°o.O I n ﯼ a n i t y R e a l m O.o°

I don't know why my fingers itch over these keys;
As though every muscle were trying to resist.
Try as I might I cannot put them at ease,
And so all the vital notes are missed.

I hear the melody surging through my head,
I can feel the harmony in my heartbeat;
But I know that my heart needs words to be said,
And so the music is bittersweet.

Although my voice rings loud and clear,
The verses that I sing are not at all true.
What the lyrics need is evident to the ear:
What this song needs is you.

You are something all songs need more of,
Because you are the one, the only, love.

I am intelligent because it is the solution to all of my problems.

I want to figure everything out and have it fall into my lap like a perfectly unfolded napkin.

I want the best for myself because I feel like I can be the best.

But how can I accept the best in these circumstances?

I feel like I've been a pampered princess all my life, although my childhood was far from pampering.

I am not afraid of hard intellectual work or physical labor.  I only fear emotional pain.  I hate being sad.

I love to cry.  It gives me a throbbing headache to do it, like the tears want to stay inside and bubble and boil with my feelings until they spill over, hot on my cheeks.  Then I can go to bed and wake up with salt on my face, wash it off and have that pleasant, empty feeling behind my eyes.

I'm afraid of my mother.  Genuine, mortal fear. When she is around, it is like my life is in danger.  My sanity, my achievements, my everything is at risk of tumbling over and shattering.

I love him; not passionately, but softly and quietly and in moments.  It's the kind of love you marry and are discontent with after many years, because you realize there could have been so much more.

I miss the fire.  I looked at his body, remembered the feel of it, but the fire was gone, gone, gone.  I do not know what I was thinking.  All that remains now are those terrible, scalding burns of where I used to hold him, the excitement of that single moment, the wonder at having him right here in my arms.

That being said, I do not miss him.

I want a different kind of love than the kind I have now.  I know it is unbelievably selfish. 

I love him like a child.  I place him on my lap, my hands beneath his head, my head on his chest, and I watch and listen to and feel his sleep.  I realize that I love him like a mother loves her newborn baby--that overprotective, overwhelming, covetous love.  I know he does not love me the most.  I cannot be angry or jealous about it--it is only the way of things.

I don't need material things anymore, the way I used to.  I've learned the value and the deficit of greed for the substantial.  Now I only lust after the sentimental, the intangible.

I have a vision of my life that has been corrupted by the currect economic situation.

My zen apartment and young adult life spent on TV dinners, in clubs and bars.  My mornings spent at a cozy cafe, my laptop on hand, my mind daydreaming, my fingers typing ceaselessly with an eagerness of their own.  Going to the park with my oversized dogs, jogging, eating eye candy.  And then, later, the hectic life of a woman who's married herself to her work.

Will that kind of freedom ever be mine?

I'm worried.  I'm worried about the state of this house, of the people in it.  One of us will break, and I'm afraid I know who.

I'm still the lost little girl you recovered on Alanbull Square, muddy and splintered around the edges.  My jeans are still grass-stained and ruined beyond all repare, my socks are a week-old covered in holes and grime.  The chain on my bicycle still knocks out of orbit and I crash to one side, usually the side where there are vehicles approaching, and my hands are still brown and patterned from my dirty basketball.  I run barefoot on the pavement, in shorts when it is cold.  My hair is still a long nest of twigs, branches and other earthy remnants; I still smell like sweat and outside and the flowers at Alton Towers park.  My mouth is covered in chocolate, ice cream and pain, the teeth behind my cracked lips are crooked and obnoxious.  I carry myself with the unwavering knowledge that I will forever remain as I am, despite how the years drag onwards, tugging me forward with them.

