Silent Maiden's Shrine of Curiosities

"what do you mean it's gone?

we've searched for hours! it has to be here! "

there's a brief moment of the ceiling fan spinning, a few calls from the local poles rang out in the silence held between them.

"i said they're in a box, and i don't remember which one. it's around here somewhere, we need to be patient and it will turn up."

a few numbers appeared on the colorful screen across the way. increasing in sum and equal in loudness, the familiar song that plays again and again against the forecast of clouds and rain and --

"i think i tagged it with one of the stickers you bought from jenn."

jenn, often short for jennifer, whose mom thought it better to keep it short for her own sake.

jenn, the girl she met back at the craft table of one of those spring into summer workshops hosted by the franklin keller library.

jenn? the one who brushed up against her often, apologizing for being an air headed, two-steps removed from a foxtrot or ballroom spin.

jenn! with her brunette bangs that sometimes covered those soft grey eyes, falling against a charcoal black dye job in the back against her neck.

"jenn? you mean the one with the grey striped cat holding a sandwich? that sticker?"

sandwich? sticker? grey? cat? it was all blurring together and in the moment the way she saw how jenn looked in her mind, a custom shade of rose lip, reflected on her own face.

"i don't remember you buying her stickers, i have a couple she practically begged me to pay her for when we met up for lunch."

lunch. right! lunch. that's an afternoon she both wanted to remember and couldn't bear to forget. an ordinary meal time chat, in the sun, in her everyday dress she got from the local thrift with

jenn.

jenn!

she can't stop herself from thinking about

"jenn."

she’s crying all alone

she’s buying smaller boots

there’s another down the road they’re bartering

for loaves of bread

another screams in the darkest night

a mare runs through their head

“i don’t know if hope is worth it”

“a waste of breath to believe”

“i can’t keep this up or keep going”

“being awake makes it hard to dream”

i watch through the pain stained glass are the reflections all of me?

different parts, different paintings, a different shade, saturated hues

i live through all those moments when i was taken for granted, another day, a loss to lose

i believe there can be better if we can give better a chance

a chance for evolution

i will give that gift to me.

as i loop through all the reasons why i can’t just

be myself

run away and hide away and scare away and

barely be

what’s happening? what’s happening?

what happened to make me leave

myself and all my trinkets

the world beyond the clouds

of the stories written for me

the castle in the forest where we sing so bold and loud

where can we go? where did it go? what happened lies beneath

it lives inside the hollow wounds

of the girl i used to be

it all lives inside the spiral bounds

of the stories written of me

it lives inside this lovely shell

the one chasing me to me

here’s to the new moon when i have more to sing along about in store!

in her view she sees a splitscreen splitsecond it's both and. they're them and they're her -- the other that she admittedly wants to admit -- jenni. two completely different vibes, two different appearances, in the same moments reflection. 

"aww, my hero comes to my rescue." hannah grins, whispering groggily like the couch creature stole her voice, "i was almost, like, about to lose something in there."

"oh yeah? like your sock?" coal's closer voice resonating from their now closer chest has a point. hannah can feel the bare foot in the slightly cooler air, and simply reaches one arm up defiantly,

"worth the cost if it means i end up here, in your arms, hero!"

hannah waits for a moment, before leaning against coal, who took a seat on the sock eating couch, to give them stability. she could smell them, normally. that's a not so atypical thing around coal. they put their all into something and it shows, it smells, and before assumptions or implications, it's just coal. natural, bold, beautiful, butch coal.

sure, she ponders, i sometimes work up a bit of a smell when i work out. i wonder how noticeable that is. alongside the pondering, which for hannah g. is clearly slowing down to match the rhythmic thumping of the warm one both holding her and being held by her,

the sweaty air

the long faded sunset

the whir of a bladeless fan

in the arms of her hero of this time

hannah finds rest and a familiar feeling

"coal?" she doesn't move much of her lips in doing so,

"what's up, girl? are you ready for--"

"no," she's not, "i'm too tired. can you--" please? stay here? for now? until i fall asleep?