Een verhaal vanuit het perspectief van een item in je slaapkamer
POV: My bed
I love you.
You're huddled under my blankets, asleep. You just crawled in, the sun is finally out, and I saw less of you all night than I usually do. Clothes and books lay scattered by my feet, shuffled around carelessly when you make your way to me (always to me), the big brown leather chair unusable from the laundry you left on it. Plastic wrappers and ice lolly sticks, empty water glasses with dust in them. A spider on the wall. You don't ever leave me for your desk, and I'm glad of that. I don't want you anywhere else we've been together since you came here, and you seek safety in me like a child does to a mother. You press your cheek into my pillow, your pale body radiates with warmth. Where were you tonight?
The books you put beside me, some on the floor, most now neatly piled up and towering over us, are untouched. You do not read, your thoughts are elsewhere, you cannot focus. But you collect them, study them obsessively anyway. The Monk, Matthew Lewis. A biography of Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron. Diaries from Sylvia Plath and essays by Friedrich Nietzsche. A sociological study on suicide. A 1920s print of a 1600s medical textbook on melancholy. On your shelf, a DVD of Possession with Isabelle Adjani. Gothic novels, character studies, murder mysteries. Hannibal Lecter and Virginia Woolf. Dostoevsky and arthouse films. Half are taken out byweekly and tossed atop me only to be stored back with little engagement a day after. Your room is perpetually in disarray. A red paisley scarf draped over your wooden desk chair. Unsent letters and a box of gifts you won't ever send. Perfume bottles and oil paint. Antique jewelry in an antique jewelry box atop a dirty antique surface, though you never wear any. Your world has become so little, and neither of our pasts exist anymore, far away, locked in memory. You spend your days lying with me, or sitting with me, speaking into a recorder, staring at the white unfinished walls. I never lose you for more than a few hours, except for those few weekends a summer ago where you left me cold. Nevermore! You will not leave me today. I know, because any day you leave longer for others you have to pay back with more time asleep. Remain here, where it's safe and warm and you hide away. The world outside is large and unknown and I won't be there. You're very tired I know you are. You always are. The dark hollow space below your eyes never lightens, no matter how many hours I spend embracing you, holding you, comforting you. Come and crawl, come and crawl back to me, forget of the world you've left behind. I'll listen to every word you say, smother you, envelop you. We are as one. Love me, love me, love me.
We can hear birds singing, but you're not aware of them, your eyes closed and your mind occupied in dreams. Wherever you went in the night and the day therebefore won't meet you again this day, because you're with me, and now you shall sleep.
(Oh, and remember to wash my sheets when you wake, my love. It's been a month. Dirtbag.)
You're huddled under my blankets, asleep. You just crawled in, the sun is finally out, and I saw less of you all night than I usually do. Clothes and books lay scattered by my feet, shuffled around carelessly when you make your way to me (always to me), the big brown leather chair unusable from the laundry you left on it. Plastic wrappers and ice lolly sticks, empty water glasses with dust in them. A spider on the wall. You don't ever leave me for your desk, and I'm glad of that. I don't want you anywhere else we've been together since you came here, and you seek safety in me like a child does to a mother. You press your cheek into my pillow, your pale body radiates with warmth. Where were you tonight?
The books you put beside me, some on the floor, most now neatly piled up and towering over us, are untouched. You do not read, your thoughts are elsewhere, you cannot focus. But you collect them, study them obsessively anyway. The Monk, Matthew Lewis. A biography of Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron. Diaries from Sylvia Plath and essays by Friedrich Nietzsche. A sociological study on suicide. A 1920s print of a 1600s medical textbook on melancholy. On your shelf, a DVD of Possession with Isabelle Adjani. Gothic novels, character studies, murder mysteries. Hannibal Lecter and Virginia Woolf. Dostoevsky and arthouse films. Half are taken out byweekly and tossed atop me only to be stored back with little engagement a day after. Your room is perpetually in disarray. A red paisley scarf draped over your wooden desk chair. Unsent letters and a box of gifts you won't ever send. Perfume bottles and oil paint. Antique jewelry in an antique jewelry box atop a dirty antique surface, though you never wear any. Your world has become so little, and neither of our pasts exist anymore, far away, locked in memory. You spend your days lying with me, or sitting with me, speaking into a recorder, staring at the white unfinished walls. I never lose you for more than a few hours, except for those few weekends a summer ago where you left me cold. Nevermore! You will not leave me today. I know, because any day you leave longer for others you have to pay back with more time asleep. Remain here, where it's safe and warm and you hide away. The world outside is large and unknown and I won't be there. You're very tired I know you are. You always are. The dark hollow space below your eyes never lightens, no matter how many hours I spend embracing you, holding you, comforting you. Come and crawl, come and crawl back to me, forget of the world you've left behind. I'll listen to every word you say, smother you, envelop you. We are as one. Love me, love me, love me.
We can hear birds singing, but you're not aware of them, your eyes closed and your mind occupied in dreams. Wherever you went in the night and the day therebefore won't meet you again this day, because you're with me, and now you shall sleep.
(Oh, and remember to wash my sheets when you wake, my love. It's been a month. Dirtbag.)
Reageer (3)
Dudeee this is so sick, reads very personal tbh? "I know, because any day you leave longer for others you have to pay back with more time asleep." that one got me cuz it's so real man. idk I really like this, can't really put my finger on what it is abt it exactly
10 minuten geledenOUR depression ☭ ☭ ☭ ☭
3 minuten geleden(Thank youuuuuuu <3333)
dude this is gooooddd
3 uur geledenfrom the first moment the style grips you as a reader, the voice is possessive and reads as a toxic love interest from a dark romance. which is an interesting angle for an object that is generally associated with a lot of safety, warmth and comfort and subverts our preconceptions nicely.
The omnimous entity you created of your "loving" bed reminds me of a prompt that depicts death as something not cruel or vengeful, but bemused and eternally patient. Because it doesn't matter how many times the hero gets back up again, how many times impossible odds are overcome, how often the hero and their crew teethered on the edge and ended up on the side of the living: they'll end up where they belong eventually. Death is eternal. Death can wait. A human trying to defy it, well. Isn't that a noble persuit? Let him try, let him fight it tooth and nail as long as he can. One day, it will be his last. And death will be there to greet him, as all things should be greeted at the end.
tl;dr: lovely short story depicting a very accurate ToxicCodependentRelationship in a fresh and original manner, which reads at the same time as a little off-putting and yet comforting. which is i think entirely your genre, so kudo's to u mister
THIS ANALYSIS IS SO SWEET HYUFHUJK THANK YOUUUUUU
2 uur geledenOohh but I love the flow of your writing style <3
3 uur geledenAlso do I spot a The Raven reference there? 👀Thank you so muchhhh (:
2 uur geledenAls een hele slechte goth had ik The Raven hiervoor nooit aandachtig genoeg gelezen om me te realiseren dat dit over "Nevermore!" ging but let's say it is a willful reference and that I'm well educatedAccidental genius we call that hahahahahah
37 minuten geleden