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silence.golden.stars

by  misslogan

Posted: Friday, June 25, 2004
Word Count: 748




You always told me that silver was my colour. The colour of constellations and fond memories. And I have been chained to you for such a long time now. I adore. Since you knelt on my bedroom floor. On your knees in front of me and taking my hand and fastening a beautiful silver chain around my wrist. The way you kissed it and whispered that I was yours and only yours. I felt as though a thousand tiny grey moths were beating their wings against my skin. I longed to cry and I can't remember why. The moment passed. Along with a hundred others, I cant even remember how long I've been in love with you. All I know is that when you are near I cry because I know that soon I will have to face blank bedroom walls alone, again. I am only yours, but why was that not enough?
I have always known you. Even before i saw you. the sideways glances that can drain the will from your muscles and the subtle threat of violence in your glances and your rough caresses. i have waited for you. in smoky bars and in airless shadowed rooms and underneath the clouds on top of rainy towerblocks. i have always found you and i can never stop looking. maybe this is my curse. To be abandoned over and over and over until i am degraded into dust and swept silently away. i live my life in limbo like a miscarried child. and i will never stop searching.
Like secret piano music from a distant room. I walk the empty corridors of your mind night after night searching and I have never found it. Contentment I mean. I see myself reflected in you a thousand times until I become one solitary bloodstained shard of mirror. Though I see it in your eyes sometimes, when I catch you gazing longingly at some star or a cloud formation. Or perhaps I had imagined it. But it was like a dream I could never forget. Shifts in perspective. I refused to be sedated choosing instead during long insomnia nights. Then they informed me I could no longer refuse.
I cant remember how long I sat there, watching the sunlight crawling around the room. Waiting and dreaming. I swallowed and decided to be gone when he returned.
I wore my sunglasses to preserve the shadow. They suited my mood. I felt heavy like the smoky air in the bar. A couple of the shutters were broken and shafts of light fell on dirty tables. I sat in a dark corner staring at space and watching the ceiling fan stirring lazily amongst the drifting dust particles.
I noticed the boy as soon as he walked in. I couldnt tell if he was young or old, but his manner reminded me of someone I had known once. I watched him through my shades. It was hard to make out physical details. After a while I turned back to my pink lemonade and let my mind wander.
It is dark in the room. I see you on the bed, asleep and remember why I love you. I fall asleep and dream of endless fields of dead yellow flowers covered in cling film, shining and smiling and desolate. I wake up and kiss you before I leave.
I walk naked with the blue dawn light shining gently through the curtains. I close the glass door silently and whisper a prayer for you while I prepare for my performance. My death presses upon me, sending adrenaline racing through each of my sacred veins. I shake and clasp the icy metal against my stomach.
In the end it's easy to breathe, to close my eyes and find my temple. To press the gun hard against my skin and feel tiny hairs tingling all over my body.
With the clicking of the safety my hair disappears. My skin flies away as if torn suddenly and painlessly from my bones. Suddenly I know I am a shadow, a reflection in the condensation, a perfect sequence of pulse beat and breath. And as the bullet explodes against my skull I watch flames licking around a bonfire, stacked with old fraying red chiffon dresses, pages of glittering golden script and sepia tinged photographs of 1950s beauty queens. I exhale. And for an instant I am frozen amongst icy stars breathing out incense and black funeral silk. And then I am gone.