Some are buying diamond rings and
I'm buying avocados
And swimming in my clothes and lifting a knife as heavy as rock or weighty as memories that never leave as much.
They keep reminding me this is how they are. They don't know any other way to be. When I talk they're always listening. When I get dressed they're always watching.
When I dance they know the precise length of my legs. They stayed the whole time I was holding on. Till they moved me here on this mountain. Till I spit them in dirt and gravel, in the city at the bar while waiting for my drinks.
And I think of the roses in the vase and someone's favourite songs. The voices at my back tell me to move on already. It's funny they're not trying to be.
My Aunt found the love of her life in her late 50s. Her children dreaded it. None of them would even ask if she's happy. They know and God knows how long she's been hugging herself alone. She tells her dead husband, as she puts the weeds out his grave and lights a candle to settle their battle, about the man who toiled her soil in the garden while she puts on the jukebox.
The man knows what she thought about seven or eight years ago. He brings their tea to the porch to watch the sunset in their favourite chairs.
These are the moments when nothing could be heard but the rustling of the trees and the concert of birds. They'd dance as the clock chimes and her smile is as bright as the yellow chintz at their window. It took a lot for the dead man to say he is happy for her.
And here I am ashamed of how I've given up on love.
I was there hoping for too much and what in the hell did it give me?
Maybe it gave me a little to live through and even that's almost gone past the window now.
I'm a tight-wound. That's all I have written down as I thought of a battle plan. And here is the whole rich canvas of a sad song, my fingers trying to pick out which of these remaining things I could allow to die beautifully. God what a cliche.
My mother knows I'm trying to get away from the old damage, but I could never do that. I can't seem to see what's right under my nose.
Love — I've been questioning that again as I dried my last plate with a dish towel and stacked it to the dish rack.
It had been two months but it feels nearly a year since I had seen my aunt piling her dishes neatly in the sink. I asked her about love and she smiled and said, "Like a meringue. Let it melt in your mouth."