#viragowords

[inkandpins]

Post office blues

Dear B,

I write to you, even though I no longer have you. In fact, I believe--

Everything I have ever written was for you. My childhood diary entries, terrible teenage lyrics, deepest secrets and happiest dreams-- were all directed at an imaginary audience, some cloak of a reader, fuzzy and indecipherable--

Until I knew you.

When I wrote about love without experiencing it first, I was writing about you. When I wrote about desire, about want-- I was wanting, willing you into existence. I hesitate to call you my muse because instead of reshaping my work, you changed me. Fingers dipped in wetness to soften my edges; I know— I look different now.

I cant--

Write without thinking about you. It is so hard to write about someone that is no longer yours because all of my wants are tied to you. If you tugged at the strings, I would come unraveling-- only to rest, bare, at your feet. When I delve back into moments and pull them apart--

String by string to bask in them, it hurts to rewrite them no longer as moments with my lover but with the man I once loved and who loved me. I refuse to unpack all of these memories. I wish to store them for rainy days--

Like the one time the field flooded and the crowds were rushing away with the water, pushing and pushing. And you grabbed my wet hand, kissed me, and laughingly dashed with your hair. When I tripped, you came down with me-- left hand looped around my waist in the grass as the rain pelted us and washed us clean. My eyes were squeezed shut as if underwater, but I could feel your soft gaze. And you held my face in the field, warm hands on pale, cold skin.

My favorite rainy day.

And when we finally ran for cover, you took off your shirt to shield me from the storm and I laughed-- soaked through, at the pointlessness of etiquette in a flash flood. 

And when the door closed, you took off my shirt to shield me from death by mid-semester pneumonia-- you peeled the translucent material clinging to my waist, warm hands on pale, cold skin.

and when my lips trembled you kissed them until everything was still.

I’m still here, unmoving, waiting--

wanting, willing you to call.

N.Y. S.Engine Coffee, 2020

[gloomwriter-blog]

The Man in My Head

I lift my eyebrows and the little man sitting across me mimicks my movement. He has scraggly hair and a gold tooth. My head tilts to the side and he follows my movement. I laugh quietly and his laughter drowns my quiet whimpers into silence. I cry. He slaps me on the face. My head whips to the side. He turns his back on me. I wish he would go away.

I stare across the room to the magnificent mirror adorning my wall. My pallor face stares back. There are dark circles under my lacklustre green eyes. The baggy clothes hanging on my scrawny frame give me the appearance of a scarecrow. I bite my tongue and look away.

I hear my mom call me for dinner. Her voice echoes in the silence of my mind as I make my way downstairs. Photographs of my brother and me adorn the edges of the staircase. I feel like a delicate passerby as I walk down the stairs. I can imagine the happy memories floating into each other. Isolating time. Creating a void through which no happiness can escape.

The void fills me up. It weaves patterns with the sounds of laughter. The patterns dance across my exterior. They breathe life into my brother. His voice carrying me across the world and to the past. It’s a beautiful escape. And one that gives me my brother back.

My mother’s reprimanding voice cracks through the void sharply. I enter the kitchen to see my parents staring at me reproachfully, sucking the happiness coating my crumbling body. I remember that my brother is an institute for attempting suicide. My shoulders hunch. My eyes droop. My face crumbles. I am disgusted at my fragility. I scream.

It escapes me in a hush of strong wind, the sound pumps me with strength and I pull the table cloth on which dinner is set. Chaos ensues. The spaghetti dish plunks to the floor and the glasses and plates and forks rattle against each other before flying and crashing against the wall. This jarring melody gives a voice to the cracking silence of my heart breaking. I think I’m still screaming. I want my parents to actually look at me. I am in pain. I want my parents to see that. I need them.

My parents look at me with anger and disgust. Its the way I look at myself in the mirror. I hope I’m wrong but I think that my parents hate me the way I hate myself.

