It Isn't Funny Anymore
Thunder crashed and he hugged me for the first time in months. The power’s out in a house full of a family that used to mean Chinese takeout and Joss Whedon on Tuesday nights. In the candle light I don’t even recognize them. They are warped by the faint flicker of flame between us and I want so badly to laugh at their jokes but that humor is bittersweet and it isn’t funny anymore.
He held me and cried into my sweat stained gym shirt but my body was limp under his desperate hands. I blinked and read Herman Hesse and promised myself that in an hour I would sit on a rain soaked patio in my pajamas and cry under an oversized umbrella and purple clouds. Smell the sweet storm that just raged over my summer fantasies and wave goodbye to the daughter he used to know. She is a phantom walking barefoot in circles around that mansion she used to call home. Promising love to strangers and swallowing her truth. Conforming to rules that would break her spirit and teach her to hate art. I refuse to be that girl.
Bald headed uncle flew back to Atlanta skies but I wish he was here to criticize mainstream music and smell Skyline with me. I wish he was here to go off on tangents about the details of life unseen by the residents of my world. He rants and raves and makes it beautiful. He sees me the way I wish everyone I ever loved did. As an individual. An artist. A beatnik sixteen year old sucking strength out of poetry. He is far too brilliant for this small town so he returns to his music filled house. To a house filled with cats that know all his secrets. To a manikin dressed in vintage clothes that watches him eat breakfast. But I don’t worry. He’ll be back.
Coffee in the morning with that springtime boy and finally I am a regular. I walk through a mahogany door and they know my face and my smell and my passion for caramel and expresso. It’s nice to be known.
He held me and cried into my sweat stained gym shirt but my body was limp under his desperate hands. I blinked and read Herman Hesse and promised myself that in an hour I would sit on a rain soaked patio in my pajamas and cry under an oversized umbrella and purple clouds. Smell the sweet storm that just raged over my summer fantasies and wave goodbye to the daughter he used to know. She is a phantom walking barefoot in circles around that mansion she used to call home. Promising love to strangers and swallowing her truth. Conforming to rules that would break her spirit and teach her to hate art. I refuse to be that girl.
Bald headed uncle flew back to Atlanta skies but I wish he was here to criticize mainstream music and smell Skyline with me. I wish he was here to go off on tangents about the details of life unseen by the residents of my world. He rants and raves and makes it beautiful. He sees me the way I wish everyone I ever loved did. As an individual. An artist. A beatnik sixteen year old sucking strength out of poetry. He is far too brilliant for this small town so he returns to his music filled house. To a house filled with cats that know all his secrets. To a manikin dressed in vintage clothes that watches him eat breakfast. But I don’t worry. He’ll be back.
Coffee in the morning with that springtime boy and finally I am a regular. I walk through a mahogany door and they know my face and my smell and my passion for caramel and expresso. It’s nice to be known.
1 comment:
You are not lost Mallory. No matter how disheartened you feel, no matter how emotionally hopeless it seems… You are not lost. Hold on to yourself through this storm. Even those that love us with their good intentions try to remold us into their image…hold on to You. All anyone of us can hope for is that we are seen for who we are, don’t hide – even those things you don’t like about yourself – all those things are You. One day he might find his way back to you and be amazed by who you are. But even if he doesn’t, you will always have something he never did… that inner strength to be who You are. You are not lost – don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise.
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