(no subject)
Then I saw someone sitting at the top of the stand. It was a skinny boy with lots of curly hair. That was all I could tell. He was slouched over, his elbows on his bent knees, and he was looking out at the dark, moon-iced, foam-sizzled waves intently, as if he could see the whales or dolphins or magic islands or phantom ships.
Then I wanted to go into that water. I wanted it so badly that my mouth stung like salt and my skin tingled and I stood up and ran down to the shore. I wanted to go into the waves and find the things the boy saw. I knew that it was better than what I was, than what my life was. It was something deep and far and soothing and dark and bright. It was without pain. It was like falling into the surging liquid herd of waves and becoming one of them and becoming nothing and everything at once.
What was the sorrow of this boy? As I danced the visions came. A boy crying under a bed in a dark room. A boy shivering from cold, dreaming of sun to burn the chill away. A wound on the inside of his thigh. A boy on a bus running away from home to live in a lifeguard stand by the sea, a boy who pasted wings to his back as the only way he could escape the pain of who he'd been before. A boy who could not touch because if he touched he would remember things he needed to forget, reopen wounds he needed to keep sealed. A boy who could be safe and untouched as long as he was an angel, an angel and not a boy.
Afterwards I came and lay beside him. My heart was like the waves.
He took off his glasses and I saw, clearly, for the first time the bones of his face. "Your heart is beating so hard," he said into my hair.
His voice didn't startle me. It was if I'd heard it all those other times he'd spoken silently.
"I was so scared," I said. "I was shaking."
"You are beautiful, Echo."
Then i said "It doesn't matter anymore." I just needed him to see me, feel what I felt. I just needed to dance for him and lie like this by the sea, with our tiny blue ark for when the flood came in.
And then I cried a flood of tears as if I really were a mermaid who had absorbed too much sea into herself. The tears spilled like a balm, like a potion, like a charm. In them swam a little girl who's mother was dying without every having seen her. In them swam a girl who longed to know everything, be better at everything so her family could actually recognize, who she really was, the magic-the thing the girl envied more than anything else in the world, the thing that made her invisible, the most precious thing-might be dying too. In them swam a green-haired girl who had never been touched by the boy to whom she was so devoted to that she would have lived with him forever in a shack by the sea or a ruined castle even if he never had the love she had for him. My tears were for me, but they were also for him. They were to wash away the thing that had frightened him so much so long ago. The thing that had hurt him so deeply. The wound inside his thigh. My tears poured out of me and he drank them down his throat. He drank them in gulps deep into himself, swallowing sorrow.
"Someday," he said, "when we are ready, I will give you back your tears."
When I looked up he was gone. I thought of the wings. Were they false, were they real? They were beating inside of me
<3
Then I wanted to go into that water. I wanted it so badly that my mouth stung like salt and my skin tingled and I stood up and ran down to the shore. I wanted to go into the waves and find the things the boy saw. I knew that it was better than what I was, than what my life was. It was something deep and far and soothing and dark and bright. It was without pain. It was like falling into the surging liquid herd of waves and becoming one of them and becoming nothing and everything at once.
What was the sorrow of this boy? As I danced the visions came. A boy crying under a bed in a dark room. A boy shivering from cold, dreaming of sun to burn the chill away. A wound on the inside of his thigh. A boy on a bus running away from home to live in a lifeguard stand by the sea, a boy who pasted wings to his back as the only way he could escape the pain of who he'd been before. A boy who could not touch because if he touched he would remember things he needed to forget, reopen wounds he needed to keep sealed. A boy who could be safe and untouched as long as he was an angel, an angel and not a boy.
Afterwards I came and lay beside him. My heart was like the waves.
He took off his glasses and I saw, clearly, for the first time the bones of his face. "Your heart is beating so hard," he said into my hair.
His voice didn't startle me. It was if I'd heard it all those other times he'd spoken silently.
"I was so scared," I said. "I was shaking."
"You are beautiful, Echo."
Then i said "It doesn't matter anymore." I just needed him to see me, feel what I felt. I just needed to dance for him and lie like this by the sea, with our tiny blue ark for when the flood came in.
And then I cried a flood of tears as if I really were a mermaid who had absorbed too much sea into herself. The tears spilled like a balm, like a potion, like a charm. In them swam a little girl who's mother was dying without every having seen her. In them swam a girl who longed to know everything, be better at everything so her family could actually recognize, who she really was, the magic-the thing the girl envied more than anything else in the world, the thing that made her invisible, the most precious thing-might be dying too. In them swam a green-haired girl who had never been touched by the boy to whom she was so devoted to that she would have lived with him forever in a shack by the sea or a ruined castle even if he never had the love she had for him. My tears were for me, but they were also for him. They were to wash away the thing that had frightened him so much so long ago. The thing that had hurt him so deeply. The wound inside his thigh. My tears poured out of me and he drank them down his throat. He drank them in gulps deep into himself, swallowing sorrow.
"Someday," he said, "when we are ready, I will give you back your tears."
When I looked up he was gone. I thought of the wings. Were they false, were they real? They were beating inside of me
<3