Sunday 24 July 2011

Dance Like You Mean It

They sat on the central reservation, all zen, the highway traffic blazing past them. They sat there, fingers touching familiar fingernails, perfect ones, sharp ones, nails cut daily, nails left to grow. They sat saying nothing, hearing the grass grow, hearing engines shriek and drone. They sat staring into each other's hearts, feeling sunshine play with their hair. They sat carving oceans from the earth, and mountains from their goosebumps. They sat, lost in the heat of a stranger's summer and the shadow of a weeping mother.

"We're going to have to leave soon."
"I know, but just...stay with me a while."

They sat still, remembering the names of every valley they had sown with the seeds of their contentment. They sat alone together, freeing others of the sense of touch. They sat for a while yet, uncertainly in love with the shape of things to come. They sat, having forgotten each other's name, but knowing the angles they had formed in their sleeps. They sat until the grass started to yellow, and the stains of their patience bled into skin, a souvenir in the image of a kiss.

They sat until they absolutely had to leave, and they rose, having no recollection of how they had gotten to where they were. Having risen, they despaired for direction. Having no solution, they agreed to part ways, to see if the roads they chose to walk in that moment might one day lead them back to a yellowed patch of grass, and the sound of each other's names.

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