Two background pieces
Mar. 19th, 2012 02:15 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
sea-of-flame.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
writing_shadowsOoC: Realised I hadn't put the first of these up here when I wrote it. The second is a new one even for Sally :P
Ruth
Night-blooming flowers. The heat of the day, cast back from the earth and the garden walls, lingering under a failing moon. Wide sky, diamond-studded as naked ambition. The racket of insects and birds, filling in the space left behind when the German next door finally became silent.
None of these things are her. Yet, they frame her. Context, positioning.
Without these, a portrait is incomplete.
She...no.
Her face was a white blur. A swiftness of movement, an alien complexion. A newness, and an oldness, that sent my fingers reaching for charcoal even as I fell to my knees, still holding my sketch pad.
She terrified me. And even then, not knowing who or what she was, I think I loved her for it. Hated her too - of course.
But that fear, that primal terror... I could have basked in it. Perhaps I understood for a moment the sharp logic which leads others to cut. To /feel/.
And then her gaze was upon me.
On bruised grass, and sharp stones biting bloodily into knees. On dusty charcoal and smooth paper, the scratch of the charcoal as my hand captured her, captured all the contradictions that she invoked. On the pulse drumming through me.
Looking back - looking away, let alone running away, never seemed like an option.
As meat loves salt
There's a story of a king who had three daughters. The older ones were flatterers, telling their father they loved him like silk, like jewels. The youngest spoke of meat and salt, and was sent out into the world.
Did she send me away, or did I run? I've never been quite sure. I know I saw that look in her eyes, the look I've only ever known in reflection before. Not quite boredom. Not quite disappointment. Not quite disgust. Almost... frustration? A child with a broken toy. Fretful with the world that nothing is quite as it was. I know it. I've dashed a thousand fragile things to pieces because they no longer inspired. The destruction doesn't matter. It could even be called artful. She is free to hurt me - but not to ignore me.
She was as much my muse as I was hers. I have folios full of her. I have mixed oils for hours, trying to capture the vitae as it collects at her wrist, beneath her pallid skin. Even a philistine could read too much into those, see how she made me her thrall, so they stay locked away, laid away like dead children's christening gowns. Would that metaphor make her wince, my unlovely Jewish sire?
I am not sure. She has always been the one person who can understand me, she who is half-blind to my art, and half-deaf to my cruelty. And I, to whom perfume is just something to wear, perhaps I am that to her as well.
I think she would understand the salt. It is a thing of proverb, of the sea.
I think I will try to bring her some Fukoshima salt, when I return along the silk road. I think she will appreciate it. Half life.
Ruth
Night-blooming flowers. The heat of the day, cast back from the earth and the garden walls, lingering under a failing moon. Wide sky, diamond-studded as naked ambition. The racket of insects and birds, filling in the space left behind when the German next door finally became silent.
None of these things are her. Yet, they frame her. Context, positioning.
Without these, a portrait is incomplete.
She...no.
Her face was a white blur. A swiftness of movement, an alien complexion. A newness, and an oldness, that sent my fingers reaching for charcoal even as I fell to my knees, still holding my sketch pad.
She terrified me. And even then, not knowing who or what she was, I think I loved her for it. Hated her too - of course.
But that fear, that primal terror... I could have basked in it. Perhaps I understood for a moment the sharp logic which leads others to cut. To /feel/.
And then her gaze was upon me.
On bruised grass, and sharp stones biting bloodily into knees. On dusty charcoal and smooth paper, the scratch of the charcoal as my hand captured her, captured all the contradictions that she invoked. On the pulse drumming through me.
Looking back - looking away, let alone running away, never seemed like an option.
As meat loves salt
There's a story of a king who had three daughters. The older ones were flatterers, telling their father they loved him like silk, like jewels. The youngest spoke of meat and salt, and was sent out into the world.
Did she send me away, or did I run? I've never been quite sure. I know I saw that look in her eyes, the look I've only ever known in reflection before. Not quite boredom. Not quite disappointment. Not quite disgust. Almost... frustration? A child with a broken toy. Fretful with the world that nothing is quite as it was. I know it. I've dashed a thousand fragile things to pieces because they no longer inspired. The destruction doesn't matter. It could even be called artful. She is free to hurt me - but not to ignore me.
She was as much my muse as I was hers. I have folios full of her. I have mixed oils for hours, trying to capture the vitae as it collects at her wrist, beneath her pallid skin. Even a philistine could read too much into those, see how she made me her thrall, so they stay locked away, laid away like dead children's christening gowns. Would that metaphor make her wince, my unlovely Jewish sire?
I am not sure. She has always been the one person who can understand me, she who is half-blind to my art, and half-deaf to my cruelty. And I, to whom perfume is just something to wear, perhaps I am that to her as well.
I think she would understand the salt. It is a thing of proverb, of the sea.
I think I will try to bring her some Fukoshima salt, when I return along the silk road. I think she will appreciate it. Half life.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}