sit there, rain in your eyes.
the entire world glitters tonight, sparkles crushed underfoot. like fairydust, fallen from the 're coated in that - and yet the black of your eyes has none it. you just can admire, though, wishing that you could twist shift change and be one of those beautiful, glittering pieces: doesn't everyone? god knows you're broken enough, sharp and fallen and out of place, one of many whos faces blend into a motorcycle ride at two in the morning, blurred. what a blurred world it truly is, without the bright, reassuring clarity of those teenage years. it scares you that the memories don't come. but that's what faded photographs stuck in between notebooks and trunks are for, for reminding you that there was a time when you didn't envy broken liquor bottles smashed in a dirty gutter, soaked with rainwater and yet so beautiful to someone who doesn't remember.
she knows this feeling - its a vacant, seedy motel in her stomach, carved out by iron, butterflies droven out with sticks and stones. there's no room here for doubts. it's how she works, anyways - do what needs to be done and don't stop to think about it. it's a stupid way to live: racing through life not checking around the corner, just a swift iswerve/i just to hear that whoooosh of winning in your ears that keeps you going until the next big leap, until the next second where you may be or not be. it's what she lives for. that sense that yes, you're alive, and that is so bittersweet. a passing car shoots by like stars and its red light glimmers on the slick pavement, dawdling, before disappearing into the black hole at the end of your vision, bright flowers blooming behind your eyes as a punishment of admiring such bright-bright-too-bright things on such a dark time. what is this you feel? shame, perhaps? that facetious little chuckle of pain inside that carved out hole inside you, which you will to think nothing or anything? if you think, you might possibly die. it's a dangerous and strange thing. she doesn't fear dying anymore - what's one more person among hundred? and the fact that it's her, who has commited thousands of sins and slept with other boys and smoked cigarettes and gone skinny-dipping(which feels like such, isuch/i a long time ago - another life) is better than some innocent muggle who has no idea what or why or how they died, simply a green beam lighting up the world all they remember. she'd rather it be her than seeing glassy, oblivious eyes, whimpering young children, and those couples, goddamned couples, who they sometimes find holding hands, interwined one last time, and no one even knows what she would fucking ido/i to those bat-shit crazy bastards if she could. she doesn't know.
if it wouldn't mess up her world, if there's anything left to mess up. who knows? maybe this is her last night, maybe around that next alley she'll be cornered by death eaters and that'll be 'the end' of marlene mckinnon. she likes to dwell on what-ifs, in the spare time that doesn't exist. what if the order was never formed? what if she'd been a slytherin? what if she'd been born a pureblood instead of a pile of steaming shit mudblood? what if she hadn't eaten that piece of cinnamon toast for breakfast? (well, honestly, marlene can tell you the answer to that one - her jeans would bloody fit right.) but now her clothes hang off, her hair hangs loose, as do the pools under her eyes. she is sheer contrast in its most raw form, made of all loose drapes and at the same time she is edges - sharp, raw, untouched edges that can swipe a room of all conversation at a word or make her want cry at night, alone, though the tears can never spill, just hang suspended forever. what these loose curves and sharp edges add up to, she has no idea. but that is a common thing in these times. why doesn't anyone understand? she just doesn't iknow/i. no, mum, i don't know whether i'll be able to visit for christmas. (i don't know if i'll be alive, you see.) she can't say things like that. if marlene, who's supposed to be the confident, badass, i-don't-give-a-damn one, gives up, who does that leave? everything crumbles like their support has fallen in on itself, and it's dust. everything is dust. what kind of person would that make her, then? evil, perhaps, death eater material? marlene laughs at that one, herself as a death eater. the order wouldn't stand a chance with marlene wielding her sharp tongue and merciless wit, unleashed, for once. they'd be scared. she would see the fear in someone's eyes, truly. she needs to see that. she's tired of being weak and tired and exhausted, all the time. for fuck's sake, they're itwenty years old/i. goddamit, no one that age should be wondering if death is around the corner, should be being awoken at three in the morning to rush to a muggle's house and find the lot of them, five in all, dead, limbs torn and tear tracks still fresh on their faces. she should be out clubbing, hooking up with strangers, drinking her bloody guts out and then puking it all up in the back alley, screaming and dancing and laughing and living, not striving to get atleast five hours of sleep this week.
slightly intrigued and mostly enraged by the idea, marlene slips out a cigarette from the back pocket of her faded jeans that have seen the world more than she has, opting for a lighter instead of the risk of her wand. this puzzles her especially, had she noticed. at other times, she would've jumped atrisks, gobbled them like apple tarts fresh from the oven. a deep, thoughtful drag doesn't calm her slightly shaking hands, marlene notices bitterly, stubbing the cigarette on her palm, wincing at the slight burn. she drops it to the pavement and crushes it with the toe of her trainers, adding a smear to the canvas of broken glass and shifting light that the city brings. it's a warm, just rained sort of night, where war casualties sqoosh under her trainers and her leather jacketis nothing but a familiar comfort snugging her body. suddenly inspired, marlene does some sort of ballet leap turn, jumping up higher than a deer and pointing her toes inside her canvas trainers. she used to take ballet, a long time ago, some 10 years or so, and she knows this one is a complicated name with lots of double 't's and the such. only after she lands and completes a shaky pirouette does marlene realize that she's laughing, that famous marlene laugh that she's missed so much. unsure, she smiles again and there it is, that hoarse but horridly beautiful laugh, lilting and raspy. and all of a sudden, that's all there is. laughter, laughter, and marlene feels so silly for being such a stupid angsty worrywart like she used to make fun of, and that's all there is, that beautiful imperfect laughter. and you just dance, you just fly, throwing your entire soul and heart out there to just ibe/i like you didn't even remember to do, but now it's so beautiful. the entire world sparkles behind her, unfocused, blurred. the cheap neon lights from the seedy adult club across the street beams across her face, changing. a man with hood drawn black over his face raises his eyebrows and goes on, but marlene doesn't notice. she doesn't care. the stranger is gone, inside her. who knows? what if? to be or not to be, and the answer is becoming clearer. she still doesn't know. she doesn't know, but now she doesn't care. life and death and beauty will go on.
and despite the swirl of rain and tears and concrete polaroids like stones in your stomach, the phoenix rises. the entire world sparkles.