while dreaming.

She heard his voice in her dreams again. She had been dreaming a lot lately, where he appeared like the mist on her windshield. The songs he played on his guitar trickled like the raindrops outside, and danced in her mind without a partner. It was his haunting that convinced her she still loved him, how his voice slipped in and out like a whisper to find him. All this and how she left him so easily only proved that she didn't need him again. They were all lingering moments of wasted time, never given the light of day. But these dreams with him can only be described as nightmares.

Muse 133: will you love me forever

photo credit: zseike

There's an urban legend about a wedding in Canada. The ceremony took place in a clearing of someone's vast four acre backyard where a canopy of maple trees would shaded the bride from the harsh sun. As a result, the place was rather dim and poorly lit. The bride herself requested the theme autumn, so gorgeous leaves of red, brown and yellow burned in the middle of summer. By tradition, the groom is never to see his bride - it's considered bad luck - but these were modern times, where superstition and religion were just by products of fear. The groom met his lovely bride the night before and they made plans to only have eyes for each other. Their love would be as sturdy as a tree; the rings around their knuckles would grow like the rings of age. When he kissed her goodnight, he said he looked forward to the morning and slipped into the bride maid's room for their final secret rendezvous.
As the bride stepped onto the maroon carpet the next day, her movements were stiff and aching until she reached the other end. The groom could barely make out her face, underneath the floral veil, but smiled eagerly. And she smiled in return. When the pastor finished the speech, the groom reached to lift the veil. His fingers quickly swept the cloth away, and he stalled. His face fixed with a mask of terror as he stared at his wife. She had the hollow eyes of a tree trunk, where the rings went around forever and ever.

Muse 132: the magic box

My cousin has a magic box in the basement. No one ever went downstairs with her, but she always had everything we needed. Once we were building a fort in the living room with chairs, blankets and she got really excited, more excited than my two year old niece, and ran downstairs. When she came back, she was holding a turtle that projected stars from it's shell. It was perfect for our childhood illusion. She turned it on, and the Big Dipper lit up on the ceiling, but we were sitting with our legs propped up on the chairs. Her face looked visible disappointed at the dismembered fort.

"What happened?"
"Oh," Sam shrugged, "it's blocking the TV."

Muse 131: Drowning

photo credits:marie edwards

"The water's soiled," he said. "I'm not sure if you want to take a bath just right now."

It was dirty. The rusty tea colour was a mixture of bronzed apricots and chinese medicine. Small handfuls of scattered iron laid at the bottom of the tub like dirt. Anna dipped her toe into the hot water half expecting her body to slowly rot right off. The result could be powerful, a dare from fate, or it could be poison. She imagined this to be do or die. After all she had the entire tub's worth of time as if filled with sewage water to change her mind. By now the water was at her ankle, and it felt like her entire body was decomposing. Her eyes clutched shut like tiny fists and she got ready for the plunge.

Muse 130: Surface

found via jamwee

On the surface he was flawless, untouched and completely perfect with a milky overtone that made your legs tingle. That was the kind of description he asked for whenever someone came across him. I saw him once, very miraculously, well luckily, and paused for a full nine seconds. It was a stop and stare kind of beauty, where I glazed my hand over the surface of his photograph and dreamt that there was more to him than skin.

Muse 128: Angelfish

butterflies part II

found via radiganneuhalfen

Life has always been the deepest part of the ocean. It's all about the great immeasurable count of competition where numbers eventually become obsolete by blackness. I didn't realize how dark the waters were, how blind I've been this entire time, until I saw the light. It was small, like hope, and so far away. The waters pushed against me, a slick wet embryo carrying me towards the light where it got bigger and bigger. Like an angel's halo overheard, the light carried a warm glow. If I just touched it, I could go home, reach the top overhead and swim out of the black waters. That's when I realized that small array of hope was a beacon of blinding truth, and hope was an anglerfish where there was a monster on the other end. With closed eyes, I retreated into the dark. 

Muse 126: butterflies

found via 365vignettes

I was walking on the beach when I saw a butterfly. Its brown wings were the colour of wet sand, the black lines, neat dark grooves drawn by my pinky. The butterfly was neatly pressed, like a dried flower in between pages of books, into the shaven rocks, unmoving. I felt sad, my heart getting heavier by the second. This butterfly, magically kept perfect underneath this shoe, caused the world to collapse around me. My tears would be for this single butterfly, a beautiful winged creature that represented a class of metaphors beyond simple description. Love was represented in this single insect.

Muse 125: glass cases

found via becylouise

They'll put us in museums one day.

For what?

Well, for changing the world, Frankie. We're going to change the world.

You make us sound like Pinky and the Brain.

