Endings

Despair rose up in me like a flash flood, so quickly that it had almost drowned my heart when I heard a snuffling.  The dog who smelled like cake shuffled out from behind an overgrown bush.  “Are you real?” I asked her.  “Or are you going to disappear, too?”

She cocked her head and bared crooked teeth at me, as if to say, does it matter?

I dropped down onto the ground next to her; the setting sun was hot on my neck.  “It's too warm for you,” I told her.  “You should go back into the woods, where’s it cooler.”

But she wouldn’t move. 

Tiredly I leaned back against the damp, cold ground.  I closed my eyes and I heard some more snuffling, until I felt her fuzzy head against the palm of my hand.  We will be safe tonight, I thought to myself.  Tomorrow was anybody’s guess.   Absolute safety would never be mine to have.  It simply didn’t exist. 

Cold

I remember the glasses now
the dark plastic green with ridges in 
the base the small slim
crystal that held the dandelion
I brought home for you.
I remember the spectacles I broke
as they lay on your bed
it was an accident it was an accident
they cost the earth you said
I never had a chance
god how you hated me
it was only an accident
I remember.

Unprepared

No one mentioned Debbie’s name at work.  “What happened?” Jonah would ask himself in the mirror each night, just after he brushed his teeth.  One moment she'd been standing next to the cart, complaining about tropical oils.  And the next, he was holding the perfect strawberry in winter, talking to no one.  Only Bill, who Jonah sometimes came across in the cafeteria during his coffee break, said to Jonah, “I’m sorry about Debbie, man.”  Jonah pretended not to hear him.  He just asked if Bill knew who had won the basketball game.

Corners

I met her at the cafe where I liked to read the paper in the morning.  At the time she struck me as nothing special—just another smiley college student waiting tables over the summer.  Only after she gave me the wrong coffee three days in a row did I really pay any notice to her.

During her rambling apology—“I’m so sorry, I just can’t remember if the white doily means vanilla or regular, I keep thinking white has to be vanilla and then I think, no, it’s the opposite, and then I get myself all mixed up”—I didn’t know whether to laugh or tell her to go away.  In the end I did neither.   Eventually I would come to wish I had done the latter.

Jumping

Erica calls me a couple of days after Thanksgiving.  We talk for a while about work and debts and boyfriends.  I thought I knew everything but now I realize I know almost as close to nothing as you can get without having fallen here on accident from another planet.

Addiction

I left you                                                                    

                        I did

that was me who limped behind

who whimpered and begged as

fear threatened me blind

            but I left you

                        yes, I did

Your voice now I must ignore

oh, and it sears and it soars, and it

roars with the ferocity of a

jungle cat

            because I left you back there

            with the imploring stare

            on your face

                        yes, I did

Old truths fill the

black hole where

I buried the leaking need

for you

I know all about incurable wounds

            So much and for so many weepy and

            lonely afternoons

            I meant to leave you

            for so much, my friend

                        and I did

It cost me the destruction of an atomic rage

poisoned the air with its smoke-orange memories

maybe it will melt my blistering heart

maybe it will leave me to freeze in the

drift of its nuclear winter

when the death that crouches in wait for me

crouches close for you, too

            forgive me for pulling this scratchy scarf

            over my eyes  

            forgive me, love, because I was made to leave you

and I did

The Weight of the World

It was a difficult, silent drive back to my mom’s.  When I pulled into the driveway and turned off the ignition we both just sat there, until Michael said, “I’m sorry you feel I let you down.  But the important thing is that now you know what you’re dealing with.  You can’t go back to him.”

“It’s not that simple.  You aren’t even sure about what happened with Cheryl,” I retorted.  “And if he’d treated her that badly, she would have wanted the divorce, not fought it tooth and nail.”

“The psychology of domestic abuse is a strange beast.  Otherwise why would you even consider staying with him?”

“It wasn’t domestic abuse.”

“He broke your arm.  He made you quit law school.  He doesn’t let you have any money, and you can do almost nothing without his approval,” Michael brutally reminded me.  “If that isn’t domestic abuse, I don’t know what is.”

“Well, you might feel that way, but I don't.  I think I owe him another chance," I said, and opened the car door.  This conversation was over.