[x]

the perfect strangershe misses colin the most at night, when, waking from nightmares, her hand reaches out into the darkness for someone who is no longer there.

-

an unexpected message flares briefly on her screen, long enough for her heart to drop into her stomach in surprise—her ex-boyfriend's little sister's ex-boyfriend? sighing, she types a hello and strains her memory to recall what she knows of this boy from their one brief meeting. his name is aaron. tall. shaggy bed-head hair. sleepy hazel eyes. she lightly touches the keyboard, entertaining the notion that other people might feel as lonely at night as she does.

"tell me a secret," she types to

numbit is two o' clock in the morning and i can't sleep. or i sleep too much. one of the two, and the pills make three. they stew and burn the back of my throat; the chemicals dissolve and form words.

the medical literature didn't say anything about that. or the numbness in my arms and legs. the tingling has crept up my right leg for the past week, weaving itself between my toes and nipping at the back of my knee. maybe it's a side effect, or maybe it's diabetes. or a blood clot. maybe my foot will need to be amputated, and i will have to hobble down the aisle for our wedding.

he coughs beside me, still fast asleep, and i touch one of his eyebr

heart crossed.

"who's that kid?" i ask, pointing at the boy whose hair cannot decide if it is red or gold. he holds a basketball in his small hands, bouncing it, once, twice, before putting it through the hoop in a perfect arc.

"james," the counselor responds, and leans closer. "he's a foster kid, you know."

i don't know.

the boy turns at that moment and catches me watching him. unthinkingly i form my thumbs and index fingers into a heart and flash it at him. he nods to his teammates and leaves the court, climbing the bleachers to where i sit.

"did you see my shot?" he asks.

"yes." pause. "i'm kelsey."

"i know," he says, and runs back to his game.

at

Thank You, Slater.I used to go to the nearby campus coffee shop in the early evenings, armed with a pen, a blank notebook, and writer's block. The sense of loneliness was unspoken but well accounted for.

I always shared coffee-counterspace with the same boy, who never smiled or talked and who had a penchant for bedhead and argyle sweaters. He liked to lean back on his stool, balancing precariously as he read novels, and I liked to pretend I wasn't watching him watch me. We coexisted in quiet companionship, thrived quietly under fluorescent lighting which sometimes caught his thick-framed glasses.

His novels changed while my notebook remained the same; his do

neverlandi'm giving myself ten minutes to grow up,
and with every minute that passes i am remembering
balloons and party hats and streamers
and the second star to the right,
straight on 'til morning.

every year i write myself a poem for my birthday,
but this year i think i'll write a poem about
peter pan and he'll die in the end and everyone
will be sad. i'll be the saddest though,
because there comes a point in your life
when you realize that you're not peter pan,
or wendy, or even a lost boy.

(how sad, i think, to be lost but not a lost boy.
it doesn't matter though, because neverland isn't
real and now look, i'm another year

Riding BikesGoing off medication is like riding a bike.

The doctor holds tight to my handlebars and lowers my dosage. The training wheels are off, and oh hey, look at me go! It's like flying but not, and I'm doing so well but then there's a horrible accident and I'm somehow upside down at the bottom of the sea with both wheels still spinning.

"Help," I say, and my doctor pats my head, puts a band-aid on my knee, and writes a note on my chart.

I've balanced by myself for months at a time, but I always end up hitting a fucking tree or falling off a cliff or something equally catastrophic because I am a catastrophic person. Except that is an exaggeration

thirteen ways of looking at--one crow sorrow
two crows joy
three crows a wedding
four crows a boy
five crows silver
six crows gold
seven crows a secret
that has never been told.

---

i suppose my secret is that i never told him that he is a blackbird.

he is all sleep-crooked eyelashes, dark and glossy, and his wingspan
is over seven feet long which seems big enough to pull down the sky.
i could tell him about birds as cliche symbols but his mouth is forceful,
his body is warm and needy and there is no room for literature in bed.
my hands flutter needlessly against his shoulders and i hope
i am a bird of paradise but in truth i am no bird at all.
i gue

throwing rocks.so i want to grow up and get a job and make happy, make money, make forget. i can't though, i'm too concerned with windchimes. i mean, fuck windchimes, right? i lie awake at night and listen to rigs on the rumble strip and the windchimes, (mostly the trucks), but damn, the tinkling is enough to keep me awake all night. but sometimes not, and then i dream i drown or maybe i marry a serial killer who props up corpses in rocking chairs or sometimes i dream about my ex-boyfriend's little sister because why not. then i wake up and it's taxes and credit cards and grades and people dying and shit.

and windchimes.

i don't know what is wrong with me

the soccer game.the thing is, i need
the deer to mean something.

-

i go to the soccer game and smile
and nod while something furious
inside of me is screaming.
a deer appears while the sun
is setting and it's like a scene
from a movie: green grass and gold rays
that spread out, tingeing our feet
with one last bit of wednesday.
everyone watches the deer and makes
noises of appreciation and i look
around and i think to myself
"okay, this is it, i am happy."

