Suicidal Secrets [2 Chapters of it]

Crisscut symbols that mean Jezebel1

Summer breaks open the icy shards of winter2

Last fallen blossoms of spring-gracefully sink3

Each season comes to an end- becoming ashes4

Lights burning out-candle flames reaching the wax5

By the time you read this I’ll be gone- 6

Maybe you won’t even read it- you’ll burn it7

The way my soul is burning, but don’t worry8

My pain is almost over, I’m burning out.9

presage10

‘Sometimes the carousel spins, and it twirls – painted ponies galloping into a never-ending sunset. It spins neon lights and the same old catchy tune- bitter sweet. Turning on its own axis- it moves and it doesn’t stop- carrying those who never left on a eternal journey- a journey that means flying on gilded carnival wings and neon striped pink cotton candy highs. It’s the journey for the orphan grey bundle of fur; hair slicked up- cold and anorexic bones poking at ashen scruff- a lost and bewildered kitten, searching for home. It’s the journey for the polka dotted beanie covering scraggly hair that looks like newspaper shreds- the six freckles making a star around a dust decorated grubby nose. A journey for the unwanted- a little girl born of an almost abortion till the hospital smell of stale graham crackers and over due apple juice sent her mother running out. A little girl crouching by a painted pony- holding, afraid to let go. Afraid to go home. 11

Some carousels spin, and when the ride ends, you put in another quarter- because that movement became your gravity- and spinning forever is your only choice. Sometimes spinning on the carousel- moving into the momentum of forgetting, of a lie, of a deception is a numbing for the pain. Some carousels spin and while you are on it your soul yearns for someone to tell- to explain why the ride means something, what about the spinning can momentarily fade the pain. Sometimes you want someone to tell- just to hold you up to help you find a way that makes sense- a light that doesn’t burn your eyes. But sometimes that person carries too many burdens to hear you, their sight is blinded by their own un fallen tears, and their heart is too heavy with unspoken pain. 12

Then you cry, fat tears, salty tears- tears of being alone, misunderstood- of wanting someone to see through the façade. Crying tears as a release of the chemical poisoning your soul- siphoning it off a little at a time the way writing does. You cry- because like the carousel- sometimes you can’t hold it back, and it’s your only way of holding on. To anything.’13

Story of my life- poem of the thick dark obese slices of sorrow sliding downs my red cheeks. Vignette summing up the crushing head pressure closing in on me, shutting my eyelids and pressing shut my nostrils- like the pressure of the ocean waves as you let yourself sink to the bottom, the farther you go down, the more it takes away your will,14

who you are and puts it in your head- that there is no reason to go back up.’ 15

Chapter one~ 16

Twirling little girls, Painted ponies, and Spinning carousels17

Wind blown leaves sweep across the empty street- picking up the memories lying in the gutter soaked in pre winter slush. Through the opaque window frame fogged up by the morning clouds, the image of a barefoot little girl skateboards through the puddles, one leg of her black leggings pulled up to her knee, the other scrunched up above her ankle. As the air swirls, picking up their crunchy fire colored burdens off the ground - it sucks up the autumn memories. Giggles sounding like hiccups bounce off the mismatched bricks of the three houses standing sentry on the empty lane. Tiny brown curls bounce on her neck and pale cheeks blush with the colors an artist aspires to paint but black spots from the wet ground cling to the pink lace of the girl's pleated mini skirt. 18

Brushing a strand of dark hair out of her eyes, Sierra rests her chin on her manicured nails and watches from behind a windowpane. Even too far away to see the girl clearly, the blue and green camouflage of the skateboard is vivid in her mind's eye. Black elongated lashes blink twice, squeezing green eyes shut briefly before opening to fixate on the reel of a movie she starred in, many years ago. Feet hitting the earth and propelling her forward the little girl steps onto the skateboard and disappears into the wind carrying away the leaves. The hollow sound of a bell ringing in the crisp air breaks open her reverie.19

