Friday, March 02, 2012

if you ask how I got so bitter, I'll ask how you got so vain

You feel uncomfortable, I can tell, and this makes me more awkward than I should be. My teaspoon is a wind chime trapped in a cup, clattering to escape. I draw the spoon out and accidentally drop it under the table.


I look at my hands. My right hand has two small blisters which hurt a little. I press against them with the thumb of my left hand to make them hurt more. (I like my hands like this, the way they feel when I use them.) You start watching my hands too, and so I stop. There is something small like a hiccup or a giggle trying to get out from under my ribs. You ask what happened to my hand and I shrug.

Your hands are the same as I remember them, same fingers, same wrists. You have the same voice. But there is nothing to say, I have nothing to say. Not because there aren't a million things in my head but I do not want you to have any of them.


*

5 comments:

Secret Agent Woman said...

Cryptic.

(When I have something like a blister, I tend to press on it repeatedly. That sort of mild pain is interesting.)

Catching up, I'm sorry about the strike. How very frustrating.

Jerry said...

You have just penned my greatest fear. I imagine being the one sitting in the other seat, desperately trying to connect although knowing in my gut that it is agonizingly hopeless.

mischief said...

Secret Agent, I find that kind of pain interesting too, so much so that I cannot leave it alone.

Jerry, I find *that* kind of pain too interesting too, that kind of isolation that one can only feel when isolated from someone specific. So much so that I cannot leave it alone.

Nic said...

Hands. When I miss people, I miss the hands.

xxx P

(You have made Sunday coffee wonderful. I am so tempted to start at 2005 again and feel contentment all day. The present to myself was make-up. A foundation, in fact. It was a little bit more pricey. It covers like you have been airbrushed. I think I am in love with it already.)

mischief said...

Yikes, 2005 seems so long ago... I don't think you should subject yourself to it. Glad you enjoyed your present to you -- you deserve it!