-

the deer is watching me and i try
to decide if it's a metaphor.
i want the deer to be death, see,
to represent fucking or blacking
out or apathy or loneliness.

someone does something

waiting.he has been there for so long that the girl sometimes wonders if he is part of the beach, if the seaweed and shells fuse themselves to his ankles at night and grow over his browned legs like ivy. he is always still, so still, eyes focused on something distant in the waves that the girl can't quite see, though she tries. the man has a face like a creased paper bag and she finds herself wishing that she could see inside his head.

she watches him all day from the corner of her eye but no one ever joins him in his vigil. he is alone in casting shadows that grow longer and longer as the sun sets. the girl wonders what it is like to be so alone an

march 24th, 2008.there is a chinese proverb that says your teeth will fall out if you tell lies.

i used to always dream my teeth would crumble from my mouth and lay glittering on the street like coins. i used to dream that the slightest touch jarred them loose, knocked them from my jaw leaving only swells of broken tissue behind. i used to dream of rivulets of blood streaming from the corners of my mouth, of thirty two pieces of myself lying naked on the ground, thirty two tooth fairies that would never come. i used to dream of screaming.

"you know," said my psychology TA, "to dream of losing one's teeth is very common. it typically means that you're concer

catharsis IIhave you ever climbed a mountain? in the summer where the trees keep you a little cooler, but you're still sweating and you're out of shape and you stop at every bench for a cigarette break. you look so thin, he says. and your hair is so long. you think you're never going to find the top and you packed sandwiches for the two of you. honey and peanut butter on white bread with water and granola bars. then you turn the corner and there it is! you can see for so many miles and you're not really sure where the sky starts and the gentle green ocean stops. he turns on music and you close your eyes and he grabs your hand. that is all you need in the

encephalitis.she asks, "is it weird to have one day where you really intensely, for no good reason, think of a dead person?"

-

the intercom was the one to announce that his body had finally given up. i don't remember what i was wearing that day, or how my hair looked, or what noises fell out of my mouth. death has dulled the sharp edges within me. this is what i do know: some people burst into tears and some people sat frozen and pale and some people simply got up and left the room.

"are you okay?" someone asked me, and i found that i was lying on the floor, though i couldn't understand how i'd gotten there. the overhead lights were buzzing and humming

fog.have you ever driven through
a fog so thick that you can part it
with your fingers? a fog so dense
that you stick your hand through
the car window and watch it disappear?

these special fogs press
heavy on your eyes and ears,
fill the dips of your collarbone,
quiet the murmurs living
inside your throat.

before i drove through this mountain
and through this fog there were bills
to pay and children to teach, people
i hated and people i loved. there were mental
disorders and electrocardiograms. fears.

now there is only the positioning
of my hands. a steering wheel. a whisper
in my ear that says "drive carefully."
a cliff a

Browse More Like This

Download File
HTML, 3.2 KB more ▶

More from ~estallidos

heart crossed.

View Gallery

Featured in Groups:

Not currently featured in any groups.

Details

Submitted: July 19, 2012
File Size: 3.2 KB

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 12
Favourites: 134 [who?]
Views: 3,041 (0 today)
Downloads: 19 (0 today)

[x]

NPR three minute story submission

by ~estallidos, Jul 19, 2012, 5:08:58 PM
Literature / Prose / Fiction / Philosophy & Perspectives / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. That low rumble had been Tom's temperamental engine; she was sure of it. The sound had tattooed itself on the inside of Anna's ears ages ago. Maybe he was sitting in the front seat of his car, trying to work up the courage to knock. Maybe his brows would knit together and his mouth would quirk and he would say, "I missed you, Sunshine," though he had never once called her by that nickname. Maybe she could apologize, and he would kiss the insides of her wrists, the back of her neck, her eyelids.
Yes, she could hear a car door opening. If she listened hard she thought she could even make out the rustle of his corduroy jacket.
Go outside, said her heart.
Wait, said her brain.
She began to count aloud. "One, two, three, four—"

-

Anna was eight when her baby brother was born. He was little more than a fragile bag of bones and organs, an accident waiting to break her heart. Every night she'd sneak into the nursery and watch the steady rise and fall of his chest, counting every inhalation.
It wasn't enough, though. She began unplugging his humidifier and his baby monitor, because what if they caught fire and his silk skin blistered and burned? She started sleeping on his braided rug, tapping the leg of his crib to soothe him. Once, twice, five times.
Always five.
Maybe nothing would happen if she didn't check that the oven was off five times. Maybe she didn't need to keep flicking the light switch up and down. She didn't want maybes, though. She wanted a definitely, and his name was Tom. Tom, who promised that she would never have to count his kisses because he would never stop giving them to her.

She counted just in case.

-

Anna pulled her chair up to the table and cleared her throat five times, pretending not to notice the tendon in Tom's neck tensing. She picked up her fork and tapped it against her plate. "One, two, three, four--"
"Enough." Tom slammed his hand down on her wrist, and she dropped the fork. It clattered against the table.
"I can't stop," she said, and Tom swiftly grabbed the fork and pressed its tines against the nest of blue-green veins on the back of her hand. Anna froze, and he placed the fork back in her fist.
"Stop or I'm leaving." His voice was soft. Almost loving.
"I'm sorry," she said, and tapped the fork against her plate once more.

