I like fixing things I can see, mending what is broken. I like easing pain.
What if I were to tell you, Elena, I used to be a poet?
That the one thing my mother kept from the sea when my father stole her from it had been the language of it? And that language, it had been inherited by me.
I dwell on that, briefly; and wonder what would have happened, if I were not a soldier, if my father had not been the kind of man he had been. Perhaps I may have been a bard, or a lyricist, or a writer—
I wonder what I would have written, in that other life. And all these musings stem from the fact she does something useful, something that helps instead of hurts—and then there are moments (long stretches of days, or weeks, or even months) where I want to do nothing but make the whole world bleed.
But still, I smile at her; an appreciative, shy kind of smile. A smile that says thank you with more sincerity than my stuttering words.
I would love that.
“Then consider it done.” I spend more time thinking of what he wants to say; he spends more time forming these words, so they come out clear and direct.
You never have the luxury of forgetting you are an orphan.
She touches him; it is jarring, to someone who lives their life so frigidly, to experience the sudden warmth. I nearly flinch away but instead hold steady. “No—“ I agree, but not knowing, not understand. I have never been an orphan.
But then: “Let me s-start the tour tonight. Get o-our minds off the s-sadness.” I offer what I know is a stiff, awkward smile. But then I turn away from the sunset, wrenching myself from it as if I’d been sewn into the light—
I step away from the edge, and gesture her back the way we had both come—back toward the city, and life, and the flock of birds that abandons their roost to flutter past us.
"Speech" || @Elena
What if I were to tell you, Elena, I used to be a poet?
That the one thing my mother kept from the sea when my father stole her from it had been the language of it? And that language, it had been inherited by me.
I dwell on that, briefly; and wonder what would have happened, if I were not a soldier, if my father had not been the kind of man he had been. Perhaps I may have been a bard, or a lyricist, or a writer—
I wonder what I would have written, in that other life. And all these musings stem from the fact she does something useful, something that helps instead of hurts—and then there are moments (long stretches of days, or weeks, or even months) where I want to do nothing but make the whole world bleed.
But still, I smile at her; an appreciative, shy kind of smile. A smile that says thank you with more sincerity than my stuttering words.
I would love that.
“Then consider it done.” I spend more time thinking of what he wants to say; he spends more time forming these words, so they come out clear and direct.
You never have the luxury of forgetting you are an orphan.
She touches him; it is jarring, to someone who lives their life so frigidly, to experience the sudden warmth. I nearly flinch away but instead hold steady. “No—“ I agree, but not knowing, not understand. I have never been an orphan.
But then: “Let me s-start the tour tonight. Get o-our minds off the s-sadness.” I offer what I know is a stiff, awkward smile. But then I turn away from the sunset, wrenching myself from it as if I’d been sewn into the light—
I step away from the edge, and gesture her back the way we had both come—back toward the city, and life, and the flock of birds that abandons their roost to flutter past us.
"Speech" || @
when i leave i'm taking all the atlases
everyone who touches me walks away unharmed and singing.