I would like to say that I am still covered in the fragrant, vivid beauty of my youth, but although I carry the badges of my past around me like a veil, like a garment I refuse to put down, the person inside has become old and withered.  I have grown up, like they said I would, leaving you and the innocent crunch of leaves and melted molasses-spice cookies forlornly behind.  The peach-fuzz on your chin and the warm blue of your eyes, like the stream with the sun shining on it, the crackle of your voice, so dear to me.  The strawberries in your cheeks as you proclaim yourself winner yet again, the ungraceful sway of your ever so graceful, gangly limbs. 

I say it like I am proud, like I have any reason to be proud.  I have grown up and you never will.

I think I used to be smart.  I think I used to be responsible.  I think I used to be a leader.  I think I used to be honest.  I think I used to be dependable.  I think I used to be pretty.  I think I used to be hardworking.  I think I used to be determined.  I think I used to be compassionate.  I think I used to be helpful.  I think I used to be kind.  I think I used to be thin.  I think I used to be athletic.  I think I used to be literary.  I think I used to be friendly.  I think I used to be popular.  I think I used to be a daughter.  I think I used to be a friend.  I think I used to be a sister.  I think I used to be a girlfriend.  I think I used to blink.  I think my hands used to move.  I think my mouth used to smile.  I think my heart used to beat.  I think I used to be a person.

Not that I've lost everything that makes me human,

I think I'm just average.

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I've found a boy who makes me feel like a girl. 

Who makes me feel silly and stupid and clumsy and lovely. 

I've showed him my soul and I've given him my heart and he's torn one apart and smashed the other to pieces. 

But what can I do?  That's love for you.

It's always fine for a while,

And everything's going well,

And I can almost be happy with what I've got.

Until I realize I'm selfish--

it's me, it has to be me, because she can never be selfish--

and there's no one.

Sometimes I wish I was one of those aborted babies,

or miscarried pregnancies,

or just unfertilized eggs.

Would have been her best decision.

Because then I could be no one, too.

I stuffed my hands into my old black jacket, my chubby fingers near frozen in the icy wind.  I pulled out the little packet of sin, and he grinned uncontrollably, looking all the boy I had missed from years ago.  His dark hair rustled in the wind, and his light eyes shone with excitement.  His jacket was black, and his jeans were worn and faded.  He had grown from the last time I'd seen him.

We stood under the bridge, the dark water of the Rouge trickling just beyond where we stood.  It took a great deal of slipping and sliding to navigate the large stones that led down here, but we all made sacrifices.  For me, it would be yet another rip in the baggy pair of jeans I had dug up for today.  I felt unbelievably homely in them, but they brought back the memories of a time they had fit better.  They had always been this long, though.

Not for the first time, I wished I had worn my marshmellow jacket; the huge puffy white one that probably would have made him laugh and look at me like I was mad.  That wouldn't have fit with the person I wanted to be right now, though.  So I stayed quiet in the cold, listening to Lacuna Coil play from a small stereo on a nearby rock.  The hard rock hardly seemed to suite how calm we felt.

He leaned down on the gravelly ground, trying to get his fingers around the fag properly.  The position was awkward, so he just sat, cross-legged, his back to the wind.  A thrill of adrenaline rushed through me, but only once.  It had been a long time since I'd done something this bad.  I watched him wrap the precious jumble of leaves, his violinists' fingers long and nimble.  He had always been better at it than me.  I played the piano and the saxophone, and the guitar, too, but I wasn't very good at the last one.  I think it was because of that that I had always been hopeless at rolling joints, probably.

Finally, it was done, and he gently tucked the remnants back into the Ziploc bag, passing it back to me.  I put it back into the pocket where it had come from, and he produced a lighter.  The flash of flame seemed out of place on this grey, dank day, but I welcomed the first drag, inhaling deeply.  I thought I could feel the alveoli shrivelling up and dying in my lungs, but I held the breath as I passed the joint to him.  He breathed deeply, too.

We held it there.  I had never been fond of the taste it left in my mouth, but the feeling that came after was worth it.  He grinned at me; he hadn't exhaled yet, and we stood there watching each other, waiting for who would give in first. 

