words on the page today
Nov. 28th, 2009 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmA draft of cold air, needle-like, against the back of his hand. It raised the tiny hairs and made him withdraw back under the fleece blanket and cotton sheets. Texture there too, scratchy, fresh cut grass with its raw edges. Relentless. Now he could feel it everywhere his skin touched the sheets, couldn't un-know it. What felt like fuzz to others felt like a thousand sandpaper fingers, catching and pulling at his over-dry skin.
Vibration, bouncing off the walls and coming back at him. Coming from him, from his raw throat. It bounced off the ceiling, the corners, the walls - all at different rates, endlessly reverberating against his skin, barely muffled by the blankets. Turning made it worse, one ear against the foamy pillow with it's wheezing sounds of collapsing cells; the other bare to the world and the air. He couldn't stop vibrating. It was making it worse but it was control. He made these sounds! They were his and not given to him by others.
The earthquake of footfalls. The avalanche of the door - the squeak of hinges and the rush of air.
Warm body smell, trapped in clothes. Pheromones, the scientific word that felt sonorous and underwhelming to the bouquet that was a human to him. Shampoo, a faded smell under the sweat and oils. The captured scent of tomato sauce in a fold of jacket. Garlic, warmed, probably on the hands when the pizza had been consumed. Burnt flour. Thick dairy smell of cheese that had his stomach rolling.
He pulled the sheet higher, heedless of the scratch and burn, needing the smell of his own skin and body to overwhelm that of outside. To calm his stomach and nerves. Damp warmth of breath and bone. The reverberation of his own heart temporarily winning out over the footsteps. He vibrated again, softer, a hum deep in the throat because he could. Because it brought comfort even as the other drew closer.
Vibration, bouncing off the walls and coming back at him. Coming from him, from his raw throat. It bounced off the ceiling, the corners, the walls - all at different rates, endlessly reverberating against his skin, barely muffled by the blankets. Turning made it worse, one ear against the foamy pillow with it's wheezing sounds of collapsing cells; the other bare to the world and the air. He couldn't stop vibrating. It was making it worse but it was control. He made these sounds! They were his and not given to him by others.
The earthquake of footfalls. The avalanche of the door - the squeak of hinges and the rush of air.
Warm body smell, trapped in clothes. Pheromones, the scientific word that felt sonorous and underwhelming to the bouquet that was a human to him. Shampoo, a faded smell under the sweat and oils. The captured scent of tomato sauce in a fold of jacket. Garlic, warmed, probably on the hands when the pizza had been consumed. Burnt flour. Thick dairy smell of cheese that had his stomach rolling.
He pulled the sheet higher, heedless of the scratch and burn, needing the smell of his own skin and body to overwhelm that of outside. To calm his stomach and nerves. Damp warmth of breath and bone. The reverberation of his own heart temporarily winning out over the footsteps. He vibrated again, softer, a hum deep in the throat because he could. Because it brought comfort even as the other drew closer.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-30 10:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-01 02:06 am (UTC)and I used the wrong word, I think.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-03 04:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-03 08:05 pm (UTC)