lonesome happy birthdays

a cup of hot tea, good conversation

On days like today, the smell of freshly wounded grass, their cry of earth forest smoke spiraling in the air after rainfall, when birds I don’t know the name of circling the tops of tree crowns far upward into the folds and fogs of gray seemed like an omen for escape.

A catch and release of heavy breathing, in fickle pulses, anxious, swollen, racing, awaiting calm. 

Moments before amongst mellow greenery, a fire caught wind, like a wild thing released from captivity, uninhibited, pretentious yet natural in the way it moved its limbs. A pomegranate fruit flesh color waving with oblivious scope, hostile gallops of deceiving beauty, despite the saving instance of rain. 

The crunch of dead leaves, the crinkling snap of oak as it kindled to ashy crisp. The brittle splinter of seasonal endings cracking open in veined streaks under the weight of rushing feet. The soles had dwindled, almost gone now, yet the path revealed itself no hopeful pattern. 

All salvageable clues made themselves clear when floodwater seeped into the soil of chocolate hills: the flag on a ribbon-wrapped twig, the bloody footsteps of the fallen predecessor, a written note that drew this blackened wasteland a sullen cycle of life. 

The only way out, obscured, if only seen through tunnel vision, always a shifting angle under erratic beams of moonlight, thick blue-white pigments stippling a galaxy of stars onto a dark canvas at a flick of a brush.

The quiet night crept in, after the roars of death’s burning call. An engulfing void, a space of vacancy that yearned for solemn peace, finally with permission, an expanse of definitions to the passing of time. 

For the end would signal its presence, make itself known, come the first touch of next day. The birds will fine-tune morning song, feed the juicy nectar of nature’s kindness, anything with a drumming heartbeat left by the assaulting fire, once again within the swing of networked branches.

But I looked through the only window nailed down by a patchwork of crusty wooden planks. The sun unreliable in its telling of time, if only based on warm rays slipping past tiny chips in the glass, their tiptoe dancing on tightrope floorboard scratches. A bottle safekeeping scribbles of dreams hiding underneath muffled screams. 

I promised there would be heaven, but not here, not for long, in this supposed haven.

This fire, a haze of dragon’s breaths, a pivot in loops of summer break, had yet to set ablaze. For soon enough it will come, an urgent teardrop tugging at familiar tassels, evanescing candlewick of patience, the only true conspicuous ache in a woman’s outward gaze.

Such was the case from the inside of a small room, where chaos took strangling root and fed itself to fester in this susceptible human body, built for the parasitic worm an empty chest with only so little feeling, swallowed in sleepless dark, disease in slow motion.

I longed for simple things. The taste of blueberry yogurt, fresh strawberries and cream. An egg yolk flood easy over toast, a slice of luscious butter. Fiction, dessert wine, entertaining the thought of a lover who loved his own father, then letting the thought fly away to draw broken lines in the weather.

When I felt wistful about shallow waters, the balloon of my lungs at measured velocity, not quite the tempo of skipping stones, but in a way that is gentle and controlled, I thought about love that flows, down to the forest and abundance of nameless birds and holy creatures where I am too far away to touch, too small as a bead of rain on a bent leaf from an eagle’s eye to ask for much. 

Here in this small room where I wished for lonesome happy birthdays, playing board games come Christmastime, a cup of hot tea, good conversation, but only sometimes.

Because I must wait for the purr of the restless tiger. I must wait for him to come home, for him to make his bed, lay his skull on soft pillow clouds while he snores nightmarish lullabies at the devil’s hour.

Such was a home, if one could call it so, where the table was set when hunger struck more than three times in service of the hotheaded predator, the beastly state of a hunter and his prey outside my door. I excused myself from his majesty, let his business run its course.

I pinched my mouth and stitched it clean to the height of cheekbones, high and proud and appropriately likable, but only to the amount that is dainty, not demanding, as they said. That it must be wed, these two sides of a flippant coin. Soft, but not fragile. Smart, but not smarter than him. Honesty with enough mystery that ladylike delight satisfies only his male fragility.

I did the dancing two-step routine, betrayed the comfort of extremes. I thanked him for these glinting silver spoons, the banquet before me displayed on shiny plates, masquerade reflections on sparkling cutlery, a sung homily of praise. 

Thank you, said my curved thread of lower lip, sweetly charm so full of grace, for only by such good graces would I be kept in his. While he climbed corporate ladders, outfoxed the cunning lesser man, I polished my counters clean, I watched him take over high rollers on the home screen.

I read between the wrinkled lines of black stripes and fur coat, the look of crippled youth on his face. I played the role of court jester, poking fun in haste, if only to chase the spoils of men with swift hands for gold, wanting (s)laughter disguised as lacy veils, rings on fourth fingers, bigger pictures, frames of family on marble-encrusted fixtures, two pairs of hands tying knots, writing love letters.

The acquiescence, shoved down if not inherited, silence to maintain subservience. Better to keep the peace, they said, as a piece of man’s prized acquisition. The scavenged carcass for growing cubs whose tender innocence need not be tainted. The trophy zoo animal with a missing self-worth and a fondness for the dependable strong character, someone with drive and purpose, or so I figured.

The fire wants me now. It feels me burning for its apathy. It senses my need for pretenses, manic pixie defenses. So much for valor, so much for walking down aisles without armor. For here I am to cool his short-fused insanity. I must make him my fallacious fantasy. I must take the blame for his cruel infidelities.

So much for trailblazing, birdwatching, signing our names in underlines right by holier-than-thou witnesses. Well, I promised to be his. Forever and evermore, we proclaimed at courthouses. I lived in utopian befores. But I wait for snow in a tropical cyclone. I wait to speak after the tone, only I’m in a desert, I’m in this small room, in a place of wreckage, scooping out sand with a slotted spoon. 

Such was a dream in which I wished to prick pins and red strings on a secret atlas. I wished to swim away despite this broken compass. But I am anchored, too holed to hold water, my heels buried with the hidden glass bottle in the floorboards. I am a burnt out candlelight, blackened cold to mold anything colored. The wick of promise is at an inch, the final stretch of rope bound to tie my fate, in double bunny ears, in the event of locking gates.

I abide. I will drown with the tides, if only to fan this enlightened flame. I will set the table and feed him full. So that once he sleeps tonight, I will match his deathly snore with a plan to hatch. I will ignore the bliss of befores, my life as a young maiden taken to snatch some bachelor. 

I must light a candle to breathe into him a reminder of lavender and creamy soap.

It will be my only hope, for his own sake, that I do not turn my head to read his face. When I spill the flame, watch it catch the twisted threads and fueled tassels, when I slash the latch open and make a run for the mountains, I want to find this morphing change only a little strange. I want to rearrange this new room beyond my old window.

From up here I see golden red wave alight, I see only shadows. I feel the clouds getting heavy, mist sticky like honey. I feel incoming rain to soothe the cries of grass and earth forest fury.

I am collecting clues, the ribbons of my mother, reading her notes of blues, hopeless foot patterns, the sight of my steps over a path she discovered.

The night is here, finally. I am searching for stars on a dark canvas. I see the way she painted them, like she’s tracing a map of afters.

Such was a home where I am untethered.