Displacing hundreds of tiny ringlets as she shakes her head to clear it, Sierra drags herself out of the memory in an effort to get a way from the very real bell. A purple nail curtsey of Sephora taps the volume button on her laptop and Eminem blasts out of the speakers. The Sephora painted nail presses the volume button till it jams and does little to mute the sound of the bell. Slender fingers fly across the keyboard as they open up the Word document to start typing. Little symbols that melded together make sense to most people form into words on the screen- squinting her eyes Sierra read through the paragraph she had written and deciphered words that didn't exist that were on the page. Candle had become 'eldnaC' and 'dark night' had become 'thgin krad'. She had to work twice as hard for everything she had ever achieved- it was how she filled the void of the sister she didn't understand. It was how she made people notice her even as their eyes were tempted to see her sister.20

Instead of the frustration flooding her feelings and the anger starting to form, somehow she was numb. Sierra was bipolar and dyslexic – consumed by emotions trapping her in a jail sentence that was for life.21

Fingers taking off again to fly across the keyboard typing incoherent sentences into the machine- Sierra tried to forget who had been lowered into the wet dirt this morning. Her head spinning like a broken carousel- flashing lights, metal horses moving up and down except that was, her grief, her emotions in thought form. , Racing. An expert by now at turning a blind eye and living a lie, she shifted the awkward truth into the back of her head, convincing herself it didn't matter because acetate tablets numbed it so it didn't hurt.22

Savoring the taste of silence- swirling her taste buds in the fragile calm of no yelling, or crooked finger pointing. Swallowing the absence of keening and crooning empty air- she stood as headlights cruised down cobblestone streets illuminating the shadows coloring the lines between the bricks, the way darkness became the canvas of many faces. Sighing, she looked down at the solid footprints ending at her computer, particles of wet neighboring graved dirt line her little toe stubbed at age five- recreating the shape of her frustration earlier that morning. 23

Cookie cutter sugar cookie words of ‘ a beautiful shining light that had gone out’ and the rotten apple core entity of no allusions to the girl whose body lay in the wicker casket turned on the strobe lights in front of Sierra’s eyes. Staggering she stumbled amidst shell-shocked faces whose eyes portrayed the words of disappointment and distress that characterized the people they were that day. 24

Her father’s casual arm was around her mother, as they listened to the false image of the daughter lying in that casket. Tinges of grey tips escaped around his father’s ears from the black flannel of his hood- squeezed together with a community in mourning, the way his hair had transformed into silver overnight in the way her mother’s crooked teeth smile had become a leaking of tears never stopped startling her. But as her eyes had picked out the library teacher of her preschool years and the retired mailman- she realized that most of these people would be dressed in black for six November weeks as funeral after funeral became a community event. A coping mechanism for tragedy. Jezebel was only the first of six chilly bodies to rest in ground soon to be heaped in frozen water. She was the first sibling to hear the lies about the one they’d squabbled over shower time, and front seats with- the first to see the hazy image of opposites brought out by their brother or sister being depicted as an angel. She was the first- but she wouldn’t be the last. 25

The priest chanted rites of tradition- meaningless words that were a small fraction of the summing up of the loss that was her sister. Humming fading into an echo of what was- bouncing into the ears of hundreds of people, each who would hear it differently, he invited the family of the deceased up to say goodbye. Sierra’s shoulder turned as if to slip in between the frigid jackets all around me but her mothers arm gripped her wrist like tentacles of a giant squid, needing to see me closer. Shuffling towards the grave, she started to pull away, hoping wrinkled fingers would go slack and let go of me- yearning for her to let go of me although that’s exactly how she lost her twin. Somewhere a strength that had been missing from her body for hours relapsed- unwashed away by the cancer that is grief, the biting disease that steals away hope, and stabs with questions no one wants to answer. 26

