how we rise when we're born like the ravens in the corn

blue bird laughs on a fallen tree

redthreading — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:09:16 GMT

no moon > iron & wine
black dog bit through the keeper's chain small and angry when the Devil came sold my soul like a pocket knife there was no moon, there'll be no milk as sweet tomcat curled on a rabbit cage brittle fingers in the potter's clay sold my soul and I laid her down there was no moon, there'll be no milk as sweet blue bird laughs on a fallen tree sunset burns on a quiet sea sold my soul and they ran me down there was no moon, there'll be no milk as sweet.
serpent charmer > iron & wine
there's a woman hater with a broken record player and a dusty compass, off to map the country's new behavior strange words, and we all roll back into the river brave boys in the empty coats of men there's a kitchen timer, distractions and reminders poly-pollies slowly crawling across your family china strange words, and we all roll back into the river dead dogs on the roam to live again there's a serpent charmer with a pair of shoes and wander speeding ticket, you got leading that last lamb to slaughter strange words, and we all roll back into the river good girls come and kick you in the shin there's a hopeful hunter with a hapless sense of wonder and a million claw marks on the rock he hid his money under strange words, and we all rolled back into the river and made men only want to live again.
sugar (remix) > tori amos
don't say morning's come don't say it's up to me if I could take 25 minutes out of the record books (sugar, he brings me sugar) bobby's collecting bees and hammers he used one on me cold war with little boys get in with a bubble-gum trade (and sugar, bring me sugar) and all the robins bring bring me many things but sugar oh sugar he brings me sugar as far as I can tell I've been gone for miles now and you know and I know I don't know me very well and I know and you know if they found me out (sugar, he brings me sugar) and all the robins bring they bring me many things but sugar, he brings me sugar and all the robins bring they bring many things but sugar, oh, sugar.
baby sister > damien rice
don't wake up, baby sister keep dreaming did he fill your cup? baby sister, keep drinking or he'll hit you he'll bleach your eyes so be a good girl just for the night and run! run! don't get stuck, baby sister, leave this land and read your books baby sister, wash your hands or he'll hit you he'll bleach your eyes so be a good girl just for the night and run! run! run! run! run! run! run, baby sister, run! baby sister.
us > regina spektor
they made a statue of us and put it on a mountaintop now tourists come and stare at us blow bubbles with their gum, take photographs of fun, have fun they'll name a city after us and later say it's all our fault then they'll give us a talking to then they'll give us a talking to 'cause they've got years of experience we're living in a den of thieves rummaging for answers in the pages we're living in a den of thieves and it's contagious and it's contagious and it's contagious and it's contagious we wear our scarves just like a noose but not 'cause we want eternal sleep and though our parts are slightly used new ones are slave labor you can keep we're living in a den of thieves rummaging for answers in the pages we're living in a den of thieves and it's contagious and it's contagious and it's contagious and it's contagious they made a statue of us they made a statue of us the tourists come and stare at us the sculptor's momma sends regards they made a statue of us they made a statue of us our noses have begun to rust we're living in a den of thieves rummaging for answers in the pages we're living in a den of thieves and it's contagious.
love burns > b.r.m.c.
never thought I'd see her go away she learned I loved her today never thought I'd see her cry and I learned how to love her today never thought I'd rather die than try to keep her by my side now she's gone love burns inside me now she's gone love burns inside me now she's gone love burns inside me nothing else can hurt us now no loss, our love's been hung on a cross nothing seems to make a sound and now it's all so clear somehow nothing really matters now now we're gone and on our way now she's gone love burns inside me now she's gone love burns inside me now she's gone love burns inside me she cuts my skin and bruised my lips she's everything to me she tears my clothes and burns my eyes she's all I want to see she brings the cold and scars my soul she's heaven-sent to me now she's gone love burns inside me now she's gone love burns inside me now she's gone love burns inside me never thought I'd leave you like the way I do, yeah kiss my love and I wish you're gone you can kiss my love and I wish you're gone never thought I'd leave you like the way that I do kiss my love and I wish you're gone you can kiss my love and I wish you're gone now she's gone love burns inside me now she's gone love burns inside me now she's gone love burns inside me.
steel > charlotte martin
the lost and insincere they think I need to hear what's in their empty eyes, eyes, eyes we're few and far between we've hardly been serene but we stand up to their lies, lies, lies we are steel we don't feel anything at all, he took me in his arms but then he squeezed too hard he wouldn't let me breathe, breathe, breathe it's been too many years I've hurt too many times to give up everything, thing, thing I am steel I don't feel anything at all the way I've been confused the way that I've been used and spit out on your dime and still you lead me on and still you take me down and say it's in my mind well I've seen hell and back I've hidden in the dark with no one there at all, all, all, I've scraped us back to life I've laced up both my boots so try and twist the knife, knife, knife I am steel I don't feel anything at all we are steel we don't feel anything at all we don't feel anything at all anything at all.

