A Gray Watch Underneath The Blue-Black Sky

There was a long blue bench surrounded by yellow ochre maple leaves on the still-green grass by the vine-covered stone. Red leaves climbed the chapel walls, but the sky was gray.

She sat erect on the edge of the long blue bench. The wind blew and rustled the maple on the ground then caressed her cheek and tugged at her long wavy hair. She shook her head and it settled back on her shoulders. Today is not a day for fun and games.

Gently nestled within her slim fingers was an old watch ticking, and she felt between the groves on the watch’s band, her fingers routinely roaming through the smooth metal surface. Her eyes were held onto a gaze too far away to see the approach of the young man she sat straight for. Yet, a gentle patter of footsteps brought about an immediate sense of his presence. The familiarity of his arrival, of welcoming woody notes from his favorite scent and faintly clinking jeans engulfs her. Smile, she told herself, and smile she did. But how could I smile when he’s looking at me like that?

He sat on the other side, not close enough to comfortably hold, not far enough that they couldn’t touch. She wore a sheer white blouse with puffy sleeves, white knee-length loose skirt and her long dark tresses flew with every whisper of the wind. A small feather necklace hung from her smooth neck, and two little studs for earrings. She smiled a smile he’d seen often that others far less intimate never knew, and took her for always possessing such cheer. The side of her lips painfully forced into a natural tilt upward, the only cursor to this unwilling act were her deep brown eyes that cascaded waves of sadness onto the intent beholder.

They sat thus, drowning into each other.

Because time was meaningless between their gaze, she didn’t know when she tore her eyes from him and hung her head down while she reached uncertainly out. He took her trembling fingers with an equally uncertain hand. Should I hold it firmly? Should I stroke her? Or do I just loosely support it? He held her tightly, lying through their hands that everything will be okay.

Now hunched so that he couldn’t see her face, she stretches out her other hand, in it a gray steel watch. The minute hand was crawling above the blue-black sky diagram within its gold rims, and when the watch came closer he felt like he would be sucked into the blue-black surface and be left suspended in its starless sky if he took it. But he, too, reached out his other hand and took the gray band from her.

The blue-black sky was the first picnic under the stars in his backyard; was the color of her hair for a few weeks on a whim after her short-lived obsession with vampire fiction; were the dark cherries she loved so much that he popped into her mouth; was the day they swam together in a cold creek and held each other, chilled and frozen, so tightly that they were one body. The blue-black sky was the backdrop to his bare back as he made love to her one star-filled night. Blue-black was also was the night he threw his hands up in disgust and stormed away; were the bruises left on his body after the fistfight with her brother. The blue-black sky was when he called her out and gave her his last bouquet of white azaleas and walked away before she could see the tears streaming from his eyes.

So he took the watch and wore it, his left wrist adjusting again to the once familiar heaviness. She was still looking down, her hair falling into a messy tumble before her face, like the day they lay in the cool dark meadow and she’d fallen asleep on his lap. He took her face in his hand and lifted it up to kiss her on her downturned lips, tasting his and her mingled tears and held her so that their faces and breasts and shoulders touched. In a moment she will be gone and nothing will be left of her except an old gray watch of his that she kept and the memories underneath a blue-black sky. Tomorrow morning she’ll wake up thinking and saying I want it back! I want you back whilst running with her pulse in her ears back to this long blue bench. He won’t be there anymore. His faint existence erased from the chair that bore witness to their encounter. The chair will be cold and hard and will hold no whiff or smell of him, who sat there with her for so, so long on a gray afternoon and pitch-black night. But before that time, before she comes back with regret and before he leaves his heart on the chair, there was nothing between them that could tear them apart.

Hold me like I’m yours

I walk proud of the accomplishment that is around me, knowing that everything is done by my hand alone, that the power lies within just a few fingers and a single touch. Every living thing is under my command. I am king of this land, and i control.

This absolute authority excites me more than the first flowers of spring. How often have you seen matters truly in your own hands? that you can command even the collective feelings of man? Not often, no, not often at all. but i’ve been doing it for so long, and it still amuses me very much. Sometimes i’m kind and children love me; other times i am angry, i create havoc and people curse me. i am unperturbed by their asinine comments, who are they to command my nature anyway?

So imagine my wrath when, as i walk down my usual path on my morning strolls, a sunny hand jerks my hair and pulls me back. I turn around to lash at this impertinent stranger, and realise it’s a familiar entity. he greets me with a smile and a bow, there was warmth in his eyes, and a liveliness to his talk. he irritated me with the sight of his springy jaunt. why is it he who perpetually challenges my dominion?

He replies to my silent accusation. it is not my fault, dear sir, your mother has called. he smiles and waves a cheery goodbye and banishes me to my sad demise. Oh no, ‘dear sir’, i’m not a baby. you have no command and you won’t take me easy. as usual there’s no forbearance over his part, and i’m certainly not one to refuse a fight. he springs up and instantly hurtles a blow - a hot fist touches my cool brow. I throw him off with a side-kick and he slid from me with a little chill. our fights are always very predictable, a parry, a feint, a full punch and a well-aimed kick. soon we are perspiring, but his smile never left. i hate the knowing grin that stays in his eyes. he thinks he knows me very well.

we stop in unison to chase our breath, and pretty soon i grudgingly left. he does know me very well, we’ve been brothers since we’re born. he irks me just to see me tick but knows that i have no choice but allow him the satisfaction to smirk. My final revenge was to point to a girl, who’s now crying because i’m leaving. There, my brother, see what you’ve done! but he never allows me the last laugh, and returns me that annoying sunny smile.

with every step i take my work’s undone. the beauty that i’ve crafted unravels beneath me, and one heavy foot after the other leaves the warmth behind. I sigh a last sigh before i leave my land. we’ll meet in 9 months once again.

—————————————————-

A snowman melted on the girl’s knees, and a single shoot buds out of the unfrozen ground.

which obviously means unless i’m in some life crisis, like almost bled to death, nothing’s more important than the game and the urge to pwn people so badly they’ll spit vulgarities at the screen. Which really, is what they do every single game (e.g. CB WHY YOU SO NOOB ONE?! x100)

No joke.

But of course i have something terribly important to say. I’m the proverbial mother/wife/girlfriend who would put your needs before my own (GUILT BE INSTILLED IN YOU MY DEAR) so it would take a near-crisis for me to call at 3.30am!! In fact, i only let it ring thrice and hung up worried that i woke you up.

(DOTA LA DOTA GO)

Ooooooh that felt so good. I’m sure it’s some requirement of modern girlfriends to bitch at least once about their boyfriend’s dota habits. I’m waiting for the day i get so hooked onto a game he would be the one who has to do this to me, which then i will innocently smile and say: but dear, i was patient with you when you did it to me =)

sigh. i’m so calculative sometimes. but yes, i do rate equality as one of the more important things in general.

i’m sure he got all the jibes and hints already right? right? okay, i had fun. But the main point of this jump-out-of-bed-log-on-frantically-to-blog blue moon scenario is this:

For the kings in mind

Word by word all you proclaim
Our rule, by law, is your domain
Preach grave sins of the human flaw
Bastardise the weak, filth in your paw
The citizens suffer all your wrath
No mercy shown, who strays your path
Dictate your reasons for this tyranny
Manipulate those perplexed by this absurdity
Seal your thoughts, close (thought open) your mind
and in the end you’re the one that’s blind.

P/S: i’m sure you don’t see the significance. But in this relationship apparently our individual arts are our crisis issues. So yes, the fact that i conjured a poem of such level of hate is an accomplishment, when i was just about to fall asleep. and i is rhyme <3