Life Away

life away

Life changes. Mostly in small amounts that you never really notice. Sometimes bigger things, but things that don’t affect your life personally. Mostly it just seems too far away to matter. Like hearing about an earthquake halfway around the world. Yeah, it’s sad, but you’ll forget about it eventually. You’re allowed to do that. It didn’t happen to you.

And then life changes in a big way. a really big way.

This isn’t the way it works. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.

It seems distant until it happens to you. Then it’s up close and personal.

And you don’t understand why everyone else treats it as a distant problem.

This is huge. Why don’t you care?

The world spins at 1,040 miles per hour but nobody feels a thing.

Distant news.

don’t mind me

Don’t mind me Just keep doing what you’re doing Don’t mind me I’m just here to see the view Don’t mind me Just keep living how you’re living and maybe someday I can learn how to live like you do.

Don’t mind me Just keep smiling like you’re smiling Don’t mind me I’m just here to sing these blues Don’t mind me Just keep laughing like you’re laughing and maybe someday I can learn how to laugh like you do

Don’t mind me I’ve a fondness for exploring Don’t mind me Yeah this happens all the time Don’t mind me I just wanna see your beauty I wanna see a soul being kind

everything makes sense

Oh. The stars. I had forgotten about the stars. They had been replaced by city lights.

Oh. Her hand. Her hand is alive. I guess it always has been.

That’s right. I was alone. She was alone. It makes sense to be together.

Huh.

smile

in which, simon likes to play a game and make baz smile.

baz

“Smile,” he demands.

I raise an eyebrow at him as he cups my cheek with a hand.

“Come on, Baz. One smile. Please?”

I frown.

“Darling? Dear? Love? Pumpkin? Sweetie pie? Precious?”

I grimace.

“Pretty please? For me?”

I don’t respond. He pouts and reaches for my sides. He’s tried this before. He knows I’m not ticklish.

But he is. Ridiculously so.

I grab him before his hands even reach me and he’s shouting/laughing within seconds. He starts to lean backwards, instinctively trying to get away from me before he realizes there’s nothing there. I catch him before he falls. Like a responsible boyfriend.

And, Crowley, I have to bite my cheek to keep from smiling at this. His face is red and his eyes are watery from laughter and he’s still got a massive grin on his face. He wipes at his eyes and I pull him back onto the couch.

And I know what he’s going to try next. It used to work. He leans forward and  plants a gentle kiss right on my unmoving lips. It makes me feel warm all over, but I don’t let myself respond to it.

He tilts his head back and searches my face. When I don’t budge, he sighs deeply and let his forehead fall onto my shoulder. He’s giving up.

I let one hand find his curls and the other find his waist. I let myself relax. And smile.

Simon tries to lift his head, and I know I can’t get rid of it before he sees. On impulse, I hold him down. He squirms in my grasp.

“You’re smiling!” he accuses.

“No, I’m not.”

He wings start flapping wildly.

“I can hear it in your voice!”

“That’s impossible,” I laugh.

“You’re impossible!”

I let him go and his head whips up. I’m still laughing as he pouts at me.

Eventually though, he smiles too. He pecks me on the cheek.

“I like it when you smile.”

background of life

she’ll be laughing and crying and she won’t be denying that her emotions are way too out of whack

she’ll be singing sweetly and speaking meekly ‘cause her voice has never had her back

and she has always known that she is just an extra in the background of life

The Refuge

The only house perched on the only gravel road that split  my uncle’s property, [REDACTED]

“The Refuge” for short.

Our mail appeared in the only mailbox by The Gate, in front of the army of invading bamboo, next to the rotting tree stump, still taller than me, and annually engulfed in wisteria.

Whenever my cousin’s college friends overtook The Dock for the girls to tan and the boys to cannonball into The Lake, my dog whined restlessly at the door until they finally left. The Mound was the farthest area from our house in the Refuge, all the way down the only gravel road, down the steep speed-bumped hill that stopped my bike in its tracks until I was brave enough to ride up.

The Mound wasn’t anything but an enormous pile of dirt my siblings and I would venture to once in a bored blue moon. We carved shelves in its side for our favorite trinkets from nature and challenged each other to clamber to the top, which was covered in unforgiving brambles and thickets.

By now, our trinkets have long since been buried by a bulldozer.