Presents

I love giving people presents.

There's something to be said for imaging that person, every aspect of them, examining them in your mind, their likes, wants, interests, things they have said to you in conversations, and finally hitting upon the perfect object-the one they spoke about with longing, or something you know they will love.

Carefully wrapping it and then drawing a card with something quirky, something unique, something that is entirely them, even if they don't realize it.

And then the best part, when they rip through the wrappings and see the gift.

But the true gift, the one that makes it worth all the money and time I could spend, is their faces.

It's selfish almost, the amount of care and enjoyment that I put into gifts, it's not just because I want to make them happy; to show their friendship means so much to me that I try to translate it into the care of finding the perfect gift, it because it makes me feel good, I get a rush off knowing their happiness, seeing their disbelieving faces when I present them with this thing I have picked.

I probably sound pretentious, and it's not like I give the best presents in the world, but I do my very best. And to know that I have made them happy, that their eyes are shining and they are grinning and look on top of the world-that's because of me-that's something unique, something I love.

It makes me feel special, and worth something.

There's a hole in my story 

There's a hole in my heart 

And this storyteller is falling apart

                                  -The Passenger

Exit

The final exit in a play,

those last few words across a page,

penultimate speech the actors say,

upon that hallowed stage,

last act, the final scene,

swift and quick emotions rage,

as shattered is their dream

his face all harrowed flesh,

That final froth-corrupted scream, oh-

 Exit life, and enter Death 

A.A. Milne

I think I need to read Winnie-the-Pooh again I discovered the authors writings are beautiful.

'Some people care too much. I think it's called love'

'I used to believe in forever, but forever's too good to be true'.

Winter

Sometimes the hills look like fallen giants, their spines arched convulsively in death throes, now long grown over by the tall grass and trampled beneath some farmers feet.
The spine of the world, and suddenly the name makes sense, the angled mountains so sharp animals do not dare brave their slopes, the rivers wend an alternate path to avoid this geometric oddity and the sky sets itself at a crazed angle as the sun struggles to stay above the reaching hills.

Deciduous trees cling grimly to the mountainside, their roots arched in agony, the weight of the world bowing their bony fingers. They contrast sharply with the deep green hillsides and plush valleys that fall alongside these reaching giants; their pall like snow has freshly settled on their branches, all dead, all bare.

Their contorted limbs seem to whisper it with the dry rustle of their golden leaves now shed like robes and pooled between their roots.

Winter is coming.

The walls are painted red.

Why did they paint them red I wonder? They look like blood, or roses, or wine. That deep rich red that looks almost soft to touch. I feel like if I put my palm against the wall, my hands would come away crimson.

Did they do it to evoke warmth? Red is a warm color. Its also the color of passion and rage, jealousy and death.

It wraps around me, tinting my eyesight rose, in this universe of walls.