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amulMemory, like a gel-coated capsule. I swallow it down, and it sticks in my throat until some sweetness from life washes it down.
We are sitting in the car. I've just told her that I want out, that it is over. My mp3 player, set on random, begins to play Our Song. I squeeze tight the wheel (why was I always the one to drive?) and breathe the pain in deep. She twitches her hand to the console, her fingers moving no more than an inch in the outside field of my vision. I have stopped looking at her. In my head, this is the moment when I began to shut down every memory that contains any hint of what she looked like, who she is. I closed those doors and I locked them deep inside me as lyrics shifted and writhed and transformed into new, horrific meaning.
Her voice full of nerves, full of the tears she refuses to shed (or maybe she did shed them and I, unlooking, never saw), her voice full of hurt and betrayal and anger, she demands to know, "How can you listen to that? How can you want to listen to that right now?"
My eyes twitch briefly to the woman, the stranger sitting at my side. Already, I barely recognize her, have already begun to clamp down so hard on the thought of her that I can pretend erasure. I tell her simply, Because it hurts.
And there is a fairy-winged creature in a dark prison cell deep inside me that wants to rewrite that moment, wants to pretend I said something wise and loving and full of betrayal, venom, vengence, need, hope, desire, full of all the things that we stopped admitting to each other. That fairy tale creature reaches out of dark recesses in my heart and begs for some sustenance, begs me to pretend some painfully poignant words passed between us then.
But, as near as I can unlock the door to that moment in time, that is all I said. Because it hurts.
The broken-boned thing inside me insists otherwise. Insists that I thought then, as I had so many times in those last six months. If it hurts you so badly, why do you not stop it? Move on to the next track. Why must I change the track for you?
But I will not yield to that lying criminal, who has let so many vandals into my deepest self. I beat it down, and I repeat:
She asked, "How can you stand it?" and I told her, Because it hurts, and then all I remember is void and silence and emptiness.
But when I think of that void, that vast gulf which stood between us, there is song. There is Our Song, and it is still a capitalized thing inside me.
If I pour your cup, that is friendship.
If I add your milk, that is manners
And if I stop there, claiming ignorance of taste
Then that is tea
But if I measure the sugar
To satisfy your expectant tongue then that is love
But if I measure the sugar to satisfy your expectant tongue
Than that is love
Sitting untouched, and growing cold
Maybe she did shed them and I, unlooking, never saw.
We are sitting in the car. I've just told her that I want out, that it is over. My mp3 player, set on random, begins to play Our Song. I squeeze tight the wheel (why was I always the one to drive?) and breathe the pain in deep. She twitches her hand to the console, her fingers moving no more than an inch in the outside field of my vision. I have stopped looking at her. In my head, this is the moment when I began to shut down every memory that contains any hint of what she looked like, who she is. I closed those doors and I locked them deep inside me as lyrics shifted and writhed and transformed into new, horrific meaning.
Her voice full of nerves, full of the tears she refuses to shed (or maybe she did shed them and I, unlooking, never saw), her voice full of hurt and betrayal and anger, she demands to know, "How can you listen to that? How can you want to listen to that right now?"
My eyes twitch briefly to the woman, the stranger sitting at my side. Already, I barely recognize her, have already begun to clamp down so hard on the thought of her that I can pretend erasure. I tell her simply, Because it hurts.
And there is a fairy-winged creature in a dark prison cell deep inside me that wants to rewrite that moment, wants to pretend I said something wise and loving and full of betrayal, venom, vengence, need, hope, desire, full of all the things that we stopped admitting to each other. That fairy tale creature reaches out of dark recesses in my heart and begs for some sustenance, begs me to pretend some painfully poignant words passed between us then.
But, as near as I can unlock the door to that moment in time, that is all I said. Because it hurts.
The broken-boned thing inside me insists otherwise. Insists that I thought then, as I had so many times in those last six months. If it hurts you so badly, why do you not stop it? Move on to the next track. Why must I change the track for you?
But I will not yield to that lying criminal, who has let so many vandals into my deepest self. I beat it down, and I repeat:
She asked, "How can you stand it?" and I told her, Because it hurts, and then all I remember is void and silence and emptiness.
But when I think of that void, that vast gulf which stood between us, there is song. There is Our Song, and it is still a capitalized thing inside me.
If I pour your cup, that is friendship.
If I add your milk, that is manners
And if I stop there, claiming ignorance of taste
Then that is tea
But if I measure the sugar
To satisfy your expectant tongue then that is love
But if I measure the sugar to satisfy your expectant tongue
Than that is love
Sitting untouched, and growing cold
Maybe she did shed them and I, unlooking, never saw.
