Water Color Dream

Water Color Dream

Every night

you wrap your arms around me

enveloping my anxious orange soul in yours, a soothing cool blue of the artic,

as darkness does the earth,

protecting her from the white hot sun.

Our synchronized breathing slows –

in         then     out       then     in

and our untrained, hearts

thump-thump together in my ear

quietly

whispering our vulnerability

as sleep stretches his

irresistible arms out

and embraces us.

Moments before we’re encumbered

by a soft, periwinkle sleep,

your grasp tightens

attempting to pull me into your dreams

as soft and intangible

as the wispy clouds

silently slumbering above our heads

keeping the faded stars company

on a moonless night

When you wish me “goodnight”

a mumbled after-thought

of two words so often used

that their meaning is lost,

your words tickle me.

They drape themselves around me

and caress me with their golden warmth

making you

the last thing I know

as I succumb

to the over-powering desire

to fall into sleep’s welcoming arms.

Every night

I dream in watercolor

and always your colors blend with mine.

Your calm, reassuring, lavender

softening my charged, nervous tangerine.
Swirling, twirling, twisting, and mixing

together into a warm, nutmeg

Each time we touch,

it sends rusty paint splattering,

covering all around like dew

in the early pastel hours,
then dripping off lush green leaves

and running into

our very own watercolor stream

of thought that swells and evolves

until it is a full-grown raging river

of mossy, olive green.

My charged orange relaxes into

a mellow, sun-dried yellow

and turns ours into a lush, forest green.
Our tranquil colors carve a path

through rough, mauve mountains and

into deep, fern colored valleys,
traversing around smooth, ashen boulders

and under almond brown logs,

winding through the land like

the deep iris veins from my unsure heart

My goldenrod surges into a lustful scarlet

and our vivid plum waters reach patches void of color,

then spread through-out
leaving no blank spaces,

nothing untouched

Our watercolor rivers at long last converge

like Tyrian purple tidal estuaries

in an ocean of colorful emotions:

tranquil green and nervous tangerine,

lustful scarlet and comforting lavender,

soothing blue and warm nutmeg
And together we create a sepia trust that encompasses us

and protects us

like a boat upon our midnight sea.
On it we sail away from all our troubles

in a charcoal oblivion.
in my watercolor dream.

Wanting

Wanting

Waiting.

Just waiting.

Counting down

each

and every

second

until the moment when

my longing eyes connect

with hers,

strong and dark,

piercing deep into my soul.

She knows just what I want,

I can see it in those eyes

as she begins

to say the words we all want to hear.

I lean in close ensuring that I absorb

each and every word

of her melodic voice

over the dull

indiscernible roar of

conversation for conversation’s sake.

A taunting smile

forces its way through her

usual stone-cold demeanor

as her words come out

like honey, sweet and slow

and I, savor every drop

of her recitation of those words

I most desire to hear.

I wanting nothing more than to see

her luscious,

rose-petal pink lips

form no one’s name

but my own

and to have her reach

across the counter, out to me

within her hand a warmth

that could spread through the entirety

of my being

and fill a longing

an emptiness

inside me.

My mouth waters at the prospect that

what she has could soon be mine.

The corners of her eyes crinkle

as that contagious smile spreads

through those two words

“for Courtney”

and she hands me

the long awaited

asiago bagel.

Toasted.

With cream cheese.

The Promise

Enveloped in a blanket of darkness, except for one flickering streetlamp, stands the empty shell of a long-ago condemned building. Once a popular grocery store, now it is home only to rats, spiders, and various other creatures of a child’s nightmare. Surrounding this rotting shell of a building is an abandoned parking lot - a vast, not quite black, sea of cracked pavement. Within the circumference of the minimal light given off by the last remaining streetlamp, bits of grass and weeds can be seen poking out through the cracks of the neglected pavement. Nature takes back what is rightfully hers.

