Back to "the song of starfish" 7. story-part


 

 

The voice in the background spoke, maybe in coarse whispers, maybe less. Isabelle, turn the windows inside out, with the cry of your heart. Dance on the glass fragments. Pretend again, this is just a memory. Right?

As primal as his eyes in the mirror, tired like Mongolian dust as he rises in the morning and trims his beard neat, just because my stepmom asks for it. Dad was set for self-destruct, I was, we were. Certain strange things about us seem less predetermined than chosen in blind rage and hopes of entertained years to come. There's too much fire in this blood, sky high with vivid images of dripping, stained curtains. Voices in the background. Fire in veins as thin as crystals parted by old, rusting katanas. A strange new world we've come to, Isabelle.

But you only laugh. You laugh, even as a fragment kept deeper within, past his brown Mongolian eyes, slits of night. Your laughter, caught in the wrinkles of old skin, aging still, aging always in a memory you refuse to give up. Bury me in the damp, cold earth. Bury me next to my father, I shall have no life without him. No twenty years to make up for. Nothing. Only while Isabelle sleeps, on twice 30 years of mattresses, dust bunnies and lost lives, death in every pore, like Ophelia. Only then as the monster prowls her bed, as I sit and hold her hand, trail her carpet, the walls and the sun faded photos of a little girl, up front against blackberries. Only then. You seem less broken then.

There are no more memories to pretend and play in the dawn, in faded dreams, running for the loophole. We've got nothing more to gain now .

 

 


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Forward to "Now she's in my doorway, accusing me with her soft breasts and long legs, strong hips." 9. story-part

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