The Tin Soldier
You stare at her from across the room in the same place she always sits in, always smiling, always getting along with everyone. Something about her -- something small and insignificant, but it’s enough to catch your attention. You like the way that she moves and the way that she is, and for anyone to catch your eye is really something damn special. What’s most special though is when you attempt to enter her society and the bitter smile she sends you off with.
The truth is simple, you’re not a real person, though you have eyes and ears, a mouth, and toes, but you don’t feel like it. Something is different from you and the rest of the world and whenever you run the razor blade across your skin you’re fascinated that there is still actually blood flowing through your veins. You had been so sure there was a clock ticking off your minutes rather than a heart beating away in your chest.
Maybe even it’s childish the way which you view the world; you are the tin soldier with one leg, while everyone surrounding you is the 24 others with two legs to balance themselves on. And she -- her, the girl, the insignificant special one, she is the paper ballerina which you would do anything for. She is also the goblin. Bittersweet.
At night as you stare up at the ceiling and replay the scene in your head, the one where she smiles and says she has to go, the one where her eyes are frightened and disgusted, you smile and mouth the word on your lips.
Bittersweet.
That night you dream, you dream you are a soldier made from a spoon with only one leg, and she is across the table, dancing, beautiful blonde hair flowing and caressing, her eyes meet yours. The bluest eyes you have ever seen, and they are simply ugly. She relaxes her leg and smiles cruelly as she steps onto a snuffbox.
“Tin Soldier, don’t wish for what does not belong to you,”
You say nothing and suddenly you’re tumbling, tumbling down the labyrinth of your mind gasping for breath, but all you inhale is sewage and shit that society has spat at you. You try to swim above, you try to make it out alive but you’re drowning and screaming, but you’d be damned if you were crying. Crying is for the weak, and also for those on dry land. The water engulfs you, soon you can’t see anything, hear anything but the pain as you feel yourself drowning.
Somewhere in the distant background you hear the goblin and the ballerina singing,
Farewell warrior ever brave,
Drifting onward to thy grave
One is cacophonic and high, the other deep and melodic, both are separate and one at the same time and it’s an infinite mind fuck trying to decide who is singing which or if both are simply one.
Eventually, you drown.
►▲▼◄
She doesn’t know what you want, nor does she want to. She’s terrified of you and the bags under your eyes. She’s terrified of the disarray of your hair and the coaxing which you need in order to speak. At some point she thought you were interesting, always sitting in the corner with your headphones blaring, lost in your own world which no one, not even the psychiatrists could break into. She used to think you were interesting until you turned those eyes onto her and only her, and suddenly you weren’t interesting; you were dangerous. To you though, dangerous and harmless are the same thing as they are both misjudged more than not.
Her friends say that it’s just a creepy crush when she mentioned it to them in the cafeteria. That he’s a loser boy who only wishes he had a friend and the moment which she offered a real smile to him (the first time they met) he had set his eyes on her and only her. He’s harmless.
The jingling of your chains snaps her out of her thoughts and she watches you walk out of the room with your headphones blaring, your bagged eyes, and your disarrayed hair. As you leave she releases a sigh of relief and turns back to the work at hand, though math problems are somewhere in the back of her mind. Just as you’d like, her thoughts are on you and only you. Then again they usually are, like the gazelle from the cheetah.
The last thing she feels like is a ballerina.
At night she lies awake in bed and stares at the glow in the dark stars on her ceiling and watches them. She wonders what your smile looks like, though she’s sure she’s seen it somewhere, it’s buried deep in her mind beneath math problems, the English assignment, and even the last Science lab. The smile is there though, and when she focuses she can bring the sliver of the memory to mind. It’s a beautiful smile. It certainly isn’t the smile of a one legged tin soldier.
If you weren’t bat shit crazy, she thinks, there could have been something real.
Something real, she mouths, just to taste the words on her lips. Seemingly satisfied she rolls onto her side and closes her eyes. There is nothing real. You are bat shit crazy, and she would be weary.
►▲▼◄
She stands and you notice it right away, the flash of her teal hoodie. The same teal hoodie which she wears every day and every day you see it you think more and more about how much you hate the colour.
Teal, is the Edward Cullen of colours.
After she’s long gone from the room you stare at the empty doorway and think, why don’t I go after her? Why don’t I be gallant, why don’t I play and pretend that I have two legs instead of one?
You stand up, and your chains jingle and your music blares and catches the attention of the students you pass as you leave the room and follow suit in the way she left. From the hallway you see the door leading to the back, and you see it, the Edward Cullen of colours leaning against the railing of the stairs and smile to yourself.
With surprising confidence you walk to the door, push it open and you stare at her, your eyes are just as blue as hers and just as ugly, if not uglier. She stares at you calmly, the way that the doctors stare at you and that sets your teeth on edge. You move and she moves until you’re towering over her as her back’s pressed against the wall.
“You piss me off,” you say, your voice deep and gruff, but good. Words feel strange on your lips since it’s been a few days since your tongue and voice have been of any use.
