raxeira [on hold]

r a x

(vb.) to stretch or extend

"so come over now and talk me down."

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the first time raxeira and my stars somehow thought to align was when we were children. how could we, two lost people, drifting with the tide or floating like a dandelion fluff in the air, ever meet some sort of fixed attachment? it was fate; it was how the lines of destiny had written us out to be. we could search the ends of the earth and live several lifetimes to find something that meant home, something that would remain real and steady throughout our lives, but we would always come up with nothing but air and light. we'd find some sort of temporary comfort in something for awhile, but it would fade, like light retreating from a window. you'd grasp at the light beam but the only thing you'd feel is air, and what would confuse you, or befuddle a child's brain like ours when we first met, is that you can see it, a lifeline of fate, but it would slide through your hand like water down a smooth surface. light is a blade of emptiness. it slices through you like silken knives of darkness, and all you're left is the biting, but numbing aftertaste, the faint lingering warmth that you weren't sure you deserved but craved it all the same. warmth is nothing but an array of cools, disguised as a sedative drug.

warmth is just cold, malnourished.

i did not know raxeira personally during my preschool, kindergartner, and most of elementary school. but i remember, she was always there in the background. she was the curious, strange little child of the school, her head always stuck in the clouds. her body would be here with us in the classroom, but her mind and soul would always be drifting in some faraway land. she was a daydreamer, a little girl who paid no attention to anything around her but the land that could not be reached. every day, she seemed to peer into the land of stories and extract one to relieve and reenact at lunch. we would peer over to the table where she sat alone and watch as she would dance with an invisible partner, chortle and laugh at the air next to her, talk to some imaginary ghost that only her eyes could see.

everyone said she was the weirdo of the school, the person always there but would always fade into the back of your mind until she made her presence known. people always took care to make fun of her strange actions, but caught up in their own world, they would always forget the little daydreamer; their lives would be no different with or without raxeira. she was just a wallflower to make fun of when seen fit, but she could never remain in your thoughts for long.

except for me. i was mesmerized by her divergence, how she seemed to be different from everyone else. i watched her smile gently at the sunlight filtering through the windows (just like how her elegant smile seemed to float up like a helium balloon to kiss the skies), marvel at the clouds drifting by as if she had never seen clouds before, devour higher-level books as if she lived only within pages and had accidentally leapt through the portal and ended up in this foreign land. i wanted to talk to her, figure out the functions of her brain, become her friend and travel to faraway places with her. but everyone associated with raxeira was known as outsiders, and conformity, as a child, was one of the most important things to me.

in a sense, i was an outsider without anyone knowing, walking along the borders and lines raxeira had been stranded in. i had suffered more tragedies at six then any average person would survive in a lifetime. only at the age of six and i already knew i was different from everyone else, and that no matter how hard i tried, i could not be one of them. the only thing i could do was act, and pretend, and fake. and isn't that what we all are? actors and actresses free to move in only a small enclosure called life; mortals and characters that cannot dream of surpassing their creator.

and i was an outsider, watching raxeira, wondering why i felt such a strong gravity toward her; i was an observer, the immortal watching from the heavens, allowing us the illusion of freedom. and for some reason, as i watched that little dainty smile, i felt like she would understand.