Late Night After a Hug

Written for someone in particular, somewhat late...

 Late Night After a Hug

 

I am caught flat-footed under bent blinds, backward glances, lost and found grocery lists, and late night quiet-hour noisy footsteps. Or, maybe more like: I’m caught between an indulgently-regretful early morning hug not yours and the lack of one half promised through slack-arm sign language.

 

I feel like I took one of your red and black Fifties’-Diner folding-board heartwood pieces while you were looking, and though I can’t remember if smoke comes before fire, I already went first. But the wax dance floor is burning with a smile, the TV committed theatrical suicide in a burst of insight,

--And the board still isn’t set--

 I feel like I just reached the end of a white-knuckle eyes-closed window-seat flight of stairs, feet on the wings holding Up down, and I don’t remember if I just landed with my one way ticket or if half of the journey was back to where I started; there’re no refunds here, but no one wants them anyway.

--I know I don’t—

 I feel like I just hide-and-seeked a regifted scavenger hunt, peek-a-boo-hooing for an epiphany when the midday sun broke in half and, together with a supporting moon (ragged edges making a hole)  superimposed imposing light pollution to try to open my eyes, but my survival-mechanism indifference-tinted sunglasses fit me almost as well as they do you, so all I saw was a stale shadow of an exchanged reflection from behind your eyes.

--It led me here—

 I can see your pre-traumatic eye blink plainly from under my own astigmated cataract-sunshades, the umbrella a target for solar judgment, too out-of-focus for me to see, but I don’t look up anymore, anyway. I said I don’t know how else to straight-faced whisper “hallelujah” except through pouring-rain graffiti-admiring solo train rides, going nowhere particularly, fast. 

 

 And while this is an action to a reaction, reacting before I know how to everyday act believably, I thought of the consequences only after lighting my soul-metaphor lighter-fluid-stain security-blanket and wrapping it into a straight jacket to hold me up on my learning-to-tie-my-own-shoe bungee jump; letting my hand fall into yours as I fell felt like holding it outside the window at night while driving alone: flying.  I’m too blind to be a pilot, but it takes more than eyes for this kind of travel.

 

 No one else has my same name, so when you chisel me into one of your lists, don’t confuse mine with any other visage or landscape; my troubled frown mountains offset by my slow valley of a smile. So if you wanted to play me, remember I am no cracked, off-white keyboard-plastic grand piano, feet uneven and a half a note wrong. If you did try, I would become a                self-cutting-edge robotic wonder: fast moving and lifelike, but with the sense cables disconnected enough that you could domestic-abuse me anywhere.

 You’d just have to find out how to charge me, because I’d do my best plant impression and wither valiantly, leaning on Popsicle stick crutches and being brave like a child, hesitantly but refusing help.

 And so, though I feel like screeching tires into absolving-fire burnouts, firing rounds like inverted tears of rain up into the air to celebrate world pacifism; and though I want to roar that my love is safe in you, if only you’d balance-beam high-dive hug me with a smile…

It’s late,

Quiet hours are in effect,

And you are probably already asleep.

 

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[Jemima Laing]