“Sometimes I sit on the lounge and turn the TV off, let the silence fill my ears. He’s gone. He will always be gone. The screen feels like a black hole, one I can never see the center of, sucking me in – until I am nothing too.”
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I won’t say goodbye.

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I am seated at your kitchen bench, my legs slightly folded under themselves to balance the arches of my feet on the stool beneath me. My elbows take the weight of my head cradled in my hands as I watch you put a kettle over one of the hot plates on your cooktop. 

Your movements are always so fluid and graceful, sometimes it takes all I have just to stop watching you quietly going about your day. Sometimes it takes all I have just to stop watching you. 

——

We lay side by side on a king sized bed – it feels too big, like I’m losing you to blankets and sheets. Your head comes up from the pillow to look at me and smile. Your eyes are diamonds. 

“I’m proud of you, bird.” My hand searches across mountains and oceans just to rest next to yours. “I’m proud to know you.” 

Your pinky hooks around mine and you squeeze. We each take a deep breaths, let them stretch our insides then send them on their way.

I shift to lay on my side, looking for you between pillows; pressing a corner of one down I find you staring up at the ceiling. You glance at me briefly from the corner of your eyes, and I watch your mouth slowly pull up at each side. Making you smile will always be my most favourite accomplishment. 

——

We are cradling warm cups of hot chocolate, huddled together near the fire whilst we roast our toes. We share a grin over the tops of our mugs and it turns in to a little laugh. I always picture us laughing, just enough for our teeth to peak out from behind our lips – just enough to fill us with the warmth that comes from knowing you’re a perfect fit for someone else. 

One of your strays rubs up against me; the vibration from its purr rattling my bones, lulling me in to that comfortable soap suds feeling. Intricate, soft, blues guitar solos float across the room settling on us like a blanket. I always thought it was funny how good music makes you feel like you’re drunk – giddy, bursting with love, buzzing and warm all over. Maybe it’s just this minute – frozen in thought slowly leaking in to memory.

——

Maybe, if we can’t be together in real life, we can live here.

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I am a man made up of mistakes. They follow me around, circle me as I lay sleeping. Settle upon me, choking me until I wake suffocating from the sheer weight of them – clawing at my throat in the darkness.

The day mumbles past me like a homeless man in the subway, and I walk on; I am a man made up of mistakes, and I do not owe the world my penance. 

She answers just as I raise my fist to knock, falling back a little in surprise. Her face says “Not today.” but I already have my hands cupped around her jaw and my lips pressed to hers. She fills in a few hours before I am back out on the street, flicking my collar up to my ears pretending I can hide from the bite of winter.

I am a man made up of mistakes. I can not know anything now that I didn’t know before, there is no room for growth amongst the cigarette smoke and burning effigies inside my chest. 

They say insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different outcome. So what is sanity? Doing different things and expecting different outcomes every time? Because I am always left with the same ending – the self loathing that is as comfortable as it is numbing.

I am a man made up of mistakes. I am so lonely.

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The mattress shifts under the weight of him as he sits next to me. I am half dressed, waiting until i’ve finished my make up to put on my shirt.

He lays a hand on my knee. I turn to look at him.

He doesn’t tell me we’re going to be late, he doesn’t tell me that I always make us late – he just raises his hand from my knee to rest against my cheek and moves in to place a kiss on my temple.

I let my eyes close and clench my fingers to my palms. When both reopen he is gone and I am alone again.

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I study my wrinkled hands, closing them in to fists and releasing them again; trying to remember every place they’d been. Manipulating pencils, climbing trees, punching numbers, devouring wrapping paper, curled around drum sticks, hiding under girls’ skirts, pummelling mens’ cheekbones, holding new born children, messing up hair, tracing the the keys of a keyboard. 

“Dad?” 

Junie enters the hospital room holding a bunch of fresh wild flowers, “Mom wanted me to bring you these.” 

I gather my strength and push my palms in to the mattress, bringing myself up to a sitting position, groaning without meaning to – like all older people do. She rushes to my side, grabbing an elbow, “Dad, you have to take it slow,” She pats my pillow a few times and lowers me back against it, “You’re not 21 any more.” 

21. When I had it all figured out. I grunt in reply and take a few short breaths in, trying to calm my hammering heart. There were days I could run 10 miles, now I’m lucky to be able to make it to the toilet and back without needing a rest. 

“Are your brothers coming by?” I take a sip of the water she offers me, the straw gets stuck on my lip as she pulls the glass away and a few drops fall on the grey hairs scattered across my chest. 

