Lullabies (4 page)

Your hand brushes my leg.

Was it an accident? I look at you questioningly, but you are staring straight ahead, engrossed in conversation.

Then there it is again. Very deliberately, resting on my knee.

Oh, your hands.

They slide up my thigh and under my skirt, lightly skimming the fabric of my panties.

It’s been so long.

I part my legs under the table.

The conversation turns to politics.

A mirror effect, you say.

He looks confused. What’s this about mirrors?

The word sends a jolt through my body.

Your hand slips into my panties. 

Vania

Vania Zouravliov, 
that’s
 his name! My favorite artist. I wanted his book that time . . . very badly, in fact. I tipped my little coin purse upside down and counted all my money. I was short twenty dollars! 

She lies on her stomach by the fire with her sketchpad open, lazy pencil strokes lining the paper with each flick of her wrist.

Oh, poor you, he says sympathetically. Do you know what, sweetheart, we’ll get you that book.

Thanks, baby. She smiles at him then returns to her sketching.

I’ll tell you how, he continues, snapping his laptop shut.

She looks up, bemused. Pencil down, chin propped in hand.
I’m list-en-ing,
she says in a singsong voice.

Okay, so here’s what you do. You go into the bookstore and you buy a cheap paperback novel. Smile sweetly and make small talk with the people at the register. Turn on the charm, 
just
 like the way you do when you’re trying to flog me your sketches. “Hey look! I just drew these. What do you think? D’you wanna buy them?”

She giggles.

Then, he says, after you’ve finished paying, wander over to where the book is, pick it up and flip through it, looking as if you didn’t have a care in the world.

He lets out a small chuckle, leaning forward.

Then
 my dear, you get as close as you can to the entrance without attracting any attention. 
And… you bolt! 
As fast as you can, down the escape route that we would have planned the day before. I’ll be in the car waiting so as soon as you jump in, I’ll put my foot down,
hard,
on the accelerator, speed off to somewhere quiet before we stop and I’ll look at you and say, Can you believe you did that? How does it feel? And you’ll be sitting there, your adrenaline pumping, your heart racing, hugging the book against your chest, saying, “Oh my God! I
can’t
believe I just did that!” Then do you know what I’d do?

What
—
would
—
you
—
do? she says between peals of laughter.

I’d take you out,
fuck
you up against the car.

Dumplings

Her impatient hands work slowly.

Like this
,
she says.

Then you dip your finger in the egg yolk.

Put it between the sheet and press it down firmly.

She watches as he fumbles.

The little pocket of pastry is foreign in his hands.

She reaches out, placing hers on either side of his face. Pulling him towards her, she kisses him warmly.

This is why I love you.

The sides of his face are white from her flour-coated hands.

It makes her laugh.

If only you could see yourself the way I do.

He smiles sheepishly.

Yours are so pretty, he says.

He puts down the oddly shaped dumpling.

And picks up another sheet of pastry. 

The Garden

The curtain, a smoky gray color, drops from the creamy white ceiling. Crawling with strange bugs and eight-legged creatures, from where an ominous fan whirs.

His hand reaches for the cord. A string of shiny, black beads that glisten against the bright, early evening sun.

Flashback to the time he found her in the garden. White cotton dress pulled up around her thighs, feet blackened by the rich, lush earth that she had just been turning. With an apologetic smile that said, I couldn’t help myself.

That Night

It was one of those nights that you are not altogether sure really did happen. There are no photographs, no receipts, no scrawled journal entries.

Just the memory sitting in my mind, like a half-blown dandelion, waiting to be fractured, dismembered. Waiting to disintegrate into nothing.

As I close my eyes, the pictures play like a blurry montage. I can see us driving for hours, until the street signs grew less familiar
—
the flickering lamplights giving away to stars. Then sitting across from you in that quiet, little Italian place. Your hands pushing the plates aside, reaching across for mine.

The conversations we had about everything and nothing. And kissing you. How I remember that.

It was one of those nights that my mind still can’t be sure of. That wonders if I was ever there at all. Yet in my heart, it is as though I’ve never left.

Chapter 3

Finale

They gave us years,

though many ago;

the spring cries tears
—

the winter, snow.

