Bridge: a shade short story (5 page)

October 18, 20xx

Verse:

Lying beside me in the failure of flesh,

You wait for the words that will let your mind rest,

But I’ve already left you—I’m inside this song,

I’m chasing the rhythms that split right from wrong,

Forming chords on your shoulder, tracing notes on your hips,

I can’t hear your thoughts as they fall from your lips, and

Bridge:

Every day I give away

A piece of me all torn and frayed—

What I can’t keep, I sell for cheap,

Til nothing’s left for you and me—

Chorus:

How can so much love feel like nothing at all?

How can so much nothing leave me dying to crawl

To the foot of your bed,

I should be with you—instead,

I walk away, stumbling, waiting, always waiting to fall.

When you look in my eyes, can you see I’m not there,

Just skin over bones and this flesh that I bear,

And there’s no room for you, and you know I can never

Get out of myself, get over myself,

For even one moment, much less for forever.

Verse:

They all take their shares and they all think they see

This stranger inside who pretends to be me.

They’re a roomful of mirrors in this funhouse of fame,

I shrink and I grow, I am wild, I am tame,

But when I stand before you, I can pause, I can heal,

Because you make me matter—you make me real.

Bridge:

Every day they took away

A piece of me all torn and frayed—

What I couldn’t keep, I sold for cheap,

So now what’s left for you and me?

Chorus:

How can so much love feel like nothing at all?

How can so much nothing leave me dying to crawl

To the foot of your bed,

I should be with you—instead,

I walk away, stumbling, waiting, always waiting to fall.

So I close my eyes, fill my hands with your hair,

It’s your skin and your bones and your flesh that I bear,

If I could be part of you, if we could come together

I could find myself, I could lose myself,

Just for one moment, or maybe forever.

They always say that nothing lasts forever

Well, can this nothing last forever

Now?

Chorus:

When you look in my eyes, and this time I’m there,

More than skin over bones and this flesh that we bare,

When I’m getting worse, when you make me better,

We’ll find ourselves, we’ll lose ourselves,

We’ll take this one moment…and make it forever.

Pages from Logan’s “Forever” Songwriting Journal

These are scanned images of the actual notebook pages from the composition of “Forever.” Here you can see how Logan’s thoughts progress:

From a spew of self-loathing…

… into semi-coherent concepts…

…and eventually real lyrics:

Deleted Logan interludes from
Shift
(Shade trilogy Book 2)

It was tough to cut these pieces that gave Logan a voice, but ultimately the story was Aura’s, so the novel needed to keep to her point of view. I’m glad I can finally share these pieces with you here.

I. Intro

While I was a shade,

I could see everyone

and no one.

An empty eternity of souls,

alive, dead, crying, laughing.

Once

I thought I saw her face,

but it was devoured by the dark.

While I was a shade,

I went everywhere

and nowhere.

Following the shrinking shadows

like stepping stones across a rising river.

Once

I thought I found her bed,

but it was lost in the light.

While I was a shade,

I heard everything

and nothing.

All sounds in the world,

whirled inside me at once.

Once

I thought I heard her voice,

but it was swallowed by the silence.

Until now.

II. Interlude #1 (between Chapters 10 and 11)

While I was a shade,

Aura started sleeping

on her right side

on the right side

of the bed,

so she couldn’t see the empty space

where I used to lie.

Now that I’m a ghost,

she still sleeps on her right side

on the right side.

So I lie here talking to the back of her head

Until she sleeps.

Then I walk the streets of Dublin

or New York

or Washington

or even here in Baltimore.

But it’s not the same as before,

when I knew I’d return to her side.

Now I’m just killing time,

Since time can’t kill me.

III. Interlude #2 (between Chapters 21 and 22)

While I was a shade,

my family pictured me in hell.

I wasn’t, not really.

But that didn’t stop some of them

from trying to join me there.

I watch Mickey and Siobhan

walk across our high school stage

where we once performed.

The adoring crowd whistles and claps.

But my brother and sister

hold no instruments

and sing no songs.

They collect their diplomas