Anti-Ordinary—a JONAS prose poem
(something that can't decide if it's a story or a poem. yeah, it's temperamental that way)
Note: This is pretty out there, I know. And probably hard to follow. Sorry. But suburbs' A Spoonful of Sugar made me want to take a stab at something involving Joe and Macy. Plus, pyrolyn-776 put a teaser up for a story called "Malice in Wonderland" that I'm dying to read. And I've wanted to try my hand at the poetry thing others do so well… All those things inspired this piece of—well, whatever you want to call it. O_o And camirae, I'm so sorry. I'm working on "Potions" as we speak. It will be updated by the end of the week if it kills me.
Believe it or not,
when Joe was a kid he loved to read
_________(you're surprised already, I bet)
Stories about heroes
______(and even a few heroines)
who stepped out of their b o r ing lives and founded
some new fantasmic world
_______(no, that's not misspelled. it's a neologism -- look it up)
be it--Neverland, Terabithia, or even W o n d e rland.
Stories that blatantly defied anything ordinary
because, really,
is there anything worse than being ordinary?
_______(Maybe.
But not to Joe.)
.
When he first meets Macy Misa, he brushes her off.
She's just another fan.
An ordinary girl
who likes him not as Joe,
_______(the person: complex and multi-faceted)
but as 'Joe'
__(the carefully marketed playboy: forever a connective unit of JONAS ¬hing else)
.
Don't misunderstand
It's not that he doesn't love his fans.
They're the reason he l i v e s this very unordinary life
________(and for that he'll always thank them.)
But, in all honesty, he prefers it when they're standing a safe __|| d i s t a n c e ||___ a w a y.
.
And there is no 'safe distance' from Macy Misa, superfan.
Whether within five feet or five yards—
she's sure to cause damage.
Sure, to some extent it's funny
. . . the way she gets so excited to see them.
It's a compliment for sure.
But it's also annoying.
He sometimes wonders why Stella even bothers with her.
_________(How mean, right? You're thinking K e v i n would never think that about a fan. And you're right. He's the nice one.
Nick probably would. His mouth curves in a deep frown when he's irritated. But he'd keep quiet. He never says anything that might be bad for business.
But Joe's the moody one. (at least sometimes). And when he's t i r e d of something, every part of his body shows it. It drips off him in visible layers.)
.
So he makes it a point to stay away from Macy.
It saves him a trip to the nurse's office
And stops him from being overly rude to a girl who didn't really do anything wrong.
She can't help it.
She's just another normal,
run of the mill (o r d i n a r y) girl.
And that's not her fault.
He even feels a little sorry for her now, on the rare occasion she crosses his mind.
But at most, it's an afterthought.
.
Anyway, tonight he's sitting on cold concrete outside Horace Mantis Prep. Leaning against a stublly stucco wall, waiting (not too patiently) for Stella and Nick to finish whatever it is people (read: suck-ups) do on after school projects.
He's in a sour mood--having just read a review that described JONAS as a "dispensable pop sensation riding the fickle-tween-craze to fame." Never mind that they wrote every song on their album. That Nick plays every instrument known to man. Or that they've never lip-synced once in their lives. It's like every ounce of blood and sweat they'd poured into their new album doesn't matter because people can't get past their age. Or their audience.
He's tired of it and shoves the magazine away, watching as it skids down the concrete. (It's trash anyway.)
When !!BAM!! the door to school f lys open
three feet away from him
and out walks the most gorgeous legs he's ever seen.
Tawny, caramel colored legs
in four-inch fluorescent fuchsia stilettos
walking like they've got somewhere to be.
.
Joe is momentarily frozen to his seat.
.
He blinks a few times to recover and then lets his gaze focus on the steadily shrinking figure in front of him. Her dark hair is tied back in a messy up-do, but long strands escape and fall in waves down her back; it b ounce s up and down as she treks away from him. She's wearing this puffy purple skirt that's really very strange. Like an iridescent taffeta or something. Stella would know what to call it, but whatever. It's all sparkly and short (hence the visual feast of her legs mentioned earlier) and the girl looks almost like a fairy on the loose.
Nick once said that Joe would've been a skirt-chasing cad if their parents hadn't raised them so strictly. That's the thought that enters Joe's mind as he gets up from his spot on the ground and literally chases after the mystery girl.
.
His heart's beating
____(paTHUMP paTHUMP
____like he's stepped off the stage
____and heard the ROAAHHR of the crowd for the first time)
and he's running to catch up with her.
_____(how does she run so fast in those heels?)
.
Fairygirl just bounces onward
____(you'd think the girl ran marathons or something)
over hill and dale
and football field,
her purple pumps leaving grooved imprints in the damp grass.
.
She stops in front of a hole in the ground
____(when did they start digging up the football field?)
and Joe sucks in air for his overworked lungs,
____(who knew he was so out of shape?)
reducing his speed so as to appear somewhat nonchalant
when finally approaching her.
But before he can make his move she jumps
----j u m p s (!)---
straight into that hole and disappears.
Like Alice going
d
o
w
n
the rabbit hole
-flash- and she's gone.
.
And suddenly images of every book Joe ever read runs through his mind like pages turning on their own. And it's like he understands. He understands why Wendy had no second thoughts about jumping out her window to chase the sky for a boy she'd only just met. Or why Alice knew to follow that rabbit down a dark, dirty hole.
They had to.
In one moment,
they realized that extraordinary things
awaited them
on the o t h e r side.
But you can't get there without jumping over an edge.
So, Joe did.
(to be continued…one day)