Her mother collapses into her father as they get to the edge of the grave, dark strands of silky hair are drowned in citrines of sorrow as the gently pedal their way down her cheeks, riding a bicycle of release. Her face is covered by a cream-colored lid- pale and perfect, just like her, her parents said when they picked it out. She had to run outside to puke in the bushes- dodging the stares and humiliation as passerbyers saw me. She yanks her hand out of her mother’s grasp as her father’s long arms wrap around her awkward bony shoulders and frail body. Head down, she slip off her heels and tie them to her wrist and her body starts moving down the slope, bumping elbows and ribs and shoulders – a tornado sweeping across the pond wind lit faces. Her chest constricts and her ribs compress into themselves as if trying to create fossils in her stomach lining. Coughing, choking on the gossamer atmosphere of feather and spangle deception and painted words pretending to be something else. 27

Just like the painted ponies at the carnival, electric movement creates the illusion of being alive- seduction of a counter reality, irresistibility of possible reality of a dream world. Heels covered in a layer of almost dead earth dug up for her sister’s final resting- are barely defensible against the glacial cold sabers digging into the nerves in her feet as she pounds the stiff ground. Feet flying, she ran urging her heart to pump enough oxygen bearing blood that it eliminates her suffocation so that she actually takes off. 28

Letting herself into the house, she tramps upstairs-as her gaze is caught in the reflection of the windowpanes. 29

Pulling out a sheaf let of torn and cut off corner papers; Sierra held them on her knees and scribbled hundreds of emotions per minute onto the page. Listing describing- explaining to herself- trying to make sense. 30

-----
She was my sister- my twin- a piece of my inheritance but she wasn’t me, and I wasn’t her. We didn’t fit together, like two halves of a whole- she didn’t fill my empty spots and smooth my jagged edges and I was never enough for her. She was more like 5\6ths and I was a broken half. 31

~ Things I knew about us- items that were the same. 32

Jezebel - Sierra 33

1. Seventeen years old- though I’d be eighteen34

2. Genetics- coding that decided what we looked like35

3. Generic boring information such as schools we went to, and teachers we had36

4. A childhood of hanging on the monkey bars, until sunset stole our breath away- and the chilly air drew goosebumps all over our skin37

5. December 12th 38

Things I knew about her39

1. November first, she died seventeen years old. 40

2. She had my Genetics- although we were completely different molecules41

3. December 12th was her birthday42

4. She was beautiful- she was a dark angel but she hated that passionately- she wanted more than anything to be born anything else, as ugly even so people would see through her false smiles that never reached her citrine eyes. 43

5. That I didn’t know her very well at all. 44

Maybe that’s why one minute she was here and the next she didn’t- if no one knows you then how can you exist? If you don’t even know yourself- then does that make each breath a lie? A deception as with each breath your heart is beating as someone else. 45


-------46

Ink leaking on to the page from the nib of the pen- ebonized tear stains fading out of charged words, it coated her French manicure nails and seeped up to the spine of the peacock green feather on the pen. Setting the journal behind her desk, wedged between the window and solid mahogany wood, she slipped socks on over tattered sneakers, the laces in threadbare ruins and carefully peeled her door open, turning her ear to the rest of the world. Feeling the floor vibrate as little particles of shock raced across her skin to her ears, she assumed her parents were still in the garage and calculated she had two minutes. Sprinting down a polished wood staircase that still had telltale hints of bottoms sliding down it on pillows and mattresses, she twisted the brass doorknob and left the door ajar before walking briskly towards the setting sun.47

Miniature snowflakes swirled in front of her nose, plastering themselves to her freckled cheeks as made her way to the end of the tunnel of overwhelming memories and turned on Ember Road. A beat up old Chevy laid haphazardly parked two wheels in a rut and another two on a weedy embankment littered with shards of root beer colored brown, but the bottles were not root beer bottles. Yanking on the jammed door handle, once silver metal speckled with fragments of rust like a has been Broadway actress now decorated in countless wrinkles, Sierra placed her dark blue tennis shoe against the scratched paint and pulled. Thrusting her backwards the door pulled open, and climbing into the front seat she reached down and tore the keys from where they were taped to the back of the breaks. 48

