It wasn’t that she didn’t clean, it wasn’t that she couldn’t clean. Normally she had a pristine and tidy home. Those feelings though… She knew what they were, even if … Continue reading The Wall
Lights Lit with Gasoline
She sat there listing all the ways she could validate her feelings. Nose had even confirmed that Bella was right to feel that way. So why did she think maybe … Continue reading Lights Lit with Gasoline
Cracks
Here she ended this last decade where it began. Lost, alone, feeling like she had wasted precious time she would never get back. On something that never really wanted to … Continue reading Cracks
All Smoke, No Mirrors
He pops in and out, random moments when she least expects. almost like the memory of a deceased loved one. He’s not dead though, just gone. he can be seen … Continue reading All Smoke, No Mirrors
Love and Punk Rock
It was probably the most fun that Bella had had in a very long time. Standing in that shitty dank basement club listening to a punk band she would never … Continue reading Love and Punk Rock
21 Days Til the Sun Died
She carried The Suicide book with her everywhere. That little purple burden. It was both heavy and light. The place where the darkest and saddest parts of her rested. Bella … Continue reading 21 Days Til the Sun Died
Come and Go
One day long ago she watched her heart walk away under a trilby hat.
Bella didn’t know that when he walked away. She didn’t know that was the last hug, the last kiss, the Last picture to be taken.
The last laugh.
The last time she would hear his voice.
Somedays she was not sure who left who. Those are the happier days. On the days where the sun hides behind the clouds, or near certain dates she felt more she left him. Bella ghosted away and hoped that the feeling would fade and with time the memory would become more of just that. A memory, dulled with time.
It still feels new, she can remember it like it happened last week. It’s always fresh and too new and every time if she dare to seek it, she can find where there is a spot empty in her soul. The piece that she gave Mr Trilby, the toymaker, that he kept.
It’s a different kind of empty. Bella knows she will never be whole and nothing will ever fill that space. She may well be forever incomplete.
And also, with him taken, another string in the disentanglement of Bella and Linus
Dang Good Date
It had been a long time since Bella had gone on a date and she didn’t know what to expect.
When the toymaker picked her up they made idle chit chat all the way to the restaurant.
He let her choose. She showed him one of her favorite spots. Best pho you could find around.
They shut that place down. Best conversation of her life. Bella had never laughed so freely and from the belly like that in her life.
He was kind and funny. Witty line Bella and appreciated her dark humour. His lips were soft and his eyes for only her. Bella didn’t realize it yet but there was a calm settling in her soul that would make life feel easy for a change.
His voice was smooth and clear and lively, just like his eyes. It was something Bella didn’t even know she’d been looking for.
They complimented each other in the best of ways.
When they kissed that night, for a brief moment the world stopped and all sound ceased.
It was magnificent.
With that kiss another string disintegrated in the disentanglement of Bella and Linus.
Somethings Are Better said with the lights out
There’s something to be said about the battles Bella had fought. The years spent in humbling realness doing all she could to keep herself from starvation and homelessness. There’s something to be said about the people who stood by and watched it happen. But she wasn’t about to say anything, she did the “adult” thing, she cut them out accordingly. Using whichever method got the job done best for that particular situation. Some were easy some were tough. Sometimes time did the job for her, others, she had to say those cutting but true things,
Bella had worked hard to survive so she had to ask herself, “How the fuck did I end up here… again?”
This thought made her ponder dark thoughts. Was she the problem? Well yes, to some extent. Was she the reason for the misery around her? Again, a little perhaps.
She sat there staring blankly as her mind, somewhere else, put the pieces together. Everyone around her over time seemed to get over her, feel a strong desire to be free of her. She felt like a heavy burden. She sat there, she thought more on how she could fix this mess she found herself. She could only come up with one not so clean, but at least tidy solution.
There’s something to be said in regaining control of one’s life, no matter how dark or permanent.
With that comforting notion, she wrote another letter. The ink from her pen wrote away yet another string in the disentaglement of Bella and Linus
Until It Wasn’t
She wanted to save him. Not like how other girls mean it. Bella wasn’t aiming to be the girl who changed him and then cried when he broke her heart. She wanted to show him he was more than his wallet or his connections. That he wasn’t dispensable and that someone could and did love him for who he was.
Bella saw him in his most real form. Sure he presented as happy and he wanted everyone to think that. But she could see the sadness in his eyes, the loneliness. He was just waiting for the day she didn’t answer her phone or stood him up.
That was never in the cards.
She loved him from the moment he sat down beside her and said hello. He loved her too. His eyes lit up when he saw Bella.
When they were together they were the closest thing to who they really were that they could be. Relaxed and no one else in the world mattered. It made no difference the story exchanged or the shitty pasts.
For a time it was the truest, most tangible piece of anything Bella had had in a very long time. It was wonderful. Until it wasn’t, of course.
The Misadventures of the Late Mz. R.E. 