forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza

* and extra bonus points for anyone who remembers where this quote is 
from! *

what home is which home? in this kudzu curtain, i'd like to think it 
really doesn't matter anymore. tonight the carnival came back to me, even 
one of the temporary clowns stopped in for tea, or paps blue ribbon on his 
insistance, *yuuuck* and here, in this land where even the lightning bugs 
are poking out their little glowing noses, i have bundled myself up in so 
many memories...i spent the evening discussing so much and too little with 
cairbre, nibbling the edges of blowpops and laughing at his desire for 
three separate cars (one for the weekdays, one for the weekends, and one 
to fix up...) and all of it ubsurd, except the house, charlotte's house, 
that dream. and the ring master and the scarecrow have developed a scam of 
getting married to really throw the universe off the trail, though i think 
uncle sam can smell it a mile away...and cairbre, oh cairbre. this 
carnival and its bag of tricks, it never really leaves. the imitation 
clown, we hadn't seen him in many years, and yet it all picks up exactly 
where it left off. it's never going anywhere. the scarecrow will still 
keep his pockets full of popsicle stick jokes, the god of cats will still 
cuddle whatever new feline companion i have in the house, and still, this 
is where time stands still, this is where age melts and this is where no 
of us truly ever grow up. yes, i have missed them.

and just the other day, standing where the wiley boy touched me so many 
years ago...what i have feared so many times, so much, this horror image 
stuck in my head in instant replay over and over again, never completely 
in remembrance and always stuck, i stood there, and i looked at those 
sticky bubble gum trees, and i could feel myself trembling a long time 
ago, but it is forgiven. all of it, these past six years of nightmares 
since the remembering time. gone. and like a sigh i released with the wind 
when i kicked off my shoes and took to my brother's swing, this 
house...this house where dishes and pictures and hearts were broken, so 
much i blocked and siphoned and wouldn't let in...and now i run around 
these halls as if they were once again my own. it's okay you took my 
brother away from me, i can forgive you now. and it's okay you touched me 
when i didn't want you to, neighbor boy. it's over, finally, it was 
yesterday and i can smile now. and then, after all of this, after skipping 
out to the car with mum and my platorms, there the wiley boy's mother, 
there. "yoo-hoo, girl, are you still walking on your toes?" well yeah, 
don't i always...and then, out of the blue, a phone call...the wiley boy? 
"talk to him, see if he remembers you." this boy, who has terrorized my 
dreams and memories, now i can have a conversation with him, now it is at 
peace.

peace? so strange, yet lovely. though i feel stiffled in this house, and 
the windows seem too closed and sometimes my feet fall asleep. and without 
my angel, sometimes things seem so shallow and so stale...i miss the 
mornings the most, and i miss him telling my how horrible the world is 
while i give him one of my looks (though i have my mum to do that for me 
instead, now, except i think she might even be more vicious. "hey look, 
alice, a funeral! wonder who died?" while my mind goes over and over all 
of the tearstained faces that won't sleep tonight because of whatever 
happened.) i don't know anything about forever. it's a long way away, and 
even this few moments of an eternity seem too long without him. it gnaws 
at me, but i survive. i always do. and if he isn't here forever or 
tomorrow, whichever comes first, yes it will be sad but i haven't the time 
nor the energy to worry about it anymore.

and i know, i know, i haven't even finished the "there and back again" 
story, but i will go finish it soon...and soon i will also be posting up 
another project, the "my-life-interpreted-through-tori-lyrics" project, 
and right now i am placing a disclaimer: YEAH I SAY SOME NOT NICE THINGS, 
WHAT ELSE CAN YOU DO WITH TORI LYRICS? DON'T TAKE OFFENSE...IT'S PROBABLY 
NOT ABOUT YOU ANYWAY. anyway. so i am going to go see if i can find my 
angel somewhere. and try to sleep. though sleeping alone is never easy.