She had
that kind of smile
that was piercing;
once it fixed on you,
you were going to be
broken,
no matter how iron
your will,
no matter how strong
your shield.
She did not slip a dagger
between
the plates of your armor
so much as already have it borne
within
your own heart,
a secret weapon that came
through
between
your ribs,
from the inside
out.
Love and War
The Coat
It was getting cold again — the kind of cold that reminded her of what it had been like when she first arrived, falling in out of nowhere, into the life of someone who was gone now.
Someone who might always be gone.
Someone whose absence made her feel gone, now, too.
She shivered and tugged her gloves more tightly against her palms, then shoved her hands into the coat, hugging it around herself and breathing in the smell.
The coat. It wasn’t her coat. It was his coat, even if it would never be worn by him again.
It wasn’t a winter coat so much as a suitcoat a little too large for her, broader in the shoulders than she was. Black and worn, but repaired with ridiculous patches and frankenstitching. It was old. It was so fucking old, the smell had been gone for so long, but she would bury her face in the collar, the lapel, and breathe memories as tears wet her long lashes.
She would cry into that stupid coat and whisper to it.
She would tell it secrets. She would stroke the inner lining at the collar and wrists, where it had once touched his skin. She wrapped the arms of it around herself when she went to sleep.
She knew it was weird. She knew it was borderline crazy. Maybe it was even well beyond borderline crazy.
It didn’t matter; she had nothing of him, save that coat, so it was what she held on to, while she did anything she could that needed doing, and waited — waited for him, waited to die, waited for what, she didn’t know — staying warm with the thought of him, even as the world got colder.
Posted in Fiction, Flash
Tagged blue-eyed man, cat, cat jones, catastrophe, catastrophe jones, grief, jones, loss, love, memory, pieces, writing
Leave a comment
There was never
There was never a bottle of Oban.
The music box–
He threw a coffee cup against the wall. “GodDAMNIT!”
He wanted, more than anything, to make sure he was stable, to keep her safe.
He walked in the door and breathed in the scent of eggs frying with Chinese food.
He walked in the door and peeled himself out of his shredded, bloody clothing.
He walked in the door, eyes almost red, jaw set.
Everything held the scent of a fresh shower, and peach shampoo.
The army men guarded the milk in the fridge. The carton still had the skull and crossbones on it.
He loved her. He may never have said it.
The music box–
He opened the window and let her in, one hand against the glass as she sang on the fire escape, wild hair blowing about in the night wind.
There was never a bottle of Tamdhu.
He made eggs in the pan, with bacon fat and sardines.
He walked in the door and heard the raven’s voice on the ansafone.
He crouched amidst the rubble, gloves off, the world smoking around him, his red eyes betraying his status as weapon.
The music box–
He walked in the door holding the black block that made the back of his tongue ache for bad whisky, and eyes see blood where it isn’t.
He walked in the door and put the consciousness he was holding in the microwave, turned it on high, and waited for it to explode into pink, strawberry-scented plastic.
There was never a bottle of Fiddich ’37.
The answering machine was never destroyed.
The music box is still playing somewhere, where time is blue, and silence is cold and thick, and there is yarn on the stairs.
And a cat in the freezer.
Posted in Fiction, Flash
Tagged blue-eyed man, cat, cat jones, catastrophe, catastrophe jones, fiction, flash, flash fiction, grief, jones, loss, love, pieces, time, writing
Leave a comment
Not Enough Had Changed
The ache rode beneath his skin, a thief of warmth and comfort, leaving him unsettled, jittery, perpetually chilled. Tension in the knuckles — his hands shook, now, when he had them out. Rather than betray that age or nerves had changed him, he kept them shoved in his pockets, whether or not he wore gloves.
The pain of it was only a sharp stab behind the eyes if he crawled too far out of the bottle.
Instead of being held by those once-deft hands, the cigarette hung at his lips as he glared out over the city. He exhaled bluegrey; it mingled with the fog of his breath, and hung in the air beneath the featureless dome that seemed to spread over the sky, hiding the heavens from the earth, and vice versa.
All at once too dim to see anything, too bright to be anything but painful.
Too-blue eyes fluttered shut, and he took a step forward, shining black shoes on poured concrete and rebar, floors and floors above the sidewalks, wind tousling his black hair. One more step forward would be his last. He didn’t look down; he was still afraid of heights.
The scent of smoke in his nostrils — the taste of tobacco and clove on his tongue.
Too many things had changed.
Not enough had changed.
The phone in his pocket hadn’t rung in months; he figured the number was lost, she was lost, everything was lost.
He kept it on, kept it charged, anyway.
Posted in Fiction, Flash
Tagged blue-eyed man, fiction, flash, flash fiction, grief, loss, love, pieces, writing
Leave a comment
I Wrote This
I wrote this because I don’t know how to tell you things. I wrote this because I can still taste you on my lips. I wrote this because I don’t know how drunk you were. I wrote this because I know how drunk I was. I wrote this because I’m hurting. I wrote this because I don’t know what else to do. I wrote this because I miss you. I wrote this because I cry myself to sleep most nights. I wrote this because I remember you. I wrote this because I’ve seen you die a hundred times. I wrote this because I exist. I wrote this because I need you. I wrote this because I don’t know how to make it right anymore. I wrote this because I’m falling to pieces. I wrote this because I want to howl at the moon. I wrote this because my hand is still warm where your fingers curled against mine. I wrote this because when I close my eyes I can still see the apartment. I wrote this because of the couch and the cupboards, the army men in the fridge. I wrote this because I’m dying, inch by inch. I wrote this because I need you. I wrote this because I’ll never send it. I wrote this because you’ll never read it, so I don’t have to worry about not being able to take it back. I wrote this because this is killing me, and if I could, I would crawl into the ground and wrap myself around you. I wrote this because it wouldn’t matter how cold your lips are. I wrote this because there will never be anyone else. I wrote this because I love you.
Posted in Fiction, Flash
Tagged blue-eyed man, cat, cat jones, catastrophe, catastrophe jones, death, depression, fiction, flash, flash fiction, grief, jones, life, loss, love, misery, pieces, writing
Leave a comment