You always return. You have trained me to wait for you like a dog by the front door. Chewing your shoes and your coffee table when you’re gone for too long.
You’ve starved me before, for months; and I wagged my tail so gleefully when you walked in as if you’d just popped to the store. I was just skin and bones.
Yet again, locked in, so thirsty.. I’m listening for the creaks outside and staring at the walls. But I have so much faith in your return.
I sit, staring at the horizon, counting the waves and the flickers of light from another sunset. I gather my limbs and wrap them around me to embrace the approaching night. They walk past; children, couples and dogs, dare not look at the body turning to beach, but stare out to the same sea. Their eyes are not searching; they see the sun and the coast; they don’t count the waves.
A few nights ago, when my lips crumbled, I had resolved to leave. But I saw a hand out there by the ships; or was it a bird.. then I noticed the seagulls flying off with my feet and I resolved to stay.
There’s a beach near St Ives where we sat one clear night in September. You won’t remember it, but you were there, leaning on a rock too close to the waves and the water filled your trainers and I laughed, alone..
There’s a bar in Naples near the gulf, where we sat drinking Merlot one rainy afternoon. You won’t remember it, but you were there, the wine left crimson marks on the corners of your lips and I laughed, alone..
There’s a lake in Annecy where we hired a boat and wandered. You won’t remember it, but you were there, it started to rain and the water dripped from your curls and I laughed, alone..
I’m still chosing the place to let go of your ghost..
And slowly, like the movement of a living statue, the feathers began to fall from her wings; Each floated and danced through the still air, until they were all gathered around her feet and covered in dark blood, leaving only frail bones extending from her ribs and hanging ghastly.
In the same manner the stars began to flicker in her eyes, then bursting and dying one after another, some left unnoticeable brown and green nebulas across her pupils, while others only deep patches of perfect darkness.
She began to rip out and break the fragile bones hanging from her back , and when she finished, she stepped out from pile of stained white as if it were a discarded dress. She blinked,wiping away the marks of late stars from her eyes.
Naked and blind, she began to wander .
Growing apart is inevitable for strangers. That’s what we were, no? Despite the years of cold, dead letters. Despite the ear piercing, blinding blast of a long forgotten December.
The contours of your face have suddenly blurred in my dreams; the reflections turned faint and colourless, as if it were muddy waters we had stared into.
I embraced the certitude of our complete lack of gravity long ago. I accepted that while we may drift together again, we would just as seamlessly drift apart, directionless.
And yet I carry you on the edge of my skin, still. And every subtle movement of my fingers holds a bit of you.
When I wake from the dream and wrap my body in the fading warmth of your ghost. You bleed through my pores and my limbs tense as I wait for the longing to fade..
I stare at my naked refection, see your hands on my neck and grasp them, but they fall through my fingers like sand. I see your head on my shoulder, your lips curved into a tortured smile and my body trembles and begs to shake you off.
It’s one of those days when your name lingers on my tongue like warm honey, and your resurected whispers turn the air to black smoke in my lungs.
I can’t hear the song in my bones anymore. It was loud when you came and it screamed through my veins when you left. Now it bleeds, faintly, from my ears when I hear your name and I shut it out.
I kill the violins every morning when my arms search my body for you and they find the tune in every piece of skin you touched. I wash it off, I peel it away.
I believed, like a fool, that I could make you go since you left. I believed I could be rid of you. But you live in the corner of my eye and in the tips of my fingers. You live, devil, and I fear that death itself can’t be rid of you.
I’m six years old, it’s July and I’m playing in my grandmother’s back garden with the newly-hatched baby ducks. She’s shouting after my brother to be careful and not step on the little things as he runs.
I don’t run. I sit on the broken stone slabs and watch them; I give them names, figure out their personalities. There are six, yellow and black; The larger one has pale feathers and is bossy, she doesn’t get a name. The smallest one is mostly black; she gets left behind all the time and trips over the bits of stone on the dusty path trying to catch up. She’s called Jackie.
My mother shows up from around the house wearing her red sleeveless shirt and the jeans she’d cut into shorts earlier. I’m holding Jackie in my hands and she wants to take a photo. I stand, tilt my head to one side and slowly bring my hands near my face. I look at her little beak, her moist black eyes and I see her. She’s fragile, she’s strong – she’s Jackie. The camera clicks and mum walks away absently.
I spend the rest of the day taking Jackie on adventures. She goes in the vegetable garden where the ducks aren’t allowed to go and gets to walk on the scarce patches of grass under the trees and eat bits of lettuce and cucumber. She sleeps in my lap on the street bench by the gate, while I watch the older kids play hide and seek.
