In this hand, I hold the things that are true.
And you know, I should really go to bed. Big day tomorrow, day off, writing day, video day; these are the daily details that don’t matter in months, memories, moments frozen forever like that doll, standing atop a bookcase, three shelves laden. We always moved her for the nerf wars, foam ball fights, pillow tossing, mermaid games.
In this hand, I hold the weight of feelings weightless in a pumping muscle, theoretically meaningless in skin, bone–a body has two responses, amp up, power down, but whatever exists in the place of pumping muscle extended their vocabulary past that.
My toes don’t have edges dipped in the water, splintering, reflecting, dazzling, refracting, and this experiment could go on except for the cold. Cold, hot, I have no metaphors to fit a hurt.
Yes, hurt. We are drawn like bees to nectar, joy to laughter, but in the quiet night our hearts’ softnesses melt the walls, subsume the laughter, drain us of our nectar till we walk like hollowed out eggshells, pretty, smooth, ready to crack with weightlessness under thick air, cool fingers, in this hand I hold the things that are true.
Underwater, imagine counting the times you have broken, shattered, white shells twirling in slow motion into blackness. These mermaids own that blackness, name it blue, disarm it in their frivolousness. Yes, that is what we want, an acceptance of the lie that we could conquer the sea with mere frivolity. That the shattered remnants of us are not lost, merely deeper than we choose to go, on account that nobody wants to be blind to the glowering fish around them, ajar hearts pumping blood for the taking. That the ajar hearts inside us are protected with more than foam and pillows.
If I could have you back, would you fit in my hand? Under my thumb where I cracked the egg of me. Atop the tip of my pinky, where I plucked a porcelain doll to set her under a desk, safe. But, we are not underwater, my hands merely hands, an eggshell merely a shell around a feeling. If I could have you back, would you still know the way through those cracks? Through the foam and pillows at war with each other? Or is this moment in time merely frozen forever that way, me, believing you are more than the daily details you still choose to be?
Perhaps, we should leave it that way. With the wondering.
Jordyn Saelor 