charloft thursday - nightscapes

redthreading — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:11:32 GMT

The last time you slept was it a pleasant dream or a nightmare that kept you company? If you can't recall your dreams, tell us about your bedtime ritual.

Nightmare.

When she sleeps, it is so:

They are in the forest, she and her quick-wet brother, and she cannot speak.

Whoever drinks of this water will become a tiger, the river is whispering, tepid water like thin blood curling around the shell of her ear. Thick blood coming from between her teeth, where her tongue is gone, but oh, not lost, it is in her tiger-brother's mouth, and he chews it like the tough meat it is.

There is something she needs to say, there are words that could avert this, this cold world where the light comes not from the sky but from below their feet, and the blood clots on her dress, there is something she needs to say but she cannot open her mouth or she will die, pinching her veins shut with her flat back teeth, wisdom teeth, teeth for the grinding.

"Where are you? I am so lonely."

I am here.

You abandoned me.

I never. I would never.

You did.

There is blood all over her, even between her legs, there is so much old slippery blood, there are feathers in his mouth and feathers in her hair and she is sick to bursting of feathers.

She wakes up.

She opens her mouth.

Or the other way around.

She was never supposed to speak. Why would she want to?

She is full of words. She is full of her voice. It is too late.

She wakes up.

She goes back to sleep.

"take me again", she said, thinking of him, "to the pond with the swans and the swimming"

redthreading — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:08:34 GMT

He never meant to hurt her.

When he first saw her, all he thought of was how beautiful she was, something special and rare that people like him never normally got to see in their lives, and when he first stroked her feathers it was only because they looked so soft. It wasn't stealing, not at first, he was only trying to keep them both safe until he could figure out what he was supposed to do.

His name is Derrick and he has a collection of fantasy novels under his narrow bed in the dingy house he inherited from his father, who had been something of a sentimental drunk.

"You're not from around here, are you?" He had said, palms sweaty on the steering wheel.

"No," she said, with a faint accent he couldn't place on one side of the ocean or the other, and looked at him with an expression he couldn't read then, though now he supposes it was contempt.

"What's your name?"

"I don't know, make something up." Even then, she was impatient with him. She wouldn't speak to him again for days, no matter what he asked, and he set her up in his bedroom and was glad his ex-girlfriend had left behind some of her stuff when she moved out. Hair products, jeans that didn't fit without a belt, bobby pins - things he'd held in his hands when she was gone and cried over in the silent, tearless way of young men. At least someone was using them again.

He wrapped up her feathers and hid them in the ceiling, where his father had kept his rifles and Playboys. For safekeeping.

"I'm going to call you Bell," he decided, and was encouraged by her slight shrug that showed the curve of her shoulder under his oversized shirt. He took her shopping and bought her clothes that fit, lacy bras, clinging underwear, and blushed under the eyes of sales ladies.

"I want my old clothes back," she said, and he pretended he didn't hear her.

It was that night he summoned enough courage to kiss her, and only later would he wonder if she gave in because she wanted to or because she didn't think it was a choice, and he was ashamed of himself. But this was only after she was gone; then, she was there, with her sharp fingers and endless reserve, leaving him feeling even farther away when he curled up naked beside her. Like nothing he did could ever touch her.

He'd meant to call her Belle, for being beautiful, but she resisted the e, cut it into a metal throat. She wouldn't even take his simplest gift. He'd only wanted her to stay with him, to be his and his alone, the reassuring palm prints on the inside of his frosty morning windows.

