Disclaimer: Don't own.
A/N: Okay, Bella rambles. I know this. The letters are her thoughts. Completely uncensored, just there on the page. Her thoughts skip and bleed and sometimes don't make sense. There may or may not be a reason for this. *winks*
As always, hugs and kisses to lifelesslyndsey for being the inspiration to this story. Go read her fics.
Chapter Three: The Second Letter
My dearest Jasper,
Dear, dear, dearest. My love, my love, my love. I sing it. Sing until it becomes song and stays. With me. For eternity.
But first, you should know this is not some nonsensical love song. My love for you. You should know that. Love songs are blue backdrops. Purple persuasions for a yearning population. What this is, is an unlikely comfort. A silly soliloquy of somber simplicity. If only for me. If only.
That's the fucking story of my life. If only. Yours too?
And second, despite what the once perfect boy said in the woods where I was left broken and alone, broken and fucking alone, my mind is not a sieve. Broken, broken, broken, yes, but not a fucking sieve. I remember everything. I remember all the time. Even still.
Even still I think about them, the once perfect boy and the waif-like girl. Even still. I still miss them. Not the control or the pixie wings. But them. You. All of you. I still miss the too-tight hugs of the silly bear, the too-gentle words of the healer, the too-soft touches of the homemaker. Even the too-strong glares of the lioness. I miss them all.
Even now. Even after the once perfect boy tried to destroy me with words and the waif-like girl destroyed you to let the once perfect boy destroy me with words and taunts and lies. They failed and I still miss them.
I miss you.
I was thinking how this all could've been avoided. Could have, would have, should have been avoided if we had all admitted the truth. Admitted the truth to ourselves. Because what if?
What if the waif-like girl had admitted the moon was her power, wax and wane, wax and wane?
What if the once perfect boy had admitted he hated the silence, loved the control and hated the silence?
What if I had admitted I loved you? You and not him, never him.
What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if......
It echoes in my mind until I remember that I hate what ifs. I fucking hate them. I hate what ifs but I remember.
I remember my daddy, who was kind and quiet and quietly kind. When I was a little girl, all small and two left feet, and hungry for life and love, my daddy would smile and whisper something beautiful. Hunger is the best spice. And it's true. So true. When I left, left the town and left the ghosts and left my daddy, he looked at me the same way he did when I was eight and in love with the universe. And I never got the chance to tell him he was right.
I remember when once upon a time always, always ended with happily ever after. This is not my style. Or yours. Very few, so few, can dream outside the box. Can invent new games where sparks fly like shooting stars and bring new loves with each new day.
I remember you, my radiant one. I remember the words that inspired the stars in my eyes. I remember the rapture of wind and rain and his love. Back when I still believed in wind and rain and his love. I remember the iridescent color of your eyes during the grayest of my years and they way they danced like candlelight to the music of my soul.
I remember beauty. The innocent beauty of your hand on the small of my back. The look in your eyes. The look of your soul. I remember my dreams, or dream, it's always the same. Even still.
My dream is about you, or for you or maybe, possibly it is your dream and I just watched it unfold on public television. I can't be sure.
Anyway, in my dream, they (they?) speak Spanish. Mucho gusto, etc. It's a more of a chant. Or maybe a chore. A life philosophy, if you will.
If you will follow, that is.
You've come this far, I have to wonder, shouldn't, but I have to. Do you understand? Would you, could you perhaps be willing to go a little further?
Allow me to explain.
After you left that night, that stupid fucking night, I began counting the minutes. I counted, added and bottled. Bottled and committed to memory. I could, would, won't tell you in exact detail how full the bottle is, but you know. You already know.
The sharks never left, never leave, could never leave me alone after that night. I was alone and they knew it. Fresh meat. I hated high school. Fucking sharks. They never leave. They never left me. They'll never leave you too. I thought you should know this. You already do. And the words or the thoughts or both never leave and make you question. Make you question your own thoughts etc... All the reasons you dot your t's and cross your i's. And the thoughts or words or both crawl like ants at Sunday picnics. And you try to stop them, but can you? I can't, never could. I won't stop them. And I know that you know.
And I know what you fear; to slip with such complexity in to what we would be, could be, should be forever: Lovers, friends, children, poets, dreamers, soul mates etc... Taking each moment to find such simplicity in perfecting the way we kiss.
But let me tell you what you may not know.
This is (not) an ordinary day, but an ordinary life full of ordinary possibilities. An ordinary day full of the reality and righteousness of a long forgotten love.
But I haven't, can't, will never forget.
This is not an easy task. Life, that is. It is the night sky in a bottle. It is beauty bound by hate. Loved laced with cyanide.
And this is (just) another moment. A simple section of time split wide open like some childish dream about the vastness of the universe.
We all, we and me and you want to look back, to remember the good days. The innocent days. The carefree, careless, stoned school days. The Friday night football, be home by curfew, Strawberry wine, No. 2 pencil days.
Perhaps that was before your time.
Anyway, back in those days, before the temple of unrequited love lectured from his soapbox, lectured from the parents, teachers, televisions, dealers, I hung out with the Third Street Anarchists that summer. We made up conspiracy theories in the backyard over tequila shooters and acid tabs and when god left, because he did, when god disappeared I left that small town prison for the city of dreams, where the anti-existentialists rule and nothing alters everything. Everything is altered. Even here.
Anti-existentialists. Bah. They're worse than the sharks.
I have discovered something interesting. Maybe not so much interesting as painful, fucking bittersweet. The drug of choice here, here in the city of dreams, here in the gallery of god's mistakes, the drug of choice here is amnesia.
Because the heart is never fully done with grief. Never done and you know this. The heart is never done with grief and it can only ever be buried. Buried and only by the really great liars. The great ones who can push it deep and deeper until it's nothing more than the occasional rumbling, the occasional sinking in the pit of their stomach.
And while I'm good, I'm not great.
My daddy once revealed the greatest secret of all to me. He said, baby girl, cause that's who I was, he said baby girl, even the stars have their secret charms. And boy was he right. I watched the stars fall, fall like a slow, sneaking criminal knocking down the door. I watched the stars fall like the single flake of snow that causes the avalanche. And no one could stop it. We couldn't stop it. My daddy, my stars. They all fell. The resulting matter/anti-matter explosion, the metal had sounded. A shot in the blackest night. They all fell.
Will you do me a favor?
Go to Marcy's Flowers on Spring Street. Buy a fire and ice rose, fire and ice because it is me and you and life. Take it to my daddy's grave. Tell him I miss him and love him. Miss and love both him and you.
Fire and ice. Stars fall and we sigh.
I know someone is still out there somewhere, maybe it's you. Or me. Someone is out there in a place where the wind is hushed. Where children dance joyfully in the silent streets that have no desire to rewind the world. Not yet. No need for the city's drugs. No idea that before they can blink, fucking blink, they'll dream of life before the wind. Of a time when the stars that fell were for wishes and not a means to mark the time between explosions.
I stashed sunlight in sulfur-stained attics for nights like this. The nights when stars fall and beautiful archangels beckon. Whisper and wander and lead. The stars fall and tonight I wish. I wish for you. Selfish, I know. Completely fucking selfish. You are not mine. But I wish. I wish, I wish, I wish.
Because if you are reading this, than maybe...
I have a proposal for you. A chance or a choice. I want to share my life with you, share on paper, in friends and hearts and minds. Will you follow? If I write the words will you read them? The choice is yours. The words are out there. It all begins in Lubbock, Texas.
Always, always, always yours,
~Bella
A/N: Questions? Comments? Please review.
