MAYAKOVSKY
1
My heart's aflutter!
I am standing in the bath tub
crying. Mother, mother
who am I? If he
will just come back once
and kiss me on the face
his coarse hair brush
my temple, it's throbbing!
-
then I can put on my clothes
I guess, and walk the streets.
2
I love you. I love you,
but I'm turning to my verses
and my heart is closing
like a fist.
-
Words! be
sick as I am sick, swoon,
roll back your eyes, a pool,
-
and I'll stare down
at my wounded beauty
which at best is only a talent
for poetry.
-
Cannot please, cannot charm or win
what a poet!
and the clear water is thick
-
with bloody blows on its head.
I embraced a cloud,
but when I soared
it rained.
-
Frank O'Hara
-
-
Blair stood quite still in the empty stone courtyard, listening to the cold tinkle of water falling from the fountain and the wind whistling through the chestnut trees. The waltz had ended, and she heard no music from inside. It was January in New York City—she could see her breath frosting the air as she breathed in and out—in and out—but only a little; she was hardly breathing at all. She touched her fingertips to her face; they were cold as marble. Only her thin blue dress protected her from the night air and it had begun to snow, but she didn't even shiver. She felt oddly calm and detached. She looked up at the stars and the infinite dark sky—she felt so small against all that boundless darkness. Some snowflakes fell on her face; she didn't even blink. They clung to her eyelashes. She sank down on the stone rim of the fountain and trailed her fingers in the icy water, her face still upturned to the sky. Her fingers did not feel the cold water. She felt nothing at all.
A light beamed out in the darkness, suddenly; the front doors had opened and a tall, fair-haired boy had stepped outside.
The young girl sitting by the fountain was still staring upwards blankly, oblivious. The boy came closer, peering anxiously through the gloom. He saw the reclining figure of a young girl with skin pale as marble, utterly silent and still with upturned face and a hand resting in the water of a fountain. She was dressed in shimmering sapphire and there were pearls and diamonds fastened to her curling dark hair. At first he thought she was a statue, so otherworldly she seemed.
He came closer.
"Blair?" he asked, shocked. "What are you doing? It's freezing out here!"
The girl turned slowly to look at him, her expression blank.
"Blair," he repeated, "how long have you been out here?"
She still didn't reply.
"You've been missing for half an hour," he pressed. "Have you been here dressed in that for thirty minutes?"
He took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders and rubbed her upper arms to keep her warm. She didn't move.
"Blair," he sighed. "You're so strange sometimes. I hardly know what to say to you."
"What's there to say?" Her voice was halting and slow; it looked like her lips were numb.
"Well, actually," Nate replied, raising his eyebrows, "there was something I wanted to talk to you about, but it looks like now isn't the right time."
He watched her closely; the life was coming back into her eyes. It looked like she was stirring, awakening from some deep sleep. She started to shiver inside his coat.
"Come on," he said, offering a hand. "Stand up. Let's go back inside."
She took his hand—her own fingers were like wands of ice, and his eyes took on a worried expression.
"I'm fine," she said, answering his look rather than his words. She got to her feet.
"What was it you wanted to say to me?"
"Later," replied Nate. "First let's get you warm."
"No," she answered firmly, drawing the jacket close about her. "I want to stay here a little bit longer."
"Blair, I don't think—"
"I'm staying here," she reiterated. She looked determined, and when Blair Waldorf was determined about something there was nothing Nate or anyone could do about it.
"Fine," Nate muttered, recognizing this.
"What did you want to say?" she repeated.
"Well," he began cautiously, "just that…well, you might not have noticed this, but—my feelings," he paused awkwardly, "for you…have changed. A lot. I really like you, Blair." He turned away as he continued so he wouldn't have to look at her in his embarrassment. "Actually, I'm crazy about you."
I'm crazy about you. The words echoed distantly in her ears. Such a typical, normal thing for a teenager to say about the girl he had a crush on.
He turned back to look her in the eye, blushing a bit. "I know this isn't a real engagement," he went on, haltingly, "and you probably just think of me as a friend, which makes sense, but…I don't know, we're going to be in this together for a while…at least until school ends…and I've been engaged to you before, Blair, but it didn't work out, obviously—" he was having trouble expressing his thoughts. Nate had never been very articulate, she thought dimly.
"What I'm saying is," he continued, exasperated with himself, "it doesn't have to end this time, unless you want it to." She raised her eyebrows.
"I know that sounds presumptuous. But I love you, Blair, and if in six months or so you decide you feel the same way, I would be very happy. So I was just hoping you could give it—give us—another chance." His cheeks had flushed dark red and he was having trouble maintaining eye contact.
The first real declaration of love she had ever received, she noted absently. Also the first real proposal. How different it would have been if it had come from someone else…someone with darker eyes, more complex and less limpid than the set she was faced with now—someone braver, or perhaps just more reckless—he would have looked at her straight, with calm confidence, and presumed that she would agree to marry him. Arrogant, really, now that she thought about it. Or maybe he would act completely differently from her imaginings. It was impossible to tell, because she would never hear a declaration of love from Chuck Bass; it was not in his nature to make one.
"Blair?" Nate looked anxious and embarrassed, and Blair realized she should have said something. She had been silent for too long—the silence was stretching out and out, unspooling, tightening. She could see the pain in his eyes.
"Sure, Nate," she said, finally. "I guess we could try dating." The words sounded silly to her ears, but not to Nate; he grinned.
"That's great," he said happily. He was not an observant person; he did not see the vacant expression in her eyes, the tightening of her jaw. She was smiling at him, but it was a small, fake smile; more a tightening of the lips than anything else. He leaned forward to kiss her. She thought, inexplicably, of Chuck's hands on her neck and jaw, his thumb tracing her bottom lip, less than half an hour ago. The expression in his eyes when she told him to let go.
Nate was unquestionably better-looking than Chuck, she thought now, stroking his check softly while he kissed her. He had the features of a male model—not to mention the lithe, athletic and sculpted body. He was unquestionably a better person than Chuck was. He had been a neglectful boyfriend in the past, it was true, but the blame didn't rest entirely with him; she could admit that now. He had been too young, he had been forced into it by his family. And Blair had been a difficult girlfriend; she had had her rigid notions of how things should be and she could not tolerate that reality should be any different from her perfect dream world. She had stifled him when he did not fit that mold of what her perfect boyfriend should be, when he was not a one-dimensional prince charming. She was beginning to grow out of it now, thank god.
But Nate was wonderful—he loved her now despite all her insecurities and despite their history. He was generous and affectionate—never cruel. He respected her—he would never humiliate her. And on top of that he was beautiful. With him would come the Archibald legacy, the Vanderbilt ring, security, a high rank in the elite circles of the Upper East Side.
Of course, none of it mattered. Chuck's lightest touch had sent electric shocks up and down her spine; during those few inconsequential seconds with Chuck in the courtyard she had felt alive for the first time in months. Now, Nate was kissing her with all his might, and she felt nothing at all. Worse than nothing. She felt hollow.