The one consolation prize of not knowing the twin who she shared nine crowded months with, was that no other living people did either- they wouldn’t have guessed she’d hide the keys behind failing breaks – they wouldn’t even come close to understanding how Jezebel’s mind worked. 49

Turning the jagged keys in the ignition, and putting the truck in drive she backed off the embankment and stared straight ahead- through the hoops of sparkling colors crowding her vision. At the fuzzy cars pulsing ahead of her through white gossamer haze as frozen powder in the shape of pinwheels fell – catching in the windshield wipers. Pulling up into the circular driveway of the county hospital, inch into a nondescript park space that isn’t big enough for her car, careful not to brush even the rearview mirror or the paint- ten minutes goes by with her foot easing on the gas, reflexively heading towards the breaks. Head down, she pulls her long brown sleeves farther down her wrist trying to make them cover more of her, dizzy for a brief moment she stops, her feet creating footprints in the slush. 50

Hitting the glass doors with her palm, she strides in, suddenly unsure of herself, hesitating in the lobby as she sees mothers cradling wheezing babies to their chest trying to bury them in their love. Kissing fevered foreheads, squeezing the sickness out of their babies as they wait- (in her head she warns them) ‘watch out because in a couple years you won’t be able to fix your baby, holding them close will only push them away- watch out, your child could grow up to be like me, or Jezebel or any of the seven- and you will never see it coming.’51

Feeling out of place, her sickness is inside of her – wrapped up in the neurons that run her hormones and emotions, not her heart or soul like one would assume. Bi polar disorder isn’t something you can see not like the shaved symbolism of cancer or the rib bones sticking out of Anorexia. Faltering steps lead her to the reception desk smelling of too many worry lines and the smell of the burden of passing on constant heartbreak to hopeful family members.52

“Who are you looking for honey?” – pursed lips faking a smile mouth, words contrasting the worry lines ingrained in her forehead53

“Jeffrey Andrew’s room please”.54

“ Second floor- I-120. Are you related to him? We can only admit family” spoke the pursed lips and worry lines.55

“I’m his sister…” Sierra half whispered, the lie slipping out of her mouth before she could catch it but pursed lips had turned away reading something on her computer screen.56

Going through the motions, she somehow made it to the stairwell and then the elevator and to the right room. Standing at the doorway, she heard the emptiness and overwhelming sadness of the place echoing in the absence of people other than nurses hurrying down the halls. Fingers gripping the doorway, long thin nails tearing into the splinters of wood, embedding it in her nail beds- she watched the bruise colored brown haired boy lying on the hospital bed with bandaged wrists. Walking in, she stared at the way his cheekbones had become strong and his eyes had become faded and broken from the last time she had seen him- standing next to a swing, pushing her as s he pumped her legs higher and higher. 57

“Hey… how you doing?” soft words tumbled out of her mouth into his ears, solace to the itching on his elbows and his shins, not scratch able due to his army short nails. 58

Eyes blinking in surprise, he motioned her weakly to come forward to sit on the bed. 59

“ You want to talk about Jezebel. Why? And How? Huh?” She nodded, words stuck in her throat, no tears just empty words. False assuring that she cared about him too when in all honestly she didn’t- not more than as a way to get to know her sister, to redeem losing her so successfully that she couldn’t have told the Police where to find her when she went missing. 60

“ Her funeral was today. Burial too.”61

“The wouldn’t let me go- wouldn’t release me. Afraid of what I did. Of what I could do. How did you find out by the way about her, us, me, them?” 62

