All About My Mother

We have just finished dinner when she stands up and leaves, saying nothing more than "Okay, I'm off to babysit"

Who?Where?

Tonight in her button up blouse with the very safe collar she is slouched in her chair, arms on the table and laughs across from her parents. She'll lean forward up to them then to her boyfriend, giggle, look down and simply smile.

It's like Marge without the up do.

Suddenly I'm at dinner with the fourteen year old girl who, hidden by the table cloth, wears her old jeans with flower embroidery rather than the $10 Levis she desperately needs. In spite of this, mother and child are enjoying each other's company beautifully.

She can't stand (without) him

What I'm going to say shouldn't have to be written like this. I shouldn't be awake right now and I shouldn't not have to write this. I want to say He Is, not He Was but here it is.

Amongst chasing all of my passions, fast pleasures that burn like dry leaves, here lies the last of my memories with him.

"What are you going to do?" he asked me.

"I don't really know." I said truthfully.

"A doctor?"

"No..." I laughed. "I wish, I'm not smart enough."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"No really, I'm not."

"You can be whatever you want."

I can't remember what he was doing but he knocked over a level of a shelf and letters flew onto the ground one after the other. He laughed at myself and I laughed at him. Only a few moments later I did the same thing, cartons of cigarettes fell onto the ground. He told me not to worry about it. He picked them up, fixed the shelf. There's more but I'm too tired to write. He was good. There's not a stronger word. Just believe me, he was good.

I don't know what to say to her.

If she cries, if she holds onto me, if I see in the flesh what I already know, I, without any doubt, will begin to crack from my chest and only further fracture like a broken vase. I don't know what I will do. All I want to do is hold her for a while and mend her back together, without any scars but I know like everybody else that scars are permanent. It reaches it's hands over your wound and it holds as tight as it can and then it hardens. You want to touch it, you watch to itch it, you watch to pick it off and start the process all over again. Feeling the pain. Yes, it almost always hurts so good.

I know this sounds like an ongoing cliche but grief and loss are all cliches in life. It happens over, and over, and things don't change. It's repetitive and it continues to hurt. I hate speaking in past tense; it's the most miserable of all tenses.

And then? Part 2

There in a bright room he woke up alone outstretched on a huge bed. Every inch of his mattress was cold except exactly where he lay. He thought of her and got up, still no face. The warmth remained on the mattress like a chalk tracing of a dead body on his bed. That morning his feet were a-tapping and his hand was a-slapping his knee. He could not wait to see her face only to remember that he still loved her.

Later that morning he found her and pretended to be interested in a conversation with someone about so and so. It had been a long weekend. Each hour like a block of Jenga, threatening to topple over. His peripheral vision sharpened from all this indirect contact. Shamelessly he looked at her and although he still loved her he begun to remember her face very clearly now. Closing his eyes he could see everything about her. He could see how her red hair dye seeped down her back after she swam, he could feel her weight and her nails scraping, scratching. He knew she had wanted him to find the benevolent force within himself and steal the words from someone else. "You had me at face", "I've loved your face so long"...

Yes, he would remember the way they begun to unglue as she said, "We need to talk..." or did she say "I have something to tell you...". He could feel the guilt in her voice in the small space of air between them. He could see now how Bart had felt when that new girl ripped out his heart, chucked it against the tree house wall as it slid into the bin, "You won't be needing this anymore." Again he could feel her dimples beneath his thumbs as he wiped away her tears. Now thinking of it over and over, he was only rubbing them into her cold skin.

"I love you. You think I don't but I do." He said it over, and over until she stopped watching the floor and looked through him.

"Show me. Don't tell me." She hugged him as a consolation prize. His jaw tightened. Arms lifelessly hanging beside him. He wanted to hear her cry harder. This was only the beginning of lasts. He fell into this hug a little deeper, found the trap door, lifted it, swung his legs into it, and let go. He could feel her chest heaving against his.

And then? Part 1

He was thinking about her in the afternoon and couldn't remember what her face looked like. He'd think about a photograph he had of her but he could see her body, and her hair, and her smile and exactly where she was looking in the photograph. Although he could not pin point what her face looked like in motion on a regular day. It was as if her face was a scarce area of skin with no shape but an oval. He could reach his fingers into her eye sockets like play-doh and it would slowly return to it's former shape as he took his fingers out, but still no face. Instead of her face appearing another girls would appear instead. He did not know the name of this girl but he knew where this face had come from.

Except this story, it's about this guy and how he can't remember what this girl's face looks like. She wasn't beautiful, no. Although she was remarkable to him. She had that face that would undoubtably welcome wrinkles at an early age. That face that you don't tell your friends you think is sexy but you do think so inside. There are three reasons why you don't tell your friends: 1) You don't want them to have a chance with this girl. 2) You don't want them thinking this person isn't sexy 3) You don't want to ruin your idea of this girl with the judgements of others.

One thing he could remember about her face though, was her bags. The almost purple colour of blood underneath her soft skin.

Here we go ride my pony

I'm here again.

How have you been?

I've got the same hair, the same fingernails clicking on the keyboard, the same tired eyes, the same sore back.

Another sleepless night because of something I shouldn't have left this late to do.

Now I have to write about the history to secure my place in the future.