Please understand,
I am slow, these days;
once etherized & exteriorized
a hundred thousand ways.
You tell me, do what the doctor says.
But that’s a life I can’t imagine living.
Strangled tissue rarely dies a quiet, peaceful death; is it so wrong to let it lie? To consider it unwise to revive a thing that only played at being alive? The heart knits itself up a little wrong, puts stitches where they don’t belong. Dead tissue slapped with patches made of whatever collagen it can find, a chamber now resigned to its existence, propped up by a persistence that the body thinks is kind.
But never mind.
This is not the type of scab
you can peel
to reveal the hot red blood
moving underneath your skin.
Not the kind that you will feel
shrinking if you can invest in
the right expensive products.
It’s the type that makes a muscle hard,
until the whole damn organ’s scarred.
Until its work can’t be undone.
Until it’s a heart that can’t be won.
You could open my ribs again, relive the disappointment when the only thing you see is a slowly pumping heart that’s much too stiff to rush when your fingers brush my hand, please understand.
None of us were strangers to conflict. Working at a dry cleaner in a neighbourhood like this, you see some things. You meet humans at their lowest, desperate to steam their sins away.
I thought I knew all the ways one man could turn on another, but a grey peacoat with a mustard stain proved me wrong.
When I found that little beige card, I wasn’t surprised. Dissapointed, maybe. But not surprised. The way I see it, this was between Tony, his confessor, and the big man upstairs.
My uncle didn’t agree. His wife, my aunt, always arrived at 12:30 on the dot, bringing sandwiches and callused fingers that could sew a hem tighter and straighter than anyone else in this city.
By 12:30, my uncle had worked himself into a frenzy.
“Tell her what you found!” Sal shouted, barreling out from the back.
Maria raised her eyebrows, no stranger to Sal’s moods. She handed me my sandwich with an apologetic smile.
Catholic women think they can feel the guilt on their husband’s behalf and sneak him through the pearly gates.
“I told you!” I replied. “It’s none of our business!”
“None of our business? None of OUR business? We are at my business,” Sal said. “Discussing my business! Nothing has ever been more our business.”
“Darling, calm down,” Maria said. “Whatever it is, we’ll work it out.”
“We won’t work it out. Some things can’t be worked out!” Sal said.
“What do you want me to do, Zio?” I asked. “He’s a good customer.”
“He WAS a good customer,” Sal said.
“You want me to tell him not to come back?” I asked.
“I want you to tell him WHY he can’t come back. Twenty years, I’ve been fixing this man’s clothes without judgement. After his bachelor party, he brings me his leather pants covered in booze and piss, and I say nothing to no one. Three years later, he starts going on vacations and bringing back suits covered in…”
He paused to glance at his wife, who was still holding two sandwiches and an impatient expression.
“…well, there’s a lady present so I won’t be specific. The point is, I say nothing to no one. Then, the sequin dresses, that I know wouldn’t fit his wife, god bless her soul. I stay quiet as a mouse. And then the suit. The damned suit that I cut and stitched until he looked like one of those fairies up on a billboard in Time’s Square. The next day, he brings it back, the whole right side soaked in blood. I don’t tell a soul. But this. I’m finished with him. Finished!”
I needed to deescalate. Being familiar with conflict meant knowing when to let it run free and when to rein it in.
“Zio—“ I started, but he was not backing down.
“No! No! Some things are unforgivable.” Sal said. “You young people want to let everyone get away with everything, but this has consequences!”
“Sal, for the love of God, what are you talking about?” Maria asked, fed up and wanting to eat her sandwich.
“Show her!” Sal said, gesturing violently in my direction.
I sighed and reached into Tony’s peacoat pocket. Holding the little beige card between two fingers, I offered it to my aunt while Sal continued to fume.
Maria took it and flipped it over, reading, “Lee and Sons Tailors and Dry Cleaning.”
“Unforgivable!” Sal shouted. “Twenty years and he disrespects me like this? I know their prices aren’t better.”
“See, Zia,” I said, “what can we do? We’re going to ban him for going somewhere else?”
Maria crushed the card in her fist.
“We’re going to do more than ban him,” Maria said, “your uncle’s right. Some things really are unforgivable.”
The formal hoop always comforted me. I could drape my clothform over the plastic, keeping it far away from my body, separating my private self from my official role. The light, silky underlayer gave me comfort and space to think. I valued the awareness that no one was close to touching my physical body. For younger envoys, it could be hard to keep your cool in the feigned intimacy of a diplomatic greeting, as a bureaucrat’s fingers ran over your person, judging every thread.
This garment didn’t have too many threads to judge. Its embroidery was simple, but high quality— tight, precise stitches so rigidly geometric that one might mistake them for a machine creation, if one was unfamiliar with the strict nature of Mercurian production. The pattern, too, was a Mercurial. Thick, long lines zagged up bell sleeves, minimalist so they wouldn’t cover the fine Vicuna wool, which was softened by a process only possible in our enclave. It was almost always exported; our home was too hot and dry for anyone to wear it, but it was greatly valued abroad.
