Raven to Nevermore

You sit across from me. Your lips wrapped around the straw and your fingers curled around the glass. I miss you, you say. Bisous. Tsunamis of love. I can’t help but stare at you. Because until now you’ve been nothing to me. Just text on a screen. Words without sound. An abstract concept, with which I had inexplicably fallen in love. Now you’re here. Gazing at me with your icy blue eyes. Blond roots peeking through inky black. Your pale skin bright against all the shadows. Like a materialization. A tendril of thought somehow gone astray and returning with a tangible form. I always figured you to be taller. I remember when we first met. You were needy. Now I’m clingy. I was there for you. You’re never here anymore. Truth is I avoided you. I didn’t know who you were. What you wanted. It’s a small world after all. I can see the ice tea in your straw. I can taste it touching your tongue. You’re talking. I can barely hear you. I cannot focus. Then your arms are wrapped around me. I can smell the chlorine in your hair. The scent of cigarettes lingers in your clothes. I can feel you. Breathing with me. The wind carries away your words, your whispers. Like smoke. I can’t keep them. You look at me. Your eyes saying things I cannot decipher. Maybe because daddy’s waiting. Then you’re gone. Whisked away by your gilded lies. Caught in the cyclical motion of a life you hate. The life you lead. The life you escaped to and I am left behind. I can see you running away. Your back is to me. I can see the disease inside you. I still feel the others who have touched you. Tainted you. I’m watching you leave. Like you’re stolen by those thieves, those thieves who use you, abuse you. And one day you will come crying back to me. But I will no longer be here.

Please help me out, here. I don't know if I should comment. This seems so far-removed from life into a world of thought, that commenting feels like speeking up to your own echo in an empty, sun-filled cathedral.

So... may I comment? If not, I'll remove this, too; I think this piece stands on its own.

You should! You should.
I wouldn't have posted it if I wasn't looking for comments.
=]

Ok. here goes....

*Squeal!* Shakespeare!!!!

To my greatest shame, I could not recall which work this was from, and searching for it made me stumble on this fantastic link: http://tartarus.org/~martin/readings/poem08.html

I think his commentary on the quote is awesome. Makes you suspect everything

"Your lips wrapped around the straw and your fingers curled around the glass"

"A tendril of thought somehow gone astray and returning with a tangible form." like the imagery & idea behind it... the alliteration continues.

"Truth is I avoided you" --> Makes you think of the quote above. Waaait a second. Truth?

Love the shortened sentence (/phragments) to speed up narration in the middle

"Maybe because daddy’s waiting" --> That was the literary equivalent of hitting me over the head with a blunt, rusty axe and having the rust, disturbed by the collision, fall off in front of my stupefied face. What?!

"Whisked away by your gilded lies. Caught in the cyclical motion of a life you hate." Aaah, the literary equivalent of a soothing aloe balm applied to my - admittedly still throbbing - head.

"who have touched you. Tainted you" seemed a bit of an overused connection, but powerful here, nonetheless.

Rest of the work: me, staring with that stupid-but-happy dazed smile, with rust in my hair, a gash in my head, and a bump from the axe that is growing quickly. Kind of like this guy. The last few lines only really got to me after the 3rd reread.

That's when the full impact of it really got to me. i think it's because, the first and second time, there was so much other stuff to absorb... then you do swallow it, savour it, and digest it, and suddenly your stomach feels empty with a sense of loss "And one day you will come crying back to me. But I will no longer be here."

OK, now I feel I deserve a prize: what's it about?

Despite my commentary above, I'd like to go on record saying that I think this is one of those pieces that is almost more powerful as an inarticulate feeling rather than an explained/evaluated anything. It has a good vibe

Teehee. You make me smile.
It's definintely one of those "feeling" pieces through and through. I don't think it could ever pass for anything else. ;]

Also, what? You got hit in the head with an axe? DDDDD:

Um. Long story short: pen friend I met through writing. We only met once face to face. It's just a feeling piece based on our friendship through all these years, as well as the time I actually saw her in the flesh. >.>

I don't really know what else to tell you after that If you have more specific questions however, I would be happy to answer them for you.

Yes, I have one: ""Maybe because daddy’s waiting"" - what made you write it? That was the weapon with which the metaphotical axe assault was performed.

Oh. Well, what happened was because, I met her after school, downtown at the hardrock cafe. We only had about a half hour before they had to leave for the airport. So when she said goodbye to me and we hugged, her father was standing by the car not too far away waiting for her to join them. Her mother and younger sister had already gotten into the car.

What did you think it meant?

Because clearly you assumed something terrible if it was the equivalent to a metaphorical axe leaving your head apart. Or would that be the migraine?

Well, it just didn't fit. All of a sudden, just as the narrative is in the process of speeding up, some mysterious 'daddy' is 'waiting' for something, possibly the reason your friend does not communicate in a way you can understand.

Oh. LOL. Mysterious Daddy. What kind of Daddy?
And you have a point. Or because I'm so enraptured with actually meeting her in REAL LIFE that I don't really care to understand what she's really saying?
As in I like the idea of her, but not her?

Idk if that made any sense to you whatsoever.

Yeah, I think I do; but I wouldn't be able to articulate it any better than you have.