Words & Feelings

Before the conversation.

“I’m going to tell you everything,” said she after taking a deep breath.

They were sitting on the couch in the living room. It was way too hot to go outside, though they had considered going for a walk like in the good old days. One window was open to let in the breeze, though the warm and heavy air of this Saturday afternoon invited itself in too.

She brought the bottle of cider to her face, feeling its cool against her skin. She stared out the window, at the branches of the trees, and further in the distance, at the blue sky, and the one or two clouds mysteriously hovering there. He waited quietly, patiently, aware that she needed a calm moment to gather her courage, her words, her thoughts. All was very peaceful for some brief minutes, as if everything that had to be told had in fact already been shared.

Eventually, she turned her gaze back on him. Looking into his eyes, she saw nothing but curiosity and kindness, and the dread she’d carried with her for days vanished. She smiled at him, for she was already grateful for the moment that was about to begin.

“I am going to tell you everything,” she repeated …

The ritual.

With a swift movement of the hand, she cut off the thread. There, it was done now, ready for its death. She looked down fondly on her craft as she held it between her hands. It was a thing, a love-heart shaped thing (at least, supposedly), filled with foam to give it volume. The shape wasn’t perfect and neither was the stitching. But it didn’t have to be.

She put the scissors back in their drawer and found a small kitchen knife. For now that she had finished her creation, it only made sense to butcher it. Unthinkingly, she took her heart-shaped thing and the knife out to the garden, and made a bed for the heart by arranging a few leaves together. The heart rested, seemingly comfortable, unaware of its impending doom, warmed by the sun, lulled by the chirping of birds.

Kneeling in front of the heart, she picked up the knife. Already she felt her throat tighten. She swallowed. Leaning forward ever so slightly, she poked the side of the heart with the tip of the knife, and sat waiting, as if expecting a reaction. When none occurred, she figured she’d have to poke the thing harder.

She swallowed again, trying to push the pain back down, and blinked several times to fight back the tears. She gave one last small, sad smile, and raised the knife above her head. Then, closing her eyes, she forced the knife down, as far down as it could go. When she opened her eyes again, a slit had appeared, and she could make out some of the whitish, cloudy foam.

“I’m so sorry”, she murmured.

She stared at the slit. Her first instinct was to run inside and grab some thread to fix it back together. To make the thing look like the supposedly perfect thing it had looked just a moment ago. To erase the mark of hurt; to erase the mark of the attempt at turning the thing into a complete nothing.

But there was no way she could escape this; it had to be done. And so, she stabbed the heart again. And just as the knife eased its way through the fabric and the foam, so did a memory suddenly hit her conscious mind. And just as the foam oozed out from the larger slit, visions of the past – the beautiful past – filled her up until they flooded her eyes in the form of tears.

She stabbed for all the had beens that she could remember. The laughter, the ecstasy, the excitement; the joyful, meaningful, unforgettable had beens, stabbed until they became joyless, meaningless and forgetabble.

“I am so sorry”, she weeped.

She continued to dig the knife into the heart until she could no longer remember a meaningful had been and her insides felt as twisted and as destroyed as the mess on the bed of leaves. Yet, she had only done half the work. She knew she had to kill every single thing she could, that even a tiny piece of unbroken heart had the potential to keep beating, the savage stubborn thing, and maybe even grow back to its original state. She couldn’t take that risk.

And so, taking a deep breath, she stuck the knife into the thing once more. This was for all the what ifs, all the would bes, the will bes, the maybes, the possibilities. She stabbed all the dreams she had ever dared to dream.

Eventually, the knife fell to the ground from a shaky hand, and the girl curled into a ball to stifle her wailing. The heart-shaped thing, still on its bed of leaves, had turned into little irregular ugly petals of fabric amid a puddle of foam. And she cried and cried, mourning the loss of all that had ever been, and grieving the loss of all that ever could be.

as it should be.

i remember telling myself to remember:
my bare skin against your bare skin;
my body, limp with relief;
the desire to go nowhere,
but to bathe in the present,
and sink blissfully into it.
i remember telling myself to remember,
for in this moment,
the world was exactly as it should be.

The old dog.

His insides rumbled. It sounded like metal kitchen pans and pots tumbling against one another. He got up, though it was night and the streets were empty, but he was hungry now, starving actually, and it was not the moonlight that would stop him. In truth, this battered old bony dog was always hungry, but always being very similar to never, he had forgotten just how hungry he was, until his insides rumbled so loud. So loud that his ears hurt – everything hurt – and he had no real choice but to walk on his battered old bony legs to find anything he could sink his teeth into.

So he walked, pretending to be led by the scent of a bone, somewhere out in the distance. He sniffed, though there was nothing to smell, save for the night rain on pavement. His nuzzle dived in rubbish tips, though they’d already been emptied. His grey hair was dull in the glow of the moon, but smoothed down by the rain. His insides rumbled again, an inward howl of pain. Can anyone hear me?, he wondered.

It then occurred to him that perhaps, he could use his imagination to satisfy his hunger. Perhaps he could think of the most filling, tasty, nutritious, delicious food on the planet, and think of himself being so full of this food that he would never again have to have his insides twist, clang and rumble. Perhaps he could make his way back to his corner, tucked away in the dark, alone, unloved, ugly, and fix his hunger by lying to himself.

Because that is what it would be, wouldn’t it? He would be feeding himself, but with lies. With illusions. And as soon as those illusions disappeared, what would he be left with? Nothing other than his insides still rumbling. No, that didn’t seem like a wise solution anymore.

Another growl. He bowed his head, his tail curved between his legs. He could give up. He could die. Just then, just there. No one would see, no one would ever have to know. After all, he was an old rag of a dog who had nothing going for it anymore. He could really just starve. He pictured himself, lying on his side on the pavement like a statue being caressed by the gentle stroke of the rain; his insides quiet; breathless, defenseless, but at peace.

But another rattle came from deep in his belly. He was too famished and empty to give up. His head shot up and he stood straighter and straighter on his legs, so straight and so full of this need to be filled that he really looked twice his usual size. He howled loudly, and it echoed around the lonely streets, the sound bouncing off the washed walls and the shut windows and the locked doors, and through the leaves and the grasses and the cracks. The sound went everywhere, and everywhere knew that the old dog was starving and that it was going to come out and get whatever it could.

He set off in a mad fury, his paws barely touching the ground. He ran, jumping over the puddles, wild and driven. He pushed his way where he’d never had the right to go; he forced the openings of the doors he had been locked out of; and in those places, he found the remnants of bones, some still fleshy, but tasty. Tasty enough to calm the interminable hunger that he lived with everyday. And all through the night he ran and jumped and bit into flesh and created wounds until morning came and the town was dirty because of all the crumbs he’d left behind.

And he knew what would be coming next. That the people he’d hurt and stolen from would regard him with fury just as intense as the fury that had driven him to hurt and steal. They’d come and find him and turn him even more into a battered old dog whose hair only is dull even in the moonlight. So as the town was waking up, he made his way back, back to his dark little corner, and he dug his hole a little deeper, so that he could hide a little further.