“The police came to my house- asked if we knew where she was- said there were others missing. Told us there was reason to be believed she might be kidnapped. Then I knew. She wasn’t kidnapped- she was dead. I should have seen it coming but the flickers of the girl I saw in the bathroom mirror jimmying for time at the sink was a girl that could pull it all off- set off bombs of unanswered questions as she went out. I knew she had killed herself and probably taken others with her”63

“I don’t think I can stand to hear why. Not now. Too raw- just how. And in her last moment- what was she like? Who was she?”64

“ Too many tablets- too much numbing. She was Jezebel- alive, shocking, a bombshell- your sister.”65

Aeryn-Now today. 66

One day, maybe my life will make sense again, one day maybe time will fade the scars loving you can’t heal. I certainly hope so because baby you owe me big. Staring out into the faces of the audience, most believe they know why I’m here- I don’t even know. Walking through the sea of people who believe the understand my grief, when most of them couldn’t tell me the color of your eyes much less how you put Tatiana to sleep after nightmares, what lullaby you sang- sent chills burning down my spine. My head burned as I walked into the domed building where we were supposed to say goodbye to you. Your father limped in leaning on your mother. I hadn’t seen them together in years, neither had you. Maybe you were smiling right now hopeful for them, or maybe you were crying- devastated that after how hard you had worked to protect the ones you loved from the fatal poison of the bottle, it had brought your mother back to him. Standing here on this stage, I sigh in relief- for what I have to say your sister and brother shouldn’t be here, not because its wrong but because despite his provoked nightmares and your black eyes- they still loved the red haired fool that was their father.67

I wondered who was watching them- some elderly neighbor dogpaddling in a storm that required swimming, someone who would not know you, me, Tatiana or Max. 68

Words tumbled out of my mouth, harsh and screeching, painful but loving. Listen, baby, these words are for you. 69

"I wish I could say I'll ever forgive you but I won't. I wish I could say that one day my heart will put itself back together- and the shredded pieces will reunite to pump the blood through my body and give me life- but it won't. I wish you will walk into fifth period tomorrow as if nothing happened- like you always do- and tell them it was all a joke -but with me you just needed to know I cared- but I know you won't.70

If I had words to speak to you that day- I would tell you to come home with me- to stay with me- anything to wake you up and keep you from walking out of fifth period down that icy road- to keep you from walking out all of our lives- away from me. I would have spoken to you when the night made some pains numb and others excruciating and made you count on the clouds in the sky just how many souls your suicide would murder. I'd have told you to wake up and understand that if they found your body in that frozen pond- I'd always remember you- but not for surviving everyone that hurt you but for being selfish enough to devastate the community the way you did- for not pushing through the pain so you didn't unburden yourself onto your little siblings and your family. 71

I would have stuck everything out with you- by your side forever- and you knew that. But your sister is five years old and your brother is seven- you took away their childhood just as you lost yours- your wrong doesn't right anything." 72

"Shut that bitch up! That's my ...my son she's talking about. What the hell does she know? Get your hands off of me, woman. My boy is gone- and this child is up there talking about him.. How dare she, the little slut? He didn't even love you..."73

"Obviously- not enough. If he had- maybe he would have thought of someone else and stayed where he belonged- with me. Maybe then my soul wouldn't have frozen solid- drowned where he took his life. I'm going to continue- I want him to hear this- and I believe he's listening. 74

You stole from your brother and sister- you were their everything, their superhero strength that allowed them to sleep again after the nightmares. You built their path out of the drunken shredded reality that was their other choice- your words wove their bedtime stories and made them a part of something bigger, giving them an escape from doors slamming and bottles smashed in the dirt where they played after school. 75

You stole from me too- I wish so much that I can say I know how to bounce back after losing you but that isn't in my vocabulary. I don't have a reason to be in this life without you- I'm breathing, and my heart is still physically capable of beating but I'm not living. I'm holding my breath as the waves of sorrow flows down my spine to the tips of my toes- I'm throwing myself into the pretense of being strong so someone else can become my lie of strength. I loved you- you knew and know that- I don't care who else in this world doubts that. I still do- its a permanent mark on who I am- you define me. I miss you- every breath I take- every time I blink - I'm conscious of what I lost. I seen movies- read books where some people say they get three seconds in the morning- the transition between sleep and waking where they've forgotten and that's their fuel to keep going. I'm always awake- nothing numbs the pain. 76

