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Greg G. asked that we post some of our favorite writings from Gabrielle. This is a piece she wrote on her LJ as part of NaPoWriMo last year. I love it.
Don't Look Up (to be read to Neal Young or Similar) -- NaPoWriMo 3/30 - unedited
Gabrielle Bouliane
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don’t look up tonight. Don’t look into the eyes you can’t have, just listen and let the woe of alone wash you like a minor chord, like a slide guitar pushed against your spine, don’t look to the sky for answers, they aren’t there.
Remember that outside the window there are trees, roots deep beneath the concrete, who have seen more pain than you will know, fall into the night beyond the thin pane of glass, let yourself stare at the wall, at the table, anywhere but his eyes, drink deep of forget while the ink traces the lines of the night, of your road home alone. Don’t look up or you’ll fall for real into the future that isn’t yours.
Forget, forget in the chords, in the tap of a boot on the stage, forget that you want and can’t have, you can only hold that which isn’t yours. So tonight, pound your feet against the pavement, throw your dripping heart against the wall, tonight, I want you to forget to remember you have a heart and a body that aches. Tonight, forget that pain is one step from beauty, that love is one step from loss. Tonight, you own the road, the wheel between your fingers, and the blood that beats beneath your skin. Tonight you are confident, you are the place between the hand and the beat of a drum, you are a beer bottle slammed to a glass table not asking what’s allowed. You are played and the player, and you cannot speak what you know. You are blue lights on the skin of a stranger, you are the lightening of the devil in the night. And while the music plays your skin like a tarantella, while the carpet slides beneath your feet like a crime, feel your heart take two steps down the stairs while your tongue screams silent to the stars. Your life is at right angles to the dawn, it feels like the sun will never rise, this road is forever beneath lost feet, a heart that will never be held.
So sing to me of salvation, sing to me of regret, of what we will never own, of what should not be imagined by unknown angels in quiet homes, while us, the demons, walk along under red lights, while the guitar calls her lust to the night, while his hands slide like a car door shutting on your finger. Even my skin is stained with the dark tonight, a mystic key to a world that you can only see under dark moons.
And this one makes the ink flow, this one pulls the stories out of my heart, the quiet places you miss, the space in between tonight and tomorrow where you press your sad face into the soft side of night. You make me admit I’m broken and still know how to dream, you let the black swan stroke my face with her tired wings while other hands trace the edge of our hearts. Please tell me there is a tomorrow, tell me I’ll find out what I cannot ask, that at the end of my journey is a safe place to rest my head.
And as I lean back against against the edge of a dream I’m not allowed to hold, this music allows me to believe, to think that somewhere in the dark night there’s a home with my name on the door, a number that means I’m safe, held in the answer I dare not speak. Deep in the night I hear the call; remember that there is water flowing, grass growing, and children crying and being held and I am one of them, I have a face and a name and a story that is my own, I hold my own piece of now against the throat of the dawn and no one can take it from me.
And this is the song I needed to hear, this is why I scrape my nails against the brick wall of the dark, this beat is my feet, toes bared against the floor, hair wild in the wind of we will leave behind.
How can you forget to feel when there is music like this in the world, when there is liquor and a red tablecloth and a voice to hold against the coming day? How can we forget to feel when there is music to play our hearts, when we fall to alone at the end of the night and everything you hear is what you already know? Play me deep, baby, beat the drum and strike the keys like god beating his fist into glass. Forget we have empty cases and keys at the end of the night, make me think it’s forever, make me want this never to end.
Don't Look Up (to be read to Neal Young or Similar) -- NaPoWriMo 3/30 - unedited
Gabrielle Bouliane
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don’t look up tonight. Don’t look into the eyes you can’t have, just listen and let the woe of alone wash you like a minor chord, like a slide guitar pushed against your spine, don’t look to the sky for answers, they aren’t there.
Remember that outside the window there are trees, roots deep beneath the concrete, who have seen more pain than you will know, fall into the night beyond the thin pane of glass, let yourself stare at the wall, at the table, anywhere but his eyes, drink deep of forget while the ink traces the lines of the night, of your road home alone. Don’t look up or you’ll fall for real into the future that isn’t yours.
Forget, forget in the chords, in the tap of a boot on the stage, forget that you want and can’t have, you can only hold that which isn’t yours. So tonight, pound your feet against the pavement, throw your dripping heart against the wall, tonight, I want you to forget to remember you have a heart and a body that aches. Tonight, forget that pain is one step from beauty, that love is one step from loss. Tonight, you own the road, the wheel between your fingers, and the blood that beats beneath your skin. Tonight you are confident, you are the place between the hand and the beat of a drum, you are a beer bottle slammed to a glass table not asking what’s allowed. You are played and the player, and you cannot speak what you know. You are blue lights on the skin of a stranger, you are the lightening of the devil in the night. And while the music plays your skin like a tarantella, while the carpet slides beneath your feet like a crime, feel your heart take two steps down the stairs while your tongue screams silent to the stars. Your life is at right angles to the dawn, it feels like the sun will never rise, this road is forever beneath lost feet, a heart that will never be held.
So sing to me of salvation, sing to me of regret, of what we will never own, of what should not be imagined by unknown angels in quiet homes, while us, the demons, walk along under red lights, while the guitar calls her lust to the night, while his hands slide like a car door shutting on your finger. Even my skin is stained with the dark tonight, a mystic key to a world that you can only see under dark moons.
And this one makes the ink flow, this one pulls the stories out of my heart, the quiet places you miss, the space in between tonight and tomorrow where you press your sad face into the soft side of night. You make me admit I’m broken and still know how to dream, you let the black swan stroke my face with her tired wings while other hands trace the edge of our hearts. Please tell me there is a tomorrow, tell me I’ll find out what I cannot ask, that at the end of my journey is a safe place to rest my head.
And as I lean back against against the edge of a dream I’m not allowed to hold, this music allows me to believe, to think that somewhere in the dark night there’s a home with my name on the door, a number that means I’m safe, held in the answer I dare not speak. Deep in the night I hear the call; remember that there is water flowing, grass growing, and children crying and being held and I am one of them, I have a face and a name and a story that is my own, I hold my own piece of now against the throat of the dawn and no one can take it from me.
And this is the song I needed to hear, this is why I scrape my nails against the brick wall of the dark, this beat is my feet, toes bared against the floor, hair wild in the wind of we will leave behind.
How can you forget to feel when there is music like this in the world, when there is liquor and a red tablecloth and a voice to hold against the coming day? How can we forget to feel when there is music to play our hearts, when we fall to alone at the end of the night and everything you hear is what you already know? Play me deep, baby, beat the drum and strike the keys like god beating his fist into glass. Forget we have empty cases and keys at the end of the night, make me think it’s forever, make me want this never to end.
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