He smiled. Hah, well it's easier now. We'll do it one follower at a time.

Hm.

What, you don't believe me?

I don't know. I always thought the people they put in museums didn't think they were important. Like artists... like Monet, Van Gogh. The other people, they put in magazines.

Muse 124: something you don't do

cat & mouse part III

As we walked back, I kept turning around, wondering if Kevin would show up. It wasn't right to write him off so quickly as dead or simply missing. A gutted, pit feeling in my stomach continued to eat away what was inside - a feeling quite similar to how we all felt when we first entered the waters. This wasn't right, this wasn't something we should be doing. Every once in a while I could open my mouth, but Mary closed her hand around mine, as if it were my mouth. Surprisingly enough, when we reached the car, Kevin was waiting for us. His arms were crossed, like his eyebrows knitted together, and he grumbled, "It only took you twenty minutes to give up."

"Well it felt like longer!" Glen snapped.

The rest of the words remained stuck, like a thick coating of saliva, as I ran to him. Kevin's face, dark and unrecognizable, held hints of apathy. I threw my arms around him, but he never moved.

Muse 123: they told you not to be there

cat & mouse part II

We swam until Kevin disappeared. The bubbles lead us until we were standing in shallow water, so we decided to take a look around. In my head the warnings they had said replayed as if they were taunting me with an "I told you so." The lake was a place we were never supposed to be. They warned us about them, not to let them catch us, and now, "Look what happened to Kevin." We walked in circles, twitching in fear every time we heard a noise that sounded like the click of a safety switch or a thump against the trees. When the sky began to grow dark, we got scared and someone convinced all of us to go home. "It's going to be too dark soon."

"What about Kevin?" I asked sadly. The rest of them hesitated, then shrugged as if it wasn't their business.

Muse 122: cat and mouse

found via iamabilliontinyfeathers

They said to never let them catch you skinny-dipping. Don't let them catch you; don't ever let them, they warned ambiguously. Frankly, we didn't give a shit. The three of us went to the lake and stripped for the other three boys to see. We dared them to follow us into the cool collection, staring at the clouds while keeping an eye on them. That caused our eyes to go batshit for a while before they splashed into the water, coming after us, swimming underneath us for a good scare. The boys caught us, by choice. And no one else did, so we went again.

Muse 119: eventually, but not now.

found via pigeons&peacocks blog - by rachel crowder

Today the skirt was shorter than usual, and the top's cut lower than he recognized. Today his little girl was wearing an outfit he did not see as her Sunday best. In fact, he didn't like how he, and perhaps - well most likely - the rest of the male population, suddenly noticed how white her thighs were. "It's a bit cold outside," he said, putting down the television remote without a pause, "Don't you think you should change? And those heels look horrible. Like you'll fall and die." After a few minor alterations, his only daughter came pretty close to a 3AM hooker.

Alice blinked rapidly. Her eyes were painfully dry and irritated from her new powdered makeup, so there was also plenty of squinting. "I'll be fine Da," she stumbled over in baby steps and sloppily kissed his cheek. He felt better, in a small perverse satisfaction, when he realized that everyone could look safely down her top and find nothing to see. 

She straightened her back and flipped a jacket over her shoulder. "Besides," her heels clicked like little bullets in the hard wood floor, "I have my pepper spray, rape whistle and taser all tucked away in this purse." All this was said with a comforting pat. 

"Mm," he hummed, feeling more comfortable by the minute. "Did you remember to get the house keys?" 

"Ah hah, I knew I forgot something!"

Muse 117: pursuit

 found via hondasniper

These days it's so difficult.

I am not endlessly searching for the words anymore. Those perfect words that make a story more beautiful than it should ever be are written by someone else. I am not pursuing the joie de vivre as properly as I should. I am not moving. I am not fresh, but a stagnant fish in a farmed pond. The flesh you eat is rotten and full of worms. A headache of black swamp water that is not even drinkable.

I am not inspired. I am not in love. The worms I want to consume are supposed to take a heart of me, the part that will turn rainbows black and white and the monotonous flashes into color. The drenched world will come back to life, and I will find hope once more. But I am not inspired. I am not in love with these words. I have no one to write for, not even myself. Not when I have never loved myself properly.

I am frightened. At most my skills have been dulled to the senses of bullets and cars. In awe, I am the deer in the headlights, and the buck desensitized to danger. I have become a plaque on your wall, where I am worth more never living than barely alive.

