a litany of ruminations

all that i am

Disclaimer:

*Johnny Cade, Dallas Winston and Ponyboy Curtis belong to S. E. Hinton in the book the Outsiders,  as I am simply borrowing them for my--and hopefully, your---amusement. In addition, I appreciate the lack of lawsuits in pursuit of me.

The sound of the flipping of pages through a worn copy of Gone With the Wind is the only thing that is heard through the hallowed silence of the ashes of Jay Mountain church, staining the grass with soot.

Scrawled words with the barest implications of penmanship appear on the paper from a hovering stub of a pencil, as if by magic. Or perhaps a lingering spirit, left behind.

..

I am what many believe to be a lost puppy in a crowd of strangers kicked one too many times. Shadowed eyes and greasy hair and going nowhere, going nowhere.

I wonder...if Dally would have ever seen the sunset, spilling over the fields like a jar of honey, molten gold and a valley with a silver bridal veil of shining mist.

I can hear the heart monitor lapsing into silence as it flat lines, and hear the constant refrain of sirens closing in.

(Oh, Dally, ever the southern gentleman. Couldn't stand a world without me, huh?)

I see at last that I was the only thing he ever loved with that with that wild smile of his, sharp like a wolf's, a lynx's, predatory, even.

(A hero always goes out with a smile.)

I want him to see the sunset over Windrixville.

(But we all are fragile paper cutouts, crumbling in the wind into ashes, ashes, we all fall down. And we are all those ashes secreted into pretty containers hiding the ugly remains within, within the deep earth, silent, silent, never to see the open sky again, accompanied only by the damp quiet dark.)

I am...maybe I am a kicked puppy, but with more bark than bite when its tail is stepped on. But Dally, I would have been a loyal guard dog shadowing your footsteps if only

(if only you didn't get what you always wanted.)

I pretend that maybe I'm alive again. Ponyboy pretends, too. Lies to himself that he knows he'll never believe.

Whispering, laughing, teasing, cajoling on the wind. Words blown, torn, snatched away—flickers—to an absent audience, all the seats looming empty for a lackluster excuse of a stage act.

Sorry—Dally—I'm sorry—sorry.

(None of this is your fault.)

..

I pretend that Johnny is alive again. Maybe if I repeat to myself enough I'll believe it.

(Johnny is not dead. Johnny is not dead. I killed him. My fault.

Mine...)

Maybe it would hurt so much if I believed it.

But I never could believe that beautiful lie.

..

I feel regret.