She had heard, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”
So she ran, stepped, rowed, spun.
Every drop of sweat that poured from her flesh tasted like glorious salty victory.
Looking at her transformed figure she sighed,
“Skinny’s got nothing on pizza.”
—
Image source: TinyWorkspacePhoto via Etsy
After coastal waters stretched into our homes, our lives, our histories, days stretched into weeks. Mourning washed over us in hot waves of stillness, silence, and salt.
The twenty-six years since could have been twenty-four hours. Flooded memories know nothing of time.
Image credit: Post & Courier, 9/23/1989, File/Wade Spees/Staff
Back in the beginning—before forever, before goodbye, before everything—we sparkled. Our mouths ached from our gaping smiles. Our palms were damp from hours spent with fingers interlocked. Our bellies were tight from endless laughter.
We were bright. Shiny. New. We were diamonds glittering across the sea.
Back in the beginning, you strung up paper hearts for Valentine’s Day. Hand-cut from newspaper, looped together in twine. A clumsy garland of headlines and obituaries and classified ads selling away the things that were once thought valuable.
I saw those black and white hearts hanging lopsided around the living room, and I laughed.
And that’s when you dug it out from your pocket.
Such a simple question: will you be with me always?
Such an easy answer: I will. I am. I do.
But like buying a diamond ring on credit, I should have known then that nothing is ever that easy.
You picked it out from the jewelry department at Kohl’s. It was sized too big for my knobby finger, but that didn’t stop me from gawking at it, left arm outstretched, fingers arched proudly to the sky.
I wore that precious five-stone set for six years, never understanding why it felt so heavy. Never figuring out how something so small carried so much weight. Or why my palms—no longer found snuggled next to yours—sweated at the thought of just one more year with this ring, this gift, this promise chaining me to you.
In the end—after stillness, after apathy, after everything—that diamond was the last of our sparkle. Our lips formed only straight lines. Our laughter choked by so much left unsaid.
In the end, I found the clarity that solitaire had all along—when I realized there’s more to happiness than carats and cuts.
And I listed the ring in a classified ad of its own.
MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL IN PERSON. PICTURES DON’T DO IT JUSTICE.
Now I wait for some new young lover to buy it and surprise his girlfriend with the proposition of a lifetime. And I’ll whisper “I’m sorry” as I pass it off, tucked securely in the same grey suede box you hid in the pocket of your jeans so many years ago.
I’m sorry I didn’t know me better.
I’m sorry I didn’t know me sooner.
But I’m not sorry for following my heart.
—
This piece was written as part of a creative fiction challenge in which I found a classified ad and developed the story behind the ad.
Somewhere,
boxed away
in the attic of my mind,
lived the truth–
dust-covered, mildew-stained–
until the day she toppled over,
spilling her rancid contents
into my consciousness.
And my forged reality
was exposed
by tainted memories
I swore
I could
just
forget.
Image source: StayGoldMedia via Etsy
Between the V-(card) and the X-(boyfriend),
I found
C for cruelty—
Gift-wrapped
In cold shoulders, callous caresses, blank futures.
Between 22 and 23,
I found
C for confidence—
Opened cautiously
In distant cities, double-takes, second chances.
And that’s where I found you.
__
Jabbing it beneath my nose, she squealed. I said YES! Giddy coworkers descended, clamoring for details like gulls for a fry, their squawks muzzled by the ringing in my ears. What’s forever with you to her is forever without you to me.
Middle school sex ed. taught abstinence (over protection and preparedness).
So high school offered only these choices:
a.) Square
b.) Slut
But college, brought to you by the letter O, was a teacher of experience.
And finally, I separated sexuality from shame.
My glazed eyes blink; the page stays blank.
I have no pointed answers.
I’m whittled out. Hollowed.
Forty-two words are far too few
To contain her wisdom, her truths.
Just as fifty-seven years were too few.
But that’s all Mom was given.
We used to offer Thanks
on a well-fed Thursday
in late November.
Encroached by big business
clamoring for profit,
feast turned to famine.
Now parents working extra shifts
(to afford merry surprises)
are trampled red
beneath the soles
of 1,000 thankless feet.
Did she whisper “our secret”
as hands began to roam?
Did she murmur “don’t worry”
as text lit up your phone?
Did she mouth into darkness
“don’t think of her at all”?
While frozen at our table,
I waited for your call.
Image source: AnaDoraArt via Etsy
writeamuck 