I always felt a thrill of pride when someone gasped as their fingertips touched my garments.
My skirts were layered expertly so I would have what was colloquially known as the “power swish”. A sharp turn would create a gust of air. It was elegant, and demanded attention.
And, finally, I put on my gloves. They cut off just under my cuticles. They were simpler — made of silk for a comparatively humbler introduction. They had no embroidery at all. They had nothing on the palms for a thumb to trace, no symbols meant to intimidate or calm. It was a blankness meant to demonstrare both strength and good will.
I checked myself once more, systematically. I felt my hair, the contours of my face, my neck and its warming jewelery. I ran my hands across my shoulders and down my arms, then pressed them against my chest.
Finally, I smoothed out my skirts, the hoop that held them remaining firm.
As would I.
He said, “You are the spring sky full of hope.” So I let the rainwater soak my hair, now he drinks as the birds and bees elope. (I think you’d drown to prove to him you care).
He said, “To me you are the summer shade.” So I blocked the sun ‘til I was burning, & when I fainted he was so betrayed. (Yet his touch will always leave you yearning.)
I stayed when he said, “If you’re gone I’m dead,” & gave him all the love that I could give, like the autumn wind, cooled his troubled head, (& cut your life in half so he could live).
He says, “There was a time when you were fun. Now you’re cold & harsh as the winter sun.”
(When he feeds on love he is never done.)
The particle board splinters.
My rough touch is too much
for what I can afford.
This thing is precious to me
in its necessity
&now its cracks
spread across my ribs;
(I plea with myself, it’s just a shelf, it’s just a shelf.)
parts without places scattered on the floor. someone else is crying inside my body. I live as the lost pegs under the dresser drawer, lying to my dust bunny confessor.
how much money can I waste on my mistakes?
(it’s just a shelf, it’s just a shelf, smother your heartaches)
I am not the sort of person that lasts— neither icon nor iconoclast. when I die I will be buried in my particle board coffin, missing at least one cam lock part (It’s just a shelf, it’s just a shelf,) Kitsch-filled heart, please entertain me while I fall apart, while my clumsy fingers snap off veins &my skin oil stains. I am not a teak & amber kid. (it’s just a shelf, it‘s just a shelf,) I won’t endure, I never did.
I can’t make this house a home— scratch the floors & dent the walls, plywood bent and warped in its storage bin. do I commit the sin of giving up (again) (it’s just a—) someone’s tears wet my face but I watch from the empty space between the floorboards so close to unseen & so unclean, let my loose screws fall, collapse it all.
Again, I have to tell myself— “It’s just a shelf, It’s just a shelf.”
Maybe you thought your cup was empty when the love came spilling out— your chapped lips pressed against the rim to wash away the taste of doubt
maybe you thought its contents toxic, a complex bacterial court— but from that stagnant cup you drank a thick, sweet summer port
I know how dear the taste would be from the cup that we now share. I know it when our fingers brush, when I smell your coconut-washed hair, when I hear your muted laughter & you catch me in a stare. Loneliness dulls the senses to hide from yearning’s phantom touch, and yet, sweetheart, your defenses can’t do much to stop the flood
You say you have a pigeon heart, that you’re scavenging romance, a feral thing, a pest at best, not worth a second glance. But darling, you’re a shining dove, in green and grey or white, a feathered sign sent from above, crowned in a holy light.
We can close our eyes against it but the light will still bleed through in pinks & reds and flush away the gloom inside of you.
Your palm provides the home
that my hand struggled to find,
your mouth provides the words
that scrub the worries from my mind—
to this deluge, I think, my darling,
we must now resign,
skin sticky with the wine we spilt,
tongue touching the divine,
our bodies not quite temples, no,
but I’ll make yours a shrine.
in our lazy whitsun worship you wonder what my cup might bring, & we wander endlessly around ponds flustered by the spring— the love that you & I could share would make the ground so lush & green, and if we use this love with care, not flood the streets while unaware, we could grow ourselves a garden unlike any one you’ve seen.
perhaps one day we’ll find that we have nothing left to drink & leave this cup, then empty, in an overflowing sink. But in this moment, darling, my heart’s a brand new waterfall, & I can’t contain it, dear. You head my earnest call, hold out the cup you thought long-dry & catch me when I fall.
It was a question of faith.
The wind’s heavy hands pushed Monica back and away from the edge. It stole the heat from her body, pushed her hair in front of her eyes, doing what it could to draw her away from the crumbling grey rock and onto the grass.
Few things in existence were deserving of faith. If your loyalty was rewarded, it was a matter of luck, not anything divine, not anything sacred or enduring. The circumstances were simply ones that did not warrant betrayal.
Below her, pine trees populated the hills and valleys, spiky green against the cold northern sky. The sun shone like a distant parent, yellow and bright but offering little warmth. These mountains never asked for trust. If anything, they discouraged it, each root and rock warning you of its danger.
