pearlmilktea
"You can bring whatever you like," she says.
"Why? It's a picnic, not a potluck. Shouldn't it be a little more coordinated?"
She squints up at the window, at the light that streams through. "It's supposed to be spontaneous," she says. "Hence the sitting out on the grass, and everything. The only people who would do that kind of thing would be people who haven't thought to bring lawn chairs."
a hundred years. he opens his eyes and it's a hundred years later; the war is over. everything around them has been decimated. jagged, razor-sharp edges of skyscrapers glisten under the sun like a mouth of teeth. like artifacts of history. rain falls without clouds. the land is empty. this is all there is left, he realizes, but then thunder cracks and it turns to gunshots and he opens his eyes and the war is around him again
they were the same, almost. the same red hair, too curly to tame, flames around a cream white face. the same green eyes. if she looked in the mirror she could almost pretend that amy was still there. but what good is imagination at this point? they weren't the same, but they were close enough. nature never favors repetition.
Oil seeped into the earth by the factories. Sometimes, it left pools of shimmering black on the ground like fresh rainwater.
"You should shut down the factories," they had said upon inspection. "The pollution is getting out of hand."
And yet, they had the audacity to say something like that where the streets were already littered with trash, the oceans uninhabitable, the air littered with burning chemicals? She had laughed, then, laughed at their naivety, at their halfhearted efforts to create a better world. "Do you really think that taking away the factories will fix anything?"
That had shut them up.
No one could repair the damages to the city. She was used to the sight of it by now, anyways.
"I'd like to make a deposit of three hundred dollars."
The worker looks up and gapes. The girl standing at the counter is gorgeous - slim long legs, smooth white hair, cold green eyes that peer straight into his.
"Yeah, you can do that," the banker stutters, slightly dazed. "And you can deposit my heart right over there in the trash can," he mutters under his breath.
"What?"
"Nothing. I'll do it now."
He shouldn't have taken this job, after all.
"Be more specific," she says.
He stares off into the distance at nothing at particular, one hand propping up his chin. "I can't."
"Have you found someone else?"
"No." It's a lie. "Yeah," he says quietly.
Lint balls crowd on her jacket. Some are large and some are smaller. The cloth smells of mangoes and morning dew; it's a strange, uncanny concoction to fit a strange person. He likes it, though. It's just like her.
hopes and dreams
strung up into
a necklace of notes
crushing losses
compressed into
metaphorical words
the ever sharpening pain,
echoing, resounding, evaporating.
she sang.
why do I need to try so hard,
going one arduous note at a time
when others can so easily
jump octaves?
stay.
he wouldn't
return after he'd gone
why couldn't he just
hold her hand for one last time
tell her he'd be back
she wished he could
she wished he could
tell her he'd be back
hold her hand for one last time
why couldn't he just
return after he'd gone
he wouldn't
stay.
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