the coastergirl diaries volume forty-three

seems like evrytime i get to go on these stories i run into a few hitches: little details i have locked away that i've forgotten the key to. the things that mean the most, matter more than anything when it comes time to tell the hows and wheres. usually, with a spot of effort and a little whisky i can dig up even the most obscure detail from my memory where it has laid dark and dusty for so long now. and here are more.

one day, it was pretty early, we'd been up all night laughing and sitting out in our chairs on her porch and moving inside for the length of conan, then back out: we were laying in her room, tired, worn, my arms were around her, and we were falling asleep. i could feel it coming on: it was a smooth sleep, fluid, but thick and happy like creamer. i could even feel, (and now too, with all lucidity) the dreams building up, preparing themselves. i could feel them the way you can watch actors backstage at the theatre rehearsing the lines for the next scene and know that these lines have been theirs for so long, and now, here in the dirt and gray of the backset, they are dead, but soon: they will live and breathe moving. evena bad actor can do tennessee williams alright. and that's how it was. lines pre-arranged but unknown to me. a part i was going to play.

i leaned in and planted a little kiss on coastergirl's neck, smiling an inner smile that whispered love (hidden just below it's wings) and moving onward. she turned her head to me, the way only a womna can turn her head, on the inner side of a spoon and smile:

her: i love you.
me: i know.
her: i never want this to end. this right here. this, just laying together, your arms around me.
me: let's not let it.
her: we won't. we can't. people dont' get this more than once.
me: do you relaly beleive that?
her: yes. with all my heart.
me: then, we must keep it safe.
her: yes. we have to.
me: be quiet now. let's just enjoy it, laying here, the feeling of your skin against mine.
her: and your breahting against my back.
me: and your arms pulling against me, toward you.
her: and you smiling at the back of my head, that i can still somehow see. the smile of sleep.
me: and your dreaming eyes, barely shut.
her: everything.
me: yes. everything. and more.

we laid for a while before i heard her breahting steadya nd she fell asleep, a smile on her lips. while she slept i thought about what she had said. about only getting this once. about how, if that were true, then, even at our best, how long could it last. could it last forever? could a thing like that only be thrust upon mere people like us forever. could the world bare it's shining onward?

i resolved myself to see what happened. toi let the colors change with passing years, let the weather change, but stay here, at least in our minds, smiling through sleep and knowing however good it is, it will be that good forever, if only in our minds.

now i know that it doens't work that way in even the most beautiful dreams, never. in the morning i woke and she was running her fingers along my side. i touched her. he eyes closed and for a few minutes (forty, fifty) the world for us was in touches, in fingertips and dreams fulfilled only better now here, in reality.

i remember the taste of her the way one remembers the look of their own face.

2004-01-11 | 8:56 p.m.
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