Just a handful of writing impulses. Thanks for all feedback, always. :)
-
i. you light up my day
-
Evey flopped on the sofa upon returning home, loose-limbed and wearily comfortable, the scent of street exhaust tangled in her hair.
'Someone asked me out today,' she informed me. There was a peek of a laugh behind the solemnity.
'Indeed?' I said dryly, sprinkling more sage on the chicken. 'And what did you say, pray tell?'
'Indeed, what do you think?' she teased. 'They think I'm single.'
Naturally. Of course. 'I presume this is intended to conjure my green-eyed monster?' A flick of the ladle demonstrated my absolute unconcern. 'Ah, defend us from the capriciousness of the fairer sex!'
Evey giggled and padded up from behind, arms around waist. 'You're always say such ridiculous things when you get jealous,' she sighed.
-
ii. but save our poetry from our mirrors
-
Let's skip the prose. I'm beautiful and you're charismatic.
Now what?
Let's go even deeper. Bare our throats.
I liked you and I hated you. You found me and you lost me. Your average paperback novel, bookmarked in the middle. The plot thickens.
And then you told me 'I fell in love with you'. Do you know you kill a girl with those words? No knives. No blood. Just a man and a woman, the same story. Just those words.
Don't give me prose. Don't give me pretty words. I want words that go straight for the heart, bypassing niceties. That grip you by the teeth and won't let go.
Like 'you came back'. Like 'this is the most important moment of your life'. Like 'we are in love'. How unlucky. How unlucky.
-
iii. a many-sided thing
-
If she had to confess, really confess, this how she once wished to fall in love:
Drunk, singing ridiculous songs and crying with laughter over stories they'll be too embarrassed to remember tomorrow, late into the night. They will be in the warm dilution of a Parisian-themed café—see, how fantastical it has already become—and the only customers left; he will grandly order another bottle of merlot, waving away her weak protests that come more for the sake of appearance than actual reluctance, and the owner with gruff, heavyset jowls will relent and bring it because his wife will be foolishly teary-eyed with the nostalgic passion of youth, and what is one more bottle if it makes her happy. They will be drunk enough to dance barefoot outside the café, old magic in the air, cobblestones underfoot and a twirling, dizzying breath of feverish laughter and bright eyes, the furtive slip of skin against skin, fingernails clutching at silk and threads. She will insist on splitting the check with him-- this unseen future lover of her imagination who has enduring flaws and compelling strengths-- and they will stumble their way home, muffling laughter in the crook of each other's shoulders, pressing moist whispers in the secret hollows of the ear, making love with fingers entwined. In the morning, they will exchange awkward looks and make foolish jokes about their lost footwear and they will discover they both prefer tea over coffee, and they will look at each other over the burnt toast and smile. And that is what she had always associated falling in love with: mediocre wine with a surprising twist of tartness in aftertaste that redeems it, warmth flushing her skin like the rich perversion of afterglow; love like chocolates and music and domestic spats, heart-wounds survivable as paper-cuts.
If that is love, she has never been more badly out of love than now.
-
iv. and the truth is….
-
If he had to confess, really confess, he would have nothing to say on the matter.
Love was an idealist's myth; Evey is a natural disaster.
But he repeats himself.