‹ Prequel: In the Month of May
One-Hundred Days
Day Sixty-Four: Standing Still
Our spastic stomachs are in time, our hands in tune with the erratic beating of our hearts. We watch the lights wrap around us, curling into the concaved edges of our bodies. I can barely catch my breath while you breathe in and out slow and steady. I am shaking all over, and you try to hold me still and close to you. We’re standing still in the middle of a world that never stops moving, and it’s taking the breath from my lungs with each second.
I hold your hand through the lights that try to tear us apart, standing still in the middle of a freeway, the air being pulled from our lungs. The people inside of these metal birds don’t know us, all they see are two people standing close and still, defying a world that is always in motion.
You whisper to my shaking body to stay still, with my feet on the edge of a cliff that is shrinking away from the bottoms of my soles each second. You keep me close to you, our feet slipping from our small piece of land.
We are in the middle of a world that never stops, even near the end. It seems that now everything is more panicked, every action is frantic, even a kiss and the things that should be taken slow have an urgency to them that is never nonexistent. This urgency takes our faces in soft palms and breaks our necks, gentle and brutal in one soft second. It puts us out of our misery, gives us the time to leave this world that is so close to its vanishing point.
As we stand still, I wait for the words I have been wanting to say to reach your ears. Or I wait until our eyes take themselves away from the world rushing past our bodies to meet each other. It’s a harder wait than I had expected, as the frantic world slows down you and I. It slows down our heartbeats and our thoughts, and I can feel your heart slow in your chest, and I can see your thoughts become clearer through your eyes. It’s harder than I thought it would be, to stand still inside a world that never stops, even at its end.
But everything must come to end, no matter how frantic. Our hearts and hands must pull away, no matter how much we shake with each second that passes. You and I are frantic, even standing still.
The energy of the world seeps into our skin and we hold each other closer, eyes wide to the lights curling themselves around our limbs. The words that make their home in my chest are spinning in circles through my throat. They fall at your feet.
We are frantic, even when standing still.
I hold your hand through the lights that try to tear us apart, standing still in the middle of a freeway, the air being pulled from our lungs. The people inside of these metal birds don’t know us, all they see are two people standing close and still, defying a world that is always in motion.
You whisper to my shaking body to stay still, with my feet on the edge of a cliff that is shrinking away from the bottoms of my soles each second. You keep me close to you, our feet slipping from our small piece of land.
We are in the middle of a world that never stops, even near the end. It seems that now everything is more panicked, every action is frantic, even a kiss and the things that should be taken slow have an urgency to them that is never nonexistent. This urgency takes our faces in soft palms and breaks our necks, gentle and brutal in one soft second. It puts us out of our misery, gives us the time to leave this world that is so close to its vanishing point.
As we stand still, I wait for the words I have been wanting to say to reach your ears. Or I wait until our eyes take themselves away from the world rushing past our bodies to meet each other. It’s a harder wait than I had expected, as the frantic world slows down you and I. It slows down our heartbeats and our thoughts, and I can feel your heart slow in your chest, and I can see your thoughts become clearer through your eyes. It’s harder than I thought it would be, to stand still inside a world that never stops, even at its end.
But everything must come to end, no matter how frantic. Our hearts and hands must pull away, no matter how much we shake with each second that passes. You and I are frantic, even standing still.
The energy of the world seeps into our skin and we hold each other closer, eyes wide to the lights curling themselves around our limbs. The words that make their home in my chest are spinning in circles through my throat. They fall at your feet.
We are frantic, even when standing still.