Since my plot to brainwash Joss Wheden hasn't paid off yet, none of these characters belong to me. Only the story itself, and the poems Buffy & others write herein.
Enjoy!
Poetry In Motion
Chapter 1: Homework
You huff
and you puff
and you suck
the smoke down;
So it can chase
your desperation
the way you chase
me around.
I will never see you except
as a Has-been Big Bad
merely
brain bleached
to protect
the sheep
or be Stabbed
What's it to me these feelings you have?
Your tobacco habit
lasted longer
than
your soul.
Buffy Summers looked up again at what she'd written so far. It was 20 lines and might barely be enough to be called completed poetry. Completed poetry meant Assignment number 63 completed! Seven more original poems spit out on paper and staked through their picky syllabus hearts and she was free (now- again and louder for the dying brain cells out there) FREE of Poetry in Modern Times. She hated the way those words poetry, modern, times, all looked so innocent and general when not strung together to form the name of the course she'd just spent the last 14 hours slaving for. It was supposed to be a cake class Buffy's well meaning brain had told her when she signed up for it. Buffy had looked at the course guide and seen the light--her hope of grade salvation in those 3 deceiving words. Poetry ought to have translated to "be able to read and B.S. a bit" Modern meant poems written for non-geeks to understand and Times...well that was just like a promise that any body living in the now could pass.
*Sigh* Nobody had the Tao of Now down like she did, so it was a real shocker when the one class she could ignore in favor of her real and actual problems dropped this "write 70 poems yourself with each poem meeting the criteria listed for it's number" crap on her. Oh, sure maybe if she'd been working on it all six weeks, instead of nursing her cancerous mother back to health, instead of protecting her suicidal not-sister from gods and monsters. INSTEAD OF BEING THE SLAYOR...she could have been done with the project by now and sleeping soundly. Or better yet partying with the Scoobies at Pacific Fun- the new theme park that just opened in Fresno. Friends and family were off for a weekend of thrill rides and park food so she could do her project undistracted and INSTEAD70;But it had taken her 4 years to realize that there were no insteads. Buffy began chuckling out loud. This was irony or something wasn't it? It would be in the notes somewhere...it would explain the term for when you spend every waking hour avoiding your lone gifts and downplaying your unending fight with evil so you can hide in home and school and friends 'cause they're constant. Until you are truly ready and working your ass off to be all the slayer you can be- that's when the constants go down for the count. Family falls apart, so you miss school, but school doesn't matter cause you're being Super Slayer this year, and friends are supportive but worried about how you're falling behind in school! That's irony right? She seemed to always have everything under control except the right thing. So Buffy had decided to reach for her goal to BE slayer with no excuses, and in that choice every other constant in her life took to doing imitations of the L.A. quakes.
Why was she thinking like this anyway? Wasn't the self-reflection poem # 50 or something? God! Doing the Buffy brood fest wasn't going to get her work finished any faster. Brood...Angel. Angel. Otherwise known as the subject of poems 21-32. The first love one, the most painful moment one, the physical comparison sonnet -Hey! His features did make him the easiest subject for that one.
