My gaze was dull this morning; wrapped in the quilt I kept
tucked in the back seat of my car, sitting on a boulder at my favorite spot by
the lake. There was a silence in me that reached far past my sleepy lidded
eyes, and deep into my heart.
I took a sip; the tendrils of mist clouding my thoughts
slowly carrying me away into another world, which I've yet to decide upon the certainty
of its existence. I am drinking tea in a coffee cup, gossamer and brick in
layers, like irises with no pupil; the liquid heats my fingers the bone, and
sears the sheets of skin, but soothes my hurried blood.
In my mind I heard the nervous fumbling of the sound of
rubber soles grinding against uneven pavement – shuffling feet and the shallow
breaths of cold air that pierced my lungs. I saw the pouring rain. My hair
dripping water like icy fingers running down the small of my back and the bumps
on my skin raised with the chill. The webs of fog would blanket the sky, and the
darkness of the enchanted night would cause my chest to ache with its
exhilarated pounding.
I would find a place – a bench perhaps – and sit.
“Can I offer you my umbrella?” might be the first words I
would hear him say.
A small smile would lift the edges of my mouth, and with my
eyes still blissfully closed I would say, “no thank you. I like the rain.” I
would then look up to greet kind eyes, and my breath would be stolen from my
lungs, and my heart would skip merrily down the road.
Perhaps that would be how I would meet him. Doing what I
love the most – lost in my mind, and found in the night.
Maybe we would take a canoe, fill it with pillows and blankets,
and float on this very lake in each other’s arms. The willows on the shore
would hang low and sob salty tears into the water. With quiet giggles and
whispered secrets, we would cut gracefully through the water, and he would
listen to my catastrophes because he wanted to. And in the warm summer night,
fall in love too far from solid ground for even the lighthouse to touch us. We
would call it: skipping away, because unlike me he would be afraid of running
away.
He would think I was beautiful. Not beautiful the way of
proportion, or scientifically speaking, or the worldly expectations of It. He
would see my lakewater eyes speckled with flecks from the ink of my pen, dancing
in poetry, in loss and love. He would see a lost child, a determined adult, and
a wise old woman and love me for my uncertainty.
That night he would
trickle his liquid sunshine through my mapped out veins like a bullet through
smoke, and later people would ask while shielding their eyes, what had changed.
We would talk of the mysteries of the universe until the stars faded into the soft
pink light of the dawn.
I sigh. And pray to God that my story will consist of more than simply
a curt hello in a crowded work space, or a single’s ward soirée.
~C
