A coffee cup on a kitchen counter makes quite a different melody when no quiet breathing from behind some wall works to fill the space between the snapping of my lighter and the static from the radio. Where do I set my plate when your elbows aren’t spread like wings so rude across the breakfast table? The last thing I remember, when your voice was still fresh in my head, I was cross-legged on a snow pile in a mall parking lot; pay no mind to the crazy woman with her head between her knees, melting the ice with her eyes. No one looked at me. I knew even though I never looked back.
Somehow I was back in our home – my home now – feet curled to one side like I should have been reading the latest romance novel with a cup of earl grey in one hand. Instead I curled fingers around a paisley printed box of tissues while distant family cooked dinner in our kitchen, not knowing where we kept the silverware. They roamed like tourists. When someone handed me a plate I abandoned my fork and wrote your name in strands of spaghetti.
“Eat,” a voice said. An uncle? A cousin, maybe. My chin rarely stopped kissing my chest. I moved in increments of someone twice my age and continued to trace your name in entrees and desserts. Eventually everyone held their plates above bent arms, an ethereal beauty about the living room in splashes of marinara red and apple pie tan calling for me to forge your signature. A hand on my shoulder begged get some rest but my artist’s mind was twisting through a snow storm.
Like a cinematic fast-forward I am having lunch years later but it was yesterday you died, and quietly I am ordering another glass of red, shaking your face from my fingertips.
I can feel the saddness…beautifully crafted.
This is saddening, but purely awesome at the same time. So well written.
Thank you 🙂
So very achingly real.
Thank you, Colleen. So happy my words came to life for you.
You need to write a book, Nicole.
Ah twindaddy, thank you 🙂 I’ve had something I’ve been working on for a ridiculously long time, but my confidence of what I’m writing has been dwindling….I have to really focus and try to finish it, I’m half way there!
FINISH IT! (in my best Mortal Kombat voice)
HAHAHA man I miss MK. Yes I must!!!
If we get to vote, then I’m with Twindaddy. I’d buy it 🙂
Yay!
Very beautiful Nicole. I love the elegance intertwined with sadness.
Incredibly beautiful. I wanna read it over and over again. Like someone said: elegance intertwined with sadness. Breathtaking!
Thank you so much, Lili ❤
This passage absolutely made me ache. You are so talented. How you masterfully (and efficiently) craft a complete feeling, scene and a sense that the reader is dropped right into the spot of the narrarator/writer/protagonist is crazy good! I’m way behind on my reading…gonna hang out in your space for a bit if you don’t mind 🙂
I don’t mind one bit! And thank you 🙂