let’s meet by the splintered door green weathered. I’m going to tell you a story take my hand. we’ll walk along the rooftops laughing until the sky trembles. do you feel weightless?
moving silence and our hair floats, making patterns all around us.
I will be honest. I will conceal only what I have forgotten.
now I am thinking of the sandstone-honey cliffs collapsing into the hazy daylight and those delirious melting clouds, and we peer through a steep window. pigeons fly lop-sided in the light wind.
when I was five, my dad left for work and never returned because of a stranger and a momentary distraction. It was my birthday. I hid under the table; granny told me to be happy on my special day.
Will you speak? I will speak my truth I am not happy.
suddenly everything changed, and I was living with granny. I remember the forest that grew outside my window and a comforting arm around me. there are days when the sky seems confused and is the colour of moss green. I wear a dress the same colour as the wildflowers I used to pick that grew in the loose sandy soil in the forest
high above the sea.
photos.
disrupt the memories.
don’t look down. take my hand.
I am unhappy, but—I will be honest. you know, I will grow on you.
I think about swirling clouds—music notes in the sky. there is no beautiful past. things just unfolded. she had dreams of suicide, a pact with death, and I was only little. granny picked me up in her beat-up ford.
I am rather sentimental. when I was twelve, I laid my head on the wood grains listening to granny play Satie’s Gymnopedie, crying. she had a way of connecting. I like to collect. I have been collecting memories and secreting them away, so somehow, I’ll one day connect. I like starry nights and reading by the moon. I hide in bookstores. I write poetry. there was someone that I loved.
he loved living: the winding trails of the, forest, the sponge-soaked air in summer tumbling off the edge of the cliff,
kissing the air looking down at the waves
take my hand
we’ll meet at the abandoned door. dead door.
and listen.
there has been grief in my life. it is the one constant. I grew old quickly. when I was six, when I was ten, and then fourteen—granny took me to a beautiful garden surrounding a sandstone castle,
greener than green lawns,
and a green sky pond. we spent time with mum. she looked tranquil. I was told to remind her that she is loved. I wanted to touch her, but she always remained—
out of reach.
I will tell you the truth. let me grow on you. I don’t think he ever loved me. he loved the feeling of saying, I love you. he has known tragedy too. and he knew about life. I am alone. I am lonely. I live in a city of five million people, yet all around me is silent movement.
I’m waiting for you to speak.
Jo Curtain is a poet and short-story writer. She writes for Coffee House Writers. Her work has been published in Geelong Writers, Blue Daisies Journal, Sour Cherry Mag and elsewhere.
Painting by. René Magritte (Sixteenth of September, 1956)
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