-

"Five."
Anna rushed to the door and flung it open. The sunshine temporarily blinded her, and she staggered, her shoulder knocking against the door-frame. Her vision darkened at the edges, but she could still see that there was no one there. Her driveway was empty, except for the neighbor's black and white cat. It gazed at her with wide, yellow eyes.
She blinked and stared back for a moment before stepping inside and shutting the door firmly behind her. She sat down in her chair, the cushion sighing its regret, and picked up her book.
Maybe tomorrow, then.
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

NPR three minute story submissionby ~estallidos

Literature / Prose / Fiction / Philosophy & Perspectives / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

my (nonwinning, to clarify) submission for NPR's contest in which you had to write a piece of fiction, 600 words or less, that began with the sentence "She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally decided to walk through the door."

thank you for all of the beautiful, sweet, loving comments that you guys left me about the wedding. i really appreciated them, and they were lovely to come back to. for those who were curious, here are a couple of wedding pictures: [link]

also a GIGANTIC thank you to the anonymous deviant. you are a good person who does good things.

love 1 1

~~joy 0 0~~

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~eloquence-fair Nov 12, 2012

when i was 16 i found out i was going to go on a plane and had recently developed a great fear of flying so a few months before my trip i started "knocking on wood" whenever i had a thought of the plane crashing, kind of as a joke. then i started knocking for every single bad thought i got in multiples of 3s because 3 is a good number. every night i had to knock on my bedside table 300 times or else the plane would crash or my mom would die or my friends would hate me or a burglar would break in. and if i screwed up i had to start over. i was losing sleep over this because i couldn't go to sleep until i had done it perfectly. my steps walking from one place to one place had to be in multiples of 3s. except 6s because 6 is a bad number. i ate my food in bites multiples of 3s. brushed my teeth/washed my face 3 times consecutively. and i was basically knocking throughout the whole day on whatever wood-ish surface i could find. along with those "rules" one of them was that i could not tell anyone about this or else all those bad things i thought about would happen, because for some reason i thought i was deserving of punishment and had to suffer through this on my own and telling people would be sharing my burden (which is a no-no!)
over the next 3 years i slowly moved on from that rough patch in my life, although i still do some weird things. but i can easily say that was the worst few years of my life.
not sure why i'm mentioning this, but i thought i'd share my story and that it's possible to get over it (although that was kind of cheated because i just made up more ocd-y "rules" that told me not to do those things anymore)

anyways, lovely piece, it beautifully conveys what ocd is like. thank you.

~Scarlet-Obsession Aug 7, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

I'm so glad to see a new writing piece up from you!! I love it, the images are so clear. Sweet and sad. I hope to see another one up soon. They always make my day and hang with me.

~cynicalide Aug 6, 2012

i like this way more than the winning piece.

~Imaginary--Thoughts Jul 31, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

This gives me goosebumps every time I read it. The ending is excellent, the way the word sort of lingers in your head after it's done.

~Solaces Jul 24, 2012

Anna was eight when her baby brother was born. He was little more than a fragile bag of bones and organs, an accident waiting to break her heart. Every night she'd sneak into the nursery and watch the steady rise and fall of his chest, counting every inhalation.
It wasn't enough, though. She began unplugging his humidifier and his baby monitor, because what if they caught fire and his silk skin blistered and burned? She started sleeping on his braided rug, tapping the leg of his crib to soothe him. Once, twice, five times.
Always five.
Maybe nothing would happen if she didn't check that the oven was off five times. Maybe she didn't need to keep flicking the light switch up and down. She didn't want maybes, though. She wanted a definitely, and his name was Tom. Tom, who promised that she would never have to count his kisses because he would never stop giving them to her.

Awwwww.

I think I may have compared you to her before (ick, don't really like the word "compare", but you get the idea), but this passage reminds me of Andrea Gibson.
And it gives me warm fuzzy feeling because I just love the idea of a little kid checking on his or her sibling.^_^

~ilyilaice Jul 22, 2012

love love love love love
this

~dailywish Jul 22, 2012 Writer

i especially love your pieces about OCD. they're so well worded and perfectly written, i always feel like i've stepped into someone else's shoes when i read them.

~arabesque-o Jul 21, 2012 Student Photographer

_{amazing, as per usual. <3}

~FriendsWithSpiders Jul 21, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

I'm so happy to see stuff by you again.

This is remarkable.

*avfc4me Jul 20, 2012

This is outstanding. Which is what I've grown to expect from you and yet, it's still a marvelous surprise.

More from ~estallidos

Featured in Groups:

Details

Statistics

NPR three minute story submission

NPR three minute story submissionby ~estallidos

The Journal Portal

Polls

What is your preferred drawing software?

deviantART [dee·vee·un'nt·ART]

Keep in Touch!

Deviousness

Add Media

Style