09-15-2019, 04:05 PM
love is really nothing
but a dream that keeps waking me
She expects him to be irritated by her. She expects to see that flicker of annoyance she has grown so accustomed to, the kind she seems to spark from nearly everyone. There must be something wrong with her, she thinks, to be able to rise that emotion from so many. She wishes she could be as bold as her brother, or as silver-tongued as her mother. She wishes she could be like her father, who can command attention to himself without trying.
Somehow, she had slipped through all the cracks.
Where they were fierce, she was mild. When their tongues grew sharp, hers always stayed kind. Everything about her was whisper-soft and shy, and her family were all like grenades with their pins pulled, begging for a reason to detonate. She feels forgotten next to them, all vibrant and brilliant in their own ways, and she learned to be content with being a living ghost.
But he says her name, with a smile that doesn’t falter from his lips, and she doesn’t realize that she had been holding a breath. She blinks her dark, velvety blue eyes, and watches him with a newfound fascination, wondering why he doesn’t leave. “Rembrandt,” she is careful with his name, like it is one of the delicate snowflakes that tumble from the sky and cling to her lashes and the silver strands of her mane. When he moves to stand alongside of her she is suddenly strikingly aware of each stutter of her heart, the way it flutters like a hummingbird behind her fragile breastbone.
“It always stops eventually,” her voice sounds loud against the hush of the snow, even though she speaks so softly, afraid that she might push him away if she’s too loud. “But I kind of hope it doesn’t today.” She steals a glance at him, heat flushing her cheeks, not even sure what had possessed her to say such a brazen thing. Maybe he won’t pick up on it, that underyling hint that being stranded in a snowstorm with him wouldn’t be such a terrible thing – but that impossibly timid, shy part of her doesn’t even know what she would do if he did.
Somehow, she had slipped through all the cracks.
Where they were fierce, she was mild. When their tongues grew sharp, hers always stayed kind. Everything about her was whisper-soft and shy, and her family were all like grenades with their pins pulled, begging for a reason to detonate. She feels forgotten next to them, all vibrant and brilliant in their own ways, and she learned to be content with being a living ghost.
But he says her name, with a smile that doesn’t falter from his lips, and she doesn’t realize that she had been holding a breath. She blinks her dark, velvety blue eyes, and watches him with a newfound fascination, wondering why he doesn’t leave. “Rembrandt,” she is careful with his name, like it is one of the delicate snowflakes that tumble from the sky and cling to her lashes and the silver strands of her mane. When he moves to stand alongside of her she is suddenly strikingly aware of each stutter of her heart, the way it flutters like a hummingbird behind her fragile breastbone.
“It always stops eventually,” her voice sounds loud against the hush of the snow, even though she speaks so softly, afraid that she might push him away if she’s too loud. “But I kind of hope it doesn’t today.” She steals a glance at him, heat flushing her cheeks, not even sure what had possessed her to say such a brazen thing. Maybe he won’t pick up on it, that underyling hint that being stranded in a snowstorm with him wouldn’t be such a terrible thing – but that impossibly timid, shy part of her doesn’t even know what she would do if he did.
Dove