#justonekid

anonymously tell me how you feel about me. I can’t reply, I just have to read it and post it. // accepting.

                    THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS  as they should be -- easy, free, without halting & stammering words, without anger & hostility ... or, perhaps things are not ever meant to be that way. Perhaps balance is about the hard times as well as the easy ones. Perhaps there is a push & pull that aches, that bruises, that hurts, but leaves you with peace. 

     Whatever the case, she knows that sometimes ... sometimes she must give more than she takes, & sometimes she must take more than she gives. 

     She reaches for his hand & squeezes it tightly. 

                    HE MOVES TOO QUICKLY  for her to catch him - if she weren’t still recovering from the birth of their firstborn she’d have been just as nimble as he, just as fast. But the kiss is, as always, sent from the spirits to bless her. A moment of eternity, a picture of the infinite. That kiss will carry her through the afternoon, until she sees him again ...

     ‘I love you!’   she calls with a joyful laugh, waving her arm as he bounds away to one meeting, while she scurries on to another. Being a war hero & a member of the Fire Lord & Avatar’s inner circle has meant there are certain demands upon her time, her new baby notwithstanding. This one has something to do with building plans for the new city ...

     He gurgles happily from his place at her back, securely fastened. She turns her head & can just make out the curve of his forehead -- he’d recognized the sound of his father’s voice, most likely. She smiles as she turns & begins to walk steadily in the opposite direction. 

                                                             THE THIN SWEATSHIRT barely keeps out the cold. She folds her arms tightly across her chest, as if she could keep her body heat contained with sheer force of will. It’s spring, so, supposedly, it shouldn’t be as cold as it had been a few weeks ago. But it is. It must be. She’s felt as though her fingers & toes   ( her heart, her center )   are frozen & numb for weeks now, no - for months. 

     She’d spent the afternoon on her bed, huddled under a blanket, crying to Sokka, calling & crying to Yue. Things weren’t supposed to be this way, right? When you’re not with someone, they shouldn’t be able to hurt you like that, right?

     Her sneakers squeak on the grass as she walks over to where he’s sitting. The sun has just set & there’s still the glow of dusk hanging in the air. It used to be one of her favorite times of day, but now it just reminds her of him. She stops a few feet away, but she knows he knows she’s there. He probably spotted her a long way off, just as she’d spotted him.

i love you never leave bitch

send something soft !!  ( accepting ) 

                                                        MUFFLED GIGGLES FLY UP  into the dusty shadows of the corridor as she pulls him farther away from the echoes of responsibility. It’s only momentary, that’s the reason she can condone, no, encourage this sort of behavior. She’s holding onto him by her fingertips, moving swiftly around another corner, & then she’s holding onto him with her hands, her arms, her lips, her heart. 

     There’s a swirl of fabric   ( blue, white, orange, yellow )   & she breathes him in, laughing at the rush of slipping away, the need to get back as soon as possible. 

     Her chin darts up & he leans in, & his lips tickle her neck with their insistence. She giggles some more, fingers twisting in his robes & pulling him closer. 

     It’s only around him that she feels young   ( I HAVEN’T DONE THAT SINCE I WAS A KID! but you are a kid! ),   that she feels like she’s truly herself. It’s been seven years of this, of meetings & leaders & traveling – of him, of them. Quiet moments together, stolen & precious.