She turns to open the curtains and I squint in the sunlight, “Shep’s in Houston, but Abe might come by later.” 

My breath hitches a few times, like it’s tripping up a ladder and Junie shoots me a worried look, “Do you need your oxygen?”

I shake my head and cough a few times, waving her away when she brings the face mask towards me, “I’m fine, I’m fine.” 

There’s a knock at the door and it opens it few inches, Junie looks up and I can tell it’s no one she knows, “Sorry, I… I was looking for Zac.” 

I can’t think of any one whom I would know that my children wouldn’t, so I close my eyes and feign sleep in presumption that it’s a nurse come to poke me with useless needles.

Junie goes to the door and slips through it quietly, bringing it shut slightly behind her. “He’s sleeping right now, can I help you?”

“I was hoping to speak to him, it’s ok, I’ll come back another time.” The voice sounds like an old record, scratchy and worn – but playing a tune you’d know any where. 

“Does he know you?”

My chest feels as if a car is parked on it and I struggle to speak, “Junia,” It doesn’t carry far enough and I listen to the other woman back peddle and eventually leave. 

I am clutching fistfuls of sheets when she reenters, “Dad?”

“Who was that?” My throat is filled with gravel. 

“Probably just another stalker.” She tries to lighten the mood, but my heart is burning a hole through my ribs and I can’t manage to find anything light about the situation.

“No, Junie, who was that?” My eyes search hers, she looks confused.

“An old lady, around your age I suppose… Why? Have you been hiding a mistress from Mom all these years?” She smiles and rubs the back of my hand careful not to knock my IV. Her fingertips feel like silk as they travel over the bones straining against my leathery skin; she is an automatic comfort and I feel my insides start to settle. 

I think about when I could fit her in the crook of my elbow. How perfect she was, and how I never longed for any thing more. Time had such a way of equalising the world; whether you were always thinking about it or too busy to care – it passed for every one just the same.

“Hey,” I grab her hand in mine, “You’re not going to sell off all my collectables when I die are you?”

She lets a laugh escape and if I could watch her do that for an eternity I would. “Dad, what the hell?”

“Because I’m counting on you. Those boys, they don’t care – but I know you do. You’ll keep them for me, won’t you?” I squeeze her fingers and she squeezes mine back. She blinks slowly at me, the way her mother does, and nods. “Ok, sure.”

“You’re a good sport Junie.” My eyelids start to feel heavy and my head rolls to the side a little, I take a deep breath in as I prepare to slip from consciousness for a while. 

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“What’re you reading?” She stands in the doorway, picking at the chipped paint, missing the closeness of him from 5 feet away. 

He folds the corner of a page and closes the book, resting it on his chest as he looks up at her from her spare bed. “I found it on your shelf, actually, something about zombies and the apocalypse, riveting stuff.” He shoots her a grin.

She notices he’s unpacked his things; his shoes are lying neatly by the door and it makes her heart tighten. He follows her gaze and sits up straight, “I’m keeping my room clean, I promise.”

Her breath catches on ‘my room’ and she lets a small hopeless smile spread across her lips, any other day she would have jokingly pretended to take note of all the messes he’s made and advised him he’s lost his bond, but today she can only look longingly at those damn shoes, all lined up in a row, toes to the skirting board.

“You ok?” She shakes herself out of it and looks to him. He smiles, that big dorky grin, and it is as warm as sunshine. 

“Yeah,” She clears her throat, “Just bored.”

Just wondering when you’ll be leaving again.

“Oh. Well that’s an easy fix. Come sit by me, quick,” He pats the mattress next to him, “I have a story to tell you.”

“A story?” She takes a seat and looks at him from the corner of her eye, a little confused.

“Yeah, it’s about zombies and some sort of apocalypse.”

She laughs out loud, music to his ears, and nudges his shoulder with hers, “Shut up.”

She lays back on the bed, “Tell me a different story, one with a happy ever after.”

“Aren’t you tired of those?” He turns around on the bed to face her, looking down at her hair sprawled out behind her head like Medusa.

She shakes her head, her bottom lip pulling up in the middle. 

She lets a deep breath out and closes her eyes, “Tell me about a boy that falls in love with me.”

He lays back long ways on the bed, head against his pillow, and pulls her legs up and over his. “Well, he’s handsome for a start,” He is grinning again, thinking of himself. 

“Mmm, I like handsome. Rugged, even.” He steals a glance at her, wondering if she’s serious. 

“He’s strong, and courageous, and a gentleman.” He watches her chest rise and fall, her eyelids flutter just a little. 

