She holds herself closely, hugging her sides. The pain sloshes around in side her, scraping at the sides and slipping up her throat. Her mouth is forced open as her sadness vomits emptiness. Her fingers snap and curve, awkward claws of grief, scratching at the air hastily. Her toes curl and uncurl as she twists and beats her legs harshly. Her mussed hair ripples around her face, twisting and knotting, mirroring her harsh fingers and limbs. Appendages juddering as she wrenches them around, her face is a blanket of sad.
A howl, stiff and lonely, unfurls itself from beneath her teeth and knots in the air, strangled by the soft cloud of a pillow. The fingers that claw and grab, that snatch and knot, that judder and bend, scrabble on the bedsheets, ripping and snatching like the wild. The howl is the only sound to puncture the still soft silence of the harsh hard cold stiff unruly night.
She is sad.
They say true creativity starts where words end. And that a picture says a thousand words. Picture this.
You have half given your heart always. Even when you didnt mean to. It was always there, like that apple that seems out of reach, but on closer inspection is the easiest to pick with a little effort. Its not high and mighty, its certainly not the shiniest or the reddest or the juiciest or the prettiest, and it may have bruises and notches but its there. And it waits. Its been wrenched from its spot a couple of times, but the apple is resilient. It doesnt let go of its branch. It grips it with a fervour not dissimilar to a priest, clinging to its faith because it knows what will happen if it eventually falls. Because we all fall in the end. Its not when we fall, but where.
The first time her apple was bitten was when she was young. 14 years. She didnt really expect it to be bitten with such force, or so strongly; but in reality, it wasnt, she was just inexperienced. The bite of calves and puppies. Soft but at first shocking and unexpected. The bitten bit was never savoured; it was spat out with misunderstood disgust. It became a pencilled in word on a sheet of paper with that apple drawn on. Everything that had bitten that apple was there.
The second time and the third time taught her things. It taught her that generally the boys, whom the apple offers itself to tend to spit it out and move on, continually search for new apples to bite and to tear and to ravage. She learnt whether or not the education she received or the experiences she attained were in fact grains of reality that no man who tries to bite the apple ever actually wants it for what it is. They dont intend to bite the apple. They regret it, as the juice runs down their hungry faces and they wipe their hands hurriedly on their torn jeans. That was the message she repeatedly received. Her heart and her refused to give up; even though they knew that the more they continued the more likely the apple was to fall.
Then the apple was bitten, and it was not spat out. In fact, the piece was savoured and loved. But the tragedy of the apple was that it did not want this love. It had come to love the hate it received with the discarding of its wares, of its scent and taste and flesh. So the apple became bitter, and turned the boys nave mouth into a hollow of anguish as it turned its piece that once had been so sweet into ash. And it turned to other boys, whose mouths were sharp and mean and cruel, and blackened its outside.
And while the boy was still savouring his bite, another one came. The apple had been receiving more attention now; boys flocked around it like sheep, not biting or touching but looking, admiring. The new and shiny exterior, so much more perfect and plastic than before. And another boy took a bite. He shoved the first away with a hasty elbow and sunk his teeth into the apples flesh. The apple felt this piece, and watched the boys face with apprehension and anxiety. Would he like it would he not. Would he savour it or would he discard it with a screwed up face like so many before. The apple saw his face contort. The apple shrivelled slightly. The boy gave nothing away still. The apple cried out, its small mute howl warbling in the air.
It died in the other boys mouth; he was left with dirt and mud and sweat and tears and pain in pieces and shreds. The apple tried to force this boy to spit out its piece; the boy resisted with all his might. The apple could no longer tell if he would spit it out and walk away. The apple had tried to repulse him. The apple had not succeeded. But the apple wrenched open his face and snatched its piece away from his hollow of sorrow.
The apple shut down. The apple was dying. Its leaves were beginning to shrivel. Its branches were attempting to fight the death; in reality, they were shaking the apple over and over and over. Closer to falling.
Then another boy strode up. The other boys parted slightly for him in a subtle form of respect. He took easy long strides, just like some before him. He wasnt the most beautiful. He looked at the apple, and slowly took a bite. And the apple inhaled in expectation, waiting for his reaction. The apple saw what she thought was tenderness through the brightly lit LCD screen and through the emoticons of eyes filled with love and monkeys and lemons. But then the apple heard things. The apple never saw this boy in reality. The apple only saw him on a screen, on words, where creativity stops and words are warped and distorted and meaning is not meaning.
And the apple started to fall.
It began to tilt, the branches above it at last acquiescing slightly and letting the apple edge forward. And the apple begin to drip. It began to melt into the LCD bright white light and poured itself into a page that was only half sent. And then the apple saw what this new boy was actually doing. The apple saw the boy savouring it not as something tender, but in the rough tongue of friendship.
The apple slipped.
Another boy swooped in, all legs and arms, different in so many ways, and slid his teeth underneath the apple, catching its fall in his soft forgiving mouth. And the apple sighed. This boys bite was full of heartache, but it was still seemingly sweet to him. And the apple remained in that uneasy state of content.
Until that night.
When every boy it seemed who had bitten or licked or sniffed or even glanced at the apple turned his head in adoration. The apple swelled in pride. It had not turned plastic. It was not black and rotted and swollen and crushed. It was becoming its best state.
And the strong boy, the boy who had picked the apple up and swung it around and lifted it in the air with joy and then slipped away from underneath quicker than mercury, came back for another bite. The apple had tried so hard to ignore; to be ignorant, to forget, to cut loose the knots and laces of memory and time. The apple had learnt to write this boys name on her shower wall; backwards, forwards, mirror, every way. She had burnt his name; she had watered his name with unshed tears. And he came back for another bite.
Were better than friends, though, arent we? This isnt something friends do. We shouldve done this a long time ago.
And other boys came rushing back all at once like a river that suddenly remembers itself, dusts off the drought and flows with renewed vigour. And that night as she and the apple drove home in the dead and life of night, they watched the stars and sung in their heads and lanterns filled their minds and eyes. And she smiled her true smile that night; because she and the apple knew that everyone was watching. And watching for the apple, not for the outside, the exterior, the lusty pull and tug.
But its coming undone.
The apple once again is unsure. It sits there and waits for these boys, who insist that they treasure their bites and pieces. But the apple doesnt trust. It overthinks and underthinks. It thinks it knows. But it is uncertain in the worst way; a way of uneasiness and distraught and fear.
And the apple sings and cries at the same time now, to her.
She curls in a loose ball, shuddering with tears that dont escape. Her mouth opens and shuts, a hollow of pain and ache and want and want and want. Inside her chest an ache thuds and suddenly its not just the apple anymore its in her mind in her eyes in her throat in her feet in her hands in her stomach in her legs in her arms in her head.
She is sad.