Prose On Your Tongue

Lilian has her spider-legs crossed on the floor of my bedroom and she's bending over and writing diligently in a textbook, ridges of her spine peeking up from her skin-tight blouse. I look up from my blank page to watch her for a minute, and suddenly the silence feels a little too much - like she knows there's something I want to say, but I can't quite get it out and be certain that it'll be coherent and in chronological order. So, shaking a little, I reach over to my dresser and blindly stab at the buttons on my speakers with the tips of my fingers until the indie radio station turns on, fizzling some before the sound becomes clear. She glances up from her work, dark blue eyes still halfway in thought, quickly tucks some of her hair behind a pointy ear and continues to scribble in her all-caps handwriting.

I pick back up my pencil and tap the tip of it on the page before me, frowning the longer nothing comes to mind. I'm usually bursting with random lines of something - anything - but tonight is a strange night, a different night. Different, because it's day 7 of my turned down confession and I still haven't told Lilian, although she's usually first to hear any of my silly little ramblings. My voice catches her ears first, and since it hasn't and she's right there, working on some coursework I can barely grasp, I've lost the creative spark.

"God this song is rubbish," she says suddenly, and I nearly jump from my seated position on the rug across from her. She raises her gaze to look at me oddly, noticing my uncomfortable posture, and then lowers it back to the notebook, pausing to think. "You've been weird lately, Daniel." She sits up properly and gives me her attention again, to which I avoid and look away. "You talk more and you know it."

"You're right - this song is rubbish." I snort at my mocking use of the word 'rubbish' before leaning to the side to flicker through the stations again. A little distracted and lost in my head, I lazily settle for an alternative one and bob my head to the song I've never heard before. "Better?"

Creases form between her thin eyebrows as she frowns. "Speak, boy."

I realize it really is stupid to keep what happened away from her - especially since it's so big. It's so big to me, and every time I think about it my fingers start curling involuntarily and suddenly my skin gets these prickles and I can't stay still, I have to squirm. And that's what begins to happen, right there in front of Lilian, and she has these sharp eyes that can see everything I do and reach correct conclusions from them; sighing, she lets her pencil rest in the ridges between her notebook pages and asks, gravely, "What'd you do, Dan?"

"Nes knows," is all I can say. But I realize she understands immediately, because the grave look only intensifies as her lips curl downwards and her eyebrows lower towards her narrowing eyes.

"When'd you tell him?" Her voice is surprisingly calm.

"Uh . . . last week . . . probably."

"And you've waited all this time to tell me?" She picks up her pencil and tosses it at me; I laugh on instinct, but the worry is still evident on my face as I absentmindedly pick up her pencil and return it to her.

"Sorry. I'm just . . . I was just a little scared to, because I know what you'll say."

She finally smiles and it's too much of a relief to see. "You know what I'll say, huh," she repeats, and then gives a giggle at that, as if recalling a small collection of memories from our past. She sets the notebook to her side and raises her knees up and presses them against her fairly-flat chest, long, dark hair cascading down to her narrow shins. Resting her chin on her legs, she asks, "What all happened?"

I freeze a little, trying to let it all come back to me. The campfire was blazing, and it was hot, but not hot from the camp, but hot from all the pressure and the intense way his mind-bending sea eyes were staring straight at me. When I said it, his expression changed, but it wasn't like it was mean or cruel or even disgusted. In fact, his face softened, and his shoulders relaxed some, too, as if he were born prepared for my confession; like he'd seen it coming all along and rehearsed his response in the mirror of his bedroom. Though I knew he wasn't expecting that - he wasn't expecting any sort of confession and from another guy, at that. He was just so good at confrontational situations that it was so simple to him, so infuriatingly simple, and he said the right thing right away. And even though it was a rejection speech, it was pleasant, like we were sharing a nice little chat about our families, or plans for the weekends, or plans for the future. Calmly, he told me things I expected like, "You're a guy," and, "I'm not attracted to men," but he also said somewhere in there that it was a little flattering, a little brave of me to approach him like that, especially since we've been in this close knit of friends for a while. "Everyone says you're the awkward one among us," he laughed, "but I think you're the strongest."

And that was that. He patted my back some, gripped my shoulder like we were old pals rekindling our previous friendship, and asked me to join him and the group for a monthly movie night the following day. My chest was burning, but I accepted graciously, because I love him, I love him, god, I love him and how easily he can reduce nerve-wracking confessions to nothings, how he can slip simple sentences among the fire and I can catch them and hold them like they're my little lovelies, how he knows and understands my love, yet he still carries on as the usual Nes he can be. Yet, at the same time, everything I love about him is what infuriates me about him, so I'm stuck in this awkward middle, this full-hearted and half-assed appreciation all at once.

I couldn't even completely finish my train of thought to express myself enough to Lilian before I'm scribbling words so quickly on my blank page that they almost blend together to form jumbled sentences, and I smile fondly at them because they're me, sharp pieces of me that don't fit well enough to make much sense, but they manage, somehow.

something you'll never understand

i haven't been much for years, slips from my mouth. i've been halfways and quarters and tenths, but that's not much, is it?

there are ghosts sliding through the air that have accomplished much more in death than in life, and i know whether i breathe or shrivel up i'll continue on with my halfways and almost theres' and never enoughs.

there is this ghoul that is folded carelessly in tiny crevices where no one can see or reach, and maybe i would have laughed if it hadn't been me.

the light is raging and dancing and these completes - these 100 percents - play amongst this, incandescent with their vibrant glow, but there is this decimal that's perched away, aside, pretending to be a whole, and i would have told it it could if it hadn't been me.

i thought i would've wished to been left to rot somewhere, but then i realized that either way there's no point.

this is something you'll never understand.

I thought it'd make me feel better. It didn't.