wb :

Song-based prose based on Damien Rice's "The Blower's Daughter". Was aiming for semi-melancholy, bordering on vague angst. Pardon the atrocious syntax. For those unfamiliar with the song, the lyrics are in italics.
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I watch her standing by the sea, just slightly beyond the borders of dried, sand-abraded grass, swaying in time with the crash of the dark-blue glass-waves embracing the shore, embracing the sparkling spirals of quartz and shell and the aged rocky-cliff faces of the limestone towers.

I taste the cold sea-spray on the tip of my tongue, but I am not sure if it is the dead salt on the white-foam crests, or the remembrance of a memory of the taste of my own tears.

She is still as beautiful as ever. I know that. She always has been, and always will be, standing by the ocean while her hair fans out, caressed by the zephyr breeze. Yet I wonder if she still sings, sings for me.

Did I say that I loathe you?

I stand beyond the borders of the sand-abraded grass. Beyond the gold light of her hair, the soft crying call of a voice.

I can't take my eyes off of you.

I feel the same path on my gaunt cheeks being cleared, by the same acid tang of the same substance that flows from the oceans into the heart. The heat of summers long forgotten and the catch of autumn air burn my skin ochre and red and blood-deep as it always has; maybe if I close my eyes I will stop the rivers from flowing back into the sea.

I feel the soft crush of sand beneath the soles of worn leather shoes, the border grows ever closer, and the sand-abraded grass brush past unfeelingly against calloused, torn fingers.

I can't take my mind off of you.
I can't take my mind off of you.

I want to touch
You.
Again.

The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial.

I can catch the scent of calla lilies and soft vanilla. I wonder if her skin still tastes the same. I wonder if she still thinks of me, like I think of her. I wonder.

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I wanted to leave it all behind?

Did I say that I wanted to leave it all behind?

The sky turns pale sepia, like an old photograph, stained with rings of old, cold coffee. I want to reach out for the gentle slope of her shoulder, like I used to, but I am afraid that if I do she will disappear like the fragments in a dream.

Fragments that flow with my tears to the sea.

I can't take my eyes off of you. Most of the time.

But I know she knows.
I know she knows that I know.
And I know that I
can't take my mind off of you.

Did I say that I wanted to
Leave it all behind?

But now she stands facing the dark mirror of the sea and she is her own river pouring the waterfalls of her heart back into the ocean where they become my own lake of sorrows.

In the distance of two feet, in the distance of years long past and an aching void left in repayment, we've both forgotten the breeze. The kiss of the wind atop the same limestone cliffs we used to overlook. The breath of our faces close together, in sweet silent bliss.

She is beautiful.
You are beautiful.
You have always been beautiful.

No more promises, I can promise you no more.

No love, no glory.
No hero in her sky.

Just like you said it would be.

Not one of my better pieces, so, R&R!

Cheers!
Bern

Labels: prose