I did, finally, exhaling a huge cloud of smoke that all but masked my face.  He smiled his winning smile and did the same.

He took out a pair of scissors, so that we could maybe save the rest of the joint for next time, but I held out my hand.  "One more," I said quietly, already feeling a bit light-headed.  I didn't know when the next time would be.  He laughed, a beautiful laugh, and gave me the last drag.  I savored it just as I had the first, watching as he snipped off the smoking end of the fag, tossing it lightly into the Rouge.  I watched it struggle away in the trickling water, slightly regretful.

He offered me the wrapped joint, and I took it, putting it in the Ziploc with the rest. 

"And now I have something for you," he said, giddily.  I couldn't recall whether or not he had been good with smoking green.  It would be terrible if he fell in the river or something.

He shuffled around in a book bag he had tucked behind the stone the stereo was on.  It now played Led Zeppelin, and I smiled at the familiar music.  Stairway to Heaven was our song of the moment. 

He pulled out a bottle, waving it wickedly at me, and I laughed in delight.  Absolut Vodka.  My favorite.  I didn't ask him how he had got it; that would have been like him asking me where I had gotten the green. 

We settled next to each other on the rocks, huddling slightly against the cold.  He took the first sip, made a face, and then handed it over to me.  I drank just as deeply as I had dragged.  It felt so good to sin again.  It burned as it went down.

We sat like that for some while, the alcohol slowly warming our blood.  By the time he got up, we had downed half the bottle between us and I had all but forgotten my own name.

He took a last swig before standing.  "Dance with me," he said with surprising clarity.  The song was My Own Summer by the Deftones, not exactly a song you could dance to.

I myself took a last mouthful as I thought of my answer.  I could dance with him, and I could give myself up to the world I had left so long ago.  I could return to that place where I got drunk on school nights and went to school high and got suspended and stabbed occasionally.  But, I realized, I had changed, no matter how often I met here to submerge myself in sin.  I had changed, not them.  I was older now, and I would expected to have sex.  I went to a goddamn private school full of kids who didn't know their elbows from their asses.  You couldn't skip a day there to get high--they'd call home and tell my mother. 

If I said no I would go back to my good girl life, with my books and homework and exams and my stupid boyfriend who'd never took a drag in his life, who paid me no attention when it mattered, who had goddamn bedtime to adhere to.  I could go back to that, or I could dance with him, and I could kiss him and end up with my hand down his pants.  I could fail the rest of the tenth grade if I so wanted.  But, if I thought about it, I liked my glasses and I liked my idiot boyfriend. Goddamnit, I liked him.

"Maybe another time," I told him, capping the bottle and settling it on the ground.  I climbed the rocks all by myself, with a few mishaps.  I felt rejuvenated, as you often did after revelations made over a bottle of Absolut Vodka.  Maybe I'd regret it on the morrow, maybe I wouldn't.  I walked over to the bridge, pulling out my Ziploc bag of sin.  I considered throwing it into the Rouge.  I thought long and hard.

In the end I put it back into my pocket and walked home.

Tangled rose vines, lost, weaved their way up the stone walls, blossoming a valiant red against the morbid grey.  It looked like blood seeping between the cracks of something beautiful, when in fact that blood was the only thing ever pleasing.  The roses leant warmth to the cold, as though they tried to spill themselves into the shadowy bowels of this palace, tried to relive the wonders and tragedies that had once taken place within its walls.  Outside, it was a haze of turrets and battlements, towers and bridges, a vast expanse of stone now smoothly weathered with age and element.  Inside, it was all dusty marble, chipped away by scurrying creatures who were now its only inhabitants.  Golden chandeliers and majestic tapestries, all stolen, it was now as barren as its exterior--lonely.

