She was a sucker for sunsets and MDMA. She disappeared at 8pm and came back at 2am, knocking on the door a hundred times quietly, slurring, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Then, “I love you,” to her boyfriend who got up to let her in. He waved her words away with his hand in her face, still asleep and said, “It’s okay, hey, shhh, it’s okay.” They got into bed and as his head found the curve left in the pillow, she got up and ran to the bathroom. He fell asleep hoping he would be able to. The neighbour’s radio started with a crackle and fuzz and then a low booming voice at 6am. At least it wasn’t music. He woke up again at 7:14am to the jolt of her body thudding down on the bed and the sound of the toilet flushing. He gave up and went to put the coffee on.
Since She Left: And you haunt me in the bodies of those who seem to mimic yours:...
And you haunt me in the bodies of those who seem to mimic yours: pallid cheeks, wine coloured shirts, their hands full of rain.
Yet they know nothing of you. [That I know.] Perhaps you once passed them on the street; perhaps they looked you in the eye. They will never know you as I knew you….
Hey, I wrote this.
Blurry Abstractions
Usually, the things you don’t like about yourself lurk quietly in the back of your mind. They are blurry abstractions, that you daren’t think about too often.
Sometimes you look in the mirror, and you might try to pinpoint your faults: “My eyes are too close together; I’ve never noticed that before. How could I not notice? My nose is weird, my face is too wide. My mouth is too small.” But you won’t reveal these findings to anyone, because you don’t want to point them out. They might not have noticed. They might be as dumb as you are. Besides, most days it doesn’t matter what you look like. It only ever borders on meaning anything, until it means everything - and then you are a teenage girl.
When they finally got outside he gave her his coat. The other smokers were looking up at the sky, at the moon. Tom and Sarah bent their heads back, too. It was supposed to be the biggest moon in nineteen years, the biggest in their lifetime. With one arm around her shoulder, Tom raised his free hand up into the night sky and curved it to cup the moon. Maybe they were just drunk and unappreciative, but it didn’t look any different to them. They laughed about Tom being able to hold it in his hand.
‘Change it!’ He commanded.
‘No, mmhmm, please don’t, it reminds me…’ she said. They were sitting on the couch when she lay her head on his stomach, and moved with his slow breathing.
‘Okay, then,’ he said, and his arm reached down the length of her side. She nearly fell asleep and they moved so that he could hold her cold feet in his hands.
They were all drunk, and everything was hazy in the fairy lights and smoke of the shisha pipe. But this was mistaken, or false tenderness, and the boy who really cared, who had put on the song, was sitting on the other couch.
They were then in bed, when she was pulled from him, pulled violently from the bed, hitting the wardrobe on the other side of the room before waking up in a half awake panic, alone.
SHE COMES APART IN THE AVALANCHE
A tall girl walks by. She is skinny, but the ground reverberates beneath her feet. I am conscious of my own attempts to be light when I move. I try to walk softly, without noise, like I did when I was a child. When I was small; smaller. It is four and I haven’t eaten yet. I am scared that you will notice me and I would rather be alone.
Outside there are baby birds chirping incessantly. They are small, and they move lightly. But they are crying for attention. I find them irritating, and they hurt my head.
I AM ALL THE DAYS, THAT YOU CHOOSE TO IGNORE
Something has happened here, for the second time. Marx said that all events occur twice: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce, but this seems to be the opposite. The consequences were the same as before: he wouldn’t speak, she couldn’t eat, and she would twitch in her sleep. She was wracked with guilt for something over which she had no control. Sirens cried past her room, and with them she could feel the impending chaos down the street. She stood on a pin and she burnt her hand; her immediate thoughts were of punishment. She hadn’t done anything but allow herself to feel. This guilt he was forcing upon her, stealing her hunger and happiness was undeserved.
LAY ME DOWN, WITH MY MIND SHE RUNS
1980: Old fifties pop songs were playing on a jukebox, which added a somewhat childlike, almost innocent feel to an otherwise elegant, adult, bar. The ceiling was painted with a royal blue and white fairy lights adorned the bar and windows, making the light soft. Evelyn sat on a bar stool, sniffed, and said, ‘White wine, please.’ The barman put down his book and looked at her, ‘You wanna see a list?’ he said.
‘No, no thanks. House is fine, thank you.’ She took a sip, and exhaled quietly. The door she came through banged shut and she turned around to find a tall man in a soft leather jacket swagger to the bar with his hands in his pockets. He sat down a couple of stools away from her. When he moved under the lights she could see his forehead glistening; he pushed his hair back and it obeyed, pliable with sweat. He turned to look at her, lifted his drink, nodded and relinquished a small, tired smiled. ‘It’s busy up there tonight,’ he said. She lit a cigarette and as she exhaled she said, ‘Thanks. Yeah, I needed a breather.’
He gave her his hand, smiled and said, ‘Hi, I’m Mitch,’
‘Evelyn,’ she said, shaking his hand slowly.
The smoke hung over their heads like a cloud with a bluish hue, making the lights look, to their drunken blurry eyes, like stars.
THEY WERE ONLY LIGHT
They walked out of the old red brick building arm in arm to a bench overlooking the sea, across the road. They sat for a long time in silence, her hand over his on his leg. She kept her eyes on his neck and tried to think of things to say, but every time she opened her mouth, it felt like an interruption and it felt insincere. Mitch looked straight ahead. The waves rippled three times with ease before invading the flat sand, and with each rhythmic push he could hear the doctor’s voice say, ‘Cancer. Cancer. Cancer.’ The word lost all meaning in his head as the orange sun slowly disappeared behind the sea. ‘What will we tell the kids?’ she said, not raising her head from his shoulder.
‘The truth?’ Mitch murmured.
‘But they’re so young,’ Evelyn half wailed before burying her face into Mitch.
‘I know,’ he murmured, ‘I don’t know.’
He turned his body and looked her in the eyes, wiping her tears away before wrapping his arms around her small body. An errant tear reached her lips and she licked it away. Tasting the salt, she stood up and ran down the dune, but stopped when she reached the bottom. She turned to Mitch on the bench and said, ‘Please?’ so softly, with the wind wrapping around her hair, and her sweater sliding haphazardly from her shoulder. He looked at her knowing that with her, he would never be alone. He couldn’t leave her now, or ever. He had been alone for too long before he met her. He walked down the dune, and embraced her again.
Then they chased the waves which splashed onto their faces until they could no longer distinguish the salt water from their tears. Their weight seemed to become the sunlight falling on their faces, and years later when Evelyn thought of this moment, it seemed that the light became them.
We came here in the winter and it took us days to figure out how to turn the heating on. I pushed my bed against the wall, but always slept on the outside. We danced together in the dark, until I was left dancing alone. When I heard you laugh through the wall, I pushed music deep into my ears and curled up as small as I could. I would lie on the windowsill and watch the sky transition into dawn. As the sun came up, I relocated to the bed and fell asleep. I felt as lonely as I ever have. I left with little warning, and we hugged goodbye on the street.