I believed in you- in your ability to love me and stay alive because you knew I needed you- more than that I'd doubt your strength when I could do nothing but hold you through your pain but seeing you tickle your sister and tackle your brother- I convinced myself that was enough to keep you here with me. I'm selfish I know because I thought we were enough to ground you and keep your feet from the path you chose. I was wrong and I'm so sorry. I'm sorry because I couldn't stop you- I'm sorry because if I could do it all over again. I'd have betrayed your trust and made sure I chained you to life. You would have hated me for that. But I'm sorry because looking now at the ruins of my heart and the pieces of my soul- unable to cry because Tatiana and Max need my pretense of strength to get them through this- I would have forced you to do the right thing- clip your wings and not numb your hurt instead of crippling those of us who are now forever missing a part of ourselves.77

I almost wish I were sorry because I can't forgive you- but I'm not. I love you - we love you but I can't forgive you, Jake Matthew Stone. "78

"Don't clap for her, woman. Don't talk back to me- you are only my wife. You bastards why aren't you throwing her out of this service- what were supposed to be a tribute to my son, my dead son. Shut up all of you! Don't you dare cheer- get the hell away from me- no one touch me- I'm leaving. You should all be ashamed of yourselves clapping for the crying slut. My son is dead- and she just spoke as if he was a criminal. ........ 79

What do you want slut? How dare you think you have the right to talk about my son or to me?"80

"Tell Tatiana and Max I'll pick them up from school tomorrow- they can spend the night at my house. I'm sorry your guilt is eating you alive for not knowing your son- I'm not sorry he hated you."81

I get up and just leave, walking away from the chaos of confused faces and masks of sympathy being wiped off of botox faces by shock and unexpected truths. My feet are magnetic pulled toward where your body was last on earth. Toward wherever lingering your spirit might be- I would have run earlier, straight out of history class after you if I’d believed that you might not come back. I’d have raced to the icy road, to the frozen pond to visit you once I knew, if I hadn’t thought of what it had done to your sister and brother. They got into my car, unknowing, none of us knew- her chattering about the experiment they’d done in Science and him talking about a goal he’d made on the muddy middle school field. My words were soft, hurt by you, but gentle- ebbing and flowing in calmness. Full of belief in your self control- ebbing and flowing like the tides, giving and taking. Our speech was lighthearted- none of us knew- though I should have guessed.82

Standing at the edge of mushy fringe, like a pie crush that’s been smashed after it was created perfectly, pieces of ice have been torn away. I push pass that caution tape surrounding it- they believe it’s a crime scene but they haven’t even started to assess the real damage for this crime- the tilted smile that overturns your sister’s entire freckled face or the easiness in your brother’s shoulders when he feels safe. They call it’s a crime but do they even know who it was a crime against? No they couldn’t. Because they didn’t know us.. Know you. Couldn’t have known. 83

I want to believe I can feel you- your wrists wrapping around my waist, holding my tattered stitches together. I want to believe I can still smell your strength as I lean back against your chest, buried in freckled arms determined to protect me. It just hurts though- the memories bleed out into each other, fading into the sharp onion cleaver stabbing of watching your face become dying stars and broken wings. 84

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~85

Chapter 2 86

Q-tip hearts and paper cut wings87

Jocelyn88

Salty tears stung the scars that trailed down her body entertained with her skin. Little drops of rain dripped over the rainbow of colors that caused her to wince when she moved anything around it. Dark hair fell across her face slapping the cuts that had barely scabbed over, shading the dark circles like an eye patch around her eyes- dark circles of broken blood vessels and skin that had been hit too hard.89

