The Drowning Shell

Photo by Dan Garver

Tomorrow is a brand new day he said and he called her deary.

She closed her eyes and then realized she was still alive. Despite all the pain she had endured all of her life. The pain had not killed her even if sometimes it had felt like it would. She liked the house with all its lights out and the quietness of all the noises in a comfortable distance. Somewhere, she was sure, people were talking animatedly. Lights on, loud voices, music in the background. Music, the greatest viable way to redeem the soul. Joy, she thought. To spare the body from its maladies. It’s music. Music and the art of being fictitious with stories everyone knows. With stories everyone live, experiment, forget. Loves that people leave behind. 

I sip from a hot cup of tea. The rain has stopped. My dad can’t speak anymore. He lost weight. 

We don’t talk. Somehow, I am managing to encapsulate myself inside of a life that is deserted. But it’s not even me. It must be that it’s written by the stars. I am drawing half-hearted dreams with oil pastel crayons and chalk in pieces of paper that I want to hang in the living room. A colored puzzle that hangs from a wall. There's no better way to mend a broken heart.

My soul is mute, but it’s colorful. It’s also blue and multicolored. The rain stopped and amidst all the chaos, you wrote that you love me. I hesitate. Should I respond? If so, would I do it just out of vanity? 

I have cried last night and today. It is the absence of you and our dreams. It’s the questions I have. I want to touch your tears. The desert that you are. Half a heart aching and looking for.

I love you – always have. I always will.

The rain stopped. And yet I still see water coming down.

I sip from a cup of tea, deluding myself. Trying to conform to what was normal before you. But there was no really a time before you. I have always waited for you. I have always communicated with you. You. I cheated. I sought for your love in the arms of other men. I cheated on them.

Roses in the desert. I am fighting my own heart. Deceiving my head. Trying to keep things straight the best I can. And yet. The rain has stopped and the shell that carries all the love you can possibly find in the world, is drowning. It is drowning in its own home: the ocean.