A Story (To Make a Long Story Short)
You often hid things from yourself but I found you, living a quiet poetry I never knew existed.
Every first without you leaves me raw.
That first day. Your first birthday. The first time I searched the store for red cream soda, like always. This Thanksgiving brings flashes of the last — sitting at the dining room table and the shock of your bare arms, their frailty and yours as we discussed the dwindling treatment options and the reality that turned your gaze downward, inward.
Then I remember the playfulness in our banter when I said goodbye and the light returns to me.
You often hid things from yourself but I found you, living a quiet poetry I never knew existed. I see myself in those words, scribbled on napkins and envelopes and other scraps of paper that began as one thing but became something else. A record. Collected memories. A glimpse of life. My nights of vinyl and Malbec. Your nights of vinyl and Michelob, toes dancing to the rhythm and the drunken joy of immersion.
You liked to tell the same stories (and never learned to make a long story short). Some stories can only be told with silence. The same way that a heart breaks.
A calm day. No phones ringing or restless rising, shaky walks to the bathroom and it’s the little things I don’t expect, like how you no longer understand which way to move to reach the toilet, or the bed.
10 p.m. and the color changes. It’s barely perceptible at first but then I recognize the softness, like the way you smiled at me when you startled yourself from sleep and realized you were home.
I am breathless, searching for signs of life.
It’s better when you’re snoring. I freeze at your twitches and sighs, those involuntary noises that escape your lips and sound like pain and relief and surrender.
I see something pulsing where your heart shouldn't be. There are no machines here to make your ascent. Will I know the moment your spirit leaves your body?
The air is a blanket of toxic haze. The orchid is starting to bend towards its end. I bought it two days after your service, two weeks before your brother chased you into eternal rest. There were 2 buds unopened and they followed suit — one flowered into being and then the other, standing tall over what remains of your broken frame and I think of your earlobes, perfectly cupped like those curved petals blossoming and I used to dip my fingers in them while I sucked my thumb.
20C. Cruising altitude but the turbulence is jarring. The woman sitting in front of me wipes her daughter’s face from across the aisle and a memory comes rushing in — how you used to lick your thumb to clean debris from my face and I can still feel your touch, rough against my young skin. I wonder if my mind is playing tricks on me: is this a real memory, or a fabrication born of want? At first you were still warm, as if you’d only stepped away from your body for a moment and planned to return. That last touch was cold. Inescapable. A sob begins to form where my heart shouldn’t be. A plane isn’t the ideal place to dissolve into this ache, so I swallow each tear.
But just barely.
*This is a free preview of Dandelions. Join as a paid subscriber for full access!