It’s early evening. Jackie and the ducks are back in their little enclosure and we all sit outside eating cold soup made with green beans and lemon. Mum smokes, grandpa sits quietly, his head bowed over the metal bowl while grandma tells him off for yet another thing he forgot to do.
I eat quickly and think about her, decide where we’d go before it gets dark. I finish, I stand up, take the five steps to the duck enclosure, open the gate in a hurry. I look for her on the other side, not near. I step over the little fence and inside. But the earth is soft, it squeaks, it crushes. It moves so slightly under my shoe and goes limp, flat, lifeless.
I know. I don’t breathe, I don’t look. Oh dear god, please, don’t let it be Jackie. I lift my foot slowly and stare at the still black feathers and the stretched out neck. Her beak is crooked, her eyes open and moist. I die.
My limbs gather themselves, my arms squeeze around my knees; an enormous lump fills my throat and my chest, my muscles tense, my eyes widen, my ears ring. The wail finally escapes, it rings through the garden like an air raid siren. They rush and stare, someone comforts me, someone laughs. The duck is picked up by her tail and held high for all to see. ‘Third one this week’ my grandma says casually while my mother insists that I must stop crying. I must!
They take her. But where? I can’t speak. I must dig a grave, make a cross like my father did for the little bee we found in the water pail last year. I have to speak. I can’t speak. My swollen eyes follow my grandma, she goes to the side garden towards the latrine; she walks fast, I can’t stop her. I close my eyes, squeeze them, bury my head between my knees.
‘Come on silly; she says walking back empty handed, ‘it’s nothing, forget about it!’
She’s gone.
It’s evening. I’m curled up around a pillow in the cool room, crying softly. My face itches, my head and my muscles hurt. Mum walks in and she’s strange, her face twitches and she stutters, can’t bare to watch me in pain, can’t figure out what to say, how to stop it. I sit up and look at her ‘Maybe she’s in heaven’ I whisper between hiccups, and smile. ‘I’m sure she went to god and she’s happy..’
‘I’ll be okay, mum, really!’
The young man dressed in white helped her out of the car. She didn’t look around, but buried her chin in the collar of her gown.
They walked through the open metal gates together, and in the garden he let go of her arm and stood quietly. The crisp smell of winter filled her nostrils, and another smell, sweet and earthy like tree bark that’s just been ripped off. She looked up.
‘Birches!’ She gasped, her brows folding the ageing skin between them. ‘I know these birches!’ the memory burned her eyes, and she looked away, blinking repeatedly.
She began to walk alone, listening to her feet crush the thin ice on the gravel path. A squirrel jumped from a tree and rustled through a pile of dead leaves, startling her.
‘What is this place?’ she demanded, and the man gestured towards the white house at the far end of the garden. She looked, but her whole body turned around instantly, instinctively. She stood as still as the frozen grass blades, staring blankly.
After a while she cleared her throat and smiled, looking towards the top of the little hill ahead, where an old wood arch stood rotten. She bent over, swiftly pulled off her shoes and socks, and threw them as far as her weary arm could manage. The man rushed to her and grabbed her arm but she screamed and pulled it back fiercely.
She ran up the hill, then down again; spun around and threw herself onto the thawing grass, rolling over and over. ‘I’m the yellow dog’ her mouth blurted out unexpectedly, as if it was another’s. The unclaimed words startled her and her face dropped, as if pulled by a heavy weight hanging from her eyelids. ‘The yellow dog who ran through the arch, when there were roses wrapped around its legs and hanging from the top.’ The mouth continued. She squinted; ‘Yes! There were white roses, big as a man’s fist! and there was a yellow dog..’
Suddenly she laid still on the grass, then curled herself so tightly her knees pressed against her eyeballs. The man came and lifted her, unsettled by the inhuman screeching that now echoed around the silver birches; her legs dragged behind so he picked her up and carried her to the car the way you’d carry a sleeping child. Face buried in his neck, her cry grew quiet and she began mumbling made up words..
Fires burnt out, the silent warmth of settling ash thaws my fingers – at last. Brown eyes, released of their redness, turn green..
I can finally breathe with your name on my lips and my arms no longer beg do dig your grave. The grieving ends, and having passed through its stages, I can hang the enormous picture of us on the wall and stare at it filled with nostalgia, and not fury.
I reclaim my heart, then wrap it around you – thankful for its strength to hold, and to let go. I welcome the longing as my eternal companion and joyfully drink in its honour.