I look out the window and I can imagine that little man with his scraggly hair and gold teeth staring at me angrily. He is too far away to slap me. He shakes his head at me. His frown deepens. Then a pause. His lips move. I feel devastated. My lips start moving of their own accord and painfully morph into a smile, the screams skidding against the walls of my mind fading into silence. I have lost.

My parents are still staring at me. My tantrum only lasted a few seconds. It felt like an eternity. They keep staring at me as if I’ve gone crazy. I allow myself to ebb into the emptiness of the silence surrounding us. My brother is gone. Everyone knows it is my fault. I stare out the window at the little man. My only companion is the man in my head. I feel a little better.

[renee-writer]

Unspoken Words

Continues Making a List.

She finds her husband in the family room later that day. He sits and watches the tree. The girls are both asleep. She is exhausted too. The pregnancy and the holidays taken a.lot out of her. She takes a seat beside him and rests her head on his shoulder.

They rest against each other, silently, for awhile. They have reached a stage of their marriage where they don't have to speak to hear each other.

"Here Sassanech, let me have your feet."

She happliy stretches out and gives them to him. She loves how he knows she needs her feet rubbed. He folds them between his strong hands and begins to firmly massage them. Her groans have him shifting uncomfortably.

"Tell me Claire. Is it the same carrying a boy?" He watches his son move under his wife's shirt as he works on her achy feet.

"In a lot of ways. But, he is more active then either of the girls were. He seems to be deeper somehow."

He laughs. "Aye Claire, tis' what all men want. To get deeper in."

She giggles with him. He places one hand over her womb. He smiles as his son raises up to greet him.

"How must that feel like?" He wonders and he rubs the part of his son that is touching.

"How to describe it to you? You know what it is like to have a fish on the line and it jerk?"

"Aye."

"At first that is how it feels deep inside me. But later, like now, it is stronger. Like it feels when you are deep inside me. That thrusting. Only more powerful."

Now he is groaning. They hadn't made love properly in weeks. The bairn and her tiredness will not allow it. She meets his eyes in perfect understanding. Again, there is no need for words. She is still exhausted but, a more primal, more powerful energy floats her body.

Without a word, they take each others hands and head to their bedroom.

[inkandpins]

ONE DAY

In the morning, before your eyes open, I peel the velvet skin from oranges and fill the room with the smell and sting of citrus. Your lips part, and you lick the juice from my fingers.

Pulled by the hand, I come tumbling back to bed. We are a chasm of wet earth and tangled tree limbs and I think of only two things: that I want to love you, that I want to feed you.

Before this, I was taught that to love is to starve, to leave nothing for ourselves, to cleave a floating rib from our bodies for claim, to extend a finger dipped in honey, and offer it up as  carnal sacrifice.

As a child, my mother divided a tangerine piece by piece by piece, a luxury in Indonesia, enough for each sibling and her parents, to savor the sweetness. I licked the final piece

off my mother’s fingers and cried about the resulting emptiness. Was I not filled with her love? I didn’t know she was hungry.

In the evening, I sit at the table, face lit by the pale glow of skies overcast, hands red and trembling from the cold. You laugh and say that I look like you, at the end of a long day. Your lips taste sour and sweet,

and I ask if you are hungry.

NY. 11.18

[renee-writer]

Making List

"And a play medical kit for Faith." Claire mumbles as she sits at her desk writing out a shopping list for Christmas. She shifts her body. 8 months pregnant with her and Jamie's third bairn, a much anticipated boy,; she finds sitting in one place troublesome. But, shopping without a list is unthinkable. Pregnancy brain makes making a list mandatory.

"A fire truck for Bree. A bouncy seat for little man." She smiles as she rests her hand on her protruding stomach. Little man was, as yet, unnamed. Jamie wants one thing. She another. The girls were easy. Faith Julia for her mum. Brianna Ellen for his da and mum. But the boy.. She sighs and stretches. She smiles as she writes what she is getting Jamie. He will be so surprised.

Jamie sits in their room doing the same. Three year old Bree sleeping beside him. He grins over at her. She is the spit of him. From her fiery red hair to her fiery temper. His little tomboy. He writes out bow and arrow by her name. A play on, of course. With a muted tip. Tis' just for practice. To get the feel of it. The aiming.

