The Bean

Sometimes the muse visits. Sometimes I wander.

[beanout-blog]

[beanout-blog]

Grief was that house we found near the river under the hills of my grandfather's childhood, the house he replicated from the wood of the birch tree seven months after my grandmother passed, 'Mine', he said, not letting us touch the doll-sized table laid out for two, near the fireplace lit with orange paper, unable to heat up the inside that he so wanted to keep his own. Four years later we went up the hills, waded in the river, found the house of my grandfather's childhood, dug the ground - sea glass, four letters, a moss-moist hair clip (a curl still clinging on), two baby photographs stapled to one - stepped over wildflowers that grew through the cracks in the floorboards, wounded our hearts every time we touched the human-sized chairs next to the cold hearth, 'Soak in the love,' my mother said - we sniffed every room, climbed the tallest birch, found their names etched on the trunk on our way down - 'Is this love?' we asked our mother. We watched her crumble before our eyes, her silence too creased for a yes or a no, the sky a gaping hole of loss the grief too heavy a veil for love.

[beanout-blog]

Tell me what it's like to not wake up underwater fighting the waves of nausea that ripple from the toes to the skull and pulls and pulls and keeps pulling you to the deep end - the reason why you gave up swimming lessons, not knowing it wouldn't give up on you. Tell me what it's like to not have bile rise in your throat in the middle of a perfectly bright day - thank god it's Friday! - as your friend tells a joke that sends everyone into splits and keeps you hanging, one foot in this world - half smile, a chuckle - the other, in the mind, that hasn't stopped churning thoughts since 2AM last night. Tell me what it's like to not pause smack dab in the middle of a kiss - not because you have butterflies but because you can only think of the ways in which this will end, a crack through your middle like the one on the glass vase you broke when you were six and tried to fix with dirty cello-tape. Tell me what it's like to have one good day, without this spin cycle of anxiety, going round and round like a newly manufactured washing machine, tearing at the thin fabric - too fragile to sustain the onslaught. Tell me of days that smell like fresh coffee beans and calm and cafune and sea salts and the colour teal - teal always makes me think of happy things, like my mother's laughter - gummy worms, fountain pens that don't work anymore but have piled up among old collectibles, his eyelashes, her bitten nails, hot chocolate, mountain air, petrichor. Tell me of days when the white noise cannot build a home in your head.

[beanout-blog]

Tell me what you like about the stars and I’ll pry open the galaxies

things I’ll probably never tell him / The Bean

[beanout-blog]

On your skin I will mark my territory

What's mine / The Bean

[beanout-blog]

I have been trying for a while to line the words in my mouth and tell you how the damp little room wasn't cold anymore that winter morning you walked in but how do you find the right words for someone who knocks you off your feet with just the way they laugh

Notes to you / Bidisha D.

[beanout-blog]

Things I won't talk to you about

[beanout-blog]

You love me. You love me. You love me.

Maybe if I say it enough, it’ll turn out to be true.

[beanout-blog]

Everyday

At the bus stop

while I waited for the B131 to take me to my friend’s baby shower this man next to me made sure his eyes never left my arms, my back, my legs the teenage boy cycling past decided to sing of wedding nights just as he inched closer the one sitting with the newspaper - his salt and pepper hair reminding me of my grandfather - knew how to strategically brush his hand against my body and disguise his intention this is how everyday is.

~ Bee / things you should get used to

(The metro. The station. The bus. The footpath. He walked too close. Stood too close. Was ambidextrous.)

[beanout-blog]

Days like this

On days like this I don’t care how bright it shines outside, how many people text me to ask how I’m doing, if the salary account is credited with enough to get me through the month, how the writing is flowing. On days like this I only want to crawl into the garden pit, smell the earth, be still, pretend to be dead, wonder who would miss me and who wouldn’t and how long it would take them all to not think of me one day and then not at all. On days like this the weatherman’s assurances don’t prepare me for what’s to come. I could drown or I could be buried depending on how my heart is heaving under this heavy loneliness, when you’re there and not there, and everything that seemed good once seems to be shriveling under an anxiety that lurks constantly telling you how you can’t be happy, how you were right about your fears, how he will leave like everyone else. On days like this the isolation beats loudest.

~ Bee

(It didn’t rain that night, but it rained later. He called several times. Later. The food was cold.)