One day, as I love you

Prompt: a day, love
Rating: PG13
Image credit: Felipe Bruner

I love you in the morning when the sun creeps in around the blinds and we roll closer together under the blanket, brushing fingers against skin and stealing time together as the alarm clock goes off behind us.

I love you when you chase me across the cold floor after a shower, the smell of coffee in the air and our movements still sluggish with sleep, and when you catch me you hands slide across my skin and wrap me closer.

I love you when I pick you up in the afternoon, running my lips against yours as you get into the car, the weight of work slowly lifting from our shoulders as you wrap your hand around mine.

I love you after dinner when we’re sitting in the kitchen, staring at the dishes in the sink and talking about the future as our drinks grow warmer and you spin one of my rings around my finger.

I love you when we’re sitting on our futon, me in your lap, and we’re quoting Firefly along with the episode and then suddenly you’re kissing me and your hands are on my waist and you are wrapping yourself around me saying “I love you.”

I love you as our eyes lock and I’m on the bed under you and your fingers are woven in my hair and I am dying small, little deaths with my love for you.

I love you at night when we’re curled together and I can feel your heart beating in my ear and you are soft and warm against my skin and the edges of “you” and “me” have ended and we are only us.

Lonely and lost at sea

Prompt: Sunset, sand, beach
Rating: PG13
Image credit: tbagpro

The sun is setting behind you when you tell me, the golds and reds and oranges all spilling out, reflected by the water and becoming a symphony of color. The purple sky surrounds the sunset and I look away from you and squint at the sand between my toes.

The wind, tinging the warm air with cool, brushed across my skin and threw my hair behind me. I nodded, looking out at the water behind you. The waves lapped at the edge of the sand; the tide was coming in and soon we both would be underwater, our lungs filling with salt.

“Did you hear me?”

I look up at you, finally seeing your face, and I nod.

One sees clearly with the heart

This post written as part of the Beauty of a Woman Blogfest . Please visit August Mclaughlin’s Blog on February 22 to read all of the entries. <3

Beauty is intangible, something that builds up and wraps around our hearts… sometimes all at once and sometimes slowly, creeping up until one day you look over your shoulder and are hit by a sudden surge of emotion. You don’t see beauty, you feel it–the ache of it, the wonder, the desire, the love. The more we love something the more beautiful it becomes.

Some of the most beautiful moments in my memory happened when my eyes were unfocused, closed, or blinded. Sometimes I was crying, sometimes I was aching, sometimes what I felt was beautiful turned out to be not so beautiful in the end… but in that moment, it was aching, dazzlingly beautiful.

People can be beautiful at first glance–we might feel the emotion of “beauty” for someone who walks across the street in front of us–but it’s a shallow beauty, a paper-thin beauty. Beautiful people are not beautiful for their skin or their eyes, but for their core, their soul, their existence.

Beauty is falling in love–platonically and romantically, short-term and long term. You fall in love with a smile, a gesture, a person, a moment, a feeling, an object, even if its just for a second. Even if the love doesn’t remain you will always hold the memory of it.

“Goodbye,” said the fox. “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”
“What is essential is invisible to the eye,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
“It is the time I have wasted for my rose–” said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
“Men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox. “But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose…”
“I am responsible for my rose,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

-The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Waiting Alone (for Meadowlark)

Prompt: Clocks, time, “Waiting Alone” by Shiny Toy Guns (for Meadowlark)
Rating: PG13
Image credit: Shiny Toy Guns “Waiting Alone” cover

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…

The grandfather clock stared at me from across the room, pretending not to notice how late it was growing. I wrapped the blanket tighter around myself, closed my eyes and pressed my face into the pillow. I should be asleep, I knew. I should have been asleep hours ago, but I couldn’t. The smell of him lingered, the tightness of his arms and I still tasted him and the slickness of his mouth. I breathed him in through all of me, I let him soak into my skin.

I closed my eyes tightly against the clock, tightly against the outside world that didn’t, couldn’t understand the turmoil of my heart. He had left the island again, left again, going back to her and that life and I didn’t know if he would be coming back… and if he did, what he would be like. What we would be like. I squeezed my eyes tighter, the tears coming fast. There was an end date in sight–I knew that, I’d always known that, but I wasn’t ready to let him go, let him slip through my fingers like sand.

Two by two hands of blue

Prompt: love, emotion
Rating: PG-13/R
Image credit: Ludmila Vilarinhos

I feel your fingers tighten on my hips as you kiss my shoulder, the softness of your breath on my skin. The air trembles; the breathless moment between nothing and everything. I turn my head back and you kiss me, your heart beating against my back.

