Headful of ghosts.

[greedy fly]

There was a thrill when his lashes split blurry seams in the morning to find a temporarily-foreign cheek mapped out on the pillowcase beside him. When all of the disconnected pieces duct-taped together, he realized it was her. All sugar-sweet and bathing like a cat in the spare rays of tangerine sunshine that extended its hands from his window sill. Asleep, she was all playground innocence, even with her foam skirt sloppily ruffled beneath the sheets he draped her with, and the bruises that had been thriving for a string of days from their raw sexescapades.

When it came to venturing beyond casual sex, he realized that he did like her. She sat still enough for him to paint, even if she was antsy. She always had a kiss to startle him with when he wasn't looking. She had an actual story; even if the only painless way for her to share it with him was through a fairytale swirl of bewitching metaphors and childlike symbolism. The girl beside him had perfect skin, and the hum of her breath serenaded him and lured him to sleep. But, she had a thousand scars inside, and just like him, she swore she was alright.

Groggily smearing to the edge of the bed, he didn't bother putting on clothes. He just waltzed through the shadows, his tattoos dim, his hair hanging limp and mussed in his face. Right at the border between his bedroom door and the hall, he braced his hand on the threshold's plaster, and glanced over his shoulder at her. For once it was just too fucking early to wake up and start his day with an endless array of cooking, plotting ideas, scribbling thoughts, painting, sketching, smoking on his balcony and praising the glory of the slums with his eyes. He just backtracked and flung himself on the mattress beside her; dusting an angel kiss between the brows. Solomon wanted to leech onto Abellona's warmth, as though it were rightfully his, too.

<font color="#EE0000" size="1">[ March 25, 2005 01:46 AM: Message edited by: softcore jukebox ]</font>

[greedy fly]

His room was a splintered tornado of hellbent shambles; upturned drawers, amps, ashtrays, papers, a hole in the wall from battering it with a glamrock, royal-purple guitar (and the neck was broken on that now, too.) He sat on the floor, in the center of it all --at ground zero, and ripped at his his roots. He never tasted jealousy so bad. He bit his tongue until the silver stud produced copper tastes, and spraypainted over the words she wrote once-upon-a-time on his wall with a plague of pitch black. Everything was upside-down and he was shaking with anger. He never thought it would anger him so much to see her grow up, move on, act like a slag. She ghosted by him like he was nonexistent, as immature as it was. The girl that he once swore would paint the roses on his tombstone. The girl that deepthroated him on the burning bed that she bled on. The girl that he used to wade along with even in their shallow moments.

Rinsing an asphalt palm over his face, he stared at all the trashed memories. Anything that she had ever touched was broken, except for his bones.

And all the while the only words he could muster in the dryspell of silence were ---


<center>"You couldn't bear the fact that you were never her.
And you're rubbing it in my face now.
You might as well just fucking piss on my grave then.
You seem to be good at that, baby."</center>

[greedy fly]

The ice cream was puddled in ancient, chipped bowls, melting beneath the whim of the heater's surprisingly cozy hymn. He laid there, somewhere just after three-thirty, watching her sleep, even though he was jumpy and wide-awake. The room was dim and drenched in shadows. His cat finally adapted to the increase of her presence, and even volunteered to lounge with her olive-glow eyes squinted and basking at the foot of the bed. A passing headlight from outside flirting colors through his blinds accompanied by loud bass systems was the only thing that broke his trance. He couldn't take it anymore! He boyishly pounced her, and cupped his hands at her cheeks, whimpering softly.

"Lona...wake up."

Then, he realized how selfish he was being, and took a quick jack-knife to an upright position, lingering on the edge of the mattress for a moment, his hands stapled to it, his naked shoulders jabbing ceilingwards. In his silence, he lit a cigarette, flickered ash in a clay-mold tray that a friend had sculpted free hand for him, and turned to view her again. It was like an elaborate double-take.

His tattooed shoulderblades canted back on the headboard, and with a rifle through his nighstand drawer, he flipped through his sketchbook (that laid side-by-side with his journal) passing idle drawings of his own hands in gnarled states, closed eyes, random inspiration told through homeless street tales on benches--even his cat. He passed a picture of her that he had illustrated from memory, the one that he told her he'd give to her. In it, she was standing next to a lightpost, smoking a cigarette, with her fingers creased in her skirt, as though she were going to lift it up. But it was starved of any sexual flavor, she looked perfectly innocent, like a schoolgirl that just read a textbook full of fairytales with a thousand happy-endings. The next page deserved another staring intermission. This one was a zoom-lense close-up of her face, again -- the curves of her lips were embedded in the spiderwebs of his mind. The look in her eyes, the way they were slanted like a feline, and the way her lashes drifted cinematically low, the way her mouth was parted. It perfectly reproduced her sultry glow before they became a mess of honeyed saliva and sweat-sugarcoated limbs.