Diagonal cracks across facades of careful smiles and neon eye shadow- sliced their way through cakes of cover-up hiding much more than zits. She is the mirror broken in the high school bathrooms, the muddy water circulating in the bucket put out to catch the rainbow reflecting puddles. Her smile hides a thousand tears, shooting stars shattering into every corner of the universe. Upturned lips wince as cuts and swelling jostle amidst her pretending. She is the shadow of looming fists crushing pebbles- outgrown by a six feet tall frame full of muscle. 90

Lying in the ICU, colorful against the hospital gown backdrop, powdery burgundy coats the line of her eyelashes, hiding infected cuts. Cerulean watercolor of suffocation and tears underline her faded eyes. Curved cheeks hold sadness in a beautiful way just as red and purple needles hold widened eyes and frowning lips just at the mention of it- even if it is a medicine.91

[Diary Entry]92

‘ One, two, three, -sunrises of broken teeth and crushed toes and then freedom, escaping. Five- numbing- morphine candy for my solid bruises and my liquid ones. Slow dying- punctured bitter words piercing my survival, throbbing pulsing beneath my rainbow colored skin- he’s careful, washing away the bruises- sometimes. Unless the moon has already peeked out from under its covers, and safe, gentle sores go quietly into the night. I can’t fail because if I do- everything whole about me will be broken, strangled hope of an end to dear in the headlight eyes as caressing hands break my bones- shattered powder, particles of want – fear burning into my forehead, ingrained syllables that once meant something but have now become the lullaby and chant easing into my passing out. Three breakings of the clouds into gossamer shapes- my eyes will be bleeding shut, too shut to see. I won’t fail, I can’t. Going back would be more pain than everything else that's happened .The final equation that would simplify to be- would be the murder of me- a microscopic global difference between my suicide. Because one gave me control- a way to end it, speak up by silencing my voice. One was in my hands- rooted in the popped blood vessels like cloudy mixed oil paints- one was all in my succeeding in this one thing. Not failing.’
----------93

Blank eyes falling out the windowpane gripping on to life, fragile like ceramic figures with the power to inspire but and a gift at breaking if squeezed too hard or dropped. Silver curls bounce against the wrinkles of beige motherhood- lines that mean tying sopping wet laces forestalling the inevitable falling and spinning lullabies like cotton into fabric clutched to baby faced chins while raspberry and tanbark eyes try to be grown up and not cry. Bright neon polo shirts and a sliding off jacket hug her visitor’s tiny frame as taffeta-layered hair pushes her wheel chair around- he drags a green snake towards scraggly weeds dying in the frost. Although it’s halfway towards winter, towards snow angels breaking hearts and soul warming Apple cider- tiny fingers grasp the spigot. Pangs absorb into her head, pangs of summer running around with stoves watering the plants and each other- magnolia blossoms colored light, dancing on the pavement, still existent at seven thirty at night. The warm air heating the early evening the way summer does. It smells of late nights sitting on a couch in the front yard, talking with a bottle of wine and crackers- not caring that saw. It feels like running around in shorts and spaghetti straps falling off- held by the Summer- not needing a jacket- long legs allowing one to fly. 94

Broken nails draw images with white fluff ends- cracked and broken hearts become the autobiography of her pain. Q tip hearts interlinking, fluid cufflinks interlocking memories of broken staircases that had become the metaphor for her body. Memories of paper cut wings leaping her soul into the air- sending her away from the dank reality on the currents of numbing hope and the feel of yesterdays. 95

Retracing tanbark trails back to swinging across the monkey bars- one, two, three at a time, hoping if her fingers slipped someone would catch her, lifting her down gently. Years ago, not yesterdays, she soared on her swing set wings, pumping the air furiously, angry with skinned knees for stinging, and upset because while she climbed steps in the form of blue bars across a play structure and fell tangled in yellow swings- no one was there. 96