story.winter-soon.direct.likely.missed.pathetic.references...

'tell me a story.'
i am curled on your lap, body beside, more precise, head enfolded crossed legs. your hand strokes my head, running over stubble on my scalp, over my forehead (there is a furrow there that will get deeper as i age) and across my cheekbone, down to my jaw, and back again.

'i AM telling you a story!'
earnest expression.

'exchanging half remembered quotes is not a story,' i say, slightly smug, slightly sad, keeping it here, holding it close.

we have broken in, mid phrase, mid statement

it's like a radio, the constant static in the air as the connection moves between stations. softly
i thought it was you, but you'd lost the ability to write well.
but i sign my name, and i didn't know she liked winterson.
she doesn't, must have read it on my blog. sly laughter. sly laughter. i can hear it in the distance as they make love, and i am here on the couch, and you are telling me a story.

the couch is either lemon yellow, or pale lime. i cannot tell in the light, it is dim in here, and it flickers on and off, like a broken television.

'i could write essays, maybe? go back to uni, do a masters in obscure russian literature.'
'elizabeth, you don't know anything about russian literature.'
'it's making me hate being at work, him being there, her beside him a few levels away. he lied to me, you know. tell me a damn story.'

you tilt my chin up, and i look into your eyes for a moment and then look away, as mine fill with tears, run down my cheeks and salty tracks run into your fingers and i coil back around you like an oroborus, and my heart is my tail, and my mouth is my neck and my feet are my mouth.

you sigh.

'what about one about a princess who rides a pony to - '
'no. no fucking princesses. i cannot stand them.'

a pause. you know me well, and don't understand.

'why not?' a gentle soft question.
'i was once a princess and i couldn't get the kitten out of the tree. i had no magic, and he didn't realise, and i ... i couldn't get the kitten out of the tree. i wasn't his dream, you know. i wasn't his dream, and he thought i was, but that didn't make it real, and it's destined to keep happening, over and over, the story rewritten into this same ending.' i fall tighter on myself, my mouth inside my arms, over my neck, taking my skin into my liver, and trying to disappear when there is nowhere for my body to go.

you leave it. i don't know, it feels like you leave it because you don't care.

'well, what do you want a story about?'

'i want you to pick. i am scared, so scared, and i just got made into another midlife fantasy that faded rapidly out when reality touched me and turned me ugly in the face of age again, and i need to disappear in a story, just fucking tell me a fucking story.' i got quieter and quieter, the radio skipping again, i can hear a voice reading me 'waiting for godot' and i shudder and wrap my arms around my knees and put my head there. the music in the background is new order, temptation, and i never met anyone quite like you before, even if i am just your earworm now.

you pause, because you do not know what to say. your hand rests softly on my forehead (over that crease, oh god, why isn't it deeper, why did this stupid number steal this from me, this stupid lack of years all slipping back, i was nine when the x-files started. in year 4 at school. i was scared of nuclear bombs, and cried myself to sleep and was scared of the dark, while somewhere far away, a woman was pregnant with a child that one one day caused that 9 year old to change her phone number, because she, the nine year old, one day would fall in love with the father, a man from far away with an angry 15 year old who wants nothing more than to make people know how angry she is. however, i was 24, not 33, and thus, it was too hard, too hard, oh there were other reasons, so many, so many, but seeing that 3344together, reminding me of when i was 12, i was so alone, i wished i was older more than anything, i could talk to people who wouldn't laugh at my big words. and when i was 17, and my first boyfriend was 28, my heart broke because i was in a school uniform, and he had two kids. i just wanted to be in love like anyone else, you know, i just wanted to be allowed to love you and you MADE IT SO HARD just because of your time and my time and fine take her because she doesn't make you tired, because it is easy, want me to quote you, i can, you know, i can, i remembered everything because i fell down and NOW you are shying away from any love you ever had for me because i got harder, because you know how smart i am and how i flip words faster than you can form them and i scare you as well as make you tired.)

i whisper now, holding back tears.