Speaking of subjects, why was Spike the object of observation in her latest foray into forced creative talk that rhymed? Oh, yes! The criteria for number 63 called for her to write about something or someone that repulsed her. After the London undead head had told her the "thing", had mentioned those sour somethings in her hearing there hadn't been anyone higher on her Upchuck Hit List. Even now three days later, the whole incident was like a canker sore on the roof of her mouth. A constant annoyance that only got bigger and redder and harder to avoid as time went on; the pointless pain of it polluting the taste of everything else. It was so difficult to concentrate on anything, especially poetry. How could anyone get any work done when faced with the fact that SPIKE LIKED THEM!!! Just think about the last lady love that lived with such a burden. Okay, Drusilla was crazy to begin with but that's the mental state it would take to like such a lying, swaggering, Icky creep. The fact that he used to have something to swagger about was no excuse. He'd spent a hundred years or so all "oh, I'm a vicious vampire with a cockney accent. Be afraid!" So what? Now he had a microchip put in his head and somehow he'd mistaken it for a sensitive side and decided he had the HOTS for the slayer? Sick didn't begin to describe the flaws in Spike Logic if it lead him to really believe he was a changed fanged man. At least as a villain she could kind of respect him. He did what he wanted in accordance with his demonic nature. He forced her to be cautious of him. He had to be taken seriously. This "new leaf" delusion was now the scariest thing about him. Besides, she thought to console herself, he doesn't even want y-o-u. He wants the s-l-a-y-e-r. It was all there in this eyes that time in the alley. The talk about "dancing" and how she, Buffy, desired death, when in reality she could look back on it and realize that he was just putting up a smoke screen to cover his own need for self-destruction. Spike couldn't handle being neutered. So his festered little brain had convinced himself that he cared for Buffy because she was his vision of death made flesh. He was too much of a coward to kill himself and he didn't scare her enough for her to bother stakin' his sorry carcass. He didn't love her. He didn't. He couldn't. This whole pathetic plea was just his way of pissing her off enough to make her dust up after him. But she'd be damned if she let herself do his shirky-work. The best thing Buffy could do about Spike..the only she would ever want to do was dismiss him from her thoughts.
"So do it." a small part of Buffy's mind begged. "If he doesn't matter to you, and you can't possibly be anything but his suicide pill to him, then why write the poem?"
" I was angry! Disgusted. It's normal a normal emotion to write about!" Buffy replied to herself.
"But not so normal to be able to think about nothing else. Spike spoke and a part of you listened. A part of you always did." came the traitorous internal whisper.
"SHUT UP!" Buffy started at the sound of her voice breaking a silence her room had known for hours. Too many hours. "I'm just way overdue for break time!" Buffy confided to the stuffed plush hippopotamus sitting at the foot of her bed. The very fact that she felt a need to respond to it's permanent look of concern proved her point.
No wonder so many poets wind up drunks or wacky. Spending all that time cooped up with yourself, trying to coerce your thoughts into being not just what you think, but something flowing and profound to others. It was consuming and strenuous. Not the kind of physical strain she was accustomed to. No, this project didn't wear on her muscles but on her inner self. She never tried to look at her life in any kind of detail. Now thanks to stupid Professor Helgason, she was gonna get graded on it.
With these thoughts swirling around her head, Buffy pushed her Poetry Notebook off of her lap and stretched full body on the bed. What she needed now was a few quick relaxing stretches with particular attention paid to her neck and sore wrist mussels. Her body ran though the rolls and the tucks..arched this...relaxed that. Buffy giggled remembering the "wide-eyed, drool dropping" look this particular exercise produced on Xander and every other guy Scoobie who'd happened to see it. None the less it did get the job done. She sprung up off the bed and cartwheeled to the door of her bedroom. She felt the tension of homework drain away as she bounded down the stairs two steps at a time. Just as she reached the foyer her stomach grumbled. Great! Another sign that her "10 min. break" must be delayed into a full out Eating Dinner Hour.
'You know Miss Summers, things are looking up', Buff thought as she walked into the kitchen. Visions of Mom's left over linguini prompted her to head straight for the refrigerator. It wasn't until she had the door open and was fishing out container after container in order to find the linguini that she heard the voice behind her.
"Hey Hon! So do you slayers have super stuffing abilities too? Gotta admit I couldn't think how your type has enough fuel to do the *steaky thing all hours, plus protect my key and still manage to keep that "scrawny" look that was so in last year. Eating is such a mortal thing. Figures you'd do it well."
Buffy's entire body stiffened. The mental fog poetry had held her in all day dissipated leaving her mind hyper-alert and battle ready. Carefully she put the container she held back into the fridge and closed the door. Then in one graceful movement she straitened up and turned to address the honeyed blonde woman who was clad in a strappy red pantsuit (definitely designer something) and lounging on the counter before her. "What do you want Glory?"
_______
Well, thus ends the first chapter of Poetry in Motion.
If you ever want there to be a second, then please R&R!
I want to know what your thoughts (only as the pertain to the story)
and feelings...favorite ice cream. Whatever you want to say,
Just do it! =)
* yes the pun was intended. Sorry folks - author
