Stay
He watched her finger the record player before slamming the door open. The music drifted into the bathroom, Simon and Garfunkel reflecting off the tiles like her thoughts reflected in the mirror. Pale tiles—cold tiles, he knew. Not that he could feel them, but the way her teeth clenched and her toes curled must have been from cold instead of grief. They’d never been close enough to grieve for each other.
He watched his wife, watched her with unseeing eyes, unseen. Taking in her details. Those details, the mismatched earrings, the twitching fingers, the watch needing new batteries. She stared at herself in the mirror, meeting her own eyes. Her eyes were dry, very dry, but she breathed in through her nose so abruptly that he reached out to her.
But he’d lost limbs just two days ago, and now he was only a memory in her eyes. He couldn’t reach out to comfort her—not even when he was alive. He watched her as he fingers stopped twitching, and instead curled into a pale fist. Goosebumps climbed up her bare arms. She wore nothing but a tank-top and sweatpants, and with a jerk he realized that those were his sweatpants. As if she knew what he was thinking, her fist suddenly grabbed onto said pants and tore. They flew off, and next came the tank-top. Tearing and tearing and tearing until she stood naked in the mirror, never breaking eye contact with herself, with him.
He’d seen her naked many times before, but never had he seen her so naked. The dry eyes were suddenly not so dry, and he saw his reflection in them. The face that was no longer his face, sunken in death, a frown on his face lower than any frown in life, his cheeks sagging, eyelids sleeping.
The tears fell, and he felt a tug yank him away from the mirror and mismatched earrings and Simon and Garfunkel, away from the cold tiles and broken watch and the goosebumps. He’d never been a good husband, and he’d often left her all alone, silent in a silent house.
But at that moment, when he had no choice but to leave, he found himself wanting to stay.
Moonshine
He looks like moonshine, sitting on the walkway, alone and silver. His hair braided, his beard rough and scratchy. The sight of his clothes smells from behind the car window, and I hear myself stare. He hasn’t looked up at me yet, but I feel like his eyes are on me. His eyes have already arrested me, pinning me down with the words on his cardboard sign. That is something that everyone should know: words have eyes. Words watch you and even after I’ve read them I can feel their gaze on me, weighing me down and judging me. Words have eyes. A staring contest. After all, words are strangers too, until you get to meet them.
Finally, he looks up from the cold concrete. His eyes are blue, a dark blue, the type of blue that seems indescribable because they look so deep. He scans the cars held hostage by the stoplight, and I am ashamed at how thankful I am for my tinted windows. I don’t know him, but I could have written those words on his cardboard sign myself.
“Please help me.”
I don’t know him. He looks at the cars with an exhausted expression, because he knows that the cars won’t give him help, they’ll give him exhaust too. He runs a hand through his silver, and for a brief moment I think that he knows that I’m looking, staring at him. But then the light turns green, and I find myself hoping that his future turns green too.
I think we meet eyes before I drive away.
I’m not sure though. It could’ve been the moonshine.
The mornings are hard
The mornings are hard, are they not?
Waking up I have to meet the day
Never does it greet me back, or so I thought
Until my alarm clock told me to go away
“Get more sleep!” it shouted, and I complied
I slept until dinner called from the table
But the food left me hungrier; so I sighed
And my thoughts flew up onto the gable
I asked them quite politely, with a please
Would you please return, good thoughts of mine
But they refused and made outlandish decrees
Such as “Wasteland!” and “O My Darling, Clementine!”
Eventually I wrestled them to the floor
Took a shower, brushed teeth, and I forgot
To reset my alarm clock once more
The mornings are hard, are they not?
The Shimmer
Faintly in the morning glimmer
Beside the foggy stream and lawn
I glanced up with a heavy yawn
Snatching the sight of a shimmer
At first I thought of this thing naught
It was the dew, which leaves yet shorn
In such a morn have often worn
It was but this, but naught, I thought
But the shimmer, it had not left
Trailing my gaze like a trained hound
To left my eyes, to left it bound
Like a good thief in search of theft
Only the faded grey lodestone
Then heralded the rising day
Another day of dark dismay
No lamp nor light; I was alone
So what could cause the shimmering?
Some theories dumb, I murmured soft
Like when my lover left, I murmured oft
With teardrops hot and glimmering
Dimmer than flashes from the stream
Yet brighter than my lover’s eyes
Rejecting eyes, a loch of lies
Reflecting in my every dream
Perhaps some ghost or specter’s curse
A vigil keeping in the dark
A flicker of a life, a spark
Afloat alone without a hearse
So many nights a vigil kept
With thoughts of my sweet lover fresh
I can’t forget the feel of flesh
Though I forget when last I slept
For how my lover haunts my sleep!
A sprinkling voice like summer rain
With lips that left each unseen stain
No tears can wash those stains so deep
As the small shimmer fast approached
I asked if it was forged by smiths
Who dwelled with dregs and with my fifths
In marshy nights so often broached
The only answer I received
Came from the shadows of the morn
In such a morn where silence born
Is but silence for the bereaved
Perhaps my lover came that dawn
The shimmer springing to and fro
Though what it was I shall ne’er know
For in a blink, the shimmer was gone