(fate loves fearless)

There is a turtle frozen alongside Toadvine Road.  It lies just past the biggest gated house in town, all shaded in sycamore.  I come upon it two miles into a run, and I’m winded enough to appreciate the distraction.  I stoop to rescue it from the while line of the road, but just as I reach out, it haphazardly pulls its head and legs into its shell, struggling.  I draw my hand back immediately.  Its shell is hopelessly cracked and caved in, no doubt smashed by a passing car.  It cowers on the white line before me. 

1. fall in love with books first.  they won’t leave you, won’t tether you, won’t really end.  you can burn them, bury them, tear the words from their spines: stories never die.

Fog lines.  The white lines are called fog lines, I remember.  Intended to keep you centered on a path when the thickest darks and deepest fogs sink in.

2. every story needs a beast.  this part isn’t fiction.

I double over, my panting more broken than before.  I wrap my hands around my chest, a lingering habit from childhood, fingers searching for intercostal spaces, for grip.  The youngest part of me bites my lip, and the oldest keeps my eyes open.  I can’t save it.  But I don’t think I can kill it, either—the shell is still too hard and my fingers are shaking, sweaty and weak.  For a moment I think I should call someone for help—there’s a church a hundred yards ahead. But there’s nothing to be done; I turn my attention back to the turtle dying at my feet. 

3. hold the hands of ex-lovers, remembering the ones who leave or are left hurt just as badly, struggle just as hard, share something just as beautiful and breaking. 

I do the only thing I can think to do: gently scoop it up in my palms, carry it away from the road, and lay it back down in a patch of grass.  Shards of shell cling to its wrecked and bloodied interior. Flies lazily escape when I set it down. 

We spend so much time building up our defenses, nature itself endlessly building toward something unreachable.  But the toughest defenses can still dissolve, can turn its jagged edges inward.

4. climb out of bed when you can’t sleep.  walk into the woods.  or sing to yourself, under your breath, something soothing and ancient.  or learn something, keeping yourself awake just to know you’re not static. 

I’m only halfway back to my apartment, so I start to run again.  It takes a moment to realize my hands are still cupped before me, still trying to hold what I can’t help. 

Half a mile farther is a small farm.  Two chestnut horses pick at the lawn, grinding buttercups between their flat, grey teeth. 

5. be honest.

One mile farther and I’ll collapse on the cool wood of our back porch, panting and staring blankly up at the wide blue sky.  I’ll lapse back into routine, unaffected.  Release my bare feet from socks and sneakers, sweep the loose strands of hair back behind my ears.  Suck on frozen cherries to cool my shallow breath back down.  Stain my lips purple-blue, the sweet dark cherries pre-pitted, eviscerated. Break the skin with my teeth.

6. remember that innocence can never be taken.  it can be released, like paper boats on a current.  but it can never be stolen.  and all that you see and all that it touches will forever lap at your feet, returning. 

I’m sure there’s something in here somewhere.

1. fall in love with books first.  they won’t leave you, won’t tether you, won’t really end.  
2. know that there are more than storybooks. there is your story.  and even in its seemingly imperfect plotting, it is perfectly paced and perfectly cast.
3. hold the hands of ex-lovers, remembering that ones who leave or are left hurt just as badly, struggle just as hard, share something just as beautiful and breaking.
4. get out of bed when you can’t sleep, and walk into the woods.  or sing to yourself, under your breath, something soothing and ancient.  or learn something, keeping yourself awake just to know you’re not static.  or braid your hair, massage your own weary feet, keeping yourself cared for and thinking beautifully even if alone.
5. be honest. speak. listen. cast away judgment. weigh your words.
6.  remember that innocence can never be taken.  it can be released, like paper boats on a current.  but it can never be stolen.  and all that you see and all that it touches will forever lap at your feet, returning.

twloha:

Jason Russell is my friend. i reached out to him a few years ago, as TWLOHA was starting to take off. i was a fan of Invisible Children and it seemed we could learn a lot from them, and i could learn a lot from him. Like IC, TWLOHA was born from a story and the surprising response to that…

THESE ARE THINGS WE NEED TO REMEMBER.  About this man.  About all people.  About you.

we teach children not to speak.

babies spend their first few months of life making every sound from every language spoken by humans.  what we dismiss as incoherent babble is everything that we can’t understand.  we repeat words that we want spoken, and we hush all the rest.  and before long, children grow and learn to speak like us.  they make our noises, echo our voices, and coo at our praise. before long, the muscles of the throat tense, the path of the tongue is set, and the palate of the mouth hardens around a small set of words.  all other sounds, all other possibilities, evaporate.

before you knew any better, you could have spoken absolutely everything.

so you and i, we get to know each other.  we build a language of what we can understand between us, and that which we can’t reach together begins to lose its meaning.  and so, in the name of reason and of compromise, we gradually release those parts of ourselves.  you tell me that i talk and laugh in my sleep all the time, but you can never decode the words.  it keeps you up at night.

i’ll bet you can’t remember the last song that i sang to you, on a cold hardwood floor in the middle of the night, our heads spinning and fevered.  music and laughter and light from the kitchen spill into the wide open foyer.  you moan you’ll be sick, dipping in and out of the room, toward me and away from me like a shallow tide.  you open your mouth a few times, maybe to apologize or maybe to ask, but instead you just swallow more air.  so i reach out and put my cool hands on your forehead, singing under my breath.  we can only hear the bass from the next room over, but the ghost of who i was before i knew you still knows every word.  
 

sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole, just like a faucet that leaks
 

your eyes can’t focus on me, but when i take your other hand in mine, it relaxes. 
 

and there is comfort in the sound

and when you’re sick later, sweating and tangled in your sheets, i need both hands to clean you up.  so i place a cool washcloth on your forehead, in place of my palms.

but while you debate half empty or half full
 

you calm down and you want to know my mind in that moment, but i won’t speak.  i won’t sing.  you won’t understand or you won’t remember.  and none of your words make any sense to me, either.  and the only one that i want is my name.

your love is going to
 

and the last morning, before the sun comes up, before everything dissolves, the weight of your head on my chest wakes me up.  in the darkness, you can’t see my eyes.  i keep my breathing steady and my mouth closed.  kneeling on the floor before your bed, you rest your cheek in the hollow between my ribs, rising and falling along with me.  you say nothing.  i say nothing.  and when you leave, wordlessly, you lock the door behind you.  i slip back into sleep, reclaiming my unintelligible speech.