Friday, January 22, 2016

Oak

"Women piece together their lives from the scraps left over for them." - Terry Tempest Williams 



You  reside in every atom that passes through me.
 You are nestled into my skin.
You are the fragile thread of twine,
that reaches far beyond time,
binding our souls with the divine,
Reverberating down the line,
 howling noiselessly through the Pine.

She was my soft place. Soft like the pink shag carpet that blanketed her bathroom. I think that her bathroom may have been the first love of my life. 

The bathtub was huge, big enough for a mermaid to dive for treasures in. To construct castles made from shampoo bottles and Mr. Bubbles. And when the mermaid traded her tail for human legs, she could practice shaving them with crazy foam and a hair comb.

Fluffy bubblegum towels; taffy tinted tissue boxes, lemonade shaded Dixie cups and the sound of sprinklers borne on a cool summer breeze.

No matter how many undersea tea parties or dolphin training sessions took place in my coral alcove, it never stopped smelling like her. Chanel No. 5, Scope mouthwash and baby powder. On the nights when the ghosts would find her, when her demons would take the form of flaming white liquid in diminutive crystal tumblers, I would lie on my belly and bury my face into the pink fibers, I would breathe her. This is what serenity feels like.

It feels like her nails skating across my skin. Every stroke carrying with it the feel of the bathroom floor. The world would stop spinning. Nobody spoke. Nothing moved. Stillness. It was present at Danny's funeral when I felt my castle crumbling all around me. It was there when fireworks exploded in the sky and overwhelmed my whole being. It was there when the space between dream and reality was so minute that I lost it. And it was always there the next morning.

I learned that most people, even good people, had a demon living inside them. Her demon would take control of her body. It used her mouth, her voice, to hurt those she loved the most. Demons tend to do that. It said that I was just like my mother, an ungrateful bitch. I wondered what my demon looked like and if I would know when it escaped. She never seemed to.

Rose colored light cleaves the darkness, chasing the shadows from my walls and the rancor from her heart. Carnation fingertips cut the ruby into equal halves, a sprinkle of sugar to sweeten the bitterness.

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