For his firstborn, her mum's mini-me, with her curly brown hair and her whisky eyes, he writes baby alive. Och, a doll that cries and must be feed and changed. Five year old Faith wants her own baby., like mum. He grins.

A son! Oh he adores his daughters. They are daddy's girls and the light of his life. But, a son. He recalls the day, four months ago, that they found out a boy was on the way. The relief they both felt. He was the last. Another daughter would have been welcomed. Truly. But..

For his son, he writes down a carriage. They have one but it was pink with flowers. No, we need a more masculine one. And, as soon as the weather breaks, he intends to introduce his son to Scotland, to the Highlands. Same as he had did his sisters.

And for his wife, his precious Sorcha, weel, her gift was going to be a complete surprise. He can't wait to see her face when she opens it.

[renee-writer]

Magical

Continues Snow Storm

After an hour of increasingly painful pains, there is no doubt. Little man is on the way. Ready or not.

"But you dinna understand! My wife is in labor. Aye I ken. But...no I get that. Of course not. Our third. Weel of course she does but.. Okay I will." He rings off with frustration.

"No....luck." She pants out as she breathes through the pain.

"Nae, they say they canna get an ambulance out this way. For true emergencies they are sending the helicoptor. But, birth is nae true emergency. That after two ye ken what to do. To call them back if it becomes an emergency."

"They are right." The vise has let her go and she can talk. "Birth isn't an emergency. We can do this."

"So ye say. Just direct me."

A few hours later.

"Come Sassanech, ye can do this." He holds her up as she walks between contractions. They are coming every three minutes. He has no idea how to check her stage of dilation but, ken's from her increasing pains that it won't be much longer.

"You want to try it!" She almost hisses at him as her body is caught, once again in the power of the contraction. "Oh holy hell." The wide eyed girls watch their mam. They have already been told to pay no attention to anything their mam says until their baby brother is born.

"I would if I could. Breath love. Come. Heee heee heee." She clings to his arms, presses her face against his chest , and does. Her lower body sways and Jamie makes a note to try to provide some counter pressure with the next contraction.

She gets on all fours with the next one, her instinct driving her to the floor. He lowers himself down beside her and presses firmly on her back as the pain shudders through her.

"Ahhh Jamie thank you." She groans out when the pain eases. "He is on my back."

"Will that make delivering him harder?" This is hard enough. To be the sole person responsible for seeing to her pain. No handy anesthesiologist down the hall. But to deliver his son.? He feels a wee faint at the thought.

"I will talk you through it. Oh Christ, here it comes again!" Less then 90 seconds! God help them both.

"Faith, go in me and mam's closet. There is a bag on the floor. It has EBS on the side. Go fetch it. Carefully." She runs off to do it. Bree sits at her mam's head giving her sips of water through a straw.

"Is that?" He has the dopler scope on her heaving stomach. They all four listen to the bird-like thump thump thump, of the baby's heart.

"It is. Sounds exactly right. Listen through the next pain. Listen for any dips or slowing." He does. There isn't any. Little man is ready for birth.

"I---have---to ---push!" She announces a half hour later.

"Should you?" But, she already is and he tucks to her bottom and looks. And sees the first glimpses of his son's hair. More is exposed as she pushes. "Good. Just like that Sassanech. I can see his head." He is awed, his fears forgotten as he watches his son's entrance into the world.

"When his head is fully out, take the nasal bulb and clean his nose and mouth out. Then...oh here we go again." She grunts and then is quiet. Putting all her energy into bringing her son into the world.

"And then take his head and turn his body. The shoulders and all should just slip out. Ohhhh!"

"Okay, his head is out. Don't push." He reaches for the nasal bulb and Faith is there handing it to him. She is a wonder. They both are. Bree is still by her mam's head. She is wiping her sweaty face with a damp rag. Jamie swiftly inserts the bulb into his son's open mouth and sucks. He clears it onto a clean rag and does the same with each nostril. "Clear. Push babe. Let's get him born." His hands are steady as he holds his fragile head. He turns him as his mam pushes. His wee body turns easily as first one shoulder then the other, slips out. The rest of his body quickly follows. He soon holds his son in his hands. He looks down at him shocked. His son returns the look.

