it's like a heartbeat

He builds up the dominoes. He takes them down. Piece by piece. These are the small actions that have begun to define him, and he lets them. He can always feel that familiar itch underneath his skin, the hunger, the lust, the thirst which swells to forces he can barely control. And so he builds them up, one after another after another. The dots of the dominoes become something else, a marker of his accomplishments — some kind of ghostly code that tells him he can do this. He can do this. His fingers ache and he tries not to think of what will happen if he knocks them all down, if he relapses into the fury of his kin and lets slip his mask and declares war. But he won’t allow it. And so he builds up the dominoes. He takes them down. Piece by piece.

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Sundown Syndrome | John Mitchell, for dustyteeth.

He knows better than anyone that there are rivers inside of you, a constant surge so powerful and overwhelming that he is nearly drowned by the force of it, sinks into the red honey of it’s fury and wonders what it will take not to be pulled under. Currents run strong but he can be stronger.

o1. The Bold Arrow of Time | Tame Impala
o2. Dark Stuff | Yann Tiersen
o3. Bad Ritual | Timber Timbre
o4. Paranoid Android | Sia
o5. We Can’t Be Stopped | Ratatat 

Complex Patterns | Eleven/Rose, for somethingofthewolf.

Time is a pendulum and it swings ever slower, brings them ever closer, and he will notice that throughout his timelines when they meet there is a resounding boom— something he once mistook for the pause of yearning but was actually their universes colliding.

o1. Youth (Pyramid Remix) | Foxes
o2. Modern Drift | Efterklang
o3. Creek of Lonesome Town | Francis
o4. Song For You | Alexi Murdoch
o5. Promise | Ben Howard

End of Line | Molly Hooper, for zombres.

It’s okay that, sometimes, she doesn’t count. Well, she— she counts, but not— she counts, of course she does, but there are times when she feels smaller than she should. But she is strong, stronger than they give her credit for, than he gives her credit for.

o1. You’ll See | Bedroom
o2. Nevers (Minimal) | Indoor Voices
o3. Take Care | Beach House
o4. Slow Life | Grizzly Bear (ft. Victoria Legrand)
o5. If I Have Been Unkind | Lanterns on the Lake

Blood in the Snow | The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for hopeitallaway.

This is the case that changes everything. Pressed flowers and ice, the vengeance, the voyeurism— the blood in the snow. Darkwave electronica and pulsing beats make everything seem like an endless night punctuated only by the deep red behind your eyes when you are fury incarnate, or dodging bullets.

o1. Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses | Thom Yorke
o2. Search and Destroy | Peaches
o3. Redlights | Salem
o4. Ghost Hardware | Burial
o5. Night | Zola Jesus

He knew, of course he knew, that it would have to come to this. But there are things that have also left him unguarded in this long moment, things that nothing could have prepared him for—mostly the feelings, the overwhelming swell of anger and protectiveness and the strange desperation. And then, of course, the resignation. He is not one to think that there is meaning behind any one moment of his life, seeing only the chaotic assembly, but somewhere he knows that if his life were to have any poetry at all, this would not be the final act. It would be the turn, the climax, and as he toes the edge, he can see John’s dark shape down below, and feels the resignation turn toward determination. Maybe it doesn’t have to be the final act after all.

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What he doesn’t realize is that you know— and you love him all the same, because his freckles stain him like stars and his skin is rough and smooth at the same time, because his hair blows in the wrong direction when he faces the wind, because he lights up when he sees you though he tries to hide it in the curl of his hands, the twisting of his wrist inside his pocket, the furrow which begins to deepen on his brow. You know now, that you are all he has, and that it feels like a responsibility or an obligation, but it isn’t—only now you have the ocean at your feet and it almost feels like freedom. The shore for you has always been some kind of stigma, a tragedy on the fringe of the world, but now it is made of beginnings, a newness and calmness that mirrors your steady hands.

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