Love Story

Yelawolf and FeFe Dobson recently got engaged...

Love is stronger than words. Their spines break around cold shapes, losing stability under the weight of their meanings. They shiver; their emaciated bodies chilling in the cold until they wither into the strings of glass, the fibers of snowflakes. They bleed into the snow and dye it red, drenched in perfume until the stench reeks through the moist ground of the earth. That smell haunts the air like death and poisons us until we loosen our minds and adapt to the bitter cold. That’s what words do to me. They kill me.

            Love is stronger than words. I open up my heart and close my mind. I let the ink of my savior stain my bones and riddle me down until I’m very small. I’m so small that I see so much; I see wide open spaces and fields of green �" the snow is gone. I fly off a blade of grass and sink in the mud, trapped by the corpses of words and feeling my skin be permeated by darkness. I reach out my hand for help and I hear footsteps behind me. My voice is so meek, even when screaming. You are there, right behind me. Your breath hits my face. You carry me on your finger to safety; you smile as I hold on. You place me on the petal of a flower and I sit with temptation, hoping to get a better look at the one who rescued me. Your eyelashes dazzle and sleep upon your face, dark and earthy skin mixed with chocolate hair. I almost fall off my little petal staring at you, seeing you. I collapse under the weight of your love and I find, with a twinkly in your eye, that you love me too.

            Love is stronger than words. Love is stronger than I am. You are love, and you are crushing me.

 

Michael read the note over with repetitive grace, fearing that the words may evaporate off the page and float into the sky like crystals, instead of melt into his heart. He ruffled a clammy and shaky hand through the feathers of his hair and sighed; closing his eyes and seeing nothing…not even an answer. He pushed away from the desk in his rolling chair, it pounding like a toy hammer swiftly on the carpet and softening gradually, and leaped to a crouch that fogged his brain with a rush of blood.

            He dipped his hands down, clasped together tightly in prayer, and mumbled a few words. A “Lord” here and there, a “strength”…a “forgive me” for whatever reason. He lifted his head quickly, feeling the strings of his hair fall into his eyes, covering him in nausea and unsettling fear. He felt the fibers of his pants constrict his skin and shift his leg hair in uncomfortable directions, and that’s when he knew he needed to stand. He needed to stand and get this over with.

            The room was dressed in dark, marrying its various shadows silently. The soles of his feet itched at the black floor, a soft bed of manufactured cloth. His dress shirt clung to his skin with petulance; fancy suits were not a thing he was accustomed to physically, so it seemed his body was fighting it like a cancer. He felt it swim all over him, drowning him in a store of prissy men ready for a court case. There was, thankfully, no fashionable noose lassoed around his taught neck, but occasionally he reached at the tatted canvas with paranoia, as if he might choke at his own words.

            Like a revolutionary in a wood crafted office, he turned off the only light source in the room like it was a pesky candle. He felt the hot wax of his sorrows commiserate with his fingertips, sending them alight and pink with warmth. When he was younger he used to shape his hands around a bulb, barely touching it like a feather to paper �" before it burned �" and saw his skin become the heat of the sun. He became a superhero, able to control the weather with a snap of his fingers. Yet now, in his quiet yet chaotic hotel room, it was almost darker and lonelier than the surface of the moon. He stared at the lamp for a moment, hanging dryly on the desk-drawer over scratches and scuffs and “SMOKE WEED” carvings next to “Jessica & Abel” engravings.

            He turned it back on with a soft pull of the chain and the violent blink of his eyes. He was going to be a superhero tonight.

            The drive to the club wasn’t unsettling. A limo. A pretty decent driver. Lights that sprayed the town on neon graffiti. Crazy skater rats prowling the streets and flipping Yela off through his tinted window. He grinned madly at that moment, the lights of the casino dancing brightly in his eyes. “If they only knew,” he thought.

            When he finally pulled up to the club his stomach tightened. December 30^th. Birthday number who even cares. The night that his life may change. His note burned a hole in his jacket pocket, like tire on concrete. He remembered the exhilaration he felt as a teen doing mediocre doughnuts in a K-mart parking lot, trying to look like a polished southern aristocrat NASCAR driver but instead appearing to be a hoodlum in a wife beater and knee-high socks.