“He likes the way your hair smells, which, you know, if you ask me, is worth a lot of brownie points.” She shakes her head and gives a small annoyed sigh.

“He cooks you breakfast, and the eggs are always perfectly poached,” He closes his own eyes, “You go for walks together, and you don’t always have to hold each other’s hand, but he presses his palm to your hip sometimes just to let you know he’s there.” 

“He-” 

“Sam.” Her head is turned to the side, sea-washed eyes looking at him, filled to the brim with helplessness. 

“Yeah?” He can feel his blood start to pump faster, the heat rising to his cheeks.

She slides on to her side to curl up a little closer to him so their shoulders are touching, her legs still draped across his knees. 

“Nothing.” It is barely audible, yet packs enough punch to deflate his swollen heart. 

He moves over and touches his chin to her temple, letting all the longing escape through his eyes as they stare up at the ceiling.

She threads her fingers through his and his eyes close again, tight this time, willing her to see him when she imagines her Prince Charming.

But he can feel it in the pulse echoing underneath her skin – it will always be the other boy; who, despite what she thinks, can always stay – but chooses not to. 

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and the salt in my wounds isn’t burning anymore than it used to

it’s not that i don’t feel the pain, it’s just i’m not afraid of hurting anymore.

She clipped the dressing with some scissors and anchored it against his wrist with a bandage clip.

“This one will take a few days to heal.” At times she wasn’t sure if she was telling him the truth, or if it was her subconscious trying to keep him around just a little longer.

He wrapped his hand over it to make sure it was secure and grinned at her, “Harry Potter Movie Marathon?”

She rolled her eyes, pouring more antiseptic solution on to a cotton pad and getting to work on the cuts across his forearm. “Don’t worry about them, they’re only small, they’ll heal on their own.”

“Every wound’s important, small cuts get infected just as easy as big cuts,” She murmured, concentrating on wiping the small pieces of gravel from his scratches.

The door bell rang and she looked up, “Here, just keep wiping those,” She handed him the cotton pad and climbed up from her knees using the lounge as leverage.

Sam leaned back on the couch to take a peek down the hallway at the front door – there stood a young guy in jeans and a leather jacket holding flowers in his left hand; Sam turned away when a glint of sunlight hit the wedding ring on his finger and reminded him he was being openly intrusive.

Returning to wiping his wounds, he pretended he’d been doing so all along when she walked back in to the room. “Any one important?” He feigned nonchalance.

She leaned over him, checking for more scrapes, finding too many old bruises still healing, “An old friend.” He flinched when her fingertips grazed an open cut, but felt his shoulders drop in complete surrender when he realised he was able to study her features in detail.

“An old boyfriend?” He raised an eyebrow, trying to gauge her reaction.

She sighed, “Kind of.” Pushing his hair back from his forehead she hung it behind his ear. She was so close all he could smell was her – vanilla and cinnamon sugar.

“He’s married…” It came out and fell in the space between a statement and a question, where there is an infinite gap separating what’s wrong and right.

She finished dressing the lesion and stood, looking down at him slightly defeated, “Maybe I’m just a sucker for boys that never stay.”

Sam placed his palms over his knees and with a slight rock forward for momentum managed to propel himself upright; she stifled a small breath in as he towered over her, “I’m not a boy.”

Their eyes held for a moment before she moved aside and began to clean up and pack away the First Aid kit, she was placing the gauze in to a snap lock bag when she mumbled, “Boys who think they aren’t, still are.”

I’ve imagined myself with a child recently. The moments come about like memories, at insignificant times – they come when I am brushing my teeth, when I am in the middle of reading a sentence, when I am waiting for the coffee to brew. 

The first was when I imagined having a small boy calling me his mother. It was in his eyes, the way he seemed to just know me. I saw his chubby little arms, the crook of each elbow. I had lifted him on to my hip, his head had fallen against my collar bone.

The second was a daughter. Around 5, maybe older. She was sitting on the counter top in my bathroom, she was wearing no shoes – I had noticed because she was throwing her legs about. I was leaned over the sink, my face inches from the mirror applying mascara. She watched like it was magic. 

The third was the same daughter, 5 years on. I was standing in the doorway to her room. Just looking. Just trying to trace back how I got here. I had aged a decade and yet never moved. I stood for hours at that door, letting it sink in; I am her mother. 

At times I feel as if these imaginary children are waiting for me some where. Asking me to come to them. Promising me lifetimes. I catch myself in those moments, suspended in time, before my heart gives one painful throb and the world floods back in; everything is as it was. And I remember that these children deserve better than me. 

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