One.
Two.
Three.

I turn around and kiss you properly, closing the space between us and wrapping my arms around your neck. You breath from my lungs and I melt against you, slowly, slowly, softly and easily. You walk me backward to the bed, your mouth on my mouth, my neck, my shoulder–your hands ripping at the buttons of my shirt as you move me backwards.

I fall down and you fall down on top of me, clothes falling off the edge of the bed as we press skin against skin. I’d missed the softness of your skin and the hunger of your mouth and I moan as you touch me there, there, there…

Day three: Cherish (drabble, 100 words)

We looked at each other at the top of the street, the Florida sun shining down behind us as sweat already began to form on the back of our necks. We looked at each other in our pastel shorts and over-sized sunglasses and grinned.

Three
Two
One!

We ran down the cobblestone street, our jewelry clattering against our wrists and our necks as we moved. My hair caught on the clasp of my necklace, tiny blond strands I would later yank out in my spare, yellow dorm room. I grabbed her hand and we raced down the old street, hand-in-hand.

Lead me to the truth and I (Trinity series, III of III)

Prompt: “White Blank Page” originally by Mumford and Sons, but this piece is specifically written to the cover by Ramin Karimloo (v.1, v.2, v.3)
Rating: PG13/R
Image credit: stlbluesaddict
Lyric credit: Mumford and Sons

Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly

Once, two, three, four. We clicked quickly and quietly, the transition as natural as waking up with my head on your arm and your breath on my neck. Going to sleep and waking up suddenly became anticipated cocoons of intimacy.

The unnecessary storm

Prompt: Storms
Title: The unnecessary storm
Rating: PG-13
Image credit: ( (( marS )) ), edit by Erin

I collected my things and I left the darkness as the whining wind called after me. I walked away, my head ducked to avoid the howling. But it followed at my heels, nipping and crying, and when I found shelter it swirled up, angry I had found a port, raging because I was dry and warm and no longer willing to accept the storm’s childish anger.

The storm raged around me, angry, growing harsher and harsher with its own self-importance. Its wind thrashed against the windows and hurled tree limbs at my roof. I waited inside, wrapped tight, warm and dry and waiting for the storm to pass. The unnecessary storm.

In time, the storm seemed to pass and dissipate; the wind died down and rays of sun began peeking in through the windows. I opened the doors and windows and the smell of grass after a rain wafted in, peace after a storm. I walked outside and my skin flushed from the sun. I thought, I hoped, that the storm was over.

The storm had run away from me, hiding, scared, afraid of seeing me warm and dry and safe. It hid behind the mountains, watching me, until it was too afraid to watch anymore. It watched me walk the paths, the beaches, the woods, and it raged. It hated it, it seethed in it… and then it ran away. It painted me transparent so it could pretend I didn’t exist; I vanished.

I let it go.

Hello, 2013

I’m afraid I’ve been frightfully inattentive to this blog lately, but I’ve had a lot of real-life changes happening and they’ve taken precedence over everything else.

To be honest, I’m not sure about the future of this blog. So much of the flavor was inspired and fueled by the chaos created in my head and my heart last year and there is no way I could recreate that kind of melancholy confusion, even if I wanted to recreate it.

This isn’t to say that LLAD is going anywhere, necessarily, just that the nature and frequency of posts may change. Contentedness is a harder emotion to turn into art, but that doesn’t mean I need melancholy to write.

So we’ll see what the new year brings.

NaNoWriMo excerpt: Meadowlark

Title: Meadowlark (opening)
Rating: PG
Image credit: Nick Moys

The sky is dark and empty, holding only the memory of stars. The great empty expanse chills my bones, despite the warm air. I feel you look back at me, somewhere on the other side of that dark expanse. I don’t think I’ll ever see you again, and that cuts like a knife through my heart. We wrapped ourselves together so carefully, so neatly, so tightly that we both knotted those strings Mr. Rochester discussed with Jane to our ribs and now you are gone and I am bleeding. Are you?

Above me, the lighthouse comes blindingly to life, cutting through the blank sky. I bury my hand deeper in my jacket pockets and squint at the sudden light. The cove, suddenly illuminated, lay sprawling below me. I stood on the edge of the precipice, looking down, down, down… when did everything become so familiar? I know the answer; it is etched on my bones.

I shiver.

I hear a voice calling my name up from the rocks above. I hear it over and over again, sometimes getting lost in the wind. I turn my head so the wind catches my ears and silences everything but itself. The rushing reminds me of water–it drowns out the rest of the world as you once did. I spin your voice over and over in my head, and soon I hear you calling me instead.

Liora, Liora, Liora…