Paris RosemontIt used to be alert to threats, waiting on the back porch, ready to run at the first whiff of smoke. The eyes sense it first: the sting from ghosts poking needles in my eye, blinking at betrayal like voodoo dolls that did not consent
to penetration. I ‘spose I must have forgotten to cross my heart. Satan knows I’ve hoped to die more times than I’d care to recall. Now these acupuncture pins are infuriatingly lodged in my eyeball; they leave
splintering shards and I’m about to go blind.
Next, the throat—impossible to ignore when it snakes its boa constrictor grip around my neck, squeezing till I’m a wheezing asthmatic without my Ventolin inhaler. But I’m stubborn. I don’t want to know what I don’t want to know. So I clear my throat, cough
up a massive glob of oyster. Giggle nervously. See? That’s all it was. (Even I’m not buying it.)
That was before you. I’d arrived, as usual, with my polka dot knapsack casually drawn, slung over my shoulder on one of those knobbly Monkey Magic staffs. That’s what I’d grown accustomed to in my mid-life: the non-committal temperance of casual. It was easier for me to extract myself with minimal scar tissue that way. Doesn’t it get heavy? My sidewards glance told you in lieu of words that my shoulder ached. Here, set it down with me, you offered, patting the empty space beside you. I’ll be gentle.
True to your word, you were.
At first, I braced for the stealth of Samurai blades one cool Nagamachi night to stab the hollow of my vulnerability, right between my shoulder blades – that tender groove just out of scratching reach. What you delivered instead were seasons of sakura, carpeting my path with the plushest of premium DreamWeaver™ threads.
After years of doing double-duty, that weary old amygdala of mine has earned a vacation. Shedding its caterpillar nettles, it sprouts iridescent wings and commences its first journey to anywhere-but-here. .
