Storykeeper of Fae's Stories

Goodbye

2008-07-16T03:30:57Z

Not more than five minutes ago, my soul-brother and best friend was at my side. Not more than five minutes ago, we were exalting in the festivities, being welcomed by the satyrs, centaurs, fauns, and faeries. Not more than five minutes ago, this was a dream, not a nightmare.

But then, my hands were behind my back, and so were his. He was led away from me. But what hurt the most was that he wasn’t fighting.

Why wasn’t he fighting?!

It hit me like a troll’s club to the chest. He had never intended to stay. He hid his face, gathering courage, hiding shame. When he looked up, the tears in his eyes reflected the ceremonial flame. “I’m so sorry! Kaeli, I love you. I’ll come back, I promise. I love you!”

With that, he disappeared.

Time slowed down. I barely felt the ceremonial wreath being placed upon my brown locks, or the phoenix quill being pressed into my hand.

All I saw was every blow of the dwarven axe to the ash tree. And then the fire. I realized that part of me went up in flames with it.

Every Creature Has a Story

2008-07-16T03:06:08Z

My nature was finally kicking in by the time I’d ambled through the untamed woods to the well-trodden road. I began to be curious. It offered me a shred of hope, a comfort to hang on to. I was always curious. That wasn’t new. I had so much new to deal with, but this I could cuddle up to.

“Stella?” My soprano voice was froggy. Like it hadn’t yet woken from this Michael-less nightmare.

“Yes, Storykeeper?” She turned to look at me, and hovered a moment. Clearly, she was surprised at hearing my voice.

Suddenly I was embarassed. Needlessly. Every creature I’d encountered in Fae had regarded me with deference. I was essential to their way of life. The words managed to work themselves out of my tired, indifferent mouth. “Every creature has a story.”

By now, I’d caught up to her. On impulse, I held out my cupped hands, and she sat in them. Her tiny head cocked, letting me know she was listening.

“Every creature has a story. And it’s my job to keep them all.”

She nodded.

“So what’s yours?”

Stella

2008-07-15T02:22:37Z

When I woke that morning, it was to the gentle cooing song of a magenta faerie. It was so much warmer than the Weepie’s music. So much more hopeful.

She kissed my forehead and then sat crosslegged on the stump. “Good morning, Storykeeper. I am Stella.”

Storykeeper. From then on, Storykeeper. Never again would anyone here call me by my human name. The thought sent a tear of loss down my cheek.

“Morning.” I replied, not willing to call it “good.”

“I am to show you the Hall. You and I will work together.” She gave a tentative half smile. It struck me as odd, this faerie feeling empathy for me. I was used to the fickle, extremely happy or otherwise spiteful image of faeries. She seemed…almost human.

Miraculously, I managed to pick myself up off the ground. My heart was too stiff for me to notice that stiffness echoed in my muscles.

And I followed the gleaming twilight-toned faerie to the place in which I was to spend the rest of my life.

Weepies

2008-07-13T02:46:44Z

Michael was gone, and any chance he had of coming back this way was burned last night in the most morbid of bonfires. I prayed that he would find another way. He was always a clever boy. So much cleverer than me.

The pads of my fingers traced the rough circles of the newly axe-hewn stump. It was rhythmic and silent, my mourning. Round and round in circles, tear following tear down my cheek.

I knew this was how it had to be. I was finally serving my purpose, finally where I belonged. But without my best friend, my brother figure, what did it matter?

It was raining that morning in Fae. How fitting. Flitting about my head were keening azure and gray creatures. Not feeling very creative, I decided to call them the Weepies. Forever more, these mourning pixies would be documented in volumes as Weepies. That was my power, and right now, it felt like a daunting task. In essence, this world was mine.

I laid my head down on the remains of my human life, and my sobs were lost in the keening.

