This Is Love

A Winter's Day
In A deep and Dark December
I am Alone....

Lost soul. He was one. Marked for scorn and derision. He ran to keep out of the rain, ran from the voices, the stones thrown his way.

Gazing through my window
To the steets below
On a freshly-fallen silent shroud of snow

"Fag!" One hissed.
"Yeah, he's a fag, all right. Bet he's never fucked a girl."
"Covering up Hos! Censor!"
Pling. Bang. His neck was filled with fire, but he ran on.

I am a rock. I am an island.

A rusty fire escape loomed before him and, desperate, he leapt up it, crawling on his hands and knees, then, wrenching open a window, slamming it closed. He crawled over the latticework of the fire escape, down the ladder, and dropped down to the floor of the club. Bodies enveloped him, shielded him within the pumping sound of a techno beat. The marks could not find him, and eventually they gave up, muttering that they'd get him good one day, so help them...

He nearly choked on his own spit when a long set of fingers clasped his shoulder. He spun around, his eyes huge, filled with fear.


That none may penetrate...

"Mike?!" Joanie. It was Joanie. He turned off his Walkman, allowing his Simon and Garfunkle tape to skitter to a halt. He'd be OK now..it was safe to hear.. "Jesus, what did they do to you?" Her hand hovered above his cut brow; he hissed and slinked away from her touch. Hunter was behind him suddenly.
"Damned marks," He hissed, staring at him, "When the hell did it become a crime to get over?"
"I'll get Stephanie, she has the keys to the car."
Mike's hands clasped her shoulder as she turned, "I'm fine."
"Mike.."
"I want to see her sing."
Joanie and Paul exchanged worried glances as Mike tilted, the pain in his neck sparking small agony within him. Paul grasped the material inside of Mike's back pocket, using it to hold him upright.
The lights on the distant stage glimmered and shone. Mike's lips tilted, splitting in a heartfelt grin.

A scuzzy looking guy in pink shorts and a green tee-shirt sauntered up to the mike and uttered sweetly, "Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Lillian Garcia."

She was beautiful. So damned beautiful, in her long dress, her soft hair shuttering her eyes. She stepped up to the microphone as the hypnotic sway of percussive instruments filled the now-silent club. It was made classy by her very presence.

Their eyes met. Her lips trembled at the site of him this way. She knew he would walk through fire (in this case, he thought to himself, fire is a bad section of town, into a dingy club, after being stoned by group of foolish teenagers who can't sepperate reality from fiction) to see her sing.

Her mouth opened, and from her the words came:

"If you ever need to hear a voice in the middle of the night
when it seems so black outside that you can't remember light
ever shone on you or the ones you love in this or another lifetime
And the voice you need to hear is the true and the trusted kind,
with a soft familiar rhythm in these swirling, unsure times,
when the waves are lapping in and you're not sure you can swim, well here's the lifeline..."



Go On