Do You Still Like Us?

a simple thing turns impossibly different turns harder than imagined turns wacky. jibberish turns into curious. there are words passed between, but more important their is now lived constantly, nothing to hide behind, nothing to duck out of, only here, and now, and on their way “home”. so house/home begins to make themselves known and now and 2 little girls realize things have shifted. It is overwhelming, it is uncomfortable, it is unwanted, but it is real...things have changed. and as 2 little girls steal a quick, uneasy glance to one another they just barely catch a quick and wondrous happening just out of the corner of their eye.

‘whose they?’

...

...

Beyond the poetry of the moment, 2 little, tired girls journey back home. It is not the end of it, it is not the easy of it, but still 2 little girls journey back home. Home has changed and the journey back has changed, beyond their effort, things have changed, beyond their wins, things have changed, and 2 little girls cannot ignore it. It is changed and 2 little girls must navigate, deal, wrap themselves around it. It is now a simple and hazy thing, but it has changed in their absence. It is now. It stands before them, real and tangible, a personhood in their midst.

A gilded wood, sun soaked and hazy with a thick and humid fog clinging thick, slick, lazy upon the damp, mossy forest floor. Hand in hand the 2 little girls walk and slip upon their slippery walk, recounting tales and yarns and things already beginning to spin past lost. There are sad songs and laughter and longing and after and going keep goings and all here and now theres.

2 little girls depart their familiar pirate ship, a wink and a nod is all that is passed as the moment hangs heavy with accomplishment and sincerity. Jessie, that marvelous, fresh Captain, stands proud upon her deck.

Slow too learn the beastie finds itself in everyone’s way. But the crew is capable and they make space. It is not always easy, but it is always forward and always new. And too soon the girls feel the pang of ending as the time of end soon approaches. No one mentions it, but still it hangs heavy and real. The many new stories they make are now left for another time, and perhaps the 2 little girls will recount the marvelous tales over dying fires with friends tried and true, but for now these stories sail the endless seæs, ignoring ends and stops, ignoring the wrongs long past, sailing endlessly ever off and far beyond.

The walk back to the ship is long, dark, slow, but it is not gruesome. The beasties gears slowly wind tighter into themselves, filling the thickening silence with greasy squeeks and smoky, clingy scents. The walk back to ship is one of tears, grief, acceptance, but it is not shameful. The beastie leads the way, newer with each step, truer and still unsure of the way forward. The walk back to the ship ends, begins, a new start, but it is not the true end. The beastie tentatively steps onto the deck of the ship, as the moment holds fast and the worried crew stops and stares.

A moment pulls taut as a clockwork beastie cranks into presence, a sharp, piercing grinding that sets their teeth to electric edge. IT now exists before them, cloaked in abomination and terror, unbeatable, untenable, unknowable and unimaginable horror. The crew quakes, but 2 brave girls step forward. Through their fear, through their loss and humiliation, through their soul breaking failures, they stride forward, brave and little, 2 girls approach hand in hand, together.