you're too young & eager to love

So, I almost forgot my password for this journal. That's how long it's been since I've updated. For shame.

I don't know if this should count as an update, because the following bits make no sense. I'm not even sure what I was attempting to write, but I wrote something. That has to count in the smallest of ways.

Writing after a long hiatus is nothing like riding a bike. You can't just sit down and start typing away. Blast.

-




“I begged you to hear me;
there’s more than flesh and bones.
But take the spade from my hands
and fill in the holes you’ve made.”
- Mumford and Sons


She’s there when he gets out of the shower - her arm perched on the windowsill and smoke rolling over her lips. Her eyes move over him, slow, like her hands used to when she stumbled, drunk, into his bed as a teenager.

Emere is a constant presence, so much that it’s less like she’s the presence at all. It’s something else. Something like blood and bone, the gristle of muscle, the unavoidable connection of heritage. A presence she made, or had he made it? Long ago, when she wanted it, when it was different between them. Him, her, them. Brando has been relegated to some strangely platonic category of boy reserved for first cousins (bewildering, then, that as her brother he is so unaccustomed to the role). There’s a fair bit of nudity, drunken frottage, but it’s less now than when they had been kids. She has not kissed him in years. She barely touches him at all.

“What are you doing?”

“Being a voyeur.”

Brando nods without a grin. He hides himself behind a towel and runs his calloused fingers through his wet hair. Emere laughs and rolls her eyes before tossing her cigarette out the window.

--

As a child, she broke the fingers of other kids. Out of curiosity and out of retribution for stealing her toys.

Brando remembers her as being vicious, always. She’s torn him apart in the worst ways and his scars are ugly.

--

She would never confess it now, but it takes a while for Emere to get used to the city. Living in it is different from when she was just visiting. The noises keep her awake, and she feels eyes on her wherever she goes. She drinks too much, seeking comfort, then finds her way in the dark to his apartment.

He lets her in and gives her a shirt of his to sleep in. She takes it and puts it on because she’s missed the way he smells and wearing his clothes, and she’s too drunk to be angry about admitting it.

-

Emere sleeps on the couch, her long limbs pulled close. Her hair spread across her arms, and she smells like the tequila she drank earlier. He had to take off her shoes, but she shimmied out of her jeans herself, pushing them away hastily as though he was someone else. Someone that could be captivated by the shadows on her legs, the space between her thighs.