SWEET CREATURE // Luke Patterson

- roof-top blues -

As the evening sun sunk below the golden horizon, casting an ethereal glow upon the landscape and her cheeks; Danielle found solace on her rooftop.

Just herself and the calm atmospheric wind and suburban views displayed in her vision. Birds heard chirping, calling across the wind connecting them across the vast expanse from tree to tree. Wind cooling her skin in the heat the air brings. All this led to Danielle feeling contempt for the first time in a while.

Perched amidst the gentle hum of birds settling down for the night, she found herself sitting crossed-legged, cradling her guitar and breathing in the warm feeling it provided to her. She felt at true peace, surveying the ground beneath her as the wind curled in her hair, caressing her cheek like a whisper of a hand.

Danielle wished she could say the guitar was her property, but then she would be lying. She desperately missed the familiar comfort of her old strings and the way they fitted her hands like perfect puzzle pieces. The piece she was missing. However, Josh had let her borrow his guitar whenever she needed which she was grateful for, it just wasn't the same.

Josh understood the yearning she was consumed with. Knowing Danielle just wanted to test the waters and reconnect with the girl she once was. No matter how much she has changed in the tedious time that had passed, her heart ached for her younger self and in the only way she knew how she knew picking up a guitar was a step in the right direction.

So now reattached to her familiar comfort, she sat strumming random chords which blended and melted together like honey, trying to obtain the tone she knew she once held. Her notebook was displayed in front of her, spread out on the rough texture of the old rooftop after she had spent the last 10 minutes glancing back and forth between her old pieces of work.

Nostalgia had pricked at the back of throat as the pages had flown by in her vision, scribbled letters written by the younger version of herself. Filled with lyrics twisting within her heart provoking the truest emotions from her. They made her seem crystal clear, stripping her of all the physical walls she had built, down to her core and presenting her in a truthful light.

Each page's handwriting was different; Sad songs were perfectly linked together flowing over the page in soft and smooth strokes, some littered with ruined smudges wrinkling the page on impact of old and lost emotions. Others seemed more rushed, ragged and denting the page in a burst of bottled emotions.

This was the only way she knew how to deal with her feelings and it seemed to work perfectly. Until a new wave crushed her, swiping her up in its powerful swash dragging and pulling her below the familiar water depths, tangling her up in despair leaving no space to breathe. Truly and utterly suffocating in silence.

Her writing conveyed the famous stages of grief in easily decipherable ways; going through the steps of denial, anger, baragining, depression and acceptance. However, she never fully felt she had hit the last stage. She had accepted the fact her parents were gone, but hatred leaked from her heart where her brother unfortunately lives rent free.

Right now though, she didn't think of that as a sweet song lying in front of her gathered all her attention. All her focus now on her sketched notes of lyrics and chords paired with each other in synchronisation. A small smile lined her face as she took in the stick figures lining the columns of the page. Each one depicts the story she spoke through words.

Still continuing the small pattern of strums her mind drifted back to yesterday morning's events. Only a day ago she had been surrounded by people who seemed to genuinely care about her and despite her apprehension her heart swelled at the gratitude she felt for stumbling upon the group. Even if half of them were dead she couldn't find it in herself to care.