'i am a monster, not a pony. i wreck families and lives, i tear them apart and then i get torn in turn. i make them leave their children. i make them leave their lovers. i make them i make them and then i get stood on as they run to something better. i'm the catalyst, i am the stepping stone, and then i get left behind now they are free, the crisis over, little starburst, little shiny star, oh you deserve better.'

'do you want a story?' you say.
'can you tell me a story?' i say.
'do you want me to tell me a story?' you say.

you look at me concerned. your skin is grey, fading in and out, because i cannot spin my words thick enough to make anyone real or to make anyone stay.

i pause, and admit, 'there is no substance to my stories anymore. i need someone else to tell me one for once. i suck at narrative. i just write well.'

you fade a little more, and i know i can't hold your plot together.

'you don't believe me anymore, do you mister? you don't believe in my magic.' i am sad because it is true and i know you would not admit it because you stole the magic away from me, that's why you don't want me, isn't it. you stole it and gave it to her.

'oh believe me, elizabeth. i'm telling you stories.'

and you are more transparent, and monaco plays, flickers over to internet refresh refresh, as i search for you in corners and spaces. what do you want from me? it's not how it used to be. you've taken my life away. ruining everything.
i don't know if that is about me, or about you, or about both of us.

it's me, i know, because your life is fine, with a darling heart, and arms and loving hearts around you. there is a scrap heap behind you that you want to forget about, you'll say sorry and try to fix it but i don't think you care because you are starting to get bored of me, bored of this ear worm, but not as bored of it as i am, oh god, you have no idea how much i wish this would stop ringing in my head. it softens you know, though, i think of Jule and he takes the pain away a little because, god, before you, i thought he was cruel.

i laugh and hiccup out a sob.

grey eyes, whatever colour they once had is gone, you fade a little more, you fade, i curl up more around myself, your hand slips over and through my face but you don't even see it.

'i can tell you a story,' you say, 'of a pile of bones. you hold one up, and realise it is the bone of your lover. you killed them. they were your mother and your child, your father, your aunt, your boss and your enemy. you made love to them, you killed them.'

i am not impressed with the pale and flaccid buddhist tale, and i tell you that.

you smile.

'oh trust me, elizabeth, i am telling you stories.'

i get more and more sad, as i lose you more and more, i lose you over and over again, passing through so many hands, so many hands, the crackles on the radio,
'but 15 years with her, i am not worth that, you'll forget me. you love her. i have nothing on that. she's enchanting, you are enchanted, she is enchanted. you are leaving that behind for me?'
flickers
'you left, you left your family for me?'
flickers
'you can't say it, you know you are more drawn to her type of madness. i can see it. stop telling me that you won't leave me because i am starting to believe you, i am starting, after all those months, and i know, and i KNOW that the moment i do, i lose. the moment. i. truely. trust. your. words. you will fade away. i cannot believe your story. i cannot believe you love me this much. i cannot believe that you want to be with me, forge a life with me, be my lover, make this work, nurture me, cook for me. i cannot believe it when you say you want a little house with me. i cannot believe it when you say you are sad that i want to buy one without you. that was a LIE, for fucks, all i wanted was to be in your arms, i just knew the moment i submitted, the moment i reached up, hands in the air, surrendered, white flag, white flag, the story would end, and you would go, go to her, go to her and the lies you told me about loving me more than you could ever love another, and take her in your arms when you made me believe in you, reading to me, and now you read to her, and i cannot sleep, reading to me, telling me stories, telling me goddamn stories, and now i cannot sleep, and you read her stories, and you promised me. you promised me, and i got nothing. i get no stories. you won't even speak to me of anything let alone stories now.'

and you are gone, and i am on this couch, is it peach, is it pink, is it yellow..? oh god, i just close my eyes and feel the softness, i lean my head back when i sit up and close my eyes and if you walk into the room and see me sitting on your couch that is how i will be. my neck hooked over the back of the seat, the cushioned below me tainted, wrapped in a lime green or yellow faded blanket, stained, my eyes closed.