my muse is musing

[misaffection]

She is trapped inside a month of grey
And they take a little every day
She is a victim of her own responses
Shackled to a heart that wants to settle
And then runs away

There were certain things he knew and others that he guessed at. Her past was a mystery to anyone else. He remembered first seeing her, a child of eight, those dark blue eyes already hard from the life she’d led.

She hadn’t known – innocent of so much, and yet… she had known things she shouldn’t, not at her age. Like how to survive on her own. It wasn’t right that she should be alone.

And so he’d taken her onboard. One way of making peace with his own past. He knew why he felt responsible; he was, in a way. There had been things he’d put in place, years before. And yet… it wasn’t his fault. Not exactly.

She never spoke about her father. Not to him, not to anyone. Especially later, as she learned more. It soon became obvious that certain things would not, could not, be discussed.

He took her away for the noisy, dirty streets, to something better. Or so he had hoped. But she was too wild, too strong, too unconventional. The things he loved but weren’t… appreciated by others.

It's a sin to be fading endlessly
Yeah, but she's alright with me
She is leaving on a walk away
She is leaving me in disarray
In the absence of a place to be
She stands there looking back at me
Hesitates, and then turns away
She'll change so suddenly
She's just like mercury
Yeah, but she's alright with me

The first time she disappeared, he’d almost gone insane with worry. He needed have been so concerned. She had reappeared, as silently as she’d gone, no word of where she’d been. She continued with her life, as carefree as ever.

Holding her down was like trying to hold the wind. He understood. Curiosity, the desire to learn, the need to see more, to be something more. To escape the blackness of the shadow she lived in.

Keep some sorrow in your hearts and minds
For the things that die before their time
For the restlessly abandoned homes
The tired and weary rambler's bones
And stay beside me where I lie
She's entwined in me
Crazy as can be
Yeah, but she's alright with me

Sometimes he found himself mourned the things she’d lost – her mother was dead, her father was best not mentioned, her innocence… and yet she never seemed to mourn them. The past was behind her, she lived in the here and now. An odd mentality for what she was, but one he found himself in awe of.

And in the end, her philosophy was what he adopted.


A/N: the words in italic are lyrics to Mercury by Adam Duritz