—
MELANCHOLY SKIES

Three Questions

What was it like to love him?
asked Gratitude.
It was like being exhumed, I answered. And brought to life in a flash of brilliance.

What was it like to be loved in return?
asked Joy.
It was like being seen after a perpetual darkness, I replied. To be heard after a lifetime of silence.

What was it like to lose him?
asked Sorrow.
There was a long pause before I responded:

It was like hearing every good-bye ever said to me
—
said all at once.

Acceptance

There are things I miss

that I shouldn’t,

and those I don’t

that I should.

Sometimes we want

what we couldn’t
—

sometimes we love

who we could.

Fading Polaroid

My eyes were the first to forget. The face I once cradled between my hands, now a blur. And your voice is slowly drifting from my memory, like a fading polaroid. But the way I felt is still crystal clear. Like it was yesterday.

There are philosophers who claim the past, present, and future all exist at the one time. And the way I have felt, the way I feel
—
that bittersweet ache between wanting and having
—
is evidence of their theory.

I felt you before I knew you and I still feel you now. And in that brief moment between
—
wrapped in your arms thinking,
how lucky I am, how lucky I am, how lucky I am
—

How lucky I was.

Thoughts

Dawn turns to day,

as stars are dispersed;

wherever I lay,

I think of you first.

The sun has arisen,

the sky, a sad blue.

I quietly listen
—

the wind sings of you.

The thoughts we each keep,

that are closest to heart,

we think as we sleep
—

and you’re always my last.

Dyslexia

There were letters I wrote you that I gave up sending, long before I stopped writing. I don’t remember their contents, but I can recall with absolute clarity, your name scrawled across the pages. I could never quite contain you to those messy sheets of blue ink. I could not stop you from overtaking everything else.

I wrote your name over and over
—
on scraps of paper, in books and on the back of my wrists. I carved it like sacred markings into trees and the tops of my thighs. Years went by and the scars have vanished, but the sting has not left me. Sometimes when I read a book, parts will lift from the pages in an anagram of your name. Like a code to remind me it’s not over. Like dyslexia in reverse.

Dead Poets

Her poetry is written on the ghost of trees, whispered on the lips of lovers.

As a little girl, she would drift in and out of libraries filled with dead poets and their musky scent. She held them in her hands and breathed them in
—
wanting so much to be part of their world.

It wasn’t long before Emily began speaking to her, then Sylvia and Katherine; their voices rang in unison, haunting and beautiful. They told her one day her poetry would be written on the ghost of trees and whispered on the lips of lovers.

But it would come at a price.

There isn’t a thing I would not gladly give, she thought, to join my idols on those dusty shelves. To be immortal.

As if reading her mind, the voices of the dead poets cried out in alarm and warned her about the greatest heartache of all
—
how every stroke of pen thereafter would open the same wound over and over again.

What is the cause of such great heartache? She asked. They heard the keen anticipation in her voice and were sorry for her.

The greatest heartache comes from loving another soul, they said, beyond reason, beyond doubt, with no hope of salvation.

It was on her sixteenth birthday that she first fell in love. With a boy who brought her red roses and white lies. When he broke her heart, she cried for days.

Then hopeful, she sat with a pen in her hand, poised over the blank white sheet, but it refused to draw blood.

Many birthdays came and went.

One by one, she loved them and just as easily, they were lost to her. Somewhere amidst the carnations and forget-me-nots, between the lilacs and mistletoe
—
she slowly learned about love. Little by little, her heart bloomed into a bouquet of hope and ecstasy, of tenderness and betrayal.

Then she met you, and you brought her dandelions each day, so she would never want for wishes. She looked deep into your eyes and saw the very best of herself reflected back.

And she loved you, beyond reason, beyond doubt, and with no hope of salvation.

When she felt your love slipping away from her, she knelt at the altar, before all the great poets
—
and she begged. She no longer cared for poetry or immortality, she only wanted you.

But all the dead poets could do was look on, helpless and resigned while everything she had ever wished for came true in the cruelest possible way.

She learned too late that poets are among the damned, cursed to commiserate over their loss, to reach with outstretched hands
—
hands that will never know the weight of what they seek.

Time

You were the one

I wanted most

to stay.

But time could not

be kept at bay.

The more it goes,

the more it’s gone
—

the more it takes away.