#pen #paper #ink #marks ?

“Sometimes I wonder / if I’m really the best / person for this body.”

— — John Elizabeth Stintzi, from “Salutations From the Storm,” Junebat

It’s the first of September! The first day of spring, which is my least favourite season on account of its unpredictability.

Anyway, here’s a snippet of a fic request I’m currently filling for @stargazing-enby who submitted it two years ago aaaagh

The office is tucked away in the suburban sprawl of Bexley. It’s an old terrace townhouse; the original staircase, a hefty wooden beast, smells of furniture polish. The floorboards creak beneath Harry’s feet. The reception room is converted from the front parlour, and still has touches of the home that was once there: a lace doily over a dainty hall-table, and faded curtains framing the window. Harry glances at the wall, noticing the vintage brass light switch. This was once a Muggle home, then.

“May I help you?”

There’s an elderly witch he doesn’t recognise at the reception desk. She’s peering at him suspiciously over her spectacles, one hand resting on a typewriter which is furiously tapping out letters by itself.

Harry looks away from the typewriter. “Harry Potter. Here to see Malfoy.” It’s a little petty, he knows, but he won’t use Malfoy’s full title. Cursebreakers love that. They love the showmanship of it. The little flourishes of their wand (completely gratuitous), the dramatic pauses (unnecessary) and of course, their amazed and grateful customers (audiences; the only thing missing is the applause). It’s why Harry won’t see Levinson any more, or Sheldrake, or Vittily. It’s why he ditched Fromer after just one appointment, and why he left Clarkson’s office without even beginning the appointment. One glance into Clarkson’s delighted face — ooh, the great Harry Potter! What fantastic publicity for my little agency — and Harry had turned around and walked wordlessly out the door.

Now he waits for the usual reactions. But the witch doesn’t widen her eyes, or glance at his scar, or nervously smooth her robes. She just keeps squinting at him, and then she says, “Henry Potter…”

“Harry.”

“Harry.” She frowns. “Potter with a P?”

Harry can’t imagine what other letter Potter might begin with: he pauses, then says, “Erm. Yes.”

She picks slowly through a little wooden box filled with small white cards. “Ah. Here you are. Eleven o’clock?”

“That’s right.”

She puts a neat little tick onto the card and then moves it to another box. “Take a seat. Tea and coffee’s across the hallway.”

He sits down on one of the straight-backed wooden chairs next to the dainty hall table. There’s a little magazine rack nearby, with very well-worn copies of Cosy Homes for Country Witches and Enchanting Gardens of Magical Britain. Once Harry thumbs through them and then finds a copy of Knitting Patterns for Thrifty Witches, he begins suspecting the collection has been generously donated by the elderly receptionist. He glances up at her, then at the grandfather clock standing ponderously by the door. It’s only been fifteen minutes, but perhaps Malfoy is sitting somewhere in a comfortable office, laughing at the fact he’s keeping Harry waiting.

The receptionist speaks then, as if sensing his thoughts. “Mr Potter? Mr Malfoy will see you now. Directly up the stairs, second door on the left.”

Harry dutifully goes upstairs. There’s a narrow hallway with a window at the end of it, showing a rather unspectacular view over the grey rooftops of Bexley. He passes by the first door, which looks like a cleaning closet, and then stops at the second.

D. Malfoy

5th Order HCJ (DefM)

Cert HM (C. II)

It’s a faded set of letters printed upon the frosted glass pane. The dark-blue paint of the door is beginning to slowly flake away. Harry’s annoyed, though he can’t pinpoint why. All the other cursebreakers he’s visited have had their name, bright and glossy, upon their doors, with CURSEBREAKER emblazoned in large letters below. They love that word. It’s exciting. Full of action and danger. Curse, and breaker. Destruction and glittering shards. Smashing spells to pieces and then getting called a hero for it. Of course Malfoy would love to call himself cursebreaker.

But instead Harry’s left to decipher 5th Order HCJ (DefM) and Cert. HM, C. II.

The door swings open suddenly, leaving Harry blinking at Draco Malfoy’s face. He’s seen him around in the years following the war — it’s hard not to, really, with the magic community as small as it is — but always a distant glimpse of a blond-haired man disappearing into a shop, or waiting for one of the elevators at the Ministry (and despite Harry firmly telling himself he’d outgrown schoolyard scuffles, he’d always elected to choose a different elevator instead).

Now, however, an awkward meeting seems inevitable.

Malfoy looks down his long nose at Harry and says, “Take a seat.”

Harry won’t give him the satisfaction of pausing. He walks into the office and sits down in the nearest chair; a squeaky relic from the seventies, by the look of the avocado-coloured vinyl and slightly rusted metal legs.