Muse 116: Bathtime

found via playgroundlover

Sitting in the shower, staring at the white tiles as water embedded me slowly, I leaned back, enjoying the contrast of the cold porcelain tub on my heated skin. The comfort of baths must be universal. I couldn't think of one person that wouldn't enjoy a long hot soak. No, not as I closed my eyes and gave my thoughts away to nothing. For the first time in a long while, not a single thought inspired me to wake up and write, not a single murmur or hum interrupted the calm. In the bath tub, nothing inspired, nothing sparked and the swishing of water was just the sound of my body shifting around. To most people it sounds dead and wish less, but when you've suffered and heard nothing but the rushing cars, beeping phones, click and clattering keys, non-stop talking, shouts and calls inside your mind for desperate inspiration... Nothing is the best medicine around.

Muse 115: Fasting

Fasting is when people don't eat to regain their focus on what's important. I tried it once for 30 hours for the sake of starving children in Africa. It was a school event, sent home and notified on fliers. Our teachers locked us up in the gym, a room completely enclosed with bright lights and closed windows, so we couldn't know the time. It felt like a desert of empty buffet tables. We played games until our stomaches started to hurt. Some girl, tall and skinny, blamed it on laughing too hard, and so we forgot about eating again. There was a chase of boy and girl, and for a second we forgot about time and hunger. All I thought about was how I hoped Jake to chase me. Even if I was already seventeen years old these times were good excuses for wishes. When all this was done, someone meekly asked for the time. The teacher looked at his watch and grumbled, annoyed and hungry, "It's only been two hours." There was a community groan, but we were locked in and could do nothing about it. Our parents signed release forms for us to starve. So we played games, talked, gossiped and taped each other to the walls pretending they were enemy zombies. I don't remember praying once, but I remember hearing a teacher respond, "Yeah, I'm going to drop into bed once this is all over."

Muse 114: Karma

Everything comes back. It's not hard to believe. Everything comes back in a full circle and you feel deja vu hit you like an earthquake. Spots like your heart, spots like your pulse, places and parts of a body that were never known to exist suddenly hurt. Either simultaneously, or in sections like orange slices, take it whole or take it to pieces. Where the feelings are the same but could be reversed, where the situation's the same, and somehow I'm still on the suffering end.

I can't complain. This is the only way I'll see you again.

Muse 113: Wonders

found via jill willcot

There are seven wonders of the world. To the womanizers, they'll say you are the eighth. From your one and only, he'll have never heard of any wonders because all he's known to believe in is you. It's words and tricks like these that make girls wait and believe. You're his only wonder, the knowledge is all he needs to know. It's sentences strung together like this that make love seem vast and full of depth. After all, to find that one person who you belong to, and to whom you belong - hand in hand forever with no other - isn't it worth it? Isn't it? ...Isn't it? ...isn't...it...? To a boy who has a girl, who is his one wonder, she is like an echo that haunts him if she is never found.

Muse 112: Until they died.

found via tumblrpost

The first set of scans said he was okay. He was lucky. His wife replied thank you before she brought him home, bandages wrapped tightly around his ribs for support. He was asked to come back in a two weeks for a second check-up; for another x-ray scan that would rack up the numbers on his credit card. So when his wife asked about the coming appointment, he told her he felt fine. He didn't have to go anywhere, not when it cost so much just to stay alive. He reassured her that he felt fine, even pressed onto his ribcage and held in the cough to delay the illusion, and smiled. Smiles work for everything as long as you hold them up long enough. He waited a few more seconds and refreshed his lips with a strain. 

She believed him until he started coughing red. 

Muse 111: Rippled Canvas

art by KMR

She draws pictures as if they're underwater. With water stains and coffee marks, her canvases were wrinkled with dew and liquid drops that rippled the paper. Rain scattered everywhere it did not belong, in small doses that overcame the parched paintings, in uncontrollable patterns and smudges. The emotion was as if each painting had seen her crying, and the sight could have them think of nothing else but the tears that flowed forth. And so, the paintings, no matter how dry, and the drawings, no matter how rough, smoothed out into a blurred memory.

Muse 110: here comes Now

found via weheartit

Fear came in pairs of threes. She was always scared of the combination. Three words (I love you), three sentences (I'm sorry, There's something I need to tell you, and No.), three numbers (666) and then there was three letters (now). (Now) She heard that word last. It was so permanent and present, describing everything in the small time space that had just happened (now). 

"You're different (now)," he said. "It's only been a year since I last saw you, but you've grown so much." Plenty of things can happen in a year, she thought sarcastically. It's 365 days, 365 chances to hear words unexpected, three hundred sixty five moments to hope for the worse like this moment between us (now). "Things feel different (now)."

Now if only she could take those words and throw it back in time. Now wouldn't matter so much as later. Not so much as back then. She scratched her head and smoked her cigarette as he looked onward with distaste. The science of words and time - figuring out how would fix everything (now).