When we shared a room in our mutual youth, we grew
to dislike each other with the fever
past down to us from grandmother to mother
into our own small hands. I remember one day you
were having a sleepover and I made a mask for April Fool’s Day,
though it was still March, to frighten you.
You pinched both my arms and your
friend wore it on her face and danced
and laughed. The day you were allowed
to drink coffee while I stared at the swirls
in my steamed milk - that was the day I knew the years
between us were meant to tear you from my side.
In that childhood room our beds were
placed as far apart as the blank white walls allowed.
The green carpet crept, stretching over
hills and valleys, dividing our corners
into countries. We made a mountain of toys
spilling from our closet to divide our
colonies and enforced border control.
We held court custody cases with our mother-judge
on who got the cat on which night.
It is now many years later and half
a country divides us. We Facebook message
and your profile picture becomes a mask
glued on to your image in my mind. When I visited,
we unspokenly decided we would both sleep
in your bed, a different cat biting at our feet,
same blanket wrapped around all our
tangled limbs. I woke up with your back
to me and my hands clenched together
at the base of your spine. I didn’t unclasp
them until you began stirring in disrupted
sleep. I can feel the bonds beginning to slip
past my fingertips, flying on a westward wind.
No comments:
Post a Comment