"do i keep you up at night,
holding onto leftover sunlight?
wish you'd just hold me instead
of fighting wars inside your head,"
i hear the sound of distant guitar strumming like warm waves of comfort. something about piper's voice reminds me of being at home. i close the door behind me and i put down my bag. i wander through the apartment, following the music.
"my baby's up at dawn
to play the trumpet, the war horn
kiss me sweet with a strained smile
a helmet on and blood in her eyes"
she's in the bedroom, sitting on the bed. i lean on the doorframe where she can't see me, holding my arms as though i am imagining her holding me. i can see her head nod to the beat of it. her hands follow the time and strum. her entire body is transfixed into the song.
"and i think i'm already in love
what a shame because i don't own a dove
to carry an olive branch to me
and tell me there's a god above
so kiss me tender and look at me
through smoke and fire and raining shells
and tell me you'll remember me
in heaven or in hell
i believe that we were meant to be
when the dust settles in the dawn
but tonight you'll fight your war
and i'll ache whenever you're gone
kiss me, kiss me, promise you'll miss me
i'll be your swan"
the song is over and i feel a lift in my chest.
"piper," i say.
she whips her head around and stares at me, mouth agape.
"you weren't supposed to hear that," she said.
"it's fine, i liked it."
"it was going to be a surprise when i dropped the album."
"sorry to ruin it. i came back early." i apologize. "it's a good song."
piper smiles ruefully.
"if we ever break up, these songs are going to sting." i say.
piper smiles. "that's the price of loving a singer-songwriter. should've fallen in love with the oboist."
i laugh. "maybe i should have."
"but if you think about it, that type of risk of a sting goes with loving anyone." piper muses. she gets up to put the guitar away. she puts it away in its case. she's wearing a large t-shirt that says "new york" on it with no pants.
"war." i muse, now thinking about the song again. "why did you write about war?"
"ask yourself that." piper says. "but you know, that's not the only song about you that i'm writing."
"shit, why are you writing about me so much?"
"how can i not, annabeth?" piper asks.
she walks up to me and kisses me. my shoulders loosen and i wrap my arms around her almost instinctively. i close my eyes and watch the colors dance behind them. honeysuckle and gardenias. they take me back to a summer six years ago. but it doesn't ache anymore. it's all just a comforting recollection.
but there is nothing like now. there is no memory quite solid as the present.
piper's hand is on the nape of my neck. i wonder if she can hear the thoughts in my head. how i see flowers blooming under my closed eyelids. i wonder if she can hear the symphony playing. a type of organized chaos that sounds when she touches me.
what if we were made for eachother? it's such a loving, naive little thought. i know it is and yet i feel her in my arms. i feel the goosebumps rise on my skin. i feel her soft lips pressed on me. i can't get over that it's real, it's real, it's real. that all of it is real.
she is a dream-like realness. like being suspended between worlds. of flesh and bone in my hands but her spirit soars somewhere overhead.
my fingers tangled in her dark, blunt cut hair. the contrast of her darker skin against my paleness. her lightly colored eyes that seemed to destroy me. there is something unexplainable behind them. a type of untamed intensity. a scorching tenderness. even the sound of her breathing sounds like music.
it is a transformative thing, to be loved and understood. before, i was me. and now i am a me that seems to glow. the glow of being loved. tenderly, agonizingly, intimately, intellectually, completely and wholly loved. to be loved by her.
to be loved at all is the greatest force of nature, it seems. ruinous, scorching, undoing and redoing. ancient and new, born and reborn again. the power that destroys us and brings even the greatest heroes to their knees and raises the weakest people to the sky. being loved is the greatest force that moves people and piper is a force of movement behind it.
YOU ARE READING
chasing an illusion - pipabeth
Fanfiction"i truly believe that i was meant to be yours, but it was never meant to be easy." it's been six years since what would have been a teenage whirlwind romance. six years since that hazy, translucent night. ever since, annabeth has long given up on lo...
