To the Sailor's (Former) Wife

Go out and meet her (or it, if you so prefer--only you can decide her title, now that your sailor is gone). Go alone, and don't pay attention to those beautiful frivolities that adorn her. The rocks, the sand, and the sky don't matter. They were just means to an end--no need to waste your emotions on them.

Wade, don't swim. It'll be too much. She'll be cold like ice you've never experienced, but in time, you'll numb--first your feet, then the rest of you.

(Except for your ankles--your ankles will be last, strangely enough. Don't worry about this--she's a bitch.)

There will probably be wind. Be prepared. It'll feel like a slap, but you'll stand there with her ice at her feet and her breath on your face. You might cry. But know that the sailor's wife cries not because her sailor is leaving but because he has chosen someone else over her--again, again, and again. For you, my dear, the agains are finite.

Daddy

Chloe sits in the kitchen. Midterms are in four days, and the sadistic bastard who decided that chemistry and algebra 2 were going to be on the same day should be shot. The streetlights are out again, so it's pitch black. Thanks, Daylight Savings. She longs to sleep.

Oh my God's. Two of them. It's the second one staggers her heart, the tiny wail that Mom uses only when she cries. And Chloe knows, even before she walks into the room and sees the body. She's prepared ever since her grandfather's funeral some ridiculous amount of time ago. One day, Mommy and Daddy were going to die. She was probably going to have to see them dead. And Daddy was a smoker and didn't like to wear his seatbelt, so he was probably going to go first.

Dad's hands are cold. God. 911. Even though they were too late--his legs are stiff. She sits in the driveway waiting for the ambulance (she screams into her hands a little) before she thinks to go pull her mother off him. Carries her out.

The ambulance comes.

Shit. How is she going to tell her sister?

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Chloe's dressed neck-to-toe in black, clothes her cousin had bought her hurriedly the morning of the funeral because Chloe embarrassingly doesn't have anything in black that fits her. Nothing to wear to her father's funeral. Pathetic.

And here is the funeral procession--damn the South, thinking it's autumn when it's actually winter (leaves everywhere), and it's time to move. Figures in black. Leaves of red. Black against red. Life against death.

They made her sing at the funeral, then waited to see if she would cry. Everyone's watching for her to cry. So she won't.

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Chloe cries later, in January, when the blue jay joins the cardinal in the sprinkler in her backyard. No one sees. There are a lot of things she doesn't know, and she doesn't know if this is their secret or her secret, but it's a secret. She keeps it.

Grandpa

She was still half-dreaming amongst her crayon-themed decor when her mother came into her room. Grandpa didn't make it. And Chloe dreamt of the pool where Miss Laura taught her to swim during the summer. Grandpa had tried a no-breather and ended up standing up halfway through. He got bored, as she often did, and they went to watch birds, as he often did. He pointed out the cardinal and the blue jay. Much better than the brown morning doves they usually saw.

Of course she knew what dying meant. Chloe was five--not a baby like her sister. Grandpa was going to heaven. Grandpa was going to God. Chloe's mother dressed her in the red-and-white poofy dress with the flowers. Everyone was crying. Chloe twirled in her Mary Janes.

"Not today," her mother said.

Chloe didn't recognize Grandpa in the coffin. They shaved his beard. Chloe took note of the way Grandpa's hands were arranged and vowed never to sleep that way. She didn't want to die. She liked her hair.

Anthem for a Stroll (Mar's Song)

First, gather your winds about you--close enough to kiss your wrists (but leave room for them to tousle your hair). In summer, you'll want to float like your sister clouds; in winter, you'll want to slice like sleet. Claim your body, these legs that cover so much ground, these arms that gather so much love, and these hips that swing, high-tide, low-tide. Was the woman created from the oceans, or the oceans from the woman? Maybe they learned their paradox together, moving out, in, out, in, all the while, drawing deeper the men and the seashells. Flow, and flow.

