A Writer's Diary

I put my hand on the shelf to steady my stormy veins, the spreading blue-black tattoo of bruise-drunk desire as words swim in my head, my fingers playing an irritant game with the silk lining of my pocket, my breath just throat-caught longing like lace paper held up to the sun

Slowly your fingers curling around the arm of my coat, the sound of floorboards moving under our feet. Your slow breath as you stand behind me spins a gossamer web of verse that hums across my skin, a heartbeat of desire as I rest my warm cheek against a cool binding, my flame fluttering pages

I feel your breath against my ear as my eyes roam over the spines of secondhand books. I look for a small old volume to slip into my pocket. I can feel your nearness, but you don't touch. I breathe in the scent of books, of you, feel the heat of your eyes warm me

Still, so many fleeting images press upon my mind. The sliding doors all those years ago, the almost-serendipity, the nearly but never was, the walk I still make with your steps under my tread. Still, the feeling of our shadows passing unnoticed, sleeping nearby, yet so far away.

It seems like a dream, as if nothing was real, and in most ways, it wasn't. Words, words, words. But stories have been the very best of my life. Words have been the very thing I have loved the most.

I miss you in a thousand different ways. The softness and acceptance, the hard vulnerability. But I have my memories wrapped around me like a cloak. I pull the hood over my head and walk across the pitch dark fields, and inside that velvet night, I relive every imaginary touch.

Cradling my books, I let myself lie down at your feet. Silently, I stay there, just a shadow of a woman breathing, just a mirage of words that beat their wings against the flame.

"Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge of the world into nothingness."
Virginia Woolf, The Waves