Category: Prose

and you should know, she uttered with that look in her eye.  the look you always thought adorable, where the only thing between you and your latest earful is the echo of her last cigarette rustling around in its softpack, how many paused conversations had you spent wondering how she heard an echo against a softpack burried in the satchel at her waist? and as she paused midsentence to suddenly inhale twice, quickly and walk briskly toward the chilling evening outside.

a lot of people smoke cigarettes to calm themselves in tense situations.  like a mandatory 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 to return their blood flow to a normal rate.  she was not one of them.

her cigarette seemed to walk itself amongst her fingers as she fidgetted with it, her corduroy jacket wrinkling against the window while you waited anxiously for her return.  you waited with your foot tapping under the table imaging your whole body cramped such a small space, imagining all of that smoke mashing up against the words as she turned them over again in her mouth, coming up with the right organization to convey her message to you.

today was different, somehow.  and you noticed a brush of urgency as she flicked away her cigarette and pivotted back into the room.  you watched as the last spark of tobacco burnt itself at the filter so intently that you missed in her eyes what you heard in her voice.

and you should know, she said, you should know the only reason i’ve never left is because you’ve never suggested that i’m going.

the slow sway of the lamplight illuminated myriad shades of blue in your eyes, and as you turned your head in my direction i imagined the colors dotting my face. of course, the stories you told failed to capture my attention; instead, i focused on the distant beauty of the stars, eventually asking, “how is it that you dreamt with no lightning bugs to dance around the sky?” as you answered i imaginged you much younger, like a little boy with the words of a man, you said “there are many ways to cope and realizing the impossible is only one.” so soon, i was asking you to join me to exchange a new symphony of songs for your journey and too soon, you were asking to hear old favorites sung by an unfamiliar voice.

so, i sang, for you. they were words i knew by heart, melodies trained by so many forgotten fingers to play through my lips following rhythms against my skin. as i closed my eyes and let myself sink into the empty feeling in my gut, i remembered how their hands sounded like sand falling against itself while they grated against my skin. i dreamt of the dark imprint of their fingerprints cupping my back. you touched my face as though to see if my eyes would open, to prove some part of my body would respond to you through natural impulse and you asked, “how is it that you dream when the sweet residue of love has never been your blanket?” as i searched within me for an answer your presence there became too real and i pushed you away, saying “there are many ways to cope and remembering the single pair of soft hands is only one.” and i let you lie there, dreaming presumably of nothing but more probably of me, and i sacrificed my temporary bed to you, clinging to the pillow of a spare.

i wept, then, remembering the slow melancholy of love’s first escape and demanding to hold onto that which only i could possess. i listened to you sleeping, wondering why i felt sicker in that intimate moment than i had when my fingers returned the curl of your hair only hours earlier. i considered the low moans we both uttered as we journeyed in and out of ourselves, experiencing sex as an escape from love rather than a infinite confirmation of love in its singular, uniting form. i asked to no one, “how is it that i appear in your dreams but i will not remember your name?” and the only sound then was the quiet rustle of blankets as you rolled onto your other side, finding a more comfortable way to sleep.

it’s nearly four in the morning and over the phone i’m explaining to you the traumatic history which was growing up in suburbia. i’m talking about strip malls, locally owned business which cannot stay afloat, a pale lack of diversity and the freshly manicured lawns which grow and get cut in the slow/violent cycle of husbands and wives who fall in and out of comfortable with each other. i think you’re understanding it, as i’m saying it. love means something different than leaving, even though for me it never has. and never have i felt closer to someone who was so far away.

i coax myself into showers during these mornings without you, bribing myself with the rough promise of feeling scrub against my face and later touching my soft skin and imagining how it would feel as i nuzzled my head into your shoulder if this were any preferred day and i was crawling back into bed with you. i erase the vivid memory of the most horrifying nightmare i’ve ever had and hope for you to wake soon, to say everything will be alright. and from your lips i believe these words i’ve never let past my brain into my heart before.

Love is fluid and definitionless, I think, as i try to touch your knees. Like capturing you in my and old favorite song will make you more real, if not more permanent. Are you awake? And there is no reply. So I keep holding on. Love is a piano dropped from a four story window and you were at the wrong place, at the wrong time, I think as I try to sleep without contact, thinking so this is what it feels like to be you and you and you.

As I sleep, I dream of conversations in which I assured you and you and you that he and she and he meant nothing. And, I’m sorry.

I have no reality in which to base the way I feel about you and around you, I say. But you’re still looking for a reason as if maybe its because yr a taurus is not good enough. Even as I describe that a taurus gives so much attention to the object of his affections that my little aries heart cannot help but to feel completely satisfied and adored without doubting. So i reach into my bag of memories again and reveal the way i felt safe when you held me the first time. And i had spent the entire night so terrified of the crushing reality of Unlove and all of its bitter pieces strewn in the form of tears around my car. And this feeling whether by memory or simple communication between bodies does not fade when you hold me now. Perhaps, it was that silence between kisses the first time i kissed you when we knew only to continue kissing so as not to upset the satisfaction by leaving room for regret. Or quite possibly, it was that kiss as i was heading home that first morning when something in my heart skipped and I realized I wouldn’t be letting go of you for as long as I could think to hold on. I think it’s also all the compliments, morning conversation, intellectual discussion, times you hold my hand, scalp massages. It’s the way our hearts beat when we’ve worn each other out for the night.

You are the first reason to push my lips into a smile each morning.

The memory came heartbreakingly through the clutter of dinner conversation.  I ((the girl who wandered around that ritzy grocery store with you looking for shrimp and sauce and rice)) whispered to me ((the girl who writes poetry questioning the legitimacy of her first brush with illegitimacy in years)) I think I know right now. And maybe it was watching you washing dishes in that kitchen which beat my heart three times, one. two. three., in the direction of the catalyst for this break. I ((the girl who writes poetry questioning the future of her first brush with unlove in years)) whispers to me ((the girl who rereads this with an unpredictable emotion in her heart months later)) He was no catalyst, he was not even hardly a symptom. We both know we wouldn’t change a thing.

The memory came heartbreakingly through the feeling of yr fingers playing with my hair.  I ((the girl who put her head on yr lap on the couch and let her tears cascape across her face)) whispered to me ((the girl who knows what it means to sleep soundly again)) Oh, I’m sure of it. And surely all of that drunkeness and wanderlust gave me practice for learning how to handle this.

I’m slowly adding seconds only to take them back.

The only light in the room was from a red sign commanding my <-EXIT->.

violently my side shakes and the earth bends and breaks just a little beneath the weight of the pitter-patter of footsteps i dream of blood caused by full moons a current of red rivers rushing out of me even though it has only been a week and a half and no, no, no, no, he has no idea. there is no threat of invasion only safety and movies. safety and silence and wishing. silence and the calm drip of warm blood.

Our hearts beating in the open field of dreaming and I was whispering silently to myself, you could be the one to teach me to love them. my ears imagining me listening to wilco and liking it in a way that means permanance, my heart entertwining with those alternatively country beats and slow chord quatrains. this familiarity is dangerous you said to no one, but i heard you. i heard the russle of our lips and my back against the barn and i said no, pushing you away with a playful mastery i did not yet know i possessed.