Once upon a time it had been beautiful, a place brimming with joy and bustling with all sorts of important people.  The type of men who wore princely clothes, satins and leathers, with heron marked swords rubbing their legs.  Some were adorned with clinking silver armor, their faces hidden by the malicious grins of a helmet.  The ladies, oh, the ladies--dressed in gowns of silk and cotton, all velvet smooth skin and glossy hair.  Pearls embroidered across their hems, gems shining on their swan necks.  Once upon a time, a King, gracious and kind, and his Queen, scheming and greedy, resided in this castle.

They had a daughter.  Her name is not relevant, for all names grow old and forgotten with the pages on time, yellowing and fragile.  When touched, they crumble beneath harsh fingers--her name, so sweet and beautiful, could not even begin to scrape at her elegance.  Her hair was the color of roses in full bloom, roses with sunlight always glinting off their petals.  Her face was fair, fairer than any, with eyes as twinkling as stars.  She was slight, and young and innocent. 

And then, in the village about the castle, there was a boy.  A peasant, but a noble boy, ever humble and kind.  He was often dirty, but his heart was so forward that none could critisize.  His name, too, is meaningless.  What are names in the face of a great love?  And love is what happened, for the boy, young and rogueish, broke into a ball where as he set eyes on the princess, fell instantly in love.  And she, curious and naive, smiled at him, and when he smiled back, she felt a stirring in her breast that she had never held guest to before.

Their romance was whirlwind and forbidden, but words cannot begin to describe its scope.  A tense coil of emotion that fluttered and ached within their chests, that bloomed and tickled when they were together.  Although they were together sparingly, it still found time to grow.  Sitting among kingly fountains, spraying cool water across their intent faces, eyes needling shyly, hesitantly into eachother's.  For her, he washed himself in the river, and came smelling of rainwater to her balcony--and for him, she bathed with the petals and nectar of the sweetest flowers, to him smelling like ambrosia.

They were heaven, fallen angels together in kinship.  She was oft drowsy with his love, and he walked the streets barefoot and dazed.  They spoke about nothing when together, and when apart thought of everything.  As though eachother's presence alleviated the harsh pressures of the world, as though nothing could possibly trouble them when their hands were clasped and their lips pressed.  It seemed the world was beautiful, then.  In spring the trees would blossom pink, in summer the grass would grow lush.  In autumn every leaf kissed the ground beneath their feet, and even in winter the snowflakes were designed in the shapes of their love.  It was perfect.

But then war broke out.  The Queen was a resentful and nasty woman; and as her daughter's love obediently joined the militia, her informants involved her in their affair.  Furious by her daughter's secret happiness, she threw the militia into battle without the King's knowledge, ultimately damning the whole land.  The army was defated, her daughter's loved murdered in battle, and their land was taken.  All men were killed, women raped and children enslaved.  The village was burned.  Trees were chopped, the grass trampled.  There were no more leaves to fall, and there was not a season since for a hundred years when the snow did not run red.

What happened to the fair princess is not known.  Many thieves refused entrance to the castle for fear of her vengeful spirit.  Her balcony, the ballroom and the gardens were said to be haunted, her young life taken from her, her young love annihilated.  Although the balcony had fallen into ruin, the ballroom some lost corridor in the maze of confused passageways, and the gardens a wild, deadened excuse for life, it's said she walks on her own, in her own world.  Barefoot and dirty, she pads along the palace, tending the roses that grow so vibrantly up the walls, one side of her face rottened and bleeding, the other the picture of perfection.  Perhaps the half of her body adorned in a her ripped gown and bruised limbs are testimony to what became of her beauty.  We shall never know.  Some say she stabbed herself, others say she set her rooms afire and burned in them.  It's a fate riddled in mystery.

Still, the palace remains, a desolate reminder of a past gone awry.  Perhaps the story of these two lovers, and the stories of many other lovers, play and replay in its halls.  Perhaps the scarred princess paces restlessly for her love.  Mayhap the the marble floors are stained with invisible blood, licked away by some formidable creature, mayhap from the ceiling hangs the head of the gracious king and his detestable wife.  No one knows for sure--not with fairytales, anyway.