The Amaranthine Poet

This Dark Town

April 6, 2008 on 12:17 am | In Everything | No Comments

Well, it has been quite awhile since I have written anything on my website. I think I am going to still put up my poetry and certain works of prose up on myspace, but everything else (I don’t know what everything else is) will go up here. I think I will put my esoteric works and thoughts up on this here website…although, I suppose all my work can be considered esoteric. I would like to think that that isn’t completely true…Well, let me begin the first entry of the year with this little crumpled up tissue of esoteric-ness: A story.

With a swift movement, she swept her hair behind her ears and stared into the ground–as if she was trying to burn a hole into it with her gaze and escape from here; climb into the hole and crawl deep below the hollow howling of these people. I hear them speaking loudly about her.
“She can’t do it! She doesn’t even have wings. Who does she think she is? I wish she would just fall flat on that monstrous, rosy little self-righteous face of hers,” scoffed a jealous group of bystanders.

She had claimed she could fly. No one believed her, but no one cared either. She claimed she could fly and said that one day she would leave town; one day, when the darkness of midnight has become the blackest black and when the hearts of her neighbors become as stiff and cold as a mid-winter stone, she would climb atop the highest hill and fly away. They all wanted her to leave. She was too pure for this little town. She made all the citizens look bad in contrast to her sweet nature and they didn’t like that very much. Instead of changing their cold hearts and following her kindness, they rebuked her and mistreated her. They all wanted her to leave…but I didn’t. It killed me inside to imagine her gone; the only light within this dark town. It would be as if the sun had one day refused to shine…what would be left of a world enveloped in darkness?

I stood there, surrounded by the dark cloud of the town’s mocking citizens and wished that she would just look upon my face for a moment and see that I wasn’t one of them. I loved her. I looked up at the setting sun and its dull rays seemed to bleed her name into the drooping sky. At the sight of her name, I was certain I would melt…disperse into a scattered rain of a billion overwhelmed stars. I wished she would lift her head from her moment of focus and cast her stormy eyes upon the raging crowd and see me…She looked into the sun as if reassuring her path and I envied it at that moment. I envied the sun. I knew that he would always be with her. I knew that he would daily lead her path and warm her. I knew that she noticed the sun; I knew that once she glanced at him and blinked at his beauty…

She stepped forward, ready to fly away. The crowd cleared an empty patch of balding grass below her, hoping that she would fall and not be caught in anyone’s arms–fall to her death and they would all marvel at her silent, twisted corpse…but I wouldn’t let her die; I would catch her. She smiled to the crowd and a rainbow of melodic words fell from her lips…but I could not make out what she said because the malicious crowd was cursing roughly at her. I heard the sound of her voice though. Her voice was like the perfect song–capturing and surfacing the entangled emotion hidden within a person’s quietest desire. Her voice was like a whispered lullaby behind the velvet heat of a summer midnight. Her voice was paradisal bliss…like the bliss of heaven. Heaven: where the world, the banality of evil, the boredom of routine all fade away…not just fade, but lose their form of existence all together.

Then she frowned and mouthed the words, “good bye,” and the crowd laughed as she lifted her heels off the ground. One woman picked up a small stone and cast it at her…then the rest of the crowd assumed the activity. I was caught within the web of chaos amidst the crowd but as I looked up at her, I was filled with tranquility, mesmerized by her coy beauty. She wasn’t considered beautiful by most. Her inquisitive eyes were warm, but her face was a canvas of scars–caused from what, I do not know…but she was beautiful to me.

I reached out my hand to her as she lifted her arms to the sky, her fingers spread in desperation–like a child reaching for a consoling embrace–and as she closed her eyes…the sky lifted her up into his strong arms. The crowd grew so silent with their shock and a heavy tear dropped from her eye and fell, fell to the empty patch of grass where the malicious crowd had cleared for her to fall upon. I looked upon her face as she flushed with the distraught of hopelessness for humanity. I reached out to her and screamed for her, cried for her to take me with her, to rescue me…as I fell to my knees the crowd returned to their chanting and casting of stones and I called out her name as I sunk into the dark fog of the town…I wished she had seen me and had loved me the way that I loved her.

Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and as I looked up, I saw that the sky had lifted me up. The sky was carrying me away from the roaring crowd and the dark, hateful town. I watched as their casted stones became like mere dust particles. I saw her flying in front of me and she looked back into my burning face and smiled. And as she smiled, the fragrant breath of the sun and all its euphoria exploded within my heart.

<3 Jenna Awad <3