            Of course in his old age all of his fleeting memories crash and burn the back of his withered mind. He scratched the whiskers of his face and cursed at the irritating strands he forgot to shave that morning. There was always something his cluttered mind left on the back burner, but at least this time it was more forgivable than his ultimate gem. But there was no way he could lose it now.

            His driver opened the door opened the door for him steadily and he felt the hum of the engine tickle his nerve endings in a calm massage (he always felt at peace in cars). He locked his jaw and nodded to the driver, jealous of his splendor. This time, when the soles of his feet hit the ground they rocked with the temperature of stolen earth. His shoe clapped against the concrete, then came the next a bit softer. Everything was rough and stuck, like rosin against a batter’s smooth hand. He felt tight but concentrated, even in the midst of a thousand screaming fans. Three in particular recognized him, attempting to sweep out his feet from under him to which he denied with a shrug that shifted autumn leaves off his shoulders, a gravity he never wanted to feel yet was finally gone.

            His crisp hair shivered against the soft breeze, melting against his face and pouring behind his ears gently. He stared at the ground and counted each step like the beat of a song. Sometimes as a child he would listen to the faint sounds of Hank Williams dripping through the walls and leaking into his ears and would step lively to the beat of whatever song, timing the rhythm precisely just before the next track rang clear and he would start over.

            Of course now he was moving significantly faster, praying to get inside before the lights of the world swallowed the concrete with its alleviated rocks and annoying pebbles. And then suddenly he was doused in artificial darkness once again.

            It was like gasoline to a fire; it was always better as a hunter to fight fires with a purpose and altruistic intentions. You don’t put gasoline up against something as genuine as wood and a natural spark. This…club. It was covered in flashing strobe lights and glow-in-the-dark jewelry. He had dealt with stuff like this for years now, and he knew there was only one way to solve his detachment.

            A waitress with cocky breasts smiled with a silver tray and he grabbed the first thing he saw. He theatrically threw his head up and gulped the apparent shot down…vodka. It gave his throat a familiar burn and he winced at the beaming girl. He had no strength to smile and she had no strength to deal with him for another second. With a sour face she left.

            He feathered his hands through his hair and stared at the crowd thumping in front of him. “It’s all good,” he thought. “I got a girl…” and he smiled to himself.

            He had a wonderful girl. A girl with flowers in her hair and fire in her soul. A girl with acceptance in her heart and heaven in her lungs.

            A girl who was across the club, leaning against a wall and flinging her leg around like a graceful ballerina. She bobbed her head to the beat, like when they shot “6 Feet Underground” and she wore his sailor’s hat. Her dress was blacker than his hotel room, the nightlife, the club, maybe even the world, and it was skin tight, flush against her body like skin against bone. Their outfits were like brother and sister.

            His legs became Jell-O, clouds floating lightly within the sky. She didn’t notice him yet, but she lifted her red cup to her rose petal lips and took a large gulp, like Michael and with his bottles of Jack. She licked those lips and bit the stems.

            He smiled, falling in love with her all over again, and falling upon his cloud.

            It was a stoner with a bright red shirt and a line for a beard. He didn’t feel that drunk, according to Michael’s aura, but he wasn’t polite about bumping into the thirty-three year old.

            And just as the guy swam deep in the ocean of grinding bodies, Michael hit the floor. Like rain his hair poured onto the shiny black surface, along with a pale slip of dust.

            “S**t,” he thought nervously.

            His knees scratched inside their cloth blankets and his palms stretched under the weight of the drop. The paper danced with the rowdy kids on the dance floor, soaring elegantly against the wind in a waltz rather than a crunk. A total of three people stepped on it, killing it roughly and squishing the breath out of it like an avalanche in the Alps on a negligent skateboarder.

            He could’ve cried. He felt all of his hopes sail out of him from the top of his head and absorb into the bass of the song. His chest sank like a rock and his breath followed suit, choking him violently. He gasped harshly just to remind himself that he was alive. His face was flushed like hard candy.

            A week’s worth of thoughts…gone. It was like when his boss lost his Britney Spears notebook back in the day; all of those thoughts and ideas destroyed in a moment and there was no way to truly get them all back. Bits and pieces, yes. The whole? Nope. And it wasn’t like there was time to write it all down again.

