And accept it that soon You'll be drenched to the bone.

Marmalade


This orange honey burned gloppy
upon my fingers I scream
how to capture fire beneath skin and blood
how to walk without hips swaying
pendulous body feet pointed in
She can breathe and think at the same time she can
walk at dusk and foggy dawn bleary
eyed, she sees her feet reflected over the subway grate
comma inward; paragraph out
growing like a tree flaming leaves
Can you count them all? everything
labels the names for all things tossed
through my head forcing lips
to become chapped and burned fingers
to become blistered
the mind is not pink, but gray
I love the way people look when they're asleep.


By the way, I've started a new blog, with realtime prosaic rants and updates on my new high school life.
Blackberry Crowns, for you.

Title Quote: Bob Dylan, Times They are a Changing

I got sunshine in a bag I'm useless, but not for long the future is comin' on

This is the continuing tale of Bay and Tulya. Haven't read it yet? Catch up here:

part 1

part 2

part 3

and now, part 4:

Arriving home, they found a very agitated Duluth snuffling at the screen door. His snout pushed against the walls, and then Tulya and Bay. Tulya sighed with pity, for herself and for the pig, and stood outside the house, her long brown fingers resting on the latch to open the polished white gate. She stayed this way for a couple of minutes, and her mind seemed to be in another place. Finally, Tulya started a little, and her eyes focused again, and her fingers, trembling ever so slightly, lifted the latch up and stepped through the gate. She beckoned for Duluth to come in, and she lay out his food in a bright orange bowl on the kitchen floor, which he gratefully vacuumed up. She looked up at Bay. “I'm gonna change and then we'll go, 'kay?” Tulya walked up the stairs, with Bay trailing quietly after. She came to her room, and stepped in, shutting the door firmly behind her. Bay turned around from outside the door and padded to the bathroom.  A couple minutes later,  Tulya emerged, dressed now in a clean shirt and a pair of baggy gypsy pants. Tulya had not graduated, like Bay had, so she still had about a week or so before school got out. Both knew this, but neither made any suggestion that Tulya go to school. Bay really didn't care much, and in her current distressed state, neither did Tulya, despite the fact that she was the girl who never came late or missed a day of schoolwork. Instead, the pair headed back to Abi's hospital. 

“Tulya Simmons, to see Abigail Simmons, please,” Tulya politely told the woman at the front desk. “Second floor, room 212,” she answered, after running her eyes down a list on her computer screen. “Thank you.” Tulya and Bay marched on to the elevators. There was a long corridor between the elevators on the second floor and room 212. It was off-white, with a a grayed out pastel green stripe running horizontal at head hight along the walls. “Sickening,” Tulya muttered. “Why does the hospital have to be painted so depressingly?” Bay stayed silent, and she knew he was saving all of his strength for Abi and Tulya's reaction to her. She decided to steel herself so she would not need to lean on him when he was clearly being crippled. Her words echoed dumbly through the hallway in her mind. Abi lay peacefully in a paper gown with the scratchy white blanket pulled up past her breast. Hospital corners, thought Tulya. Abi had a clear oxygen tube pushed up her nose which made Tulya shudder, and Bay noticed that alongside an IV pump attatched to her wrist, there was also a bag tucked under the bed that was connected to Abi, and was filled with a dark brown red fluid. He shuddered as well, and he needed to know, but was far too afraid to ask, even if there was anyone around who would know. But the doctor from before was not in sight, neither any other hospital personnel. 

Title Quote: Gorillaz, Clint Eastwood