12-28-2015, 10:07 AM
She is old; very, very old - ancient even, grizzled and swaybacked but somehow, still alive - trapped in this miserable existence that ever only had one bright shining moment in the rain. The old mare cannot stand the rain, the smell of petrichor afterwards is as warm and inviting as their broken love had been, and she cannot look at a blackbird the same way either. It all reminds her of him - the only one she ever allowed in, ever allowed herself to love in whatever miserable capacity she was capable of loving him in. By now, she has forgotten all those long years ago how she became so marked inside and out by scars, by her own pure despondency, that they are all that she has now - empty but vivid reminders that this is who she is: sorrow personified. Except when she was around him, because he was more broken than she was and somehow, their two broken selves made an imperfect whole.
Clock is earthy, grounded - he was not, he was winged and godlike and could touch the sky in a way she never could, but she never envied him that because he was always rooted to her, to their deep abiding love, even his blackbirds settled amongst them, perched on their backs like common cowbirds, and roosted there in their strange sorrowing presence. Misery loved company and it loved them best, the black stallion and the painted mare. She is thinking of their familiar embraces, necks wrapped around necks and lips touching skin - always touching skin, like they could never get enough of one another. Clock ought to have stayed, but she always felt the pull of something other than him - something that urged her feet to move tirelessly, much in the way that he always took to the sky and flying, some natural instinct that made them separate and come back together, time after time.
It is cold, achingly so, a bone-deep ache that chases the warmth right out of her and she thinks achingly of a long ago beneath the sheltering embrace of a great black wing… No Clock, stop these thoughts now! She shakes the snow out of the tangling hairs of her great shaggy mane and the thoughts get shaken right out of her head, memories that go tumbling off like strange imps. There is no time for pestering remembrances, only perpetual motion because she doesn’t know how to stop except for that one time… Stop! She is harsh in her rebuke of herself, gnashing her old worn down teeth together, so full of angst that animates her ancient flesh more so than anything else. It wasn’t life that made her move, never had been - it was always the world’s sadnesses that she swallowed up and ate, that kept her fat and fed, and she was all the sweeter for it, her eyes brown and knowing in that world-weary way of those that have seen way too much and cannot forget it all even if the memories stay in the shadows.
The mare dislikes this place and what it conjures up inside her - hope, a mere kernel of brightness that she cannot keep from shining in her sad old eyes. It was always here that she found him, found respite from the rain that each of them had friended in their misery. There is only snow and bleakness now, and that seems somehow rather fitting. She plods along on a slow wandering vague course that has no purpose or destination; this is simply how she has always been, old and slow and doddering. The tedium is maddening but she never wakes long enough to be that vibrant creature that once stood at his side, flushed with love and madness. A scent stops her, stays her course long enough for her to scout about with nose and eyes, the scent more maddening than curious because fury is an ember rolling along her bones but it burns out - it wasn’t him, just a memory, she tells herself.
In the starry night, the ugly old mare passes by a large stallion preening his wing and she never looks his way because he’s a shadow of a time long ago that she cannot bear to see. He’s the shadow at the edge of her eye, full of magic and mystery, that makes her want to look but if she does, he’ll fade away and she cannot bear to those this thread of him now.
Clock is earthy, grounded - he was not, he was winged and godlike and could touch the sky in a way she never could, but she never envied him that because he was always rooted to her, to their deep abiding love, even his blackbirds settled amongst them, perched on their backs like common cowbirds, and roosted there in their strange sorrowing presence. Misery loved company and it loved them best, the black stallion and the painted mare. She is thinking of their familiar embraces, necks wrapped around necks and lips touching skin - always touching skin, like they could never get enough of one another. Clock ought to have stayed, but she always felt the pull of something other than him - something that urged her feet to move tirelessly, much in the way that he always took to the sky and flying, some natural instinct that made them separate and come back together, time after time.
It is cold, achingly so, a bone-deep ache that chases the warmth right out of her and she thinks achingly of a long ago beneath the sheltering embrace of a great black wing… No Clock, stop these thoughts now! She shakes the snow out of the tangling hairs of her great shaggy mane and the thoughts get shaken right out of her head, memories that go tumbling off like strange imps. There is no time for pestering remembrances, only perpetual motion because she doesn’t know how to stop except for that one time… Stop! She is harsh in her rebuke of herself, gnashing her old worn down teeth together, so full of angst that animates her ancient flesh more so than anything else. It wasn’t life that made her move, never had been - it was always the world’s sadnesses that she swallowed up and ate, that kept her fat and fed, and she was all the sweeter for it, her eyes brown and knowing in that world-weary way of those that have seen way too much and cannot forget it all even if the memories stay in the shadows.
The mare dislikes this place and what it conjures up inside her - hope, a mere kernel of brightness that she cannot keep from shining in her sad old eyes. It was always here that she found him, found respite from the rain that each of them had friended in their misery. There is only snow and bleakness now, and that seems somehow rather fitting. She plods along on a slow wandering vague course that has no purpose or destination; this is simply how she has always been, old and slow and doddering. The tedium is maddening but she never wakes long enough to be that vibrant creature that once stood at his side, flushed with love and madness. A scent stops her, stays her course long enough for her to scout about with nose and eyes, the scent more maddening than curious because fury is an ember rolling along her bones but it burns out - it wasn’t him, just a memory, she tells herself.
In the starry night, the ugly old mare passes by a large stallion preening his wing and she never looks his way because he’s a shadow of a time long ago that she cannot bear to see. He’s the shadow at the edge of her eye, full of magic and mystery, that makes her want to look but if she does, he’ll fade away and she cannot bear to those this thread of him now.