i have seen the edge. walked right up to it, lookedover. i have looked into the abyss and it welcomed me. its maw is deep and wide and it welcomed me. come, it said. step over the edge. or don’t but i am here for you when no one else is. i will wait for you. I know you will be back.
teeth bright and sharp white and cold. keep hold of what’s good. that’s all there is to save me that’s all there is flashes of all the good things
grasping at anything to pull me back from this edge. grasping at them smashing them into my brain shoving out this other look away. look away.
I miss you. I’m trying so hard to not miss you and I know that isn’t the point I am trying so hard to be independent and stand alone on my own two feet even though it is clear that I cannot
when it seems that I have finally gotten my footing underneath after that terrible summer i have gained my balance and then I meet you. you who sweeps me off my feet and takes my breath away in one fell swoop.
I know that you are coming back I know that I have nothing to fear and yet all I have is fear.
I take smiling pictures of myself to prove that I am happy, prove to whom, prove to myself? but the smiles don’t come easy. crooked smiles, nonetheless.
I think about what you might be doing while I am sitting here and I know that doesn’t serve any good purpose but I do it anyway.
I watch the waning moon rise higher in the frigid sky, fingers turning white with cold. clouds moving with the slow scud of a Star Wars sequence, branches in front of my windshield frantic and terse.
It is finally too cold to sit out here any longer but I am not yet finished. I do not feel anywhere near able to sleep. I am missing all of the missing tonight. All of the missing who mean anything. Even the ones I don’t want to miss. The ones I would rather the missing be inequal. I wish they would hurt like I hurt. I wish I knew they did. That isn’t very gracious. I don’t feel very gracious.
a photo of me with my unwashed, tearstained face, in front of a wall with a laser-cut rising sun sculpture, a photo of me as “Rosie (the Riveter) Revisited” by my husband in 2002, and an exhortation to “cheer up honey pie” . there is no filter on this photo.
I am driving and I am listening to the President and I am crying I am crying and I am crying and I am crying and they are huge ugly tears “A dose of hope”, he says and the tears flood down my face “a dose of hope” he says
Hope is something that I never ever had. It was never even on the list of things to look for. Hope was for the foolish and the losers and the suckers. the idea of hope was as painful as the reality of unrequited love, a crush that goes nowhere, being ghosted by someone you really, really thought you liked. Hope was not for me, not ever.
but maybe, maybe now it is. maybe I can have some for myself, just a little. I’m not asking for much. Just a little.
Hope. The taste of it, the texture. rolls around in my mouth, between my fingers. hope.
I draw my hand back, my heart back sharply from the edge of this hope too sharp, this edge, too unknown.
My chest tightens, my jaws clench, my fingernails dig into my palms. breath shallows, and hitches as my eyes darken, kohl smudging my cheeks.
“Guess what!” the President says, excitement clear and bright through the speakers “We landed a rover on Mars!”
You say I never write about you. It’s true. well Not exactly true. You are in everything I write. You are part of how I am able to be still here So yes I have written about you.
But tonight it is in a conversation with another lover that I think of you that I am reminded of you.
I am saying that you are French and you wear scent and I don’t think that the French are allowed to not wear scent and this makes me giggle. And that what you wear is perfect for you and not too much and just enough. Just like you are not too much and just enough. I say that you are polished, and smooth, and slick, and you wear cufflinks (you wear cufflinks that I made for you) and you always look perfect and that I love when I cause you to not look perfect. That it makes me happy. I know how happy it makes you to have me undo you.
I smile for the smile in my voice and my lover can hear that smile and he knows that smile. He has heard that smile. He has made me make that smile.
You have allowed me to be open about who I am what I want how I know my worth. Your vulnerability with me has allowed me to feel safe, and worthy, and brave. You have trusted me, and gained my trust. I can depend on the memory of you. I have learned the importance of being wanted instead of needed.
Desired. Ached for, pined for. Lusted after and well missed. Treasured. Cherished.
Adored.
“I just want to say I love you And make sure you feel it every day ‘Cause if today had been my last chance It’s just something I wanted to say”
The Salty Widow 