(September '17) Prompt #3 - "I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel" [Archive]

Price

09-21-2017, 07:43 AM

(Written to a stopwatch set to five minutes in freestyle/freeverse format with no backspacing allowed)

I feel alone, writing to a metronome/A stranger in my own home
Grown, but grown weeds choke life from the/entirety of the garden planted from my sobriety
Lie to me/
Tell me it’s not pathetic for mine to be/ a mind stuck in rewind/all of the time/all of the signs/point south to Hell/the stars will align/for me to awaken from my stupor just in time/to feel my body engulfed in the fire/my body and flame become one/not quite the flesh bathed in holy fire;
Hold me tighter/whisper love to my ears even if it makes you a liar/It’ll be worth it just to hear beauty before I expire/
I love you, I swear I love you, even if I don’t know what that means/I don’t know what it means right now/maybe these ways and means have caught up to me/ and I bow and I break/and how the bow breaks/and when the bow breaks the cradle falls down/I wanna drown/I wanna drown/I wanna drown/with a funeral corral-side with all the sharks swimming around/my algae covered casket as they lower me down/Maybe then I’ll finally learn to water it down/Just let me sink/sink/sink/no more to think/think/think/just drift away into eternal sleep/sleep/….sleep

ArtisticVicu

09-30-2017, 11:40 PM

The radio gave a soft deep click as the alarm activated. The programmed settings turned the radio on to whatever station the dial had been placed at with whatever volume the nob had been left at. He woke before the song started playing.

"But you crawled beneath my veins and now
I don't care, I have no luck
I don't miss it all that much
There's just so many things
That I can't touch, I'm torn

I'm all out of faith
This is how I feel, I'm cold and I am shamed
Lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed
Into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn-"

The song cut off as he pressed the power button. He stayed standing before his alarm clock radio for another second, finger having yet to leave the button, as he silently seethed at the accursed thing for playing such a song. No, this was not ok. He did not need the radio to currently reflect his love life with some old, outdated country song.

The placement of the radio having been done on purpose, he turned and went to his bathroom. As much as he would have loved to turn and just climb back into bed, he did have school and, honestly, he was closer to the bathroom than his bed.

The hot water did nothing more than make him want to sleep more but at least it felt good. He took longer to shower than he normally would have simply so he could enjoy the good feeling. The water was still the perfect temperature as he turned it off. He sighed. He was going to miss good plumbing.

He dried himself off, a towel wrapped around his sopping hair piled on his head. He kept his hair bundled as such till he was dressed in a pair of jeans and then - and only then - did he pull at the towel to remove it from his hair. It slapped wet against his back, sticking to his skin, but the cool, wet hair felt rather refreshing in the still warm bathroom that had reached a point of hot now that he was dried off. He rubbed at his hair with the drier edges and side of the towel.

Putting the second towel away, he grabbed a brush and went downstairs.

He found breakfast sitting on the counter before one the bar stools and the woman that had cooked it all for him standing behind the given stool. She gave him a kind smile and took the proffered brush. He settled in to eat and she started brushing out his long hair.

"Will you be letting Alice braid your hair?" the woman asked as he neared the end of his breakfast, the brush now abandoned on a chair as the woman ran her hands through the length of brown locks.

"No," he replied simply, scooping together the remains on his plate. "I just want to put it up like I normally do today. Nothing fancy."

Nothing fancy, he says. He was already fancy as it was with silky brown hair that was at the middle of his back now that hung impeccably straight. But he could never bring himself to cut it. He liked his hair, liked what he could do with it and how he looked with it long. There was tugging at the hair behind his ears and he sat up a bit straighter to allow the woman easier access. How he normally did his hair was collect the length that grew behind his ears and brought the two bundles of hair together at the back of his head in a ponytail. It was a style his mom used to do in her own hair and taught him how to do when his was long enough. Funny. Looking back on it now, that was probably the reason why he liked his hair being long and why he always did his hair this way.

Damn. Now he was missing his mom again.

He felt the woman pull on his hair enough to make the ponytail nice and tight and as secure as possible, which wasn't much considering nothing liked staying in his hair. Even braids started falling out after enough time. But with her having done it, it would last through the day with even a bit of rough housing in gym. As long as he didn't touch it, it would stay just fine.

The woman touched his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. "The others are waiting for you. Alice has your things."

He slipped from his chair and kissed the woman on the cheek. "Thank you for breakfast. See you after school."

He walked to the garage and entered, finding two people next to a jeep. The sprite of a girl of the pair beamed at him, opening her mouth to greet him. He raised his hand, glaring at her. "I don't want to know what she made me, don't tell me anything about the day, and if you so much as breathe about their wedding, I will walk to school and ignore you for the rest of the week." He jabbed a finger in her direction as he emphasized, "That includes through graduation and no doing fancy things to my hair for the day."

She snapped her mouth shut rather quickly and looked put out. He glared at the male, turning his finger to him. "No interfering. She deserves this."

The male held up his hands in surrender, clearly ok with staying out of it.

"Not even a little bit?" the sprite of a girl inquired, puppy dog eyes and trembling lip not working on him. Well, not properly, at least.

"Not even a little bit." He brought his face closer to hers but his anger died and amusement seemed to be the only thing he could find now. "I will walk up to that stage with a rat nest hairstyle and you won't even be able to touch a strand."

She squealed and smacked at him, though her touch was careful so as to do no harm. Even as tiny as she was, she could still break his arm if she hit him without watching her strength. She went off on a rant, calling him mean and rude and denying he would actually do that as all he could do was laugh and climb into the jeep. Even sitting in the back seat didn't save him from her swatting.

She was right, though. He wouldn't actually follow through with the threat. As much as he would love to do it just to spite her, a number of other people would be on him in a heartbeat with detangler and brushes before he could even step a foot out of his bedroom. Not only that, but he wanted to look presentable. He wanted to look like the young man his mom would be proud of.

And he hoped to sway his eyes briefly from his cousin, if just for a moment.

He crushed that thought with a vengeance.