you held a used up lead shot lodged within your heart, like a grim souvenir of the civil war a century before. I was cold like a gravel lot in autumn, full of craters filled with rain, and all the extra steps around them only took you such small distances.You'd bloomed, and withered.
I
fell
out
of
orbit.
I tried to take you with me on a road which wasn't yours, you led me, howling, down a hallway I'd promised to hold your hand in, as I'd promised to do down any hallway. Neither of us would be walking away from this with out scarring: blood, burns, & bills. Cuts, crimes, & crashes. Friends left us, we pushed them.
You never stopped screaming, I never stopped grinding my teeth. We found the lifeless body of The Water Creature, we buried him by the river and a single, small, pale narcissus flower grew up. The prophecies, hallucinations, fireworks and tornadoes we knew were coming for us never surfaced. Had we stood up to the bizarre fate we saw, and won? Or had the delusions of the fever finally ceased? We crawled from bed, two rickety, creaking frames: a marionette holding her own strings, & a skeleton made of cigarettes and Christmas lights. We shuffled to the window to find the rain coming down, and giddy, I leaped out the front door and you cowered in the closet. You watched me from within the house as I strode down the block.
I would return to that house, after the sun was out, to find it crumbling. Our home, our temple, our archive, our barracks, and our bath still stood. You sat on the lawn with a brass lamp in your lap, and beamed up at me. "It had all come from this." you said, quietly, wonderingly. "The promises, the guesses, the lies, the hurt, the sickness, the dreams, the aches, and the allegories. And yes," You said, reading my mind, guessing the joke, "Also, the long lists." You held the lamp up to me, and as it passed from hand to hand, the lack of shock or current or any other feeling was as telling as any roll of thunder. The thing was empty, a shell, but all the same- A lesson. You'd passed me a relic. You'd told me a fable we'd lived through. "A djinn." I said. "No wishes." you answered. I tossed it aside, and reached down to help you up. You sprang to your feet without taking my hand, and our eyes met for the first time in our entire lives. I nodded. You shrugged. We walked inside to find two doors, side by side. "Have those always been there?" I asked. You laughed and admitted that between the two of us, you'd be the least likely to remember. "You don't remember them either, then?" You asked. I conceded that between the two of us, I'd be the least likely to tell the truth about the architecture of our home. We each of us opened a door and with a comic unison, jumped back with a fright. Two hallways stretched before us, dimly lit, walls crowded with doors. We faced each other. You gnawed your lip. I ran my hand through my hair. A grin slid slowly across your face, as I felt my own smile form. "Race?" I asked. "Set Sail!" you bellowed, and we took off, running.
I tried to take you with me on a road which wasn't yours, you led me, howling, down a hallway I'd promised to hold your hand in, as I'd promised to do down any hallway. Neither of us would be walking away from this with out scarring: blood, burns, & bills. Cuts, crimes, & crashes. Friends left us, we pushed them.
You never stopped screaming, I never stopped grinding my teeth. We found the lifeless body of The Water Creature, we buried him by the river and a single, small, pale narcissus flower grew up. The prophecies, hallucinations, fireworks and tornadoes we knew were coming for us never surfaced. Had we stood up to the bizarre fate we saw, and won? Or had the delusions of the fever finally ceased? We crawled from bed, two rickety, creaking frames: a marionette holding her own strings, & a skeleton made of cigarettes and Christmas lights. We shuffled to the window to find the rain coming down, and giddy, I leaped out the front door and you cowered in the closet. You watched me from within the house as I strode down the block.
I would return to that house, after the sun was out, to find it crumbling. Our home, our temple, our archive, our barracks, and our bath still stood. You sat on the lawn with a brass lamp in your lap, and beamed up at me. "It had all come from this." you said, quietly, wonderingly. "The promises, the guesses, the lies, the hurt, the sickness, the dreams, the aches, and the allegories. And yes," You said, reading my mind, guessing the joke, "Also, the long lists." You held the lamp up to me, and as it passed from hand to hand, the lack of shock or current or any other feeling was as telling as any roll of thunder. The thing was empty, a shell, but all the same- A lesson. You'd passed me a relic. You'd told me a fable we'd lived through. "A djinn." I said. "No wishes." you answered. I tossed it aside, and reached down to help you up. You sprang to your feet without taking my hand, and our eyes met for the first time in our entire lives. I nodded. You shrugged. We walked inside to find two doors, side by side. "Have those always been there?" I asked. You laughed and admitted that between the two of us, you'd be the least likely to remember. "You don't remember them either, then?" You asked. I conceded that between the two of us, I'd be the least likely to tell the truth about the architecture of our home. We each of us opened a door and with a comic unison, jumped back with a fright. Two hallways stretched before us, dimly lit, walls crowded with doors. We faced each other. You gnawed your lip. I ran my hand through my hair. A grin slid slowly across your face, as I felt my own smile form. "Race?" I asked. "Set Sail!" you bellowed, and we took off, running.
and after they ran for a minute, they realized that both being stricken with asthma the racing thing just wouldnt work... so they decided fly like a hummingbird and raven and then text each other the progress...
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