Fiction: January 2008 Archives

''Years go by, will I still be waiting, or somebody else to understand, years go by, if I'm stripped of my beauty?' - Tori Amos, Silent all these Years (This version with poetry read by Leonard Cohen)

my dear, dear reader,

I'm writing to tell you about my love this week.

Leonard Cohen is my love this week. From the 'but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie'  to the 'you live your life as if it's real a thousand kisses deep'.  Listen to him read the poem of the same song here.

Listen to him again as he reads the poetry before this version of Tori Amos Silent All These Years, a song which made me run faster on the treadmill today while I listened to my own silent voice. 

I wondered if you, dear reader, had found yourself the girl who thinks really deep thoughts. After all.

dear reader, I'll waltz with you in Vienna, I want you in the Chelsea Hotel, I want you to dance me to the end of love. I would like to think that there's a god above. Would you like to think that there's a god above? Would it comfort you?

Is the moon swimming naked for you? If I asked you would you let me take you down to my place near the river?

Of course, dear reader, you are only a construct in my mind. A compilation, a frieze from my imagination, a mosaic; but if you existed I would write you letters on my skin, and you would kiss me as you read each one.

my dear reader, I wish you were real.

'It's just that it's delicate.' - Damien Rice, Delicate

First the train station, and now the cafe...

'It's been how long?' she says, '3 weeks or so.'

'21 days?' he answers as he picks up his coffee cup. She picks at her food.

'Since?'  She crosses her legs, sits tight, back straight, her body tensed.

'Since I first kissed you'.

'Oh.'

Head down in her cup of coffee she hunches her shoulders, avoids his face. The urge to run. Almost as strong as the urge to stay.  His left hand, thin wristed, picks at the cuff of his sweater.  

'Don't you have anything to say?'

'No, not really,' she says. 'I just never thought it would get this far. I usually run away before it gets this far.'

'Oh.'

'Does it scare you?' she asks, lifting her head for a minute and looking at his face, 'that I usually run?'

'I think,' his hand moves across the table to take hers, 'that it means maybe you don't know what to expect.'