She nods, calmly, and her eyes say, what do you want from me?
Simple, you think since you don’t trust your voice to speak anymore and you press your lips against hers with surprising gentleness. In your head you imagined it rougher, taking out the goblin to get to the ballerina. You suck on her lower lip and massage her tongue with your own but she doesn’t respond. Her ugly blue eyes are blank as they stare at you, and as they do you know you can’t keep it up forever.
All you want are her smiles and laughter, her approval.
She gives you nothing.
►▲▼◄
As the door opens and you walk out her mind is frantic and has no idea what to do, she wants to run away, scream for help and cry. Instead, something in her mind says, wait, just wait a minute. He won’t hurt you, just stay calm.
“You piss me off,” You say to her and she wants to shrug and say, well you scare the shit out of me so we‘re even, thank you very much. But she doesn’t, she says nothing and watches you suffer in the silence. She’s scared but she’s calm. She’s brave and proud of herself.
When you move towards her she moves back, she doesn’t want you to touch her in fear of what might happen if you do, but as she becomes pressed up against the wall she realizes that it’s too late and forces herself not to show any emotion. Afterward she will inform the teachers of whatever you do and then you will have to keep away, and if necessary force will be used.
When your lips press against hers she’s surprised at how damn soft they are and how good of a kisser you are. Once, amongst the thousands of rumours, she heard you were quite the catch. That you had dated most of the girls in the school and left them all on good terms, you had been so fucking charming it was unbelievable.
Then you lost one of your tin legs.
She almost wants to kiss you back, almost. She doesn’t. Because despite the sanity in the kiss she knows what lies behind it and that is the bat shit crazy which makes up brilliant novelists, serial killers, and an autobiography which would hit Oprah’s book list. None of which she wants.
When you pull away ugly blue eyes stare into her own, and for a moment and just a moment they look beautiful.
She slips away and goes into the school, ready to inform the teachers, counsellors, and anyone else who could help. Your ugly blue eyes and your beautiful smile are on her mind.
But she does not want a serial killer/great novelist/Oprah’s slave.
She wants sanity.
►▲▼◄
As she goes away you smile grimly and lean back against the railing. You light a cigarette because you feel yourself drowning in the sewage which society has forced down your throat and you stare at the doors which she had left. Vaguely as you smile and smoke, you wonder what would have happened if she had looked back, because you swear you saw that she approved for a fraction of a fucking second.
You wonder what would happen if the ballerina had stopped the goblin before the next morning so she did not burst into flames.
She’s not burning and the goblin is winning, you think as you feel like you’re melting.
Tonight you’re sure that when you cut, there won’t be any blood.
By morning there will be only a pocket watch left on your bed which had long stopped ticking.
The truth is simple, you’re not a real person, though you have eyes and ears, a mouth, and toes, but you don’t feel like it. Something is different from you and the rest of the world and whenever you run the razor blade across your skin you’re fascinated that there is still actually blood flowing through your veins. You had been so sure there was a clock ticking off your minutes rather than a heart beating away in your chest.
Maybe even it’s childish the way which you view the world; you are the tin soldier with one leg, while everyone surrounding you is the 24 others with two legs to balance themselves on. And she -- her, the girl, the insignificant special one, she is the paper ballerina which you would do anything for. She is also the goblin. Bittersweet.
At night as you stare up at the ceiling and replay the scene in your head, the one where she smiles and says she has to go, the one where her eyes are frightened and disgusted, you smile and mouth the word on your lips.
Bittersweet.
That night you dream, you dream you are a soldier made from a spoon with only one leg, and she is across the table, dancing, beautiful blonde hair flowing and caressing, her eyes meet yours. The bluest eyes you have ever seen, and they are simply ugly. She relaxes her leg and smiles cruelly as she steps onto a snuffbox.
“Tin Soldier, don’t wish for what does not belong to you,”
You say nothing and suddenly you’re tumbling, tumbling down the labyrinth of your mind gasping for breath, but all you inhale is sewage and shit that society has spat at you. You try to swim above, you try to make it out alive but you’re drowning and screaming, but you’d be damned if you were crying. Crying is for the weak, and also for those on dry land. The water engulfs you, soon you can’t see anything, hear anything but the pain as you feel yourself drowning.
Somewhere in the distant background you hear the goblin and the ballerina singing,
Farewell warrior ever brave,
Drifting onward to thy grave
One is cacophonic and high, the other deep and melodic, both are separate and one at the same time and it’s an infinite mind fuck trying to decide who is singing which or if both are simply one.
Eventually, you drown.
►▲▼◄
She doesn’t know what you want, nor does she want to. She’s terrified of you and the bags under your eyes. She’s terrified of the disarray of your hair and the coaxing which you need in order to speak. At some point she thought you were interesting, always sitting in the corner with your headphones blaring, lost in your own world which no one, not even the psychiatrists could break into. She used to think you were interesting until you turned those eyes onto her and only her, and suddenly you weren’t interesting; you were dangerous. To you though, dangerous and harmless are the same thing as they are both misjudged more than not.
