It's still sitting there. The last one, you said. One last one before I go. I couldn't stop watching you, your fingers, so long, your nails always jagged. You didn't look at me while you smoked You looked at the garden. at the broken bricks. At the umbrella I had tied to the table. I wanted to tie you to the table too. But I just stood, over by the swing and watched. In the shadow of your suitcase the grass was a darker shade of green. I wondered if you still thought that the grass would always be greener somewhere else. Your lighter, the one I gave you last year for your birthday, now left along side the ashtray. Like me, forgotten. Still there. You didn't even finish it. I think you couldn't stand to be watched. It was like when wee made love the first time, you kept telling me to close my eyes. But all I wanted to do, all I ever wanted to do, was drink you in. To watch the sunlight in your hair or the look of peace when you came, or even the delicate way you smoked that last one. The last one before you left.
The scars of my sins stain my soul, seared in as permanently as the blood on Lady MacBeth’s hands. Oh, that my own sins might have been as nobly motivated as hers. I cannot scorn the motives of any who sin from motive, for my own sins are motivated by the simplest desire to dispatch from my presence those who annoy me.
But this, this is impossible.
Every man from whose throat I have drained blood . . . Every woman from whose chest I have carved a chunk of beating heart . . . Everyone whose braincase I have rendered flat . . . They never
ever
ever
go away.
Their spirits flit about every candle I light. Their phantoms crouch in every dark corner by which I pass. Their souls inhabit the very smoke of my cigarettes. They are attached to me with such ferocity that they might never be removed. Clinging to me. Calling to me. Crying out to me. The din of my inquity.
It's still sitting there.
ReplyDeleteThe last one, you said. One last one before I go.
I couldn't stop watching you, your fingers, so long, your nails always jagged.
You didn't look at me while you smoked You looked at the garden. at the broken bricks. At the umbrella I had tied to the table.
I wanted to tie you to the table too.
But I just stood, over by the swing and watched. In the shadow of your suitcase the grass was a darker shade of green. I wondered if you still thought that the grass would always be greener somewhere else.
Your lighter, the one I gave you last year for your birthday, now left along side the ashtray. Like me, forgotten. Still there.
You didn't even finish it.
I think you couldn't stand to be watched. It was like when wee made love the first time, you kept telling me to close my eyes.
But all I wanted to do, all I ever wanted to do, was drink you in. To watch the sunlight in your hair or the look of peace when you came, or even the delicate way you smoked that last one.
The last one before you left.
Nice job, Kay!
ReplyDeleteThe scars of my sins stain my soul, seared in as permanently as the blood on Lady MacBeth’s hands. Oh, that my own sins might have been as nobly motivated as hers. I cannot scorn the motives of any who sin from motive, for my own sins are motivated by the simplest desire to dispatch from my presence those who annoy me.
ReplyDeleteBut this, this is impossible.
Every man from whose throat I have drained blood . . . Every woman from whose chest I have carved a chunk of beating heart . . . Everyone whose braincase I have rendered flat . . . They never
ever
ever
go away.
Their spirits flit about every candle I light. Their phantoms crouch in every dark corner by which I pass. Their souls inhabit the very smoke of my cigarettes. They are attached to me with such ferocity that they might never be removed. Clinging to me. Calling to me. Crying out to me. The din of my inquity.