Monday, February 15, 2010

A little excerpt


She’s so lost in the world she’s creating she doesn’t even hear him come up to the table where she is seated. He sits down across from her before she has even realized he's there.


“Where are you now?” he asks her, a slight smirk on his face.


She looks up at him, her fingers continue typing, slowly finishing her train of thought.


“She’s confused. She doesn’t know what she wants. I guess she’s every girl.” She looks at him, shrugs her shoulders.


“I didn’t ask where she was, I asked where you are. Do you know what you want?” His voice and eyes are so sincere, she believes he actually cares about what her answer is going to be when he asks.


“I know what I don’t want. Is that enough? I don’t know, but it’s all I’ve figured out so far, and for now, it’s all I want to figure out.”

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Sheets, dreams and a guitar


I had a dream.


It was late and I could see snow falling in the street light outside my window. I was sitting in my bed. I could feel the goosebumps on my skin, so I pulled the sheets up, wrapping them tightly around me.


He was sitting on the edge, guitar in his lap. His fingers hovered over the strings for a moment, I could see him trying to decide what song he was going to coax from them. In the second before he starts to play, he looks up at me and grins.


His hair, which was just the slightest bit too long in the front, fell forward into his face, covering his eyes just enough to distract him, forcing him to stop playing for an instant so he could run his hands through it.


His fingers would be slowly moving over the strings one moment, and then so fast the next. Watching, I find myself remembering the way those hands had felt on my skin only moments before, the slight roughness of the callous at his finger tips, the radiating warmth within his palms. His hands could manipulate me in the same way he could manipulate the strings on the guitar.


His fingers plucked and strummed and danced along the strings, creating such inspiring melodies. I just sat there, listening, taking it all in. His hands, his body, the expression on his face, the music. He seemed so perfectly at ease in himself, I felt like I was seeing a part of him that he didn’t often let others see.


And then its over almost as fast as it began.


I wake up in the dead of night and I can feel his arms around me, holding me, the heat from his body against my back, the beat of his heart. I can hear the music still, playing softly in the darkness, and it takes a moment before the dreamworld fades and reality begins to set in again, and I remember that I am alone tonight. The quiet surrounds me once again. There is no music lurking in the darkness.


I look over at the guitar that sits idle in the corner of my room, enveloped in shadow. Although I can’t see it clearly, I know there is a thin layer of dust covering its smooth surface. I don’t have the heart to pick it up, the strings won’t have the same magic in my hands.




---------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Writing this, I had an image in my head that I was trying to capture in words. I tried over and over, but I still found myself unable to get it right. I give you this as a work in progress, in hopes that one day I will return to it with fresh eyes, and be able to better describe things as they appeared in my mind.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Piano Hands


She doesn’t play the piano, but that doesn’t stop her from pretending. Sometimes, as she listens to her song, she lets her fingertips dance along a table ledge, or seat back, or even just through the air, dancing as though on the ebony and ivory keys of a piano.