Now, an empty page. His simple, yellow bitemark-engraved pencil was bullied from the spiraled binding when he turned it upside-down. He drew her lines and smudged in her shadows quickly, because he knew she wouldn't stay in that position for long. His wrist was flinching fast and accurate, and in a good ten minutes he had her reflected on a horizontally-sprawled slab of paper. Nestled in the pillow; silky-serene beneath the sheets and blankets he doused her in.

He opened the drawer to hide it away, working to his feet, sloppily stabbing one leg at a time into slightly-flared jeans, leaving the plain, leather belt buckle jingling and gaping open as he ambled into the living room. The tiny, made-for-two kitchen table (he got rid of his old one, because it was consuming too much space) provided him all the answers for his next project: yesterday's thick newspaper.

Sitting indian-style in the center of the room that was now the quintessence of tidy-- he sliced at pages at a time with a neat collaboration of both hands. One held pegged the black-and-white ink sheets down with its' heel, and the other worked to rip the paper clean. It took his nervous, quivering fingers time to manipulate each page the way that he wanted, but by properly crinkling the bottom like a stem, and using his thumb and forefinger to pull at tufts at the top, he successfully managed to bunch the paper to resemble a rose. And he continued this onward until four o'clock came, and he deftly created a dozen newspaper roses. He ironed out the remnants of the newspaper across the floor, and reached for the jars of paint lining the legs of the easel next to the couch. He still had yet to finish his painting of her. The past few nights, he didn't want her to sit pretty and mannequin-like.

Unscrewing two jars; licorice-red and a bland shrub-green that he always mixed to produce richer shades, he took his thickest brush and drenched it red to color the pseudopetals, meticulously, one at a time. It took forever, but he kept himself entertained with silent thoughts of her spinning on axis, before it came time to pinch the stems and hastily drench them in green, too. Then, he laid them out one-by-one to try over the canvas of job and personal ads. He closed his jars, contentedly, and came back to bed with Christmas-colored hands to let his daft masterpieces dry.

When he cradled her in his arms, sidled up behind her, he whispered a promising lullabye into her ear to wriggle its way into her subconscious.

"I have presents for yew."

Whatever happened (on a holiday that surely wasn't important to a British man) tomorrow happened. But at least they'd have each other, and one another's skin to feast on.

[greedy fly]

I feel like a villain. The lines of our future are deformed and insecure. I feel as though I didn't do anything wrong, but at the same time I knew that my violence tore down her world, and made her put up a shield to fend me and her other demons off. I am passionate, and I told her the truth, and she seemed to smile, swallow it down and pretend, and let me in on a few secrets of her own. This was the first time I ever laid everything down on the line; my drug habit, shredded pieces of my past, Marie, and other pieces that I wanted her to know. I wanted Abellona to look at me and decide if she wanted me or not. I cannot set myself up to be left again in the end. I can't prepare for it.

I know why I'm attracted to her. It's because she's different, there isn't one cruel, manipulative, catty bone in her body. She's the angelic, sugar-sweet side that every girl with any sort of depth owns until their naivete is shot to the earth, and their wings to leave gaping holes in their shoulderblades. She's so empathetic, that she cries over other people's wars. I tried to make it better tonight, I tried to reassure her that there was only one thing that mattered right now: her and me, me and her. It brightened her up until she told me why she was really crying earlier, and I saw the bruises on her ribs.

I know it's partially testosterone to feel the need to defend your girl (my girl, my girl--it sounds posessive and so surly, is she even my girl? Is the girl that is laying down beside him, perfectly naked with scars nicking her legs my girl?) and protect her, but I also have to suspend my mind to even imagine anyone that could take advantage of something so perfectly gorgeous. I want to kill him, and those are powerful words coming from me. There have been moments where I've brutally beaten people up, but I think it comes from survival instinct, and the natural intensity that I feel inside. But, she won't tell me where he lives. She says he could hurt me a lot worse. Whenever the word 'gun' is involved, I promptly back off.

Even if she stops seeing me, I'm petrified of seeing her get hurt. It makes me nauseous, it makes my stomach churn. I just want her to be alright. I want to take care of her, and promise her the stars, and show her the better half of the world. I know that I'm not the top-notch competitor to show her the better side of things considering that I'm a recovering, but still practicing junkie. I'm still bitter about the past, I'm always hallucinating on a guilt-trip, I've lost my mind and found it several times, I am a whore, I have no money. The only part of me that I can rely on is my passion, and in the end, it is my passion which destroys me. It nourishes me, and destroys me, and everything good that flutters in my path.

