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unhinged
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'lets watch the sunset'
the view was the biggest thing in her tiny little apartment. the cell of a migrant art monk, an easel, canvases, portfolios, a small thin mattress on the floor.
another leo i had collected in my life, the little sister i never had. or maybe the daughter that i aborted. when she needed a place to sleep we shared my bed. when she needed money for therapy i loaned it.
after tacos, tequila, indica we shared the sunset. after her promotion at work we weren't supposed to be together like this. illicit.
she started to talk of her illness again, how the medicine made it unsafe for her to get pregnant. how she was struggling with it again, being childless. but this time the word 'leukemia' slipped out to describe it. a word she never said before. the same word that described the horrible way my father died.
that even as i try to write about it the words do not come to describe it. that work took our friendship away. that the same horrible disease took my father away took away something that made us women. she felt guilty for being an art monk like many of us women married to our art still do.
words are stuck. they don't come out like they used to. i choke on them at night, wake up spluttering. i feel the same tug of guilt for my solitary existence devoted to myself and my current medium. i feel guilt for abandoning my career that was no longer serving me. for setting boundaries for myself that left people and communities i loved so much i thought they were my identity behind.
life is grieving
the ferries glided across the water as the clouds reflected the colors of the setting sun
she was shy to show me her portfolio. her eyes_cast_down. some pages she turned quickly past, not wanting to share. i looked away at the sunset.
maybe she wanted me to be a girl experiment. she did once say while staying at my place so close that we shared a bed 'ok let's make out now' and i tacitly refused. silently. and she silently accepted. the fire i had for her wasn't like that. it was the fire that feeds children, not the fire that makes them.
i almost didn't hear it because she talks so fast, her accent so heavy, the word 'leukemia' the evil thing that had already taken some of my most important love away. days after our beautiful sunset i am reading a book that makes me cry because the author is talking about cutting off her hair, her identity during her struggle with ovarian cancer. her manner that night was subdued in a way her leo self is normally not subdued. maybe because she shares with me things she won't share with others. i hate that the work we both need and hate keeps us from others. i hate cancer.
she walks to the bus stop with me. says 'i love you' where i used to say 'te amo' and i hug back closer than she intended. 'i love you too'
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