to hold you
I was nineteen, and unafraid of the world. After all, it had you in it. You, much older, drove me where I wanted to go. I loved you, no doubt. Passionately, irrefutably, to spite the universe.
You squirmed, restless, as I held you too tight.
Twenty-nine, I am unafraid of myself. These days I drive, because I prefer it. I loosened my grip when I learned to live on my own. I love you, no less passionately. Now I stretch it out, languorous, like a summer twilight.
You lie content in my arms; I have learned to hold you right.
She cradles the heavy mug closer to her body, leaning forward to capture more chocolate-scented steam.
It's too hot to drink now, but just the right temperature for the heat to seep through to her always-cold fingers and loosen them of their just-slept stiffness.
She almost prefers this moment to actually drinking. Basking in the pocket of warmth, she's briefly able to look at the snow-covered landscape without resentment or fear. Her memories of being a small bundle in a bright snowsuit become more real than frostbite earned scraping ice from her windshield.
But it's chocolate. It's not for holding.
Oh! That's great, ita. Nothing like it.
Deb, despite all the attention I'm trying to get through writing, your meme is making me sweat. Because it still feels unseemly to me to think my stuff is good, or something. Except for ten seconds on the high of writing it, but hey, I'm stoned then.
erika, at some point, you're going to have to learn to love your own voice. The voice is there. Don't muffle it - don't bury it.
And sweating is fine, so long as you don't let it drown you, or stop you.
Well, I'm trying, but being *asked* to, makes me realize it's still hard.
I hope you do do the meme. I really want to see what you come up with as first or spontaneous choices, both as reader and as writer.