I never want to yell at her again. My heart dropped and I wanted to find a noose when she ran out that door terrified and cowering. Her own naivete got her in trouble today, and there's no nice way to tell her that what she did was fucking stupid. I told her that she always has a place to stay here, and she claims she doesn't want to be a 'clingy girl.' Well, I want her to be! What the fuck is wrong with all the women in my life? Why are they always so detached, always so scared of showing their emotions and opening themselves up? Is it some sort of dark fashion trend? I hate it, I hate it. I put myself out there, hang myself to dry, and I just wish that she could do the same.

After years and years of fucking around, climbing between countless thighs, and wishing for better luck tomorrow, I just want something solid. I want something to look forward to. I want it to radiate in my gut, I want to know that tomorrow it won't be gone. I can't help it that I've grown slightly pessimistic over the years, because everything I love leaves. But God, how I just wish she'd stay, stay, stay. Look at me, adore me, worship me, stay. Cos I could do the same for her, I could. I would. I will. Look at me, look at me, trust me. This isn't fake chivalry, I will protect you. I want you. I want you so bad. I won't let anyone hurt you, ever again. I won't let you hurt yourself. I won't let anyone hurt you. I won't.

[greedy fly]

Christmastime, again.

"Piece of shit," he growled through gritted teeth, attempting, and failing to fit the stocky, five-foot-three tree into his doorway. His solid black hoodie was up, the drawstrings loose, his nose cherrytipped from needles of artic winter wonderland weather. Syme was choking on trenchant fresh evergreen scents that should righteously be packaged and hung up as an air-freshener.

The tree was too thick, and the pine needles were becoming smothered and matted down as they tried to wedge it through. Syme was in charge of the gritty stump, all sloe-eyed and impatient beneath the flakes of peroxide-drenched hair.

"Christmas is a waste of time, Sol---" Through a strained seethe, the lanky musician at the other end was spiking the air with his overcast cynicism again.

"I know it is."

"Then why the fuck----" They were panting, their faces scrunched and askew, when finally they both stumbled through the door. The cat darted out of the way to hibernate in his bedroom as though the tree were an immediate threat (and later, she'd be feasting on the fallen needles when her master's back was turned.) "Did you get this?"

Solomon steered them to the far corner of the living room, right beside the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. It was already black outside, and the lighting pouring from the bald lamp was all they could rely on.

"So," he declared triumphantly, his lungs hungering for a cigarette. "Lona and I have something to decorate."

[greedy fly]

I've been keeping my chin up for the holidays. The environment has been fairly drama-free lately, save Quinn's detonated bomb of self-destruction. But, even she's starting to get better, and after talking to her for hours a few nights ago, I think I finally got through. When I haven't been working, I've been in the apartment with her, nursing her through withdrawal, because I know she'd do the same for me. I bought only a few presents this year, as I have no real people to buy presents for. Obviously, there's Quinn, Jill, Syme, Johnny C, and Alice and the twins. This is always the time of year when I wish that maybe Jude or Kate would phone. I don't think it's selfish of me at all to hope that they're well. But I've stopped clinging to that a long time ago.

As for my love life, that hasn't exactly been kicking. I go to the tavern everyday, and I sit around completely distraught by the doorway, hoping that maybe Abellona will drop by. But she doesn't. I've stopped by her apartment on a few occassions, but no one answered the door. I just hope that everything's alright with her and nothing has happened. I can't help but to be sick with worry.

I sent Vera a card in the mail to her flat in Italy, and wished her the best. Because that ended so abruptly I almost didn't know what to do with myself. I really don't like Christmas, I never have. I'm not even fucking religious, anymore. It's a vicious holiday that always manages to make you feel lonely unless you have someone there at your side. Being in this apartment (which I've grown so attached to because of the memories that have grown in its walls) makes me sick with nostalgia. This is the time of year when I think of Marie the most, and how giddy she was the first and only time we decorated a Christmas tree together.

I took Emily out last week, and she was babbling about God-knows-what. But we went to the park, and she was all bundled up and we both attempted to make snowmen. It a competition of sorts, there was this mother and son duo right beside us, but their snowman looked handicapped. The woman kind of bounced up to us and asked if she was mine. I said: "No, it's my friend Alice's little girl."