Flow like flame, that core that never stops whispering this compels, this must. Feel it light your eyes and the tips of your fingers. The air crackles around you; you do not walk--you stride, and the earth comes to a standpoint in your midst.

"Oh, it's so cute!"

Kei's final art project made The Board--a Marilyn Monroe-type outline of a woman's face. We looked closer and saw Marilyn's skin and hair, all words: hairsprayhairsprayhairspraylipsticklipstickeyeshadowblushblush. To us, Kei was not an artist. She was the video game girl. She knew the Mario theme song and could play it by memory on piano.

If we all text her at the same time, she'll be so happy we admire her work.

I have my phone in my hands when I see the words written inside the eyes--blue, the irises.

Maybe Won't

They See

journals

They’re too liberal, allowing thoughts to bleed over the pages and through them, seeping through, staining tables underneath. The inkblots grow, color stains. The paper gives; transparent, a morning after rain.

We should hide our hearts behind more than paper. Maybe that’s just me.

Common/Newland

The sound of the lighter, a metallic scratch-and-snap, shocked me out of my panic, and I turned to find that she’d slid down the side of the record store and squatted above the rain-slick sidewalk. With one hand, she took a drag from her cigarette, leaning her head back to blow a smoke geyser into the air. Baby Faithful.

Around us, neon signs created white noise and drew us in subconsciously, city dwellers looking for illumination an hour before midnight. Cars cast our drive-by silhouettes onto the wall and sidewalk; the sound waxed and waned, an irregular rhythm. I joined her then, wading to the wall, immediately feeling the burn in my legs and pull on my high-heeled ankles as I squatted beside her. The rain before had been rough, a sideways rain. The wall behind me felt blunt and grainy, compacted soil beneath my fingers. I could read the street signs then—the intersection between Common and Newland. In front of us, the traffic light turned, bathing the air around us in red. Cars lined up, idling at the intersection. Beneath us, red traveled like electricity through the water, jagged edges distorted by bumps in the street and our own slight movements. I saw pieces of her face in the ruby-and-headlight haze, brown curls turned black by the light.

“So where’s this party, girl?” she asked, tired but still curious. The rain had brought the temperature down twenty degrees. Her soaked skirt skimmed the ground and clung to the curves of her hips and legs. Her wet tank top did what it could, hugging her back, breasts, and stomach into a fluid hourglass. I wondered if I looked like her, underneath day-old jeans and her sweater, which I’d had to change into after the rain turned me into a t-shirted, chattering mess. The shirt sat in the bottom of my bag now, soaking through the already-wet cloth linings, dripping by my side in a heavy mass. Why did wet things take so long to dry? Maybe the world secretly wanted to be immersed in water and people like me were drying up the parade.

“Who the hell knows?” I replied, reaching for a cigarette of my own. “City’s a fucking labyrinth.” I knew I’d made the wrong shoe choice. The acute but widespread protest in the balls of my feet had dissolved into a tender soreness. I slid them off, feeling the pain of relief in my now wet feet. I contemplated sitting—I was already wet. It couldn’t hurt.

“Well, let’s go,” she said, knocking my hand away from my bag. “Let’s find these people.” Behind me, traffic light’s green—I see it reflected in her narrow eyes. Selling ice to a polar bear.

A few moments later, as she’s dragging me down the street (we’d decided on this “adventure” exactly two hours ago, after seeing a flyer on a lamppost), splash-splash-splash, splash-splash-splash, I realize that I love how she’s running in Disney princess flip-flops a size too small. I love that she paints her nails according to her mood (she feels magenta today). I love her after-rain curves and damp-and-strawberry scent of her hair as we nearly collide around a street corner.

She stopped then, so suddenly still I felt I was moving. What law of Newton was that? The first one? I gasped for air, and there was my heart. Splash-splash-splash-splash-splash-splash.

“What’s a labyrinth?” she asked.