Work Text:
I've been collecting pieces of your hair
To tuck away in the locket that I wear
Pretty strands that grew in your youth
Pieces that I'll always hold on to
⏔⏔⏔ ꒰ ᧔ෆ᧓ ꒱ ⏔⏔⏔
September 1996, New Orleans
Just outside of the open French windows, orange leaves and shrubbery danced in the light fall wind. Red leaves fell in frills on the terrace, painting the lawn and the Garden District in warm autumn hues.
Thick, velvet curtains sway loosely before the panes in the dim, lamplit room. Gently, minding the noise of the runners, you pull them shut.
Behind you, lounging on the plush sheets of his bed, he lays; ensconced, kept safe by its four, dark oak pillars and hanging drapes; his cheek resting on the edge of the mattress.
He’s a visage of stillness–of ephemeral softness. His chest moves in light beats, put to rest by mere exhaustion; he’s not been home for a while: toffee-coloured scars mark the way up his arms, curled up by his head on an errant, satin pillow.
His eyelashes crest dark against his pale eyelids, purple whispers beneath them as if fringe on a delicate nightgown. In dark rivers, his loose, unkempt hair spills over the edge of the pillow; curling and wispy; parted down the middle of his scalp as if two cakes, frosted with buttercream.
By the roots, a soft brown peers through to sheepishly say hello.
He’d been gone for so long; rushing from one place to the next, burning himself out, fretting about the stage, falling apart behind it. Rather than relieved, he had returned home morosely, and fell into a lethargy of helpless, aimless lounging: barely touching his notebooks, neglecting his instruments. Sallow and sullen.
Still.
Lying over the comforter, curled-up into himself in spools of velvet; his metaphysical, reverent facade faded into something small and gentle. Vulnerable, for once.
A mere shadow, you knelt down next to where he lay, cheek resting on your arms. A sleeping fawn, protected by the verdant greenery in which it dreamed. Tentatively, you reached over the threshold and tucked an errant, shorter black lock behind his ear, where it curled sweetly under the lobe; framing his porcelain, sleeping angel’s face.
Thrumming with adoration, you found yourself delicately twining another tendril between your fingers. Beneath the thin veil of his eyelids, his eyes rolled from side to side: lost in unreachable, impenetrable dreams.
And the thought falls on you suddenly, falling like the changing leaves outside; that you could keep part of him– keep part of him close forever, locked, endlessly, within this moment; To never decay or wilt with the ticking of time moving so helplessly by.
You have no idea how long this honeyed stillness will last.
Silently, slowly, you reach for the gold knob of his nightstand, pulling the old drawer open at an easy ghost’s pace. In it, among a leatherbound journal and copse of old photographs, your hands fall upon a pair of ornate, brass scissors; beautifully made, small, all swirls and floral motifs. Edging your finger along the tarnished blade, you look at him and sigh.
Pulling back the lush canopy, you settle yourself behind him on the other side of the bed, staring at the fountain of sable tresses flowing in layers from his scalp; sacrosanct, hallowed.
Using two of your fingers, you affectionately bring forth a lock from where it runs from the nape of his neck; heart fluttering, eyelids sleepy in reverence. Prying open the scissors, you lay the blades around the tendril and close them shut, a reticent kiss of the cut billowing in the dark, warmly lit room.
Holding the lock in your hands, you softly brush his hair back to normal with your fingers; and lean over to kiss him, lightly, on the forehead. In his sweet unconscious paracosm, his lips part.
You slide the scissors into the pocket of your nightclothes.
Cradling your little snapshot of forever as if fragile, you pad your way in your slippers down the halls, lit by the wavering sconces on the wallpapered walls and slices of the waxing, crescent moon. Home.
At the far end of the hall, resting on a dark oak dresser before the pale moonlight lay a bushel of flowers: baby’s breath and great, white blooms of southern magnolia; flowers he’d given to you for no reason at all, but, you realize now, may have been in apology.
Holding the arrangement together at the stems is a shiny, white ribbon; tied in a bow, the two tails trailing down the dresser.
Unearthing the scissors, you cut the excess ribbon and delicately fasten it around the stolen, midnight-black tress in a careful, saccharine knot.
Smiling, you held it to your beating, lace-covered heart;
A piece of him you’ll always hold on to.
You’ll have to go out tomorrow and buy a locket.
But, for now, you return to his resting place and lie, as if a phantom, soundlessly beside him; your effigy safe in your pocket, and the two of you, safe in the recluse of temporary death.