wonderlion
If there's one flower that offends me more than the rest, it's the lily. I am not often given flowers, and yet, a lily will always make its way inside. Sorry for your loss, they say, sending bouquets of the ostentations stinking flowers to my door. White heads crowing open proudly, too proud. They are perfect. Too perfect. Streaks of pink in too wide mouths. Cat killers. They are the trumpeters of death and grief.
"She'll have me swingin' from the rafters," my Grandfather used to say about my Grandmother, usually if he was late for dinner because we'd spent too long tinkering in the garage, flogging overpriced junk, or scamming people.
I didn't fully understand it, my brain was as chubby and unformed as my body. I'd never even heard the word 'rafters' before, so new and unspoilt I was back then. Raw and pink, new skin, new ideas. I didn't know about suffering. No, all that came later, after Grandfather was murdered. That was when revenge turned me inside out. When the world split open like an apple and I finally got to taste the bitter seeds.
When the party is underway and you're drinking, and dancing, and laughing,
You'll think of me.
It will come out of nowhere,
You'll wonder what I'm doing,
How I ended up,
Whether I'm at my own party.
Dancing my own dances.
You'll take a quiet moment to stare into the corner,
Imagine it was me there, not her.
And then the shadow clouding your brow will pass,
Someone will spill a drink,
The moment leaves, and so do I.
I'm staring at the mustard stain on the table between us.
The stain reminds me of something.
It reminds me of a taxi. Like the yellow one in New York. I'd never seen a yellow taxi before, except in the oil painting in your kitchen and on the TV of course.
Do you remember that satin dress I wore? And how proud you were to have me on your arm? The cameras flash-flash-flashed at us, after you'd collected your award. I'd never been in any kind of magazine before. Especially not a 'high society' magazine. And they put us in the magazine twice! For the wedding as well, with photos of Dordogne and you and I in black ad white. Remember my dress was embellished with thousands of tiny pearls, and every so often one would shed itself and skitter off into the night? Remember how you told me to stop fretting about it? "Don't obsess over the things that leave you, or you'll get left behind."
When did you decide to leave?
I was preparing for a house tour at six when the world ended. Jane and her husband Craig never did get to see the bay windows, freshly vacuumed carpets and small room we shoved a bed into to hike up the asking price. Perhaps they perished in the blast, or maybe they just fled. Whatever happened, they missed out. I made cinnamon cookies.
I watch your hands on the steering wheel. The air that whips around me is hot, stuffy, clammy and the red scarf I tied around my throat is threatening to blow away. I kiss my lips at you when you look at me in the mirror. You're a darling for driving us this way, this long, winding way. Just for me. Because you know I adore the sights. The city lights disappearing behind us, winking at us in the dusk.
I do adore the birds, the hills, the clouds, the frothy top of the beer, which I tend to dip my finger in. I adore the scenic route. I adore the quiet unspoiled countryside. I adore you for taking us this way, far away; where nobody will ever think to look for you.
Dear Sam,
I remember how you smelled. No matter if we were out on the land for three days, you always smelled good. The horses stank. Just about everything stank. But you always smelled like soap and smoke from the fire. Only twice I got close enough to breathe you in. Once at your bedside, after you got sick. You told me to find a nice man and settle down, to stop making mistakes and chasing sad dreams. You were right, I'd made a lot of mistakes in my life.
Telling you I loved you was the biggest one.
There's nothing to suggest
you noticed
my eyes
on you
across the room
you felt
sparks on
your skin too
I did
Pond skaters dance across the water. Their long legs create tiny pools and disrupt the thin film of water around me. Cool and deep, my limbs outstretch, long arms and legs wading in the water underneath the beating hot sun. And the hum in the air is the beating of insects wings, not traffic. And the thump-thump-thump on the ground is a herd of sheep grazing nearby, not the rattle of a train. Their gentle bleating and the hollow beat of their bells surrounds me, even the great racing inner-city thoughts can't touch me now. Paradise.
I grabbed the bottle, wondering if it would taste anything like sweet, dark rum. If it would slide down my throat easily or cause me to cough and choke. It was what I needed, right then. Something that would take the edge off and help me to forget everything. Something that would coax out a side of me I rarely indulge.
I curled my fingers around it and cried.
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