Castles and stuff

He had bushy eyebrows. There was an ingrown hair above his lip. He had more hair on his inner thigh than on his shin. His shin was shiny, and smooth, if you touched it right.  

*

There are birds on top of the pylon. Muted by eighties fuck-rock in the bus. Most of everyone is background chatter, playing on phones, matching heads for love, giggling and there might be some commotion, soon. I see the birds on top of the pylon, and then they’re gone.

white line on the road, again, again, again, again.

We could be here forever. The head on my shoulder stops and starts to snore. I like the rhythm, I like the heat. I like the way our hair touches. Perhaps we will get stuck, and we could be here forever. 

The English Teachers talk about tax and everyone does anything behind them. Once someone got a blowjob in a school-trip bus. Someone told me. A teacher found them and told them to stop, and nothing came of it. 

*

He had a straggle of hair under both of his knees. There was one long hair above his left nipple. He never touched his armpit hair. His chin was clean, and he never scratched me. 

*

We’re at the ruins of a castle or a monastry or somewhere people lived and prayed. We are with the rocks. A man in a cossack leads us around, speaking words. 

There aren’t any clouds in the sky. There’s a ditch covered in brambles behind all of the rocks. I think about running and jumping into the ditch, about having dirty palms, about bleeding and tearing into my polka-dot dress, about drinking the ditch water and swallowing and swallowing until

The monk stops and asks if anyone knows anything about rituals. My bus buddy, awake, raises her hand. 

‘Rituals are things that people do over and over again’ 

and I force my fingers into my palm. I look at the sky. I feel the lace under my left shoe. There is hair over my eyes. I can see all the blue and there’s two planes above me. One flies over the other’s jet-stream. It looks like it’s going back in time. 

My tights are sore around my thighs. I try to breathe but my tights are sore

hands clutching the stretch, ripping a hole. a huge hole. and another. they might meet. and cross each other. what then?

*

He was bald, but hair matted to his chest. My hair lay cold on the pillow. His hair matted to his chest. 

*

It’s all whispers and a Teacher in my face. Girls with pigtails laugh and the boys are on the ground, away from all of the commotion.

‘Speak to me,’ the teacher. ‘What’s wrong?’

the brambles look thick. I curl my finger. I moan. Through the hole in my tights, I moan. I throw my head back, I open my mouth. I let the sky into my mouth, and I moan. Thinking about his matted hair, his hairy thigh, his stretch stomach, 

‘Christ. Everyone’ but they’re being hurried by the monk, to some more rocks, 

‘Stop it. 

You have to stop it’

his grey eyes, his frown and the way he hummed along to Bach and taught me how to play Liszt on the piano

‘Christ almighty. Stop it.’

and the way he made me love, I didn’t want love, but he gave it anyway, and the way his teeth grinded when he stopped

a Teacher grabs my waist and I am on the ground. I am under a jacket, and on the ground. 

laughing and laughing and laughing

at how the sky is so full and 

*

He was getting the post. I ran. And I ran. 

*

: 01 May 2010 14:54 |  Tags: Fiction Prose |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem