crashing couches. burning bridges.

you say that this time you don't want to (go). but my heart is telling me that you'll disintegrate if you don't (go). and something else is telling me that you survive on those couches (los angeles, new york) and you thrive on those chances (wandering, returning). but this time this could be different. your reel is spinning, couch to couch and i watch it play out and it watch you buy your tickets and i watch your head shake no you don't want to (go). but you do because i can only give you half of that and i must give you more than a couch. and your thoughts led you into a cage, but it could have been a den (trapped or hibernating?). when you pack you pack your flask and lighter. and i'll sob because i'm no longer a fighter (for your lungs and liver). though i was, i retreated because you felt that sword along your back and those needles in your ears and it made you heavy. like this bridge we built so that we could (go). anywhere. but i came here and you came along and that cold made you less strong. bridges of love letters. came down word by word and you've got that lighter just in case and that flask just in case it goes the other way and you watched me let it all (go). and you let it all (go). where you're understood and warm.

faith

once in a while the quiet comes in like a grandmother. soft and wise. what is that feeling of solitude? exactly? nearly a happiness. something more profound. something reminiscent of a steepled country church. where silence meets something like a prayer, but it's the smell of the wooden floors and the musty bible pages that evoke those tears not the stories inside. remember though, it's just like that dusty church. but where that quiet nestles in is somewhere else. across different days, during the same times of the seasons. tucked into a cup of coffee or inside an undulating candle flame. above the twinkling skyline. riding salty waves somewhere i've never been. but i know it. and just in that last breath, the quiet slips away again. hunched and fragile and tired. what's left? nearly a loneliness. someplace i vowed i'd never be found. and the things that race inside that space where that quiet was so briefly tucked away; they are deafening. but in that expanse of noise is hint of what who i knew i was and who i might become. and it could only be heard in comparison to that elderly quietness. in that gap i can hear everything and nothing together, and i believe in it. and i believe that i can exist in that harmony of noise and calm. and maybe i won't be there alone. call it naivety. i call it beauty. what is faith?

home. work.

the hissing and spitting radiators remind me that i won't be sleeping much tonight. the sounds of unsettling heat are just that and there's just a little snow left on the sidewalks outside. tonight some are not hissing and spitting. the cats, anyway. they are curled up inside their own rattling radiators because they are settled. they aren't settling. just settled. and i'm breathing out of my mouth to try to do the same sort of settling. i've put my books down for a while. i've been in them so much i feel like i must smell like a library by now. but they are such good company that i hesitate setting them aside before i take a hot and spitting shower. in the shower i wonder if i could ever really be loved. i decide that maybe if i could breathe more easily i could be. i don't want to eat dinner because i feel fat after seeing myself in the shower and i'm still not sure if i'm lovable. some could. the cats, anyway. they remind me by playing with the curls in my hair. cozying up to me to get their dinner, assuredly. i feel alright about it though because it's not that i mind being manipulated in return for some affection. which i need more than dinner at any given time. don't worry- i'm not starving. just hungry. so i put the huge stack of books into my small lap and swim back into the pages of ancient wisdom hoping for that kind of simplicity. the kind of simplicity that hugs you before you fall asleep and whispers secrets into your ear that mean more than love, commitment, sex, or freedom. Secrets of decocting teas and breathing. that's all i have to do. it's time for bed and the radiators are finally quiet.

wishes (and other selfish, senseless things)

i wish that you weren't reading this. it's going to be bloody and sappy (and other disgusting, sticky things). but i know that you (and other things) are going to read it and obviously at least one of my fingers doesn't care.

i wish that i was that little bitty, blissfully stupid eight year old me riding my pink bike with bloodied knees and unruly snarled hair and koolaide stained smile speeding down the torn up alleyways of that dumpy little college town not looking both ways, not giving a shit if my legs were torn open or if a boy saw my disgusting hair, or that i was one pothole jolt away from puking my guts out from the red dye #40 which riddled that koolaide i had just recklessly downed heading home to my mother who would inevitably be smiling for me and cooking macaroni when i blew through the back door, so masterfully hiding her tears because there wasn't money for more than kraft and dad was working late giving his secretary an early holiday bonus in some sleazy trailer park two towns over so he didn't have to face my salty koolaide face (or other sad things).

i wish that four inches taller.

i wish that when it was midnight on a tuesday night and i said that i was going out to the bar by myself to drink that he would wish that i didn't want to go not because he wants to tell me not to but because he wishes that i would rather give him a kiss and crawl in our warm bed and slide his clothes off and not stop kissing him and not be thinking about drinking stale beers (and other things) next to strangers- but he knows that i'm bullshitting and that when i leave for the bar i'm actually just going to my car to turn on the heat and listen to NPR for ten minutes to see if he'll text me to give me a reason to come join him at home in our bed and of course he doesn't because he doesn't really care what the hell i do and even if he did he knows that i'd rather feel desired than drunk and anyway he's the one who will stumble in at 2am puking and reeking of smoke, not me, and so, actually, i really wish that he would rather crawl into bed with me than crawl to the bar but i'm not good at being aloof so i just cry about it and wish that i was all that he needed because when he's holding me, it's all that i need- so i wish that i didn't. cry or care.

i wish i didn't drive my grandma's old one- head-lighted mercury.

i wish that i could say this out loud.

Windowsills

I remember taking the backroads. We took them because after a while, they were the only way. The highway turned into two lanes, which wound around a field, getting dustier and more littered with roadkill all the time until it was just a dirt road with no sign. And I'd fly over that hill in my uncle's silver two door-something. At the end of the road was a tree-tunneled driveway and if you followed that to it's very end there was a red house with flower boxes on the windowsills and my grandmother's silhouette. There were times when I practically lived there and times when I hadn't been there in so long that I had forgotten that grandparents age, and so driveways need to be paved to be more safe and less wild. I always wish that I was there when I am feeling afraid and directionless and wishing that I was less wild. To sit in the hot kitchen and watch the hummingbirds while she hums and bakes bread.
There is a bakery in a shack beside the ocean. With creamy, rich coffee and sinful French tartes. The back room of the kitchen smells of yeast and weed and the man who makes the pastries could, all physics aside, be Jack Nicholson from The Shining but with dreadlocks and bare feet. If I wanted a cup of his coffee I had to budget in roughly 20-50 minutes of conversation with him when he would ask me some version of the same three questions and about 20 random, new questions during each visit. It always involved me turning down a drag of his joint and him telling me the best beach to go for a Pacific sunset (which was different every time). I decided that every beach was the best for a Pacific sunset, and I concluded that because I, being from Wisconsin, was a newby when it came to the beach and I was thrilled that it was sand and not snow, and that I didn't need any sort of drug to enhance that thrill for me. However, the little,fat palm trees that looked like pineapples, the creamy coffee, and Big Sur were not able to keep me tucked away in the lazy town on Monterrey Bay.
But now I've come to the city. Where there are only wide, busy asphalt roads that lead everywhere and bleed together in dizzying tangles. I try to leave my car hugging the curb of my street and instead ride my bike. My mom's Huffy from the 90's that we tore apart and practically glued together with chewing gum. I painted it pink because something about that makes me feel young and carefree and safe and that's exactly how I feel when I'm weaving around the city sidewalks around people who are giving my nasty looks for not using the bike lane. But, I'm too afraid of the bike lane, and it makes me feel too much like I'm driving a car. I don't like using my bike to get places. I only like it for aimless rides around the old, victorian neighborhoods where there are still crumbly brick and cobblestone streets and hitching posts in people's front yards. And in all of the serenity of a Thomas Kinkade print, the sun starts to set, the old stone houses with their crawling ivy and not-too-groomed hedges glow in the sun and the streetlights begin to flicker on, and I turn and take the few blocks home.
I am always comforted to hear the late summer buzz of the cicadas in the oak trees in the city or the suburbs because it reminds me that the country and the city are homes to the same creatures, just living in different homes with different chores. Even my grandmother in her floured aprons and rows of carrots is only a half day's drive from the heart of Manhattan where other old women bake the same bread, but wear fancier aprons. Even my small urban apartment is only a few hour's trip into the heart of the North Woods and all of the wilderness that it houses along the shores of the Big Lake where I take a wooden canoe along the curvy rivers rather than my mismatched bike along tattered cobblestone.
At home my cat flops on the windowsill, watching the neighbor's shadow on the curtain bounce here and there in the orange light of the street lamp. He isn't amused by the whine of the ambulances or the clattering of the recycling bins. He twitches his whiskers, only mildly entertained by the squirrels than run along the power lines- which happened to also be the highlight of his afternoon while he lived in the woods. Windowsills are all the same and I am always the same.
Velcro shoes and training wheels or high heels and a taxi ride. Growing up or aging. I'll leave it all at the intersection of McFadden Road and Ocean for a nap on 7th Avenue West.

I'm a second in her memory

I've always been her favorite. I know because she's been telling me for as long as I can remember. She slouches in her wing chair. Alive, I think. Most times I can see her chest rising and falling slightly. Once I put my fingers by her nose to see if I felt the breath coming out. For one millionth of a second I wondered if she would be better off if I just pinched her nose for a few seconds. she wouldn't have to be so scared anymore. She could see her husband again. Most days I'm sure she thinks we're trying to steal from her. Her car, her imaginary house, her mutual funds. I don't think she remembers that she's rich anymore, actually. She knows that she has drawers of diamonds. She used to smuggle them to me in her napkin under the dinner table. She knows that when she wants to buy crystal covered rose petals and fiberoptic Christmas sleighs, she can. If she can calculate the right amount of cash, that is. I remember the last time I saw her try to use a credit card. It was three years ago. She took me out to one of her favorite restaurants- the type of place where you look like a mess if you're not in heels. She handed the waitress her credit card and told her to keep the change. When her card was returned with her slip, I saw her concentrating. She laughed and went to use the ladies' room. When I glanced at the slip, I saw that she had added the date to the total and signed her name on the tip line. I wanted to cry. On the ride home, I did. Last Tuesday she banged on my bedroom door. She screamed at me and asked me why I had stolen her car.I wanted to cry. Today, I did. I guided her to her chair and gave her a cookie. Pecan shortbread. It's always been her favorite.

baggage & boxes

i can't remember how i got here. do you know- were you with me? i must have unpacked those boxes because these are my candles and my nail polishes and my spoons. i must have had a husband because there is a mark around this finger that is less tan and i keep rubbing the smooth area with my thumb. was my wedding beautiful- were you there? i hope that i was beautiful and that i was thin. i must have had a baby once. there is picture of my fingers holding a first response that says that i did. where did she go? i hope that she had my nose and that she knows her way. did we cry? i can't remember. did i have ever have a garden? i hope that i grew peas and flowers and strawberries. i hope that the deer stole some before i shooed them away. did you ever meet my cat? there is a ball with a bell rolling inside my drawer and it must have been his. i hope that he slept on my feet at night and that he grew fat and old but that i never did. did you leave? i hope that i loved you. i must be alone.

fear ii

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." ~ Frank Herbert, Dune

There is little left between my nose and the floor. the mat. a few millimeters maybe. arms shaking. legs gradually succumbing to my own weight. but an easy, undulating breath. later, i will be the same again, as before. i will be weak and childish. puking in the early september heat behind some groomed, suburban shrub. tears from the heaving. profanities towards my immobile feet. but for the moment, i am strong. a mascara-eyed warrior battling her own limbs on a fancy-ass mat made from recycled tires. fixating heavily on a shiny, manicured pinky. one minute. five more seconds. chaturanga dandasana complete. breathe. my heart flutters. swooping in, they descend upon me: eka pada rajakapotasana and svarga dvidasana: the pigeon and the bird of paradise. i tumble down to a unsettled pile of feathers. once i hold them, i will set them free. still afraid that they will return to peck at me. love handles, spiders, bills, republicans, whole milk, clowns, and marathons and...

maggots in my dinner. my mother dying in my arms. toxic water. pitch black. the low growl of unseen trucks and animals. the white backroll of eyes. leave your nets. only you will remain.

of leaving and small magic

in the woods and by the shore i stumbled upon it. that's what we all seek in places- that small magic. to feel something apart from cars and grocery stores. in a field surrounded by puffy dandelions, we are all clinging. about to take flight into that northerly breeze. we can feel the magic, or begin to feel like we know something of it. from mountains to plains to the lake i wandered here and learned of it, though it was small. now i can conjure it when the sun slants this way and the dandelions sway. i can carry it in this small pouch at my hip. i can carry lilacs and paper scraps to help keep it alive. i will beckon to it at the perfect time. here, off of lonely 13 and 2, flapping pigeons and a splintered bench and sweeping sunlight hint at it.

the fat robins remind me that the snow is at bay and the bay reminds me of the day i arrived: small and afraid of the isolation. i skated the icy highways while he was away. while i was left here to make my own heat. in a kitchen too small for my mixer. in a town just vast enough for my footprints. to make it my own was my journey.i wandered to the market for strawberries and to the bench by the bay for sunsets.sunsets and ice roads in turn.

in the light of a sunday June glow i have found my tears. it is magic after all. what canvased my heart is beginning to tear and the skin underneath the artwork is smooth and plain. the indians and ice and insensitivities somehow served me well. housewives pot marigolds and herbs tonight, rushing slightly to keep up with the sinking sun. watching me with my windy hair and concealed stories, they glance my way here and there. their children will dance along with me down the sidewalk. curious as to why i am the same age as their potting mothers, yet spinning to their tune. it is safe here and my path is worn. fate is pushing me to a wider road. sidewalk chalk and spray paint where the grass pushes it's way through the concrete. soon all will be strangers to my feet.

to stay is to plateau. to leave is to grow. i teeter, playing this game, rolling dice of my own desires. swinging madly back and forth in the quiet of June.the jungle is only a playground game for me here and so now i spin atop the merry-go-round and hope to be propelled to greener lawns. it is my turn to leave. i can tell you something of leaving and the nervous un-choices..what stories are they? if not fairytales, they are, at least, my own.

on the corner of 3rd and st. claire

im not sure who i'll be when the lake winds settle down again. spring sunsets suit me well for now and lake sounds are my only company. i come to this bench every night. in the shadow of our fathers, we are paralyzed and i hear the frog and duck songs. my wings carry me above the clouds and tidal waves. i don't know when i shed those feathers. i was twelve and eager to be older when i saw your first glances. i plucked a few leaves of lamb's ear and let the softness against my cheek cradle me in my fear. i'm near a northern pier and somehow when the waves crash around me i am not afraid. when i lost that small child i was only afraid in the face of commitment and mother's days are hazy now. mothers eclipse fathers in the brightness of sacrifice so i wonder how i would have fared that storm, how i could have stayed afloat. you are a ghost today, as she is and so is he. i drowned each of you while i was braving the waves. maybe you will drown me while you swim in the sheets of another. maybe i will lose my lifesaver. you were here once when the skies were grey and frozen, when we were flurries.i should have prevented that blizzard. caught up on the trail that is 3rd and st. claire i am warm and my toes are safe but i am no saint. i take muffins and tea to the dying couple on 3rd and alley and feel as saintly as i ever will. brain infections and cancers steal their lives and they will be swept away on the northern wind soon while their ashes crash along the shore of the bay. i would bake you pastries if you were well enough to visit my kitchen in your moments of sobriety. but again, it seems i only clap floured hands for the ill. i will clap for your magnum opus. serve your drinks and i will serve my purposes. it will serve us well. maybe i will find you on the corner of 3rd and st. claire in the gentle heat of a distant summer, in the distant heat of our healed hearts.

Chapter- "Manufactured Tails"

He stayed up late into the frosted night, basking in the strange blue glow of his father's computer. He shone in the window, reflecting into the woods. The night noises of the wild valley were muffled. But he knew and felt the reverberations of the wolves' hymn. He used to know the forest well. He sank, foreign in the blue glow of technology. He leaned back further and allowed himself to break. With eyes like icy Norwegian ponds, he wept and stared bitterly at the tragic screen.

He resented the injustices that had clear-cut the wilderness of his once untamed heart. He felt weak in the aftermath of my destruction.

Futilely, he attempted to click the keys. The words would have lept out of his soul and into the realm of thought had he thought to hold a pencil instead...
Had he inhaled the grainy air of an open field...
Had he drenched himself in the damp, misty air of a waterfall...
Had he felt the itch of the hay bales in his grandfather's barn...
Had he heard the quiet chirp of peepers in a country summer...
Had he been enchanted by the glow of fireflies behind his father's shed...
Had he drowned in the mooing of the cows in the valley at dusk...
Had he been himself. The luminous boy from the wooded coulee.

But he had murdered those memories and he could not find a pencil. So he typed. A Manufactured and mechanical letter. The story of how I left him. A defeated tale of a boy who had lost his fresh air and his purpose- a defeated man in the back pew of the wooden Lutheran church. In shadow of his elderly relatives' successes. A man who drove his mother's station wagon to the nearest town to substitute teach and drop a letter to me at the post office. That was the only letter he ever wrote to me and so I wanted a letter from someone else.

Even when, during our third year of marriage, when he had flown away for the second time into the Norwegian mountains to live in a yurt and eat kale, he sent me no letters.

He missed our cat. In the absence of his near-child and his sought- after children, having the fluffy Fitzgerald was all he knew of fatherhood and so he routinely sent along shiny balls with bells inside and catnip to him in the mail. I felt an awkward jealously, so I proceeded to shop online and send expensive things to myself in the mail. I braided my hair and brushed Fitzgerald's tail.

Chapter- "Pit Stops"

Stop 5: Bar Stools & the White Haze

He got a whiskey. I got a beer. Then I got my period. It was just barely 11am and we were 75 miles from anywhere that would even have a gas station. But, “luckily” for us, we were flying along highway 2, in the middle of the woods and happened to see what may have at one point in time resembled a bar. I pulled over in the snowy gravel. Upon closer inspection, we decided that yes, it was in fact a bar, and yes, it was in fact open. He had to pee and I was bitchy and bloaty, so we braved it.

His whiskey neat was not neat and my beer was not cold. It was the price we had to pay for not relieving ourselves before we left, or for drinking too much coffee. Either way, we were choking down gross drinks at 11am in the middle of Shitville. To add insult to injury, the bartender (who we decided was probably a woman) kept staring at me and the couple on the other end of the bar was blabbering incessantly about their diabetic dog. I decided that it was no wonder why these people are willingly at a bar at this hour. I accidentally might have given them one of my trademark bitch glances that insinuated something like “Just put that fucking dog out of its misery.” I needed some Advil. But, my snotty sarcasm is rarely the side effect of cramps. A pill could never fix my attitude. My companion gave me a small smile that said just that. He touched my knee and kissed my cheek. He loved me.

We finished our drinks, because Midwesterners always finish their drinks. Even if they are not very good.

I wasn't able to define my feelings on this journey. I was taking him to the airport again. Part of my soul was feeling an elated sense of relief and the other part was a teary, female mess. I tried to blame the latter on my monthly hormonal charade. But, I knew it wasn't the reason, and that led me to feel even more confused. And, subsequently,pissy. He just stared at me as I drove, eyes sparkling. I looked at the road.

I drove. I was just a little lightheaded from the late-morning dosage of pain reliever and beer. I imagined what it would be like when I would return to my apartment without him. I would smile. I would light a few candles. Pour a glass of wine. Revel in the orgasmic solitude. The lack of commitment. The lack of dinner. The lack of companionship. I would lay in the cold,barren sheets. I would realize that I had done it again, and I would let my tears soak into my skin, let them in deeper than I would ever let anyone.

I swerved to miss a lone doe and snapped back into the essence of the car and our trip and the story he was telling me about someone he knew in Los Angeles. I loved to hear his voice. But, my mind was slipping back into the white haze of letting go. I held back my tears, but I knew he could see them dancing near my eyelashes. He had always loved my long eyelashes.

Stop 1: Machine Guns In the Dark
The snowfall was torrential. I was used to these sorts of Northern blizzards. The long, frozen treks through the woods. Coasting along one of only two roads that led to my home. The home I had not wanted or asked for. But, I had come to care for it and so had adopted it. For a time.

The yellow lines of the highway had long since been buried under the packed, white precipitation. It was a pitch black night and I could see the ominous, glowing saucers of animal eyes on either side of the disappearing path. I pretended that I was playing a video game- lighting a cigarette and blasting the panicked, electronic beats of Crystal Castles. I would dodge the rabid zombie- deer and slip and swerve on the haunted ice road. It would be okay. I would make it home to my hot tea and fireplace and Fitzgerald,my own wild beast.

It was the first of many times that I would bring this Lost Boy into my Lost World. Into the woods, into the snow, into my bed, into my organized mess of an existence. The night was cold and dark and exciting and secretive. We had fled the city like two misunderstood refugees. Away from our families and churches and highschool crushes and chain stores and dangerous parties and street signs and engagement rings and missed opportunities- away from our previously known realities. And all we could see around us was white encased in black.

We saw them like two pillars of hope in the distance. Faint globes, but growing more yellow and warm with each spin of the tires. Far north, near the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, there was a haven in the storm. Though time and distance had swirled away from me in the snowflakes,I realized where we finally were. It was the legendary mafia hide-away, turned crime scene of decades passed. Well, if you want to put it glamorously, that's what it was. It had become a tourist attraction for elderly people who genuinely remembered the name of Johnny Dillinger- and not the imposter Johnny from the movies. But, it was open, albeit empty aside from a few dedicated employees, and we were in need of a place to stop and hide from the raging blizzard. And we needed a drink. Pronto.

Ours was the only vehicle to be seen. We stood in the parking lot, near the edge of the woods. In the light of the lamps and the neon beer signs, he held me close. The snow and wind flew around us, but he kept me in the lining of his coat and I felt small and safe. Before I realized that the cold had grabbed me again, he had taken off. He ran quickly and madly into the woods. I could hear his laugh, and I knew that he could hear mine echoing back. We chased eachother with invisible machine guns until we were snow-soaked and frozen and another inch of snow covered the car.

We walked in through the large, wooden doors, wet and rosy-cheeked. In the reflection of pieced- together shattered glass, we realized how young we looked. We made our way to the bar and began to drink in that romantic room and gazed with glazed eyes at the preserved bullet holes in the walls, and Johhny Depp t-shirts. We smiled in the glow of the roaring fire as we roared with laughter.

Chapter- "thaw"

Finally, the breeze was mild. Finally, the sun clung to the skyline for just twelve more minutes than it had the week before. Finally, I could see something resembling grass underneath the lakes of snowmelt in the sideyard. I had never truly experienced the beauty of springtime before 6pm that February evening. Thirty years along a particularly icy road, and there I was all of a sudden, crying and thawing out in the soupy, littered alley.

I breathed the newborn spring air so deeply that I was nearly lightheaded. I saw the scattered garbage. I heard the neighbor's baby crying and the scratch of a stray dog's nails on some leftover ice. The feeling wrapped me up so suddenly, it was nearly startling-- it was the temperature and the weight of the atmosphere. It was warmth. I realized it then...

I had survived. The bitter bite of Northern air. The bitter words and bitter alcohol that dripped from my leaky faucet of a tongue all winter. Bitter goodbyes and uncontrolled tears. My unruly, bitter disposition. All that bitterness melted away down into the alleyway potholes and murky puddles. It smelled like rain and I wavered knowing that I had conquered the unlivable winter and that I had made him leave for the last time. I was alone, but I was alive.

I knew that I would never let him return to these sidewalks or to his snowy pulpit to lecture me. My confusion and bitterness were finally slipping away with the winter sludge and I was emerging into the shape of someone else altogether. Someone much more beautiful. Though he had made it back once more to his old doorway via the isolated route on Highway 2 in his uncle’s rusty station wagon, it would be the last time. Despite his pleading and sobbing and promises to reform, I stood like a small statue beneath him, unwavering and quiet. He saw a picture of me kissing the blue-gloved boy and promised me that I would regret it. He promised me that I would be lost without him and I would be ruined if I kept kissing that blue-gloved boy. I could only close my eyes and wait for it to pass and wonder if God agreed with what my husband was saying. I wondered why I felt so peaceful amid the shattered ruins of my marriage. Finally, he sank back into that station wagon and retraced his tracks on Highway 2 and I thanked God (even if he did agree with my husband). I sniffled just once and peeked through the curtains and watched him go and then found myself happily broken in the littered alley. My thaw was beginning and I could feel a new surge of hot blood pumping lightly under my delicate skin.

I stared above at the sky. A transparent moon and companion star were suspended in the fusion of sunset’s crimson and night’s cobalt. I was teetering on the brink of dusk and nighttime, towing the line of adventure and settling. I was exploding and sleeping. My pooling blue eyes blinked in time to the drip of the icicles, smearing the concepts of hope and reality as tears washed the palms of my hands. Cracked wide open and warm. What would I do now?

I walked. When it was always my impulse to run, I decided then to walk. In the last moments of daylight, swept by the temperate air, I walked. I knew that I was finally strong enough to slow down. An elderly Indian woman was walking with a cane, evading puddles as she swayed under the weight of her grocery bags. She smiled knowingly at me from across the street. It was a smile that made me feel feeble and naïve. I could see in her ragged eyes that she had survived many more winters here than I ever would. Perhaps she even thrived in the winters. And there I was parading my ability to claw my way through three inconsequential seasons. But she sensed my victory and silently congratulated me. It was humbling to walk.

Chapter

It's never a good sign when I wake up still spinning. When my eyelashes barely separate enough for me to see anything because my glammed- up mascara from last night is still caked on and the sparkles from my eyelids have fallen into the pooled corners of my puffy tear ducts. And, when I finally do see something, ugh. Three variously full bottles of beer on my cute bedside table, which is entirely too quaint to have un-coastered bottles of beer on it. So, that morning I rolled over, shirtless, and groaned because "I really should have just thrown up last night."

What's was an even worse sign? It was New Year's Day. Nice. Happy "Monumental Rest of My Life Day" to me. I thought, "I'll re-assign this occasion to my birthday this year." Everything seems better in July than it does in January anyhow. "But, wait, it's Thirty this year. Scratch that."

I looked around, as well as I could considering that my frizzed and nappy head was pounding. Where was he? Out for a cigarette? No, the silver case and lighter lay neatly on the desk. In the shower? There was no splattering sound of lukewarm water. I laid back down. Confused and more than likely, still drunk. I closed my once-beautifully made-up eyes and they were thankful for the dark cover. I shivered and suddenly felt as though I would die without his arms. Disgusted, I caught myself wallowing in that that mire of shitty, sappy sentimentality and nearly threw up on my pillow.

There was a faint rustling in the next room. I squirmed and attempted to peel the twisted sheets from my mess of a body. I did and then teetered noiselessly towards the next room. He was there, dressed and i could smell in the air that he had showered. His back to me, he stood over two ominous, gaping suitcases and a pile of mismatched clothes. Then, it all came back to me in a rush of tears and alcohol and wavering words. He was leaving. He turned around to tell me that I was beautiful but I was already crying and puking all over the floor. Beautiful.

~*

When I woke up I could feel that I was warm and clean. I smelled like flowery shampoo and his soft tee shirt was draped over my small frame. My eyes opened easily this time and my head felt light and clear. He sat there quietly, just looking at me with a gentle glimmer in his green eyes. He saw that I was awake, and smiled his gorgeous smile. Brushing the hair from my forehead, he kissed me the way a proud groom kisses his glowing bride- unabashed and tender. “Happy New Year, beautiful.”

I smiled without laughing, without makeup, and without reservation. I wanted to tell him that I loved him. That he had just saved me. Again. I wanted to say thank you. I wanted him to kiss me again. I wanted him to stay there on my bed forever, staring into my eyes through his comforting green halos. But I said nothing while one teardrop tore away from my brimming eyes and slipped down its salty slide to my shoulder. He kissed away the wet streak it left on my cheek and told me that he would always love me. And before I could allow another tear to escape, he did. He was suddenly through the door and I was in his powdery white tee shirt- a small, heartbroken lump of feathers on the bed.

~*

Walking past my mailbox the next morning there was a morning dove sitting on the rust of my porch railing. It only had one foot. Its balance was impeccable. It wavered just a little when I got closer to inspect its stump. “You okay buddy?” I asked. Without warning, it flew with a coo into the air. Completely gracefully. If I ever lose a foot I can only hope to move that elegantly. It had returned to the same rusty landing when I returned home later that day. This time it just tilted its head as I crept closer. I was pleased that I was allowed such proximity. Closer still. I raised my hand to do god knows what- pet it? Suddenly, its wings arched and it leaned to one side and spiraled to its death in a pile of snow. A lump of feathers in the powdery death.

Chapter

Cleaning Up the Mess: Key Lime Pie

And so I found myself yet again in the middle of my pale blue 6x6 kitchen. Elixirs poised in my hands, the full bottles twirling like loaded pistols. My compadres Jack and Jameson. Mixing bowls shining nobly and Kitchen Aid tilted back rearing like an old trusty steed, preparing for a gallop across my frozen Midwestern countertops.

I'm sure that my Dad was already drunk for the night. Granted, the time difference was on his side. Granted, it was 5:00 not just somewhere, but sixteen after five here, too. So, I cut him some slack. Hell, I would have cut him slack regardless, since I was also pleasantly buzzed. I was home from my afterwork- workout and freshly showered, with a freshly opened bottle of High Life. It had been another eventful trip to the mailbox, which is precisely why I was warming up with a beer and flipping through muffin recipes. Not because I was hungry, of course. I can never eat while my brain is gluttonously consuming the thoughts of the day or the recently opened contents of the letter from my father.

I hadn’t heard from him in a month. Not because he was a jerk, of course. He was in hiding. Again. I was his only confidant, his only daughter, his only source of sympathy. Since he had run away six months prior, I could rely only on my monthly letter. It was more than anyone else he knew received, and so I felt auspiciously smug when I easily slipped my finger through the envelope. Of course because of this, I had become the family’s crisis hotline for those concerned about his health and whereabouts. I never heard much from Wives #2 or #3, naturally. But my mother, Wife #1, did periodically slip in a sly question regarding his wellbeing into our conversations. His mother, brothers, and sister were the most relentless trivia seekers. But, I only shared selective amounts of the Dad Data which I received carefully penned in his letters. Mostly because, as was his notorious custom, he supplied me with very little actual information concerning himself. We limited our correspondence to exchanged fictional stories. I didn’t even know where he was exactly. Somewhere in Florida. I never really ventured to check the postmark. I liked it better that way. Details have always been unimportant in the face of the history and love and enjoyment of being this man’s daughter.

So, when I was finally freshened up and sipping on a beer at 5:16pm, I sat down to read the latest exquisitely told tale from the tired fingers of my Dubious Dad. I was surprised to see only one sheet of paper inside. One sheet of high quality parchment and a plane ticket.

dear distanced daughter,
I have decided that now is as good a time as any. I would like to see you. I am sorry that it has been so long. Well, if “long” is how we would like to define eight years. Incredibly long? Embarrassingly long? That’s more accurate. Also, sorry about your divorce. I have enclosed a plane ticket for you. Sorry I am such a mess. I hope that you come to Key West, regardless. I think I need you and I certainly love you.
Ps: pack your summer clothes. Do you even have summer clothes?
Dad


I set his letter on the coffee table and smiled. I glanced towards the north-facing window in my living room and looked at the wild, icy lake. I got up, pulled on my puffy coat, mukluks and wool mittens. In much the same way that I'm always looking for that handbag which will change my life, I was on nearly-as-meticulous hunt for the most idyllic set of key limes.

Therefore, that night at 7:54pm, I was abandoning muffins. “Ed Abby” had been packed and gone for days and I was left blissfully to my own devices (cabinets full of baking supplies, a stocked liquor closet, and a playlist packed with old school hip-hop and punk rock). And it seemed fitting to let the kitchen become a disaster, to let myself become a disaster. To let the flour poof like clouds of magic dust from my carefully manicured and enchanted fingertips. To abandon the Muffin, who had for so long been my Knight in Shining Batter. I no longer needed his security. I was going to attempt to face my arch nemesis: the Pie. Pie is unpredictable and elusive. The various crusts and enumerable filling options. There is no base recipe, so it is an ever-changing list of options. I would whip and stir and splatter while battling my way through the turbulent mêlée with this Key Lime Pie. It would turn out perfectly. I would drink and dance and sing while wrestling with what I would do with the invitation from my father. I prayed that this sloshy, scattered process with the alcohol and the oven would allow enough warmth into my fingers for me to begin to clean up our messes.

Chapter

Alone. The feeling is emancipating. It’s never lonely.

When the weepy August sun smeared across the red walls in my living room, I just breathed. Closed my eyes. Like a penny drop in a well- deep and hollow and beautiful, I just breathed. Somehow I could feel my way through the chaos of the inland humidity and broken manners of lewd, uneducated people. I started to untangle the wadded mass of laughter, manipulation, relaxation, frustration, great sex, awful sex, summer and winter, contentment and the stir crazy rattles- I managed to piece it all together. Just for a few fleeting , courageous moments. This clarity is what I was chasing, but it was always just inches from my trembling fingertips. But that afternoon, it was nearer than ever. I could not allow it to recede again and be swallowed by the frigid northern cavity of desperate waters. I was terrified that, even if I managed to grab it, I would ruin or misplace it.

This was why I had to break the liquor bottles into disarrayed shards on the sidewalk and head back in a blur to the house to quickly pack my bags.

When I walked back through the front door into the living room, he was standing there- fucking up the beautiful red, sundrenched portrait of solace. Ugh, I should not have disposed of all that alcohol. I contemplated heading back out and carefully licking it off of the green and clear glass. I had anticipated that he would have stayed away longer than twenty ridiculous minutes after the enormous, screaming blowout we had just endured between the red walls, hardwood floors, and jittery cats.

I had anticipated being long gone by time he returned. But, there we were. He gave me his disgusted, lip-curled sneer, and a roll of the eyes that said “You are such a lush.” I didn’t want to let him get the first word out. I knew, judging by well-known sneer and the pungent scent kaleidoscope of vodka, coconut rum, Irish whiskey, gin, raspberry brandy, Bailey’s and lemondrop schnapps and god-knows what else. So, I had to say the only thing that I knew would send him directly back through the back door and buy me another twenty minutes. “I didn’t want to have that baby, okay? Just deal with it.” As brutal and grim as it sounded slipping through my uncouth lips, I felt a surge of power going through my cheeks.

Just as I had calculated, his face paled and he traced his steps wordlessly towards the backdoor, just barely mumbling, “Bitch” under his defeated breath. Maybe I had wanted that baby. I didn’t care about it right now. He was gone and I was throwing my bag over my shoulder and heading out of the front door and kneeling on the sidewalk searching through the broken pieces for a few drops of relief.

Chapter fragment

There are no beautiful sunsets in this season of darkness and greedy chapters. The snow. It hurts the warm soul, causing it to crack and break between the lines of sanity and reason. I felt it's icy sting even more after I kicked my husband out, and sat beside myself trying to soothe it with hot tea.

I had felt it for so long. I began to feel the freezer burn in my throat again once I knew he was feeling it, too.

The week he arrived back to the Midwest he was arrested. There had been an outstanding warrant for his arrest, and they got him right way when he entered the state. After fifteen years, it seemed as though I was just here waiting for his return. Of course he sacrificed and endured arrests and the shit weather and the stains on the front of his coat to be near me. But, he didn’t know that yet- he didn’t know why he was putting up with it all. It was just too damn cold here. Very few can actually say that they enjoy the bitter cold, really. I mean, besides the massive snowmobilers and their fat wives who serve them chips and beer during football Sundays. It was not a place for either of us. But he trudged here unknowingly into my arms, into the snowbanks of this sad town. Despite the snow, stains, and sunless Sundays.

Searching for some semblance of sanity I stepped outside for a cigarette and saw the snow angel in the front yard. He stumbled to that spot in a drunken frenzy the night before. He was gorgeous and awkward in the whiteness, in the glow of the streetlight. There was something more to it and I knew what was next. And it was okay. At that moment I was not what I needed and I was not what he could endure. Not what he needed, either. And that was okay, too.

He required circled sunlight and longer days. I had felt his gravity for all of my adult years and it had gone from me but it returned all at once when I saw that snow angel laying gently on the frozen ground. I was not what he needed- not now. I knew it and said it again and again in my mind. All at once he was just barely more than a blurred photograph on what used to be my husband's bedside table. It’s not always what he would be. He would again be a warm and tangible tee shirt against my bare back.

Almost Alive- chapter

In my winter white ceramic bowl sat absolutely perfect muffin batter. Fluffy yet slightly lumpy. It's a damn shame that it ultimately ended up in a bloody mess all over the front yard.

I am not usually one to accept a compliment. In fact, I have been told that the screwed up look on my face after receiving any sort of praise much resembles the look a baby makes the first time she licks a pickle. However, I can state with complete empiricism that I make excellent muffins. It doesn't even matter what kind, I have perfected my "pinch of this and that" base recipe and the rest falls into place. Even my mother (the Great Queen of Pastries) herself has crowned me the Quickbread Queen. I don't argue. And when someone tries one for the first time, I can tell by their thin- lipped smile that I am indeed gifted.

Over the years that I was married, I used these little breads as a means of stress relief and self-affirmation. Therefore, I developed my own concoctions for catharsis such as: Honey Oatmeal, Tomato Basil, Peach Raspberry, Vanilla Rosemary, Dark Chocolate Cherry, Strawberry Rhubarb, Lemon Mint, Almond Poppyseed, Apple Cinnamon, Rum Raisin, and of course Blueberry and of certainly many more that I haven't yet documented, and definitely many more that have flopped terribly. None of these flops, might I add, have ever occurred while I have been one- handed, toting a glass of whiskey or wine. Well, not until frigid, Northern afternoon, while i was under a deep, drunken spell due simultaneous over-consumption of these two elixirs. Not until I had come home from the gym, collected my mail and opened up the envelope from my attorney. There they were. The signed and finalized divorce papers. I had been expecting them any day. But the hot fuzz in my stomach sunk deeper and I headed for my liquor closet and box of recipes.

Once, I purchased a beautiful little apron for the sole purpose of muffin making. It was completely quaint with ruffles, bows and French scroll pattern. I only used it once, because well, I deemed it too pretty to use. So I would spin around in tiny circles with dashes of salt and sugar in my hair and flour on my un-aproned knees, mixing woes with alcohol in my pretty white mixing bowls.

I loved to tear around my flyspeck kitchen. Even though the lid of the garbage and the top of the refrigerator had to frequently serve as extra counter space. I did let Fitzgerald, my fluffy mutt of a cat, sit on the counter while I cracked eggs and splashed unmeasured amounts of various extracts into flour wells. He would huff and sneeze sometimes when the baking powder plumed like dust from my clapping hands. And, sometimes, I would pretend like I didn't see him lick the gooey spoon. And other times, I had a bit too much wine while whisking around and, I am sure, genuinely oversaw his sneaky spatula licks.

At first I was only trying to smash the unwelcome, grotesque spider as he swayed from the door frame, sneering at me. Taunting me, even. Well, taunting in a three fingers of Irish Whiskey and 3/4 bottle of $35 Cabernet sort of way perhaps. "Get out of here, you bastard," I slurred. "You're not touching these muffins." Like he was going to anyway...

Guarding white bowl of muffin perfection under my arm, I calculated my steps across the minute kitchen. I stood next to my cat, who was now greedily lapping up batter drops from the counter. I stared profoundly into his huge green eyes. "Fitzy. You're the man around here now. Go get that thing. Eat it. Do- whatever." He stared lovingly into my eyes and I could hear small rumblings of a purr and he just laid himself down on the floured surface.

Cat in one arm and precious bowl of Orange Pecan muffins- to- be in the other, I marched gracelessly nearer to the eight-legged terror. I shoved Fitzy's face into the hundreds of swinging eyes. "Get him, babe." The cat just hung there over my arm, purring.

I don't usually eat the muffins. Certainly I follow the Baker's Creed and taste part of one before serving them, but I make a great effort to distribute them to co-workers and friends as quickly as possible before they magically and maliciously float from the tin onto my thighs. But, on that particular snowy afternoon, I did not need to worry about burning the muffins off on the treadmill. I was at least safe from that prospect as I lay there covered in blood and batter and snow in the yard, while Fitzgerald sat staring inquisitively at me through the window.

A Chapter

To me, he appeared magical in the radiance of the small town's streetlight display. I flicked at a smoldering cigarette in my fingers, glancing at him here and there when I was sure he was looking away. It wasn't the decade which lay quietly behind us that propelled me to stare in his direction. It was the way his gentle eyes told sad stories of the path which he had recently traveled to get here. The way his fancy shoes looked displaced and crunched the northern snow.

His hat and scarf and belt and gloves. His LA style was both foreign and familiar among the hippies that resided here in my town. He couldn’t have just one damn, peaceful afternoon of writing in the coffee shop without some unshaven, pixie-haired, patchouli- drenched swinger trying to get into his pants. That’s what his flask of whiskey was for I suppose- to stifle his good-natured urges to placate small talk. Because, here, you know, small talk will make you the next “new guy in town” victim for some desperately bored local. Not that one would need to be desperate or bored or sex- starved in order to find him both incredibly sexy and affable. He’s certainly the type that women (and men) gravitate towards in a bar or crowd. I, however, never met him in such circumstances. I knew him when we were young and awkward- a time when this now savvy city-trotter was intimidated by my edgy, pre-teen attitude.

*~*~

The lesbian who lived in the apartment above mine was quite bitter. Well, when it came to matters concerning me anyway. I rarely ever saw or heard her before last October. She kept to herself and her toolbox and her large silver truck. But one night, just before Halloween, I had escaped to the bohemian- infested coffee shop to write. Ideally, I prefer to write at home with a glass of unadulterated whiskey or schnapps, sitting in a computer and candled glow. A little City and Colour. But by time late October rolled around, my unemployed husband and I were so sick of each other that I could not have even drowned my resentment with an entire liter of Jamison.

I primed my small corner table for my ritual of writing preparation. I ordered a mug of spiced chai and carefully doused it with some vanilla schnapps. I was a good two pages in when she approached me.

“Hey, uh, you live downstairs from me, It's Elsie, right?” I unplugged my ears and we both laughed a little as the excessively loud music poured from my headphones. “Whoa, you’re really rockin out” she smirked.

“Well, yeah,” I laughed “I suppose it’s the only way I can think” I said, glancing down at my screen and clicking “save” for the tenth time that minute.

“What are you working on?” She seemed genuinely interested. Normally, I would have just lied and said that I was paying bills, but she pressed on. “You look like you’re writing. Like really writing.”

I smiled and chose to respond truthfully. “Yeah, um, I am.” She gave me a simple, encouraging grin, so I continued despite my wrenching embarrassment. “I just write some things here and there. I was an English major, and my emphasis was in Creative Writing and so I guess I just like to…” I let myself trail off there, as to stop myself from the rambling I was prone to.
She was unmistakably excited. “Wow, I just finished up my MFA in Creative Writing…I had no idea that you were a writer too.”

“Well, I am definitely not” I smirked. Her comment had caught me off guard. “I just mess around with a little poetry sometimes.” She had already positioned herself closer to the extra chair near my small table. I was not really in the mood to offer it up, but she asked before I had a chance to make up an excuse as to why I had to leave. “Oh yeah, totally, sure have a seat,” I managed.

The next half hour’s conversation meandered around topics such as the quality of the coffee, the house we lived in, and of course, academia and writing. She was extremely well- versed and it made me feel young and inexperienced. I think that I should have just come out with it and admitted that I partied too much through college and barely even read half of my assigned books. Maybe it would have been just the turn-off I was looking for. But, I humored the topic and allowed myself to look respectable and educated. She invited me to meet weekly with a small group of writers in the area. It was an extremely temping offer- I had not even considered the possibility that there were more than two talented, let alone educated, people in this miserable hick town.

Hitting the limit of my knowledge of John Donne and Hemmingway, I changed the topic. “Just so you know, my husband is moving out.” The bizarre drink I had mixed and the gravity of my imminent divorce were both suddenly hitting me harder than I had anticipated- so I suppose it was a recipe for a word- vomit cocktail. “He’s leaving this weekend, so you know, like if you see someone moving out. It’s just him,” I laughed. She threw her head back and laughed with me.

“Seems like you’re doing okay with it,” She said, catching her breath.

“Yeah, I am glad to be rid of him,” I stated unsoberly and matter-of- factly.

We talked a little while longer before I decided to lie and leave. The next day I found a Post It stuck to my front door asking me if I wanted to meet up for dinner. She gave me her number, but also reminded me that I could always just “stop up.” That bastard “Dick Proenneke” was leaving the next day and I was dreading being around the apartment while he sulked and played video games. So, later on I went for a run, did a few shots, cleaned the kitchen and called her up.

She went out with me just this once on a chance that she was certainly hoping was a date. I ordered a beer and waited for her at the table (which occurred to me later was decidedly very much for couples). Had I not been a natural blonde and a lightweight drunk, I would have connected the dots. But, I was both of those things and also in a place where I was waiting for my mountain man of an almost "ex" husband get his goddamned yurt out of the livingroom.

When she ordered wine, I knew then that I was in way deeper than a fish sandwich.

~*~*~*~*~

We continued our walk down 3rd street. Alcohol always leaves me feeling unsettled and hollow. I had too much to drink that night and so I was restlessly waiting for his touch. I knelt in the snow. It soaked through my jeans and the cold pierced my knees. Bare-handed I grabbed a handful of snow from the curbside. “It’s beautiful, right?!” I said excitedly.

Gazing upward into the black winter sky, I saw delicate sparkles of snow swirling around the streetlights. “Why am I stripped of all my worth?” I asked.

"Well," He said "You aren’t.” He was articulate and soul-bearing like all great writers are. But, at all of the right and wrong times, and certainly at the write times.

He knelt next to me, cupping my chattering chin in his gloved hands and continued, “I can tell you something about the meaning of home, and your sense of worth. You are beautiful." he didn’t smile, but the look on his face was safe and tender. He picked me up from the sidewalk and kissed me slowly on my cold cheek. “I have been where you are now, and I can help carry you through it.”

I stood still, feeling flecks of snowflakes on my face and it glistened in my long hair. The way that he understood me was astounding. I was deeply in love with him. With all the of the ways he understood me, undressed me and then dressed me up again as his girl, I was smitten. Feeling worthy was never a feeling that I was accustomed to. In attempts to be the best and worst versions of myself, I was content to let him in to be both my savior and thief.

I let the weight of his words pound me. I had hung from gallows of adultery and regret, and yet I knew that his journey was not so different from mine. But what does a stubbornly independent woman do when she has discovered the person who not only appreciates but revels in her deep intricacies? Run. That’s was who I was and what I wanted to do, for no rational reason. But he could run with me maybe. He Loved my past and present and my mother and my father and my fantasies and my stinking reality....

Perhaps that was the time to come out with it. To tell him all of it. To shake up this small northern town and then choose to enter a large, startling city.

Key West Mess

He’s a mess. “A fucking mess most of the time.” Some inherit their father’s eyes or money or religion. I inherited his fucking mess. I say this with the utmost satisfaction. Not that I am necessarily pleased, not exactly that I am skirting my own role in my messiness- but I am certainly not resentful. It causes me to wrestle with predestination and free-will. Not in matters concerning my heavenly Father, but wholly concerning the matters of my unholy father. From the moment his sinning hands held me and gazed into my churning blue eyes, was I fated to mirror him? Like the creases in our thumbs? Faded Levis aren’t my style- hell, I am sure they aren’t his anymore- but I still sport his genes. I wear them like a scarlet letter now.


Every couple years, he shows me a letter that he writes to his siblings. In past cases, I have read these letters the sort of way one might read an instruction manual for a television. Hm, he is saying x. Interesting. Now moving on. There’s a definite sarcasm, and a slight undertone of loathing for those that he writes to. More than skimming, less than analytical, I fuddle through his words. This morning while sipping black coffee and checking my email I saw one such letter in my inbox. It’s been a couple years, it was time I suppose. I’m pretty sure I don’t even like black coffee.


I usually read the middle of a letter, or book, first. Then the ending. Then the beginning. Well, then I read it through the right way. I found myself nodding and thinking, “I don’t go to church, either, Dad.” I imagine him there, seated at the foot of his dinner table, the surface still a little sticky from when his two boys decorated Christmas cookies. It’s one o’clock in the morning, and he’s sipping whiskey. No, I am sipping whiskey. He’s a vodka drinker, I suspect. But, alcohol choices are completely arbitrary- well maybe not. His headphones are in, and he is bent towards the page. He’s always loved a healthy piece of heavy parchment and a Cross pen. Perhaps an onlooker would imagine that this sophisticated attorney is listening to Vivaldi or Hayden. I, of course, know better. Freak folk and metal. Once I had sufficiently conjured up an image of what he probably did not even look like while writing, I was still content to sip my black breakfast and continue reading.


The uncomfortable words that he penned were like potholes on the page. They were real and disheveled. I could see his eyes, ragged and tired. The weary way they used to look in the 80’s. This time, however, they are heavy from the burden of mini vans and nightly dinners, not cocaine. But, I wonder what the exact difference is. Addiction and obligation and fixation and rejection (and an unhealthy fear of all these things). This is what drives the sad and wondering soul. This is what drives him to come clean. What drives me to flee. The things that drive into us like nails, the things that drive us together. There is a sinister irony creeping into the cracks of this dichotomy. Abrasive scriptures and broken philosophy texts have cornered me and forced me to seek out this pairing of right and completely wrong. To seek out where I came from, and subsequently be reminded of whose daughter I am.


I think that I would like to stumble across him at the Green Parrot. The Floridian breezes calming his arthritic aches. I’d smirk, watching him flirt casually with the tanned bartender only two inches taller than me, five years my senior, and a skirt three inches shorter than I would ever wear. He’s not sleazy about it, he’s classy. Maybe he wouldn’t even recognize me as I observe him, as I am nineteen pounds lighter and my hair is seven shades darker than it was last he saw me six years ago. I would be four drinks and one cigarette into my story, ignoring texts from a forty-something, hummer- driving stock broker who is certain he is in love with me.


I was suffocating when I was married. Now that I have escaped, I still can’t really breathe. But, I believe that maybe a few too many drinks and some soul-searching in Key West with the man who passed his messes on to me would be just the sort of breathing I could possibly do.