Existence!

So there's not a ton to this yet but I'm in the process of re-rewriting my novel and things are finally clicking thanks to good music and encouraging friends.  Anyway, here is the first paragraph to the first chapter of the first book :)

There is a small town named Asheboro buried at the heart of North Carolina between the cool, green slopes of the Appalachians and the warm, grainy beaches, though neither is visible to its residents.  For them there exists solely rolling fields of gold and green, disrupted only by the black strip of warm tar that cuts through it clean and smooth.  They are warm people with rough hands from hard work and a country politeness that shows in their smiles and their lack of questions.  And it was here that I first found a life without fear.  And it was here that I made my first true home since it happened.  And it was here, beneath the Carolina blue sky and amid the hills that seemed to breathe the way they constantly rose and fell, that he discovered my secret.  So when the last rays of the sun kissed the red dirt and the first signs of stars shone from the violet sky, I left my tiny town.

A Long Time Coming

I’m going to let this go.  Because you had my heart for longer than I care to admit and you didn’t do much with it other than toy with occasionally for entertainment, kicking it around like a worn-out, but beloved hackeysack.  And I pretended that was okay, because for a while okay was enough.  And it’s like you knew exactly when I was going to fall apart because then you’d come with your soft touches and unique endearments.  Like needle and thread they stitched me back together and now I’m starting to realize that it wasn’t so much about keeping me in one piece as it was not wanting to deal with cleaning up the mess.

I can accept that.

I can’t accept your hypothetical musings.  I can’t deal with your months of silence and out of the blue declarations that always involve love and remorse.  Because I’m different now.  And though I will still need you in some way, I can’t hold out for you.  Can’t pretend that one day you’ll come running back into my life, sweeping me off my feet and holding me closer, tighter than you ever have.

Sometimes I wake up and my hands are fisted and my bones ache from the constant clench and my palms burn in thin crescents that my fingernails create.  And sometimes I wake up and it hurts to breathe and my eyes burn and my lips are cracked and bleeding because I gnaw on them in my sleep.  And sometimes I stay still and pretend that I’m still dreaming because I was happy and I know that when I move my heart will start to hurt again and this thin bed will still feel too big and everything will seem hollow.

But I get up.