to a time when this girl would miss times already passed.

 unfortunately, that time was today and the girl was me. and what about him,
i'll always wonder. special tea is screaming, "get over it!" from my stained
stove, i've got my boxer shorts all twisted around and i've got my hand on
an empty place next to my face on this futon. but... where did he go? 
 "he's gone," whispers the front screen door.

~naomi

 "you've never heard me cry before"
 said a voice so far away.
 "i'm lost and i can't get out i'm drowning in my own feelings" 

 silents is an okay thing 
 my heart pounded out under my skin.

 "you've never heard me smile"
 "i'm starving to let you become free"
 "theres a first time for everything" i say softly

 
 "thank you"
 said the far off voice

 "i believe in you"

 
 "thank you"
 said the voice misting with tears
 

 "i love you"

 "thanks"
 said the crumbling voice
 

 "sleep my angel and ancers will come"

 "thank you"
 said the fighter
 "thank you ever so much"

 "he's gone," whispers the front screen door
 as i walk away.
 "he's gone" and i hope he doesn't drown too fast

--------------------------

My heart pounded out under my skin, and her hands covered me swiftly. "Pull up a little...see the line?" One dark hand on my belly, one at the small of my back

  muscles moved beneath her hands

Were they mine? I couldn't tell just then, and I cursed my blush, I damned my thin skin with every angry thought I had, another came back in. She met my eyes fiercely, and with the raised eyebrow of authority, "You see it?" It was a challenge, anything smaller would have been trivial, but I straightened and met her, " I see it." I had the upper hand because she let us know, every day, again and again of her power. But she didn't know a thing about me. She didn't know how good I could be. She wasn't aware that I wasn't that much younger than her, even. I had my power. I wouldn't give it out to anyone yet. If I had known who she was... I didn't. She was the full embodiment of a mystery, and I hated the way she cut me down from time to time. But it was a challenge between us, and I wanted to solve it. Who was she? I work hard, as hard as her, and I find her eyes on me on a Monday night. She wonders about me. What would I look like with my hair down? "Good extension." She directs at me, and her dark eyes get there before her voice does. Thanks.

 She knows as well as I do.

We share glances.

---Landis