July 9, 2007

  • I have never been good at handling money.

    I wonder if I ever will be – wonder that because I’m not brave enough to end this; too hopeful that maybe I can do better elsewhere.

    Would I stay here, or move to Nebraska? I heard rent is cheaper in other places. Would I be ok, so far away from home, or would I be able to find a new home elsewhere?

    Maybe … Maybe I could move to Virginia and go back to school. Or to New York – I can certainly hide in plain sight, with throngs of strangers wrapping me in a protective layer of ice. Hmmm… snow….

    Maybe I’ll meet someone who will teach me how to shoot a gun….

    But I would settle for someone who could make love to me.

    Alyssa is pregnant again – she cries into the phone and I walk to her, putting an arm around her shoulders and squeezing her tight. I know she didn’t want it, she can’t keep it, she already has one, and can’t possibly earn enough money for two. “It’s going to be ok,” I whisper, but inside my head, I’m thinking how stupid she is for letting this happen again, with a boy/man who can’t even hold down a decent job; she deserves so much better, and I think to myself: this is the true curse of Eve – her daughters will be blind to their own self-worth – blind, hungry imploding stars that take to their bosom anything close enough to reciprocate a fraction of their own gravity.

    Alyssa hangs up the phone and puts trembling hands to her face – her hands are so very small – but tears escape through fissures of her cage. I squeeze her to me again, and she sobs once, then breathes deeply, then pulls herself back into a cold and solid pillar. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you for the hug.” I dozen phrases bloom and die without leaving my lips which form into a sad smile, and I turn away from her with the pretense of needing retrieve something from the printer.

    The secrets that people tell me, I feel them like hot syrup coating the insides of my skin, warming me and preventing my heart from completely freezing over.

    This morning I think of her and hope that she can still feel my arm around her when she lies down in that room and someone comes in to take away something she didn’t want in the first place.