# For Selvagem



## Nightwine (Nov 11, 2008)

_Here's a particularly long blog post to include a few samples of my writing, per Selvagem's request 

As I mentioned to him, most of my writing files are resting in a dead laptop, with my paper copies packed up and tucked away in storage, so the examples I'd really like to provide, I don't have.

The ones I do have are ones I've pulled from various corners I've inhabited online. They aren't necessarily the ones I would choose to show if I had all my files at my fingertips, but I don't absolutely hate them, and they give a good example of my writing history. These are all from couple or more years ago.

The first is a tiny story. I wrote a few of these, and liked to call them 'snapshots', since they didn't feel long enough for a short story even._

“Mommy?” The tiny voice cut through the silence as effectively as any gunshot. The little girl sat in the dark, clutching her ragged teddy bear. Her large brown eyes quavered with tears. They spilled over and ran in streamlets down her face.

“Mommy?” She had awaked from a nightmare, the most terrifying nightmare of her short existence. There had been flickers of flame, red and orange, then a thick black cloud. After that, just empty darkness stretching on and on, and through it all an overwhelming fear. She still shuddered. More tears slipping down her face, she buried her nose into her teddy bear and cried. Her small frame shook with each sob.

The sounds floated through the dark house, stirring dust in far corners. The only other sounds were the scratching of mice in the basement and the sleepy coos of pigeons perched outside the windows. The old house creaked as it settled in the cool night air.

“Mommy?” she called again, her tone hopeful. No one answered. She sniffled and hiccupped as the last few tears slid from her eyes. Then she curled herself around the teddy bear, and, realizing no one was coming to her call, comforted herself as best she could.

“Mommy?” she whispered it one last time before falling asleep. Fear and crying had exhausted her. In her sleep she hugged her teddy bear closer and pulled her skirt down in an attempt to cover more of her legs. It was an action of habit, from when the edge of her nightgown reached her knees and she could pull her legs up into it completely. Now, though, the edges were burnt up to her mid-thigh, and charred parts fell off with her tug. The teddy bear peeked out from her grasp, one eye missing, the other eye bubbled up and smoke darkened, its fur matted and singed. The little girl’s face was covered with soot except for the pink trails her tears had cleared.

She murmured once more in her sleep and faded out of sight. The old house shuddered as it settled once more, putting away its memories for the night.

_In going through these odd little corners, I discovered a post I made two and a halfish years ago, though not fiction, was an interesting look at my writing when I'm feeling particularly verbose._

I am free again, too. Free to move if I wish, sometime down the road, if heart or head should pull me away from Blacksburg, for I have no strong knots to keep me here forever. I have again the gift of compromise. I love the friends here dearly, but we will not be kept in stasis of this certain moment forever, for each of them are free as well to leave or remain as they wish.

I have been accused of being selfish, and in the end, I am a little. I found the conclusion that it's not a bad thing, though. I am not phenominal, and to be completely selfless would have to be amazingly rare. We spend each hour of the day with ourselves and spend the nights buffered in our dreams. We can still care, though, and I do care, a lot.

It is my weakness, this ride of human emotions and dreams and desires. I am restless because I want more, a wish that scares me both because of itself and because of the box I try to keep it locked in for grim fear that it shall never pass. I want someone in my passenger seat, there for a long, long drive. I want someone who might worry a little when I am not home when scheduled. I want to sit in someone's passenger seat for the long, long drive, and I want to worry about someone when they are not home when scheduled. Not someone to go out with, but someone to come home to. Something comfortable enough that the minutes spent together don't matter as much as the basic thought that they are _there_ somewhere, that they exist. An invisible darling to comfort.

My dreams and desires seem too old in a body that is too young, and fear shackles everything together. The few who do show interest in me intimidate me and tend to be people who wouldn't accept all the little puzzle pieces that make up me; and the few who've interested me intimidate me more, since they seem to be untouchable to me, so perfect and unopen to me.

Tonight was perfect. I stepped outside work to a darkened sky with a mist of rain hanging down. I sat in the driver's seat and ignored the prevailing emptiness beside me, but enjoyed the embrace of the cab, the fabric and plastic and blue green lights. The highway beyond the exit for Price's Fork was oh so tempting, and I had half a thought to stay in my lane and just keep driving. But would it ease my restlessness, and where would I go, anyway? So I returned home, my first real home. I fed my cat, the familiarity of it soothing. I have a lot, I really do. It is that little bit more that I want that puts me on quivering ground.

Love and lonliness. Two intermingled and vastly different words. How ironic for them to start with the same two letters.

_And in my digging, I found a completely forgotten poem. I had some preliminary comments before it that it was supposedly in the point of view of some character in a story I hadn't yet written (and is now even more forgotten than this poem). I'm thinking that I didn't actually finish this poem, the 'end' doesn't have the usual feel of my other ones._

Something's upset tonight
the unease of the wrong settles over my mind
feels as though fate has been

disrupted

The curves and lines of you
make me fall in love over and over
the shapes from your knee to your ankle
the lines at the corner of your lips
Unexpectedly beautiful
and I could stare for hours

But

something's not right with you
with me
with all of us



Destiny is a story 
of what is meant to be
despite what we may want

this brokeness stems not
from surcease of a dream
(I've a whole graveyard of them)
but a falling from the path


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## de l'eau salée (Nov 10, 2008)

Wow you're a great writer  I especially like your 1st little story thing. I wanna read more of it hehe 
And thanks for posting these!


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## Aurora Fire (Oct 13, 2008)

You are very talented


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## Happy (Oct 10, 2008)

I give it an A+++++++


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