It was sort of surreal and refreshing to be spending time with her, considering how much Kate and I used to babysit Mia and Emily when they were just babies. I barely see Mia, but it's brilliant to see how their personalities are so different for twins, and how much they glow. Sometimes, I can't help but get this really weird feeling that I want to be a father someday, and I know that I'd be really good at it. Not that it's a job, or anything. It would involve leaving these walls behind, and quite possibly even this city. If I ever had children, maybe I'd like to raise them near London.

That's been in my head a lot lately---leaving here and moving back home. But I can't leave all the memories spraypainted on these walls, and I can't leave the girl I love so much upstairs that's too stubborn to leave with me. I'd miss the nightlife, the familiar faces, the band--everything. But when I was a child I don't think I ever had the chance to embrace home like I really should've. It's a whole different world over there.

All in all, I need to start taking a direction in my life. I need to figure out what the fuck I'm going to do, instead of just diving headfirst into tomorrow. I love the spontaneity, I love the chaos, but I'm also growing out of it at the same time. I know I can't wait tables at a restaurant for the rest of my life, or paint pretty pictures that go on display but never get sold. I know that being a rock star will never happen, nor do I have any desire whatsoever to become one. I don't know what I want. I'm twenty-five, and five years short of thirty. I want direction.

[greedy fly]

I'm tired of having potential but being nobody.
I'm tired of watching heartless people walk around and survive better than I do.
I'm tired of spending my days and seasons alone.
I'm tired of taking care of people that are dying inside.
I'm tired of waking up and wanting to fall back asleep forever.
I'm tired of thinking about Marie day-and-night.
I'm tired of breaking hearts and watching people forget about me.
I'm tired of wishing things could've been better.
I'm tired of being cast aside.
I'm tired of my shakey hands.
I'm tired of the drugs.
I'm tired of being paranoid and self-conscious.
I'm tired of acting fake around people I don't know.
I'm tired of looking for love.
I'm tired of the bad dreams.
I'm tired of worrying about everyone else all the time.
I'm tired of feeling bad all the time.
I'm tired of pretending that I could love anyone else as much as her.
I'm tired of cleaning up after everyone else.
I'm tired of lying.
I'm tired of the memories painted on my walls.
I'm tired of waiting for replacements.
I'm tired of blood.
I'm tired of watching happy families and wishing.
I'm tired of being passionate.
I'm tired of being mad.
I'm tired of empty bathtubs.
I'm tired of love.
I'm tired.

<center></center>

<font color="#EE0000" size="1">[ March 25, 2005 01:37 AM: Message edited by: softcore jukebox ]</font>

[greedy fly]

And in some sort of way it was like he was living the parallel of his childhood all over again. There was only one person who was still around that he genuinely cared about and loved. It wasn't in a romantic way any longer, but the way a man loves his little sister. The way a man loves his mother. His stitches were sewn so haphazardly, and the stuffing inside that had once been cotton-white was pulp-red and severely bloodied. The seams were on the verge of splitting. He watched Quinn self-destruct like he watched his own mother. He watched her laying on the floor and always anticipated her skin turning blue. Just like when he was a child, there was only one person in his life. His days were empty, his nights were full of nursing her. He didn't have enough energy inside to even snap, anymore. He just closed her door and bleakly sauntered down the building's stairs, curving into the isolated morgue that was his apartment. There were no lovers, no friends, nothing. There was the girl that was mangled on the carpet upstairs, with a belt laced around her frail bicep and him. He poured a shot of Jack (that he prayed would feel brutal and astringent on the lines of his immune throat), and reflected over the kitchen window. Not only was he re-living his childhood, and felt just as hopeless pouring his heart out to people that didn't deserve it--- but he felt just as lost as he did when he was a little boy. The end of this grim fairytale was inevitable, and he knew it.

<font color="#EA2539" size="1">[ December 28, 2004 05:06 AM: Message edited by: london's burning ]</font>

[greedy fly]

he tasted wild, like hard liquor without any chaser. you could always find him slanted with his hips cocked, fully loaded by his bullet belt, looking like some alternative james dean (and promising to die just as young.) there wasn't a moment where the bonfire inside dwindled down to dim. not even drugs could play god over his socket-frayed nerves and hyperactive fever of a lifestyle. yet, he pleasantly coexisted with them, and preferred snorting his lines off of flat bellies. he'd get so impatient in a traffic jam that he'd take the time to fxck you out of (into) distress. if he didn't like the hue of the sky, he'd ignore every window in his apartment and paint what he wanted to see, instead. he had spent years trashpicking through city-winged girls, and waded right through the shallow now, with windswept ease. solomon lost his religion, but still sat like his biblical namesake reigning on a throne made of bones and cigarette ash, praying for a savior

[[email protected]]

The scenery all blurred, the trees sugarcoated with caked white, their anorexic arms reaching out towards the skyline, and spelling riddles out in its dreary gray. The buildings were monotone -- brick -- the dead grass stifled beneath frothy linen. He stirred in his seat, anxious, his eyes draped in a smug lidding. His hands wrung themselves over, and over, his left knee performed its trademark jittery twitchtrick. Sometimes, when he lolled his forehead against the train window, it seemed that the world stopped and that the mechanics of it all ceased rumbling. His eyes became sticky on his translucent reflection, but he always pulled away before he fogged up the glass.