"Do I turn him upside down and pat his bottom?' Jamie asks his wife as the baby continues to lay silently on his lap.

"Is he breathing?"

"Aye. But aren't they supposed to cry?"

"He is still getting oxygen from his umbilical cord. Let me see him?"

Jamie gingerly transfers his newborn to his mam. He stares up at her and his big sisters with the same silent intensity. They stare back, loath to break the holy silence. It is a magical moment. Claire runs her hand down his head, covered in chestnut curles down to his tiny toes. She traces the outline of his face and chest. His skin is still covered in the vernix of his first home and no one is in a hurry to bath it away. The cord still pulses providing the last oxygen he will get from her and no one is in a rush to sever it. There is something to be said for home births, Claire thinks as she maintains eye contact with her baby. His eyes are yet to be closed by the drops.

"What is his name mam?" Faith softly asks while stoking her new brothers hair.

"Jamie can we?"

"I saw what ye went through and tis only a week until Christmas. Aye."

"His name is Iosua Brian William Fraser."

"Iosua?" Bree questions.

"Tis the Gailec for Joshua. Joshua is Jesus' Hebrew name." Her da explains.

"Ohhh, I like it. Hi Iosua. I am your sister Bree."

"And I am Faith."

She delivers his placenta without incident. Jamie catches it in a basin. It is only then that Jamie ties Iosua cord and cuts it. And, only then he cries. They weigh and measure him. Jamie carefully records both as well as his time of birth, for his birth certificate. Claire brings him to her breast and nurses him. After a few hours of skin to skin contact, Jamie carefully baths him and puts his first nappie and gown on him. He cleans up his mam and the bed. All five Fraser's then settle in for a much needed rest.

[renee-writer]

Daydream

Continues Quick Movements

Claire watches her daughters.play with their cousins and can't help imagining, daydreaming of the day that Iosua will join them. She knows how fast they grow, these children of hers, of her and Jamie's. She can still feel a newborn Faith and Bree in her arms. Can still picture the first time Faith held Bree with a cry of 'my baby'! And now they are six and four and have a brand new brother.

She knows she needs to treasure, like Mary did that long ago first Christmas, this time with Iosua. That sbe will blink and he will be walking. Blink again and he will be out of nappies. Again and he will be in school. But, right now, he is a wonderful soft weight against her chest. Right now he still smells of the wonderful newborn scent. Right now, he is still her baby boy enjoying his first Christmas from the safety of her arms. Surrounded by his family.

[renee-writer]

Slippery

Continues Fresh Baked Cookies

"Be verra careful Sassanech. It is verra slippery out there." He holds on to her arm with the arm not supporting his son, snug and secure in his front carrier against his da's chest. The lasses wait behind them. Jamie will see each safely down their icy porch. They are heading out to deliver Christmas crisps and a carol or two to their neighbors.

"I want to sing," The First Noel." Faith declares as they walk carefully to the first house, Mrs. Crook's.

"Okay. Bree can pick the other song." Claire says.

"Jingle Bells." She promptly announces.

Mrs. Crook, a widow celebrating her first Christmas alone, is thrilled with the Fraser's gift of treats and song. As well as, her first glimpse of Iosua's even if it is only his wee forehead.

They get the same reaction from all their neighbors. Even with Jamie's tune deaf singing voice. The sweet soprano of the lasses as well as, Claire's alto overcome it.

"Do ye think Iosua will be able to sing mam? Or will he take after da?" Bree asks as they head home.

"Hey!" Jamie pretends offense.

"Ye ken ye canna sing da. But, ye tell the best stories." Faith offers.

"And give the best horse rides." Bree adds.

"And gave me the best children. And the making of them.." Claire trails off and meets her husband's eyes. It is suddenly warmer. But, they have a month before they can do a thing about it.