Malfoy closes the door and then sits at his desk, ignoring Harry and picking up a file instead. Harry had expected the cold shoulder, and anyway, it gives him time to look around. He’s been in plenty of cursebreaker offices. Large and grand affairs, with ceiling-length windows and bookcases lined with rare tomes, and little gold name-plates on solid-oak desks. And the trophies, of course. Cursed jewellery glittering in the sunlight. Beautiful dresses stained with unicorn blood. Portraits of subjects which whisper just too quietly to decipher the words.

But Malfoy’s office is small and neat and efficient as a Ministry cubicle. There’s two framed certificates on the wall, which give Harry his answer to the riddle on the door — Fifth Order of Defensive Magic specialising in Hexes, Curses, and Jinxes, and Certificate of Healing Magic, Class II. There’s no grand bookcase, but instead a simple row of tattered texts on a shelf above the desk. A filing cabinet, grey and mildly threatening, sits in the corner.

Malfoy says, without looking up from the file, “You’re here today because…” He turns a page, “…you’re not very good at your job.”

“What?” Harry asks incredulously.

Malfoy does look up then. His expression is blandly polite, which somehow only makes Harry more angry. “You don’t currently fill the criteria of your role as an Auror. Is that correct?”

“No, that’s not correct. I’m a fully qualified Auror — ”

“Says here,” Malfoy says, looking down at the page again, “That your supervisor has referred you here on the basis that…” He taps his finger against a line of spindly writing. “Let’s see… ‘Auror Potter requires further training in sensing areas of concentrated magic.’ Says last December, you walked directly into a ward and set off a Caterwauling Charm, which compromised the entire operation.”

“What? Well - what it doesn’t mention is that the ward was very well-hidden in a staircase — ”

“And in February, you tripped a jinx when you opened a door during another operation, which resulted in several minor injuries.”

“Yes, but it was — ”

Malfoy turns a page, somehow managing to do it loudly. The rasp of paper cuts through the air. “February again. Declared a room cleared when in fact it was still armed with a Severing Curse. Your partner suffered a significant injury.”

Harry looks away. That had been a particularly difficult incident, and the guilt still lingers. “I could’ve sworn that room was — ”

“March. Picked up a cursed wand, resulting in moderate burns.”

“I had to, I was trying to disarm — ”

“Which brings us to April,” Malfoy says, closing the file. The pages flutter shut. “Ran straight through a basic security ward, shattering it. Minor injuries sustained.” He finally looks up, his expression indecipherable. “Anything you care to add to these notes?”

“I do my job,” Harry snaps. “And I do it well.”

“Mm,” Malfoy says, and it’s maddening exactly how much condescension he manages to fit into a single syllable. “Well, that particular judgment is up to me, isn’t it?”

You

The night skies tell me to stop wishing about you, and the stars don't shine anymore for me like how you always do.

(eusie.)

i'm scared to be scarred again. give me a little bit more time

POCKET DIARY 2012

An entry

It can only take a second      for lingering feelings      to slip into      your heart again

Just like how a flower      can bloom again      in a garden      you left to wither

— "14", y.g.

(eusie.)

MATUTULOG NA AKO TAPOS PAPAIYAKIN MO AKO. WAG GANITO BES. MAMAMAGA MATA KO. ABA. SUSME. MAGSUSUOT AKO NG SHADES BUKAS NITO. PERO SALAMAT KULOT. LECHE KA. DI NA AKO NAG ENGLISH

PERO KAYA PALA DI KA MAN LANG MAGREPLY SA MGA MESSAGES KO. KALOKA

SAKA AYOS LANG YAN, NAIINTINDIHAN KO (the books part). ALSO, ANG GANDA AT ANG GALING BES. SHET. LOVE YOU XX

PS SIGE. PAGBIBIGYAN KITA NA MAGANDA KA. LOL. MAGANDA KA NAMAN. IN YOUR OWN WAY, PERO BES BALANG ARAW, MAY MAMAMANGHA SA KAGANDAHAN MO. PROMISE YAN

A promise

She smiles.

Time itself stops.

She feels like a good music.

A song in the wind.

A good song different (in) every single phrase.

Happy 21st birthday, you, mother of three dragons. HA! I just want to say that this is my first black-out poetry and it is about you (and you should be thankful). This is my way of telling you, I am lucky to be your friend and I am thankful that I am beautiful. oops! hahaha What I’m trying to say is, Happy birthday to you, my friend. I will always be here, Raphabelle (@thsdfnngslnc ). 

