emmystrange
Inside she still felt fifteen when she was near him, though now they had their inside jokes and years of life together. His presence made her feel young and awkward and excited every day.
She stared in the mirror, searching through time. Under her porcelain skin, would her high cheekbones, the curve of her chin, her nose, be enough to tell the world the story she knew so well? The story of great grandmothers carrying babies along the trail of tears or of her own grandmother, sent away from Oklahoma on a bus to escape her father, the epitome of the drunken native. Would they see?
It wasn't the things he did that hurt, it was the things he didn't do. The silences, the emptiness that felt like ballast dragging her to the bottom. She found herself jealous of women whose men punched holes in walls, at least they had proof that something was amiss.
She had the lost look of a woman who'd long ago stopped making decisions for herself, like someone who'd let guys with beer guts drive her around on the back of their bikes. To him she was just a worn out shell, just waiting to get blown away. So when she offered him a sandwich with sundried tomato aoli, he felt a little ashamed.
As the night wrapped around her like a shawl, she wondered if she even still existed. Sometimes without the sun to light her up she was sure she would fade away until nothing remained but a dot that used to be sad.
They weren't bad girls, not like the girls who smoked and let the boys walk them to their cars. They had standards and a code. They weren't afraid to call a spade a spade, a loser a loser, or a God by his first name.
The sea is dark tonight and full of magic. It will call your name, crashing syllables upon the sand. You must not listen. Beware, the sea is a cold, cruel mistress.
Her face didn't move for several seconds, seconds which seemed like eons in which every lie and omission was weighed and he was found wanting. Her pained cry was stifled by one word, "why?"
Can we ever know what is happening behind our lover's eyes or know for certain where we stand? In love, can there be room for truth?
As we walked along the beach, watching sand and snow and ice co-mingle, I noticed the dead mallard, barely a bird anymore. it was then that I grasped the true beauty of the day
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writing since 2011 · 94 entries · 93 days shown up
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