Wednesday, October 24, 2012

(Not Nearly) Wordless Wednesday: Something Inside Me Stirs Enough



I saw this little girl the other day and when I took this photograph it felt like stealing. I don't know. Look at her. She's stars and hearts and purple and sparkle.  All the things you can not possibly take.

It reminded me of something I wrote a while ago. A manuscript that lost its way.  The moment you fall in love with something you can not keep.

I wake up in the window, tucked in the corner of the sill, like a house plant you forget to water. The glass has become a pillow, the only place I can actually rest my head and sleep.  My cat curls up on the old blue shed across the way, in someone else's yard, under a canopy of bare trees and electrical wires.  I call him mine but, of course, he isn't.  He belongs to a stranger.  I haven't known him until now, until I stopped attending school, stopped spending afternoons in practice rooms and evenings with Graca as I played and she paced.

But now I see that he is there each day unless it rains.  He is fat, which means he's well-fed by this stranger, and he bunches himself up on the same spot of sun for hours. He has claimed it and I have claimed him.  Something inside me stirs enough to feel as though I've fallen in love. 

I place my hand against the glass, try to feel the winter cold in my palm.  I wonder if he is as numb to the cold as my hand is, how he endures such long hours in frigid temperatures, if the swelling sun is enough to keep him warm. 

7 comments:

  1. I want to read EVERY BIT of your writing. Right now. Please and thank you.

    "She's stars and hearts and purple and sparkle." Purple! Maybe you're just borrowing her for your collection, then.

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  2. I get this beautiful image from your writing. And it reminded me of the apartment my husband and I lived in years ago, where we had our own cat that wasn't ours. He'd sit outside on our roof and meow to us sometimes, but he always belonged to the street, no matter how many times we fed him.

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  3. i'm glad your wednesday wasn't wordless!
    i haven't been to your blog in a while either- i am so glad to hop back over here. gotta make it a regular stop again! ;)
    hope you're doing great!!!

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  4. This photo is gorgeous! But the music of your words sings to my soul. I swear girl, you've got the writing touch. "I wake up in the window, tucked in the corner of the sill, like a house plant you forget to water." Seriously. So good.
    Catherine Denton

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  5. Great photo! I always love when you post your writing. ;0) I love the mood this piece creates.

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  6. I think you should rename Wednesdays "Wordy Wednesdays" because I just want to read more of your writing!!

    Lovely post, Melissa!

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  7. Seriously, when am I going to get a book with your words in it in my hands? This is so, so good.

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