A Child

2008-07-03T02:56:34Z

I straighten and glare at him, but that part of me that had come out of torpor recently whispered something in my ear. I want to swat it away like a pesky insect, but the voice speaks from deep within.
He’s right. You are a coward.

I recoil. I can feel him and his soft eyes looking at me. Hiawatha Black Bear wants to gouge his eyes out. The part of me I left behind wants to let my own eyes blur as they are. I haven’t cried in more than a year.

I stare out onto the water as the wind ripples across its surface – distorting the reflection.
“You know…it’s ironic.”
He turns his head, but says nothing.
“I’ve spent so much time with myself…but I realize now that I’ve done a lot more losing than finding. I was wrong.”
I hang my head in shame.

His arm rests on my bony shoulder, and I actually allow the young man to hold me. For the first time in more than a year, I’ve let someone inside.

I’m a child again. A vulnerable, broken, hurt, scared child, in need of being loved.

A Child

2008-07-03T02:56:23Z

His arm rests on my bony shoulder, and I actually allow the young man to hold me. For the first time in more than a year, I’ve let someone inside.

I’m a child again. A vulnerable, broken, hurt, scared child, in need of being loved.

A Child

2008-07-03T02:56:21Z

His arm rests on my bony shoulder, and I actually allow the young man to hold me. For the first time in more than a year, I’ve let someone inside.

I’m a child again. A vulnerable, broken, hurt, scared child, in need of being loved.

A Child

2008-07-03T02:52:58Z

His arm rests on my bony shoulder, and I actually allow the young man to hold me. For the first time in more than a year, I’ve let someone inside.

I’m a child again. A vulnerable, broken, hurt, scared child, in need of being loved.

The Hermit Coward

2008-06-18T04:10:29Z

His eyes…this is the first time I look in his eyes. They’re so big and a hazel that seems to me like it’s always changing.
“He told me loved me,” I said. “That we were meant to be. He said we’d be together, in some way or another, forever. ‘Until we die.’ What a lie!”
I look back into the deep pools of swirling green, blue and amber. He gives me a look. The most perfect listener look. Tim had one exactly like it. I turn my head away.
“What happened then? Did he…”
“He just never loved me as much as I did. He never needed me as much as I needed him. It hurt, the needing.”
“Ah!”
“Share your enlightenment, please.”
“Please?” He smiles, teasing.
I manage a smile.
“I get it. You vowed never to need anyone again. He broke your promise, so you ran away and hid from it, making sure you’d never have to come in contact with him, or anyone else you might love, for the rest of your life. You know, for someone who comes off like she was raised by black bears, you sure are a coward.”

In the Now

2008-06-18T03:59:58Z

Graffiti.
When done well, it can be an art form, I believe.
But on this picnic table
Covered in red paint,
Is the result of several teenagers
Searching for a little fame.
A way to make themselves be seen.
A place to put their names.
It makes me sad, really,
All the “so and so loves so and so.”
What really breaks my heart,
Is the “always”, though.
“Always and “Forever.”
They had no idea!
I remember being in their shoes.
I wouldn’t think, I’d feel.
That fuzzy word of “always”
Put me to sleep at night.
But now, it’s almost scary.
A gristly beast of a descriptor,
Causes cold sweats and shivers,
Nails on a chalkboard to my ears.
A poor oboist in the orchestra of
My existence.
It used to be so beautiful,
Snuggling up to me like a little kitten,
Purring on my chest,
Lulling me to sleep with it’s sultry,
Silken song.
But now I just see how
“Always”
Is near imaginary.
The truth is in the
N
O
W

Thank You

2008-05-30T01:27:19Z

Whenever I felt lonely,
I was comforted
By warm words
Of conversations past.

Whenever I sank inside my shell,
I was coaxed out
By those smiles
Of ages before.

When rain fell from Seamist Grey,
I remembered the sunny sounds
Of the laughs you laughed
Before the storms came.

When consciousness flew
To the World of Dreams,
Your eyes shone
Like twin brown moons.