Her friends say that it’s just a creepy crush when she mentioned it to them in the cafeteria. That he’s a loser boy who only wishes he had a friend and the moment which she offered a real smile to him (the first time they met) he had set his eyes on her and only her. He’s harmless.
The jingling of your chains snaps her out of her thoughts and she watches you walk out of the room with your headphones blaring, your bagged eyes, and your disarrayed hair. As you leave she releases a sigh of relief and turns back to the work at hand, though math problems are somewhere in the back of her mind. Just as you’d like, her thoughts are on you and only you. Then again they usually are, like the gazelle from the cheetah.
The last thing she feels like is a ballerina.
At night she lies awake in bed and stares at the glow in the dark stars on her ceiling and watches them. She wonders what your smile looks like, though she’s sure she’s seen it somewhere, it’s buried deep in her mind beneath math problems, the English assignment, and even the last Science lab. The smile is there though, and when she focuses she can bring the sliver of the memory to mind. It’s a beautiful smile. It certainly isn’t the smile of a one legged tin soldier.
If you weren’t bat shit crazy, she thinks, there could have been something real.
Something real, she mouths, just to taste the words on her lips. Seemingly satisfied she rolls onto her side and closes her eyes. There is nothing real. You are bat shit crazy, and she would be weary.
►▲▼◄
She stands and you notice it right away, the flash of her teal hoodie. The same teal hoodie which she wears every day and every day you see it you think more and more about how much you hate the colour.
Teal, is the Edward Cullen of colours.
After she’s long gone from the room you stare at the empty doorway and think, why don’t I go after her? Why don’t I be gallant, why don’t I play and pretend that I have two legs instead of one?
You stand up, and your chains jingle and your music blares and catches the attention of the students you pass as you leave the room and follow suit in the way she left. From the hallway you see the door leading to the back, and you see it, the Edward Cullen of colours leaning against the railing of the stairs and smile to yourself.
With surprising confidence you walk to the door, push it open and you stare at her, your eyes are just as blue as hers and just as ugly, if not uglier. She stares at you calmly, the way that the doctors stare at you and that sets your teeth on edge. You move and she moves until you’re towering over her as her back’s pressed against the wall.
“You piss me off,” you say, your voice deep and gruff, but good. Words feel strange on your lips since it’s been a few days since your tongue and voice have been of any use.
She nods, calmly, and her eyes say, what do you want from me?
Simple, you think since you don’t trust your voice to speak anymore and you press your lips against hers with surprising gentleness. In your head you imagined it rougher, taking out the goblin to get to the ballerina. You suck on her lower lip and massage her tongue with your own but she doesn’t respond. Her ugly blue eyes are blank as they stare at you, and as they do you know you can’t keep it up forever.
All you want are her smiles and laughter, her approval.
She gives you nothing.
►▲▼◄
As the door opens and you walk out her mind is frantic and has no idea what to do, she wants to run away, scream for help and cry. Instead, something in her mind says, wait, just wait a minute. He won’t hurt you, just stay calm.
“You piss me off,” You say to her and she wants to shrug and say, well you scare the shit out of me so we‘re even, thank you very much. But she doesn’t, she says nothing and watches you suffer in the silence. She’s scared but she’s calm. She’s brave and proud of herself.
When you move towards her she moves back, she doesn’t want you to touch her in fear of what might happen if you do, but as she becomes pressed up against the wall she realizes that it’s too late and forces herself not to show any emotion. Afterward she will inform the teachers of whatever you do and then you will have to keep away, and if necessary force will be used.
When your lips press against hers she’s surprised at how damn soft they are and how good of a kisser you are. Once, amongst the thousands of rumours, she heard you were quite the catch. That you had dated most of the girls in the school and left them all on good terms, you had been so fucking charming it was unbelievable.
Then you lost one of your tin legs.
She almost wants to kiss you back, almost. She doesn’t. Because despite the sanity in the kiss she knows what lies behind it and that is the bat shit crazy which makes up brilliant novelists, serial killers, and an autobiography which would hit Oprah’s book list. None of which she wants.
When you pull away ugly blue eyes stare into her own, and for a moment and just a moment they look beautiful.
She slips away and goes into the school, ready to inform the teachers, counsellors, and anyone else who could help. Your ugly blue eyes and your beautiful smile are on her mind.
But she does not want a serial killer/great novelist/Oprah’s slave.
She wants sanity.
►▲▼◄
As she goes away you smile grimly and lean back against the railing. You light a cigarette because you feel yourself drowning in the sewage which society has forced down your throat and you stare at the doors which she had left. Vaguely as you smile and smoke, you wonder what would have happened if she had looked back, because you swear you saw that she approved for a fraction of a fucking second.
You wonder what would happen if the ballerina had stopped the goblin before the next morning so she did not burst into flames.
She’s not burning and the goblin is winning, you think as you feel like you’re melting.
Tonight you’re sure that when you cut, there won’t be any blood.
By morning there will be only a pocket watch left on your bed which had long stopped ticking.