His foot hammered out a mind-orchestrated rhythm.

Londoners and other Europeans alike spilled in earthtones and chic black suits onto the platform. They greeted loved ones with one arm---and used the other to balance their cellphones against their cheeks. Everyone looked distraught and wore bewilderment like a fashion trend, but Solomon seemed to know where he was going.

He was the only person without a suitcase, in fact, his only luggage was a blackcherry rose still wilting, leaving a sporadic breadcrumb trail of satin as he worked the stairs versus the escalator. He had to work off three hours of sitting. It left an unholy, rigid strain on his creaking, pinwire joints.

His curly hair was slicked back in swirls of dark brown and honey roast. He wore his two-day stubble thin, and the flesh on his bones even thinner. His black-knit sweater dripped loose over his tattoo-abstract wrists, and patches of his fitted white t-shirt beneath played peekaboo--but the caps-lock band-name was properly obscured.

There were eyes on him - a whisper passed from one girl to another.

"Isn't that Solomon Stills from primary? Do you remember? Solomon?"

"Solomon who?"

Once he crossed outside, Kilburn injected his lungs with something brittle and nostalgic. His nose and granite-carved cheekbones darkened to blister-red. But, he didn't suffer without his jacket. His disconnected mind kept him very well insulated. He floated across the street, jaywalking with a common strut; bullet belt suspended low, leather trainers slapping concrete. The route was all mentally mapped out. He passed Smith's Liquor---a crumbling establishment that used to sell him alcohol at fourteen. But, he didn't stop inside. Not yet, anyway.

There was the football field where he and the boys used to kick a ball, and trip later on with their prepubescent grocery store wages (all sprawled out like gutter snow-angels ont he grass.) The next generation of football-punting rude boys froze to stare at him as long legs worked him past. They didn't recognize him. Surely, he didn't live around here. They could just kick his ass. Perhaps, he was from Manchester. Then they could really kick his ass. No. ... Just let him be. (If only they knew that was good ol' Sol Stills, the bastard son with a prostitute Mum who was rumored to have once robbed Smith's Liquor singlehandedly when he was thirteen, and brought the cash back the next day, because he felt guilty.)

He braked at a corner because of the clotted traffic, and bathed in the accents barbed with Cockney and alcohol-slurs. His chin knocked back to watch a flock of pigeons burst into the heavens, flitting in a cursive, gray v. Lunging headfirst into traffic (because Solomon Stills was never one for patience) he wove through bumper-to-bumper cars, his hips tangy switchblades that could slice steel. He remembered the corner market, and how elegant it looked compared to the rest of the buildings to him when he was a little boy. Now, he just realized it was a piece of shit. Dazed, he traded his rose in for a fresh one at a stand without paying for it. The vendor shook his head, and muttered into his cigarette.

Just beyond a slab of identical brick flats for rent laid a few grassy knolls, decorated with crooked headstones and antique trees. The cemetary gate was well-oiled, and didn't protest like he once remembered. But, the place wasn't at all cleaned up.

Mud sheeted the soles of his sneakers, and proved to be a slippery obstacle in ascending a slight hill. If his memory served him correctly, it was two paces to the left of the fat willow tree, right next to the out-of-place, weathered statue of an angel --peering down at a grave explicitly graffiti-whiplashed (out of jealousy. Because really, who in Kilburn could afford such things?)

His mother's grave was modest:

In Loving Memory of
Barbara Bethany Stills
Loving mother and cherished daughter
5-3-1962 ~ 12-23-93

He knelt down like the angel Gabriel, kissed bristle of grass just before it with flower petals, and rose to study it for a moment.

Swaying from one foot to the other, he dug his silver-glinting cigarette case from his back pocket, and thumbed it open, grimly stabbing a Marlboro Light (he quit reds) in the gash of his mouth. It took him a moment to control his badly-trembling hands in order to ignite a lighter flame.

Smoke billowed out in complacent, windswept currents. In the distance, he heard a trash truck and the giddy batch of children (it was Friday, after all) chirping all at once in the schoolyard.

He took another drag.