And I swayed beneath them
To the lilting song
We sang
So long before.

The harmonies wove
So beautifully
A blanket that I thought always
Would keep me warm.

Since your embrace
Was never really
Capable
Of doing so.

Thank you, though
For letting me
Need and love you
Like I did.

Thank you for
Humoring
The child that
I was.

But now I know
That I am all
I ever truly
Needed.

I Am Finally Me. [I am...Poetry Challenge]

2008-05-27T02:33:31Z

I am whole.
I wonder how I ever could’ve been the girl I once was.
I hear the echoes of the past as they remind me of my journey, my metamorphosis.
I see the images of our story dance across my memory.
I want to write it all down, for I have the right perspective.
I am outside it all now.

I pretend that I was always this way.
I feel like I can fly.
I touch the hearts of so many, so easily.
I worry no longer about “forever” and “always”. I no longer need to hold them close, as I can depend upon myself.
I am invincible.

I understand that I was learning to be.
I say to myself, “I was a child.”
I dream now, not of you, but of the whole wide world, and how I am to be an improver of it.
I try to share my utter joy with others, as it is impossible to hoard.
I hope you don’t regret any part of this year, and that you can operate knowing that your kindred spirit is someone else then when we first began.
I am finally me.

Valentine's Day

2008-05-26T00:44:34Z

Three days later, my apprehension got the better of me. I couldn’t settle into it. It didn’t feel right.

So I wrote a note. Our mode of communication.

“This doesn’t feel right to me. Can we wait? Just be friends for awhile? It’s not that I don’t like you. I do. Just…this is so weird.”

I felt a lot better, and things between us didn’t really change. We never really talked to begin with, and the notes kept being passed. All was well. Maybe.

Then, on Valentine’s Day, Brad came up to me with a stuffed animal pretending to be a rose and a card in a pink envelope.

Cold sweat all over again.

He handed it to me, I hugged him, and then I read the card.

“Happy Valentine’s Day! What better time to celebrate our friendship?”

These were the words of the manufacturer. Not Brad.

At the end of that day, he thanked me for the flower I had arranged to be sent to him when we were still a couple.

Most awkward Valentine’s Day of my life.

I Said Yes

2008-05-26T00:27:24Z

Five hours later, I finally handed him the reply. It was a note, all folded up, that on the outside said, “Umm…”
He saw the title when I handed it to him. “Do you understand how hard that was?” He asked me.

I nodded. My stomach could not get used to the idea.

I had said yes. I felt that was the only thing to do. I liked him…so why was I so scared?

My friends were decidedly more excited than I was. I was the first among them to have a boyfriend. It was cool.

So why did it feel so weird? Awkward?

To make things even more wonderful, Brad had lost the note. It turned up at the end of the day. His friend Cathy handed it to me and told me how some guy named Wally had found it and then given it to the other Kylie. I was mortified.

But why? I shouldn’t have cared that people outside my immediate friend circle knew. But it bothered me.

The whole thing bothered me.

"What Are You Going to Say?"

2008-05-26T00:18:04Z

February 3, 2006.

The day went on as usual, but Brad seemed…nervous. Had since the day previous. Which was odd. I’d told him I liked him weeks ago, and he had reciprocated. What was there to be nervous about?

I knew what was coming. In the last note he had written, “There’s something I want to ask you…”

I had replied, “Well do it! Can’t you trust me?”

We walked toward gym, as the days of health class had ended. Just before I was about to reach for the handle of the girls’ locker room, he handed me a note with my name on it. A daily occurence.

But this one was different.

My stomach flipped over, and I dreaded reading it.

“It’s not that I can’t trust you. You’re a girl, you don’t have to deal with this kind of thing!
Alright. I was kind of wondering if you would maybe want to go out with me sometime?”

I walked, stunned, to my locker, and plopped down on the bench. My friends all crowded around and read the note.

“What are you going to say?” They asked.

What indeed.