Derrick asked her often where she was from, but she never told him, maybe because she didn't know herself. She cleaned his house and cooked his meals for him, padding barefoot in and around his house and making him glad he lived outside of town so no one would see her, she slept beside him at night, and she never said no, or yes, and he told himself he was lucky, that she was happy with him. She never looked unhappy.

Spring came, and then summer, and one morning he woke up alone and knew she wasn't there. He looked anyway, until he glanced outside and saw his truck was gone, too. She left behind almost everything he'd given her, and put the ceiling panel back in place - she was always neat.

He covered the muddy handprint she left on the outside of his bedroom window with plastic wrap so the rain and wind wouldn't damage it, and wondered what she was trying to tell him, if she was trying to tell him anything at all. What he was supposed to do now.

Maybe this was a test, but there was only one person he could ask, and as his confusion faded into anger he decided he was going to get answers this time. He sold his father's rifles and bought a car on an old man's lawn, sat behind the wheel, and thought about where a bird would go once it got out of its cage.

He goes south.

she said, "leave me alone but just don't leave me here, all right?"

redthreading — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:50:20 GMT

You do not know how your story began, not the how or when or where or why. Even your who is less clear than it should be, seen through the warped glass of your memory, covered in the rustling of pale feathers.

You remember that you were a girl first, before you were anything else. You were a girl with two arms and two legs and two eyes and a family like any other, a mother and a father and a brother barely older than you. You think you remember that you were happy, but this is something you are less sure of. You remember your father's chest, wide as a mountain, and your brother's fitful melancholic temper, your mother's weary eyes. You had a doll, but you do not know if it was made out of china or a corn husk, if it or you wore silk or cotton or wool or linen.

You remember your father wasted down to a hill in his grand state bedroom, in his rude one room hut, and you by his side holding his cold hand in your still colder one. You met your brother's eyes across the room, and you were silent. You think you were so most of the time, a quiet creature, even then, while his voice filled up every corner. You and your mother were of a piece, and so when she took another husband you did not blame her as your brother did. Instead, you watched. She was not too old for more children.

(Your mother and her herbs, her gleaming scissors, her stone circles in the garden; you knew all and you said nothing.)

While your brother brooded over her swelling belly, you began to make ready, but oh, you did not plan quickly enough, you were only a girl and she was a woman with all her years of experience and you did not really believe what you knew, that she would make herself safe at the cost of all her blood. You still believe that she loved you. But love was not enough. If you had only had red hair, you could have been rescued. Your new father was gone for a time and when they came to take you -

In the forest with the vast and merciless dark sky pressed against your back, what did you say?

(Oh brother I will save us Oh brother do not be afraid I will give you the sky and our freedom and we will never have to burn we will be untouched by these concerns we will never come back to this place Oh brother trust me I am your sister and I love you so Oh brother oh my lovely loving beloved brother I will never let you come to harm now take my hand and oh do not look back.)

You left behind only feathers, dark and light, and you took to the air with your heavy strong wings beating as steady as your heart ahead of his quick ones, his voice a rusty nail to hang your desperation on and you silent as ever.

You slept with your brother folded under your wing and you wondered how long ten years would feel, in this form, before you could shrug off this feathered disguise and take back your true shape. You had tied yourself to a fickle moon, but you had left your breadcrumbs behind you, you would not be lost this way.

Swans are not known for their ability to track the phases of the moon, to count the turn of seasons, but the last thought you truly (if dimly) remember is that it had been too long. You had made a mistake, but you could not name it, you could not even begin to. Something had -

The first thing you are sure you remember is the beach you left your skin on, pines rising up around you like breathing monoliths, the softened waves lapping at your knees, kissing you cold. And you were not alone, even if you were abandoned. You wonder what he thought, seeing you rise out of that swan, the ignorant man who wrapped you in his jacket only after he'd hidden the bundle he made of your cast-off magic. If he'd really believed he could keep you, or if he'd only been so fascinated by your high breasts and the soft cleft between your legs that he hadn't cared.

He was not cruel to you.

You will not think of this.

You will think of how you took back your skin and you stole his truck when you left. You will think of the empty place under your arm, where a raven should fit, you will think of the empty place in the palm of your hand, where your brother's fingers should be, you will think of the empty place in your mind and then you will stop thinking and you will find him. None of this will have mattered then.

You do not remember his name or face, but you tell yourself you will know him.