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you'd be the butter to my bread. the roses in the vase. the arm around the waist, the sighs of moments past.
i'll make you coffee, first thing at dawn, marmalade sunsets and rosehip jam clouds for company. it'll be sunny, everything will be white. we'll have pancakes and bacon and blueberries. raspberries among the duck egg skies.
it's the third moment of contentment, completion in my day. the mane of nightdark hair will rise as i lift my head to you and your paper. the red glitter nail varnish is chipping.
your fairy lights wink as fireflies,
your freckles make me moan,
and wherever I am with you,
there shall I make my home.
cecily
"No buts!” She squawked. “That’s final, young lady.”
Abashed and meek, Ruby turned her head towards the kitchen, where it sounded as though Luther was creating havoc. He soon appeared with a steaming bowl of chicken soup “to soothe the soul” as he put it. Lemongrass, ginger, umeboshi plums (signalling Luther’s influence) spring onion, coriander and slices of lime fought with torn chicken strips for space in the broth.
Famished, the soup was soon gone, and seconds were on their way, memories of her attack slipping away like water through her fingers. Soon Ruby was being lead by the hand towards the bathroom to freshen up before unconsciousness claimed her once more. The room smelled sweetly of raspberries and chocolate, undertones of black pepper and roses amongst the sharp scents of red wine and cloves. Most arresting of all was the perfume of sleep, more subtle than all the perfumes of arabia, closing dusky eyelids, and spiriting her away to bed.
cecily
that is it.
the end.
cecily
his beard stands out straggly from the white panstick, his eyebrows and lips marked, outlined in black ink, his smile grotesque. he grinned to the sounds of the accordion and the brass trumpet, tambourine drums and bells clattering. he danced with the acrobats, the dancers, the horses, the damned.
he opened his cloak, velveteen if stained, and beckoned the prettiest girls into his embrace. they do not seem to mind his yellowed teeth, nor cloven feet. they do not seem to mind the dark tapestry he weaves, their hair meshing together, a living sculpture, he stands back and regards his tormented handiwork, the circus creatures writhe against one another whilst he rolls his battered top hat betwixt his fingers.
this evening i swam in forest springs scented with ginger, i sipped thimbles of tea and painted my fingers with gold. i was a superior and a servant to all, i ate camembert from the box, flame-warmed and blackened, i watched the gypsies douse themselves in bacchantine offerings.
we tied bells and bows to our ankles and stamped upon the fragrant earth, calling forth smoky incantations from the moon. we swayed our hips and curled our arms, snakelike and feral. tonight we make our beds beneath the stars, damp from the dance and the night.
cecily
the faintest of rainbows are always a little bit frightening. i shout your name in the middle of the night.
cecily
"i want to save you, i want you to be safe" she said as she embraced him. the dream was almost at an end and time was running out, she was waiting for the priest to come to her, the wrongness of the neolithic catholicism proven by her heresy as she proclaimed the our father, stumbling and weeping and wailing. "i have to save you" she said, as she held the little boy to her. "i come from a different time," she insisted, revered now, "it used to be pictland, then caledonia, now scotland"
"there will be a battle soon, and you will lose" she predicted
"there will be a battle, and you will lose."
cecily
