I've been sitting here trying to think of something to say, and I got nothing. Why should I say anything when there isn't the point? What's the point of point? What's the meaning of meaning, of everything?
Words. Words are like branches. If you're strong you can bend them and twist them to make your own world, if you aren't they can twist you. A mystical sort of death. Magic. Madness.
Words listened to me. Words flew out of my mouth, my pen, in my mind, off my hands when I typed. Words don't necessarily have to mean anything. They are beautiful on their own, together. Even hell had a kind of beauty, fiery, scorching, burning.
I spoke a lot, but I never tried to make my words beautiful. May hardly ever spoke, she sung. Music flowed out of her mouth, notes streamed from her fingertips, her lips, the air she breathes. Her whole being was represented by melodies, a delicate, graceful arch of colour.
May was a pianist, her hand caressing the cold keys. I asked her wasn't it cold, to touch ice-like panels. If you're like me you'll know that ice has a heart as warm as any other, she said once. May had eyes like that, ice-blue, beautiful and dangerous and much older, ageless. She never spoke out like Zoey. She never sacrificed, never gave away what couldn't be given. No one knew her story. She was silent, did things wanted to, not had to. No one knew she existed.
"Dawn? Suppose you could read music, would you write it?"
Her voice is gentle but powerful, like wind. Wind is beautiful, transforming. Good and evil. I guess we were evil, in a way. Girls must only love boys. Boys must only love girls.
"I don't think I could, May. Words are all I can do."
My mother didn't know what to think of lesbians, and I left her that way. It was better for her not to know at all. You could say I would rather run until my legs snap and I lose breath than turn back and fight, like May did.
When I first heard her play I didn't really pay attention, but it drew me in all the same. Beautiful, but evil. Loving and dangerous. Silent and suffering, poisonous to the touch. May's fingers flew, they spun the web that made the world. They spoke of a girl, immortal, undying. She was deadly and found love. She was a martyr, but the one who killed her was herself. She was magical and mythical, dangerously entrancing. I couldn't think of anything to say. It had gone so quickly yet it had taken 13 minutes to play, and only about half of it I had listened to. I never heard her play Martyr again.
Time passed. May went to a contest in Italy, in Austria. She played everywhere, always smiling. I was glad she was happy but I missed the old, quieter, more real May. I knew deep down this was all a lie, a tightly woven mask. Once it fell off, you can't put it on again. It was ripped to pieces when she got leukaemia.
I became a star. No one didn't know the name Dawn Berlitz. I wrote dark, but all from Martyr. All from May, the only person I ever truly loved, the only one who was really there. The only colour in a world of grey.
And now that colour shone somewhere else. She chose to be that way, it had been too much. She couldn't breath anymore. She was twisted on the inside and smooth on the outside. She was already half gone. I said living half a life was better than no life at all, but some things are worse than death. She had to remind me that. We both knew I knew it too. She was 16 and she was beautiful and she was dead, once dying. She promised to wait for me. I promised to remember her, the Martyr, the girl of song and sun, moon and murder, love and lust. May Maple, the girl of music and magic.
And I did.