Love, Khayonardo :)

PS. to answer your unasked questions, Yes, this is my book (from Every Day by David Levithan page 11), and yes, this edited. I love you but I love my books, too. I know you understand that. HAHAHAHAHA

Probably not a poem

Saying what I feel isn’t easy as breathing but every day, I would want to express it to you as I need to breathe. The first gasp of air I make every morning when I wake up is like a whisper of your name that reminds me that my heart is alive to love you again. Then, the whole day just smells like you, like your scent lingers on the walls of our house and everything that surrounds me wherever I go. This just makes me miss you. While a few minutes later, I'll miss you more than how I missed you moments ago until I just start to yearn for you… until I just yearn for your eyes to look into mine again; for your voice to show off its magic as all of me feels tingly; for your lips to say my name or to make me feel loved; for your hands to touch me and make me shiver… or for you to just hug me so I can feel your warmth that assures me that you won’t leave me. Please, please don’t leave me even if there’s a thousand reasons why you should. I know sometimes (or more often) my words are daggers — my actions too, or even just my silence — and that I probably make you bleed every day. I know that I can never be enough (and I’m sorry for this), and that I can never love you the way you love me (but please know that I love you very much). But keep on loving me because I would want to soak under the rain of your love forever. I love you. I love you so much that sometimes it hurts deep inside that my tears don’t come out of my eyes but they pop out of my blood veins and contaminate me like they’re toxic. But I’m okay, I can still breathe. And you probably feel the same way, hiding all pieces of you that I have shattered every now and then  — hiding them instead of throwing them at me to wound me. But you always say that you’re okay, that you can still breathe. Our love for each other (or our relationship) may not be perfect, maybe all just wounds that turned into scars, or maybe just all bruises that cannot disappear, but I hope… I really hope we can survive it like a ship that succeeded to pass through a lightning storm in the ocean. Let’s remind the world that people can live because of love. So let’s make it through everything with our hands entangled and our hearts connected to every heartstrings of the other. Let’s keep on loving each other... loving all the flaws and pieces of the other all the same.

(eusie.)

One day, you'll understand

My mind is a storm. Yet my words are drizzles, unnoticeable when they touch your skin. Not because you are numb, but because their metaphors are unsharpened. Because I don’t want to hurt you even if I can. I can drown you the way my demons drown me in whirlpools. But I wouldn’t, if you just run away from me.

My lips are shut like how my heart is. Because I don’t want to stab you with the pain you’ll hear from my voice. I don’t want to let you in and be a part of my dark and gloomy heart. I am a chaos. A walking disaster, ready to swallow and eat you up when you come near me, so you should just let me destroy myself.

My life is empty and dull as darkness is. I am nearly death. I can kill you. Please, just save yourself. Save yourself.

Save yourself from me.

(eusie.)

so here it is

a.k.a. and i told you, and i told you, so please listen

i told you at ten past three in the morning, we don’t have winter but when i press the end call each time you say good night, i feel a little chill as if your voice is meant to be a camp fire on cold night but instead, it’s a landslide — a hurricane — a snowstorm — and i told you at twelve past three in the morning, i should feel guilty and i should feel bad, but i don’t, and nothing ever comes pouring out of my lips, even the word ‘sorry’ each time you cry and say that it’s your fault, when really, it’s mine, and i told you at thirteen past three in the morning, i don’t feel you slipping away, but i feel myself running away, and i don’t even see myself muttering a goodbye, but i said to you, i will, oh i definitely will, and i told you at fifteen past three in the morning, i do remember when we asked each other to never let go, i do, i do, i do, and i told you at sixteen past three in the morning, i really i hope i won’t let go just like you won’t, and i wish it’s true, and i told you at eighteen past three in the morning, i’m not going to cry, but my heart is aching, and i hear myself sniffling, and i find myself looking at the mirror, with stars on my cheeks where your kisses used to sleep, and i know, i just know, that it’s been a long time since i told you i’m in love with you, and i cry again a little bit, and you’re crying too, and you’re saying sorry again, muttering it’s your fault, but it’s not, and i told you at twenty-one past three in morning, i just miss you, i long to kiss you, and i want to bury myself in your arms, and if you choose to leave me because of how these pieces of mine that are on the floor are way too shattered, your fingers will bleed, so you’ll end up giving up from saving me, i said i would be okay, because i’m a mess, and i told you at twenty-three past three in the morning, i love you, and i told you at twenty-eight past three in morning, i’m in love with you, when i finally stopped crying, when i finally calmed myself, i told it again, and you ended the call, and i told you at thirty past three in the morning, ‘it’s okay’ when you call and say sorry, and then i say it’s my fault, and then i say ‘good night’ without another ‘i love you’, and i still feel alright

(eusie.)

braces in and out & ellipsis

a.k.a. yes, it’s from me. but don’t worry, i don’t

this is how i think it is: the sound between your sketch pads and your pencils are silent from where i am / but your heartbeat is steady like my room's wall clock / it's probably a roller coaster of a ride, but your emotions are too wild to acknowledge / so you hide them in a whip of one color then another, or you drip them in monochrome / and maybe sometimes you find yourself dancing to the wind's songs / but when it whispers a name, you cover your ears and sail yourself back to drawing

(eusie.)