Plain to see

This isn't a fairy tale. She knows it because in that version, he isn't breaking up with her. In that version, he's holding out something small, indistinguishable if not for its shine. She doesn't need anything fancy - she conceded that long ago - so the object's modesty doesn't faze her.

But that isn't this version, she reminds herself. He's still talking on the other side of the kitchen table, but at this point she's barely paying attention. She remembers the beginning of the conversation, when he told her that she "didn't do anything wrong." She wonders how, if that's really the case, this is entirely necessary. She knows the real reason he called her. She knows the real reason he asked her if he could stop by. It's that new girl in the consumer marketing division. She wonders, if she really didn't do anything wrong, what this girl has been doing right, in particular. She wishes she could ask and take notes. She knows how strange that would be.

He finishes talking and asks if she's okay. She is, and she's not sure entirely why, but she doesn't question it. Sure, she says, I'll be fine. He says he's sorry, which she isn't sure she believes, and she represses the urge to make a smartass comment at the new girl's expense. He stands up and walks to her side of the table. He leans in to kiss her cheek, and does, and she turns to stare at him, wondering if he knows the cliche about insults and injuries. He leaves the apartment and closes the door behind him. She hasn't moved from her seat.

She turns and stares out the window, eyes to the sky. Her kitchen is dim, so she can see the edges of a few constellations, peeking out from behind the corners of neighboring buildings. On nights like these, she fancies that she is out there, too - a star burning an unimaginable distance from the earth, hidden in the dark, visible only to those who care to look the hardest.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Delta Spirit, Strange Vine

Sour notes

All her life was percussion,
deep bass thumping in her chest.

There were times she spent abroad
that left her eardrums buzzing,

nights in strange, lonely places.
There were glimpses of sunlight

but then she was on her way,
a cobbled road back home to rest.

And if each dreary afternoon
could be just a little less acoustic

and a little more ringing brass,
she would know which melody

would lead her closest to the dream
and to rhythm's smooth embrace.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Middle Brother, Million Dollar Bill

All this weird beauty

photo by Lukasz Wierzbowski

It stood out to her, a lonely red impulse in a sea of green hedge. She stopped and tiptoed off the sidewalk, dropping her work bag next to the bush. She knelt down and reached out. The rose was trapped, having somehow found it's way into the shrubbery's dense inner lattice. She gently cupped her hands around it and extracted it. 

She cradled the flower in her hand like it was an infant, like if she juggled it only a little, shifted just a bit too far in any direction, it would crumble. It would collapse into dust - she just knew it - and blow away with the next odd gust that tumbled past her. She put her other hand over it as a safeguard and studied it.

"It's been quite a day, hasn't it?" she asked.

The flower did not respond.

"I know I'm pretty much done at this point," she continued. "Can't wait for tomorrow. Never thought I could use a new day as much as I do right now."

Several petals rippled as a soft breeze picked up, tossing a few stray hairs into her face. She picked them aside, rearranging them as neatly as she could before rushing her hand back to the flower's protection.

"I can't believe some of the things they've been saying, can you?" She struggled for words, her mouth opening and closing in wordless gasps. "I guess our first instinct has always been to look for the reason things happen. They always want to know why - they always want to deliver an explanation. I'm not sure there always is one, though."

A bird warbled unsteadily in the distance. The flower stayed silent. She scrunched up her nose as a familiar tickle of emotion built up int the corners of her eyes.

"But something like this..." She adjusted her posture, settling into a cross-legged position but slumping forward, defeated as tears began to flow. "If there isn't a reason for this, where do we put it? Where does it fit into the world?"

The rose, as precious as it was to her, still offered no support. It gave just a slight quiver, a motion carried through her splayed fingers by the wind. She began to laugh, even as saltwater gathered and dripped from her jawline.

"I guess there really isn't anything to say, is there?" She raised a hand and ran it through her hair. "Nothing more than sympathies and well-wishing, anyway."

Her hand came to rest on the back of her neck, her fingertips brushing an imaginary itch as her brain ran through one possibility after another - none of them making complete sense. She came out of her trance just long enough to notice that the tears had stopped. Then, in one inexplicable burst of instinctive energy, her hand was in the air and momentum was carrying it right down into her steadily outstretched palm.

She felt something soft and broken, something tragically at rest between her hands. She opened them, knowing that she wasn't going to like what she saw. The rose was a scattered mess, dented petals trickling between her fingers onto the grass. She dropped it, horrified, and knelt beside it like it was a dying relative.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

As the words drew slowly out of her mouth, she wondered why she was saying them. She didn't feel sorry. Whatever the feeling was, it seemed closer to disappointment. Or perhaps it was longing, like she was watching an old friend board a plane to another continent, never to return home.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Dawes, Take Me Out Of The City

The simplicity of human hearing

There is a sound that love makes.
It is the sound of a tidal wave
as it sucks up the last bit of ocean
before crashing down upon the sand.
It is the sound of the beast,
its stomach empty before a meal.
It is the sound of emptiness being filled
and in times of loneliness and loss
it is the deep sound of longing.
In fact, there is hardly a sound
that love does not make once or more.
And while this may paint it as cheap,
perhaps a song too commonly sung,
I'm sure it would simply argue
that it must be heard on every register.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Vocal Chords