The being they called the Softness wanted faith and it wanted worship, but those were things that Monica could not give. Would not give. Monica remained a dedicate to the alter of Lynn. Any other gods were simply ones that failed to save her.
It was confident that it could take things that Monica did not have. Monica wanted to rip it apart from the inside, but hope for success was not what drove her here.
“Don’t do it.”
Ronnie had the nerve to sound afraid, and Monica didn’t bother to look back.
This cliff, this wind, this sky— it was all Ronnie’s world. They all bent to her will, because Ronnie had sacrificed a piece of herself to the Softness.
Monica had done the same, but in this body, in this world, she could not hold the power from the plane of Light. She could trade slice after slice of her soul, and the magic would slip from her fingers, fading almost too quickly to use.
It was no surprise. Things pull away from Monica. They drift. They leave.
You need power to fight power, and Monica was weak. But when did the craving stop being utilitarian? When does it become addiction?
Was she here as a hail Mary— a final, desperate attempt at faith? Or was she here because this thing had consumed what she loved, and the only meaning that remained was for it to consume her too?
“Do you remember the first time we hiked here?” Monica mused. “Lynn had calves like steel and we were these weak little nerds trying to pretend we weren’t out of breath. She was like, we can stop. We can rest. Over and over, but we were stubborn bitches.”
“I had an asthma attack,” Ronnie said, now only a few feet back.
“And Lynn yelled at us for an hour for being idiots,” Monica said. “Told us we might as well be men.”
“She wouldn’t want this for you,” Ronnie said. “She would want you to keep fighting.”
“Don’t use a dead woman to add weight to your platitudes,” Monica replied. “I’m not Lynn, babe. I never was.”
The wind stole the moisture from her eyes. The chasm of grief inside of her only ever widened.
She stepped forward.
A hand circled her wrist.
Monica moved without thought, twisting, grabbing Ronnie’s elbow, and pinning her arm behind her back.
Monica’s vision shuttered, light then black then light then black—
Then something else. Something too fragmented to be called sight, too detailed for her brain to process.
“What did you do?” Ronnie asked, struggling against Monica’s inhumanely strengthened grip.
The world was shattering in front of her— nothing was whole. Every thing was atomized, divided, individual. It felt like thorns in her eyes.
“The Softness and I are playing chicken,” Monica said. “It gave me what I needed to do that.”
“You’re letting it control you,” Ronnie said.
“Nah. It’s a game, like we used to play back when we were pretty little straight girls,” Monica said. “Gay chicken, remember? My hand up your thigh, your mouth on my neck— who would freak out first? You were always the coward.”
“You can’t win,” Ronnie said.
“I could bring you with me,” Monica replied, her voice scratchier than she remembered. “Is that what you want?”
“I want you to stay. I want you to live.”
But Monica could smell the indecision inside of Ronnie— the resentment, the fear, the anger.
The fondness, too. The nostalgia. The longing. Each feeling its own shard, scraping against the others.
She pushed forward, Ronnie’s struggle barely registering as her body became forfeit to the being beyond.
One of Ronnie’s feet slipped off the edge, and she tried to scramble backwards, but Monica held her there, teetering over the forest.
With her lips brushing against Ronnie’s ear, she said, “I should, shouldn’t I? There’s enough of it inside of you that it could take us both.”
Tears ran down Ronnie’s face, and Monica could see every molecule of water, ever aspect of salt, like a window into an infinitely more minuscule reality.
“Best friends forever, right?” Monica said. “This would be forever. Or did you never really mean that?”
So much existed around her. The world had become a kaleidoscope inside a kaleidoscope, inside an kaleidoscope. But somehow, through all that, Monica couldn’t help but focus on Ronnie. On the thoughts skittering through her brain.
And there it was. For a moment… just a moment… Ronnie let herself imagine it: the two of them falling into oblivion, enveloped by pure power.
The thought was wrapped in relief.
Monica wasn’t one for faith, but had she mustered up even a seed of it, she would have found it again inside Ronnie’s mind. The enduring love that weaved her thoughts together was, for a moment… just a moment… the strongest, most complete phenomenon in existence.
“On the other hand, we’ve spent enough time fighting for attention, haven’t we?” Monica asked. “Maybe this time I’d like to be number one.”
“I need you,” Ronnie said. “I need you to stay.”
“There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?” Monica said.
“I’ve always needed you,” Ronnie said, voice faint. Her throat had begun to ever-so-slightly close. The asthma, once again.
“You didn’t. You don’t. This war was always yours to wage, baby. Anyway, it’s too late. I can’t turn back now. I’m too far gone.”
Is it faith, if you have no other choice? Is it faith, when you’re cornered and you give in and pray?
Or is it, at least, close enough?
Monica kissed Ronnie’s cheek, and swallowed the panic that rose inside of her.
Then she turned around and pushed Ronnie back to safety.
Monica the fracturing of reality climb up her arm. She smiled as the power seeped between her atoms. She looked at Ronnie and said, “I love you. As much as I ever loved her.”
Then she fell backwards, arms out, over the cliff.
Is it faith, to give in to the inevitable?