            He only wrote all that because he didn’t have a ring. No form of compensation for the miserable s**t he put her through. No reward for her patience. No enticement for her answer. An earthly stone of deep cuts and bruises with sharp shine was as far away from his pocket as that letter. He looked again. Torn to shreds.

            He wanted to be mad but all that was left inside of him were tears. Tears of great size and great sound. There was no way she’d say yes. Not in a million years. He was dirt compared to a ring. Filth compared to that letter.

            “Michael…”

            It was a whisper compared to the music. She was leaning against his fractured body on the floor cradling him like he was a familiar pillow. He was disgusted by the fact that she probably thought he was drunk. He was drunk…drunk with morose.

            When she lifted him from the floor he was filled with her body �" the fluidity of her scent, the curl of her hair, the tightness of her skin. But for a moment his heart was full again, but his shoulders were covered in dumbbells.

            His vision was oddly impaired when he looked at her; a head rush that diluted the colors of the world and the pattern of her face. She mouthed something and he squinted, unable to tell what she was saying. It was like the sounds of the club absorbed her voice and ate it.

            She smirked at his confused face and pulled his arm, straining the fabric of his suit and the palette of his skin. She was dangerously strong.

            EXIT

            There was one in every place on earth, taunting you to leave from the moment you got there. He felt like that sometimes, waiting to leave but staying for no reason. And now, above all things, he had a reason to leave. She pulled him into the red flashing lights and they pounded into the dress rehearsal darkness. The place wasn’t quite ready for the Sunday showing.

            “Cigarette, hon?”

            Her voice was like syrup across the wind. It covered his ears with resilience rather than a sticky coating, however, and he looked at her. The bright lights painted over his eyes with artificiality but he could see her frame like a child putting on glasses for the first time. Like when Marshall got off drugs and freaked out over leaves. She was every color of an autumn shower. He smiled.

            “Yeah…” he said with a feathery tone. She smiled back and passed him a white bullet fairly large and quite less dangerous immediately but far more potent. She was so close to him that he was choking, and he hadn’t even popped the cancer stick in his mouth yet.

            “Happy Birthday Catfish,” she said abruptly. When he peered at her from behind his lighter he saw that she was smirking. He hated when FeFe called him that. Friends? Yeah. Girlfriend? F**k outta here.

            “Thinnx…” he muttered through tightened lips. Once he got a firm light going and after time paused, he took a puff for courage and looked at her. She was everything he wasn’t, and for some reason she wanted him just the same.

            “I know…” she alluded. She gave a simple nod at him and kept her smirk, fading into the shadows of the alleyway they were locked in. It was a typical drug-dealing alleyway; riddled with litter and rough asphalt and decrepit brick walls decorated with graffiti. Of course he plans to change his life in this type of setting, although it was very fitting. Her hair fluttered in the soft draft, darker than the night but shinier than a potential engagement ring. It was a conniving color, possessing some information he wasn’t able to see.

            “Know what?” he asked. They barely speak long, elaborate sentences anymore; rather they see what they mean and figure out the logistics later. He squinted his eyes at her and watched smoke rise and fly with the air of Las Vegas, permeating the clouds and hurting fragile things. She smiled and reached out for him, pulling at his lapels. He could smell her gum and he wanted a taste, but he settled for her chocolate eyes as a meal.

            “I do…” and bashfulness filled her eyes with a touch of pink to her cheeks. He didn’t breathe. He ground his teeth. His eyes were swollen.

            “Yeah?” he croaked, feeling tightness in his chest and seeing stars in her eyes. How did she know? Was this too good to be true?

            “Mmhmm,” she laughed, nodding rapidly. She wrapped her hands around Michael’s face like tissue paper on a present, and kissed him. She was warm like hot chocolate and he felt the day wash over them. When they broke apart he looked to her with distress.

            “I…I lost the…I’m sorry,” he broke. He didn’t know what to say, feeling like he let her down. She silenced him with another peck and he calmed his nerves, like a shot.

            “It’s okay…words are stupid…” And she kissed him one more time. He smiled through it all, thinking of the letter and knowing that she knew each phrase like the back of her hand without even reading it. He quickly got down on one knee.

            “Words are stupid,” he chuckled and she laughed at the sky.

            This was where their love story began.  

Author's Note

hehe :>