It is in this parking lot that two cars meet up in the dead silence of night, like the many drug deals that have occurred in that very same spot. The two vehicles, one an old blue Ford pickup truck, the other a red, rusted minivan of a discontinued brand, appear to be abandoned and forgotten, fitting in with the setting as if they were created for just this moment. Then, as if meticulously planned and practiced for weeks, the driver’s side doors of both the truck and the minivan open simultaneously and two people emerge. Both meet up between the cars, discussing their intended transaction for the evening, gesturing to the beat up red minivan which contains four small, curly heads. Two things are exchanged that night: two small girls, and a promise.
            The two smallest of the four curly heads poke out from the slowly opening, sliding door of the minivan.  Just as timidly as the door opened, she emerges, clad in worn-out, kitty-printed pajamas, her hair in its natural unkempt form, and her thumb shoved into her mouth as she rubs the short-lived sleep of her journey here from her eyes. As is the case in all of their unusual adventures, her patched-up, peach onesie-wearing sister is not far behind, clinging to a baby blanket that never leaves her grasp. Pausing, they look to their short, blonde-haired mother. Her banana comb, usually pinning her hair to perfection, is off kilter, and bits of hair poke out and fall around her face, despite the copious amount of hairspray she used earlier that morning. The mascara she had spent an hour layering on, as per her daily routine, is running down her make-up caked face. Her merlot tinted lips, be it from her lipstick or not-so-hidden wine-in-a-box in the glove compartment, quiver, and then form into a not-so convincing smile. With an encouraging nod from her, the two curly-haired girls take a step from the shadow of their minivan and towards the unfamiliar, blue pickup truck. Clinging to each other, confused, and a little lost, they are greeted by a gray-haired version of a distant memory.
           “Hey girlies, I’ve missed you,” a voice, that had once been so comforting but now seemed to have been reduced to nothing but a dream, says to them. There is something so familiar about the voice, but at the same time, different: the guilty undertones, perhaps some regret mixed in. He moves towards them, arms open, the curly-haired girls step forward, unsure, and the three of them hold each other in an embrace that brought about a wave of nostalgia with the scent of his aftershave. The memories of mornings running into his bathroom in pajamas more fitting than the slightly too small kitty patterned pajamas, begging him to let her shave too and his laughter as he ruffles her unkempt, curly hair, come rushing through her mind as she leans in closer, to take it all in, and remember as much as she can before it slips through her fingers yet again. Their embrace begins awkward and uncomfortable, with their muscles tense as if they aren’t sure what to do with them. As the nostalgia bubbles to the surface of their minds, and the time that has created this discomfort seems to melt away, they relax and their shoulder muscles loosen as they reacquaint themselves with this motion. The girls’ arms tighten around the man’s waist as they bury their freckled faces into his chest, forgetting all the wrong he has done to them, all the pain he has caused them. He squeezes them back and kisses them each on the top of their curly, unkempt heads. First is the patched, peach onesie-wearing one, the mop of hair almost enveloping his entire face, hers, ridden with freckles, brightens as if she has found a most treasured possession that was lost for some time. Then her, lingering a moment longer on her matted head. A moment just long enough for only the two of them to notice. They had always had a mutual, silent understanding of each other, one they had with no one else. No one had understood her like he did, and she understood him more than he would have liked.

After a moment that seems to last the entirety of his absence from their lives, he straightens up and looks to their mother. The eldest of the two daughters looks up from the thread she is nervously tugging at on her kitty-patterned pajamas and sees her father’s graying brows crease in anguish, deepening a crease between them that could only have been forming for quite some time. Almost buried below them, she sees his brown eyes silently begging for forgiveness. She follows his gaze to her mother on the other side of the car window, and tries to smile reassuringly before turning back to the man who has returned, a little older, from her past.

As they climb into the old, blue, pickup, her little sister first, the girl turns back one last time. While the sliding door of their old, rusted, red minivan slowly closes, just before the lights turn off, she sees her mother gripping the steering wheel crying as if she had just made the biggest mistake of her life, and there was nothing she could do to change it. Behind her mother, her two older sisters are seated. One a mirror image of her, even their parents have trouble telling them apart. She’s wearing the blue and green flannel pajamas they were fighting over just hours ago, not realizing more important events were about to unfold, and hides half her face in a khaki bucket hat. The other is the oldest of the four. She hides her freckled face in her brushed-straight hair and smooths the wrinkles from her silky, new-born baby girl pink nightgown. They both refuse to look over at the youngest two girls, the blue pickup truck, and the gray-haired man who is desperately trying to catch their eye. From beneath her bucket hat, one of the girls mimics their mother: red-faced and sobbing, convinced she will never see her little sisters again. The other, after tugging at her wrinkled nightgown in vain, glares at the lamppost with her arms crossed, secretly vowing to never speak to the two traitors again. Unsure of what is going on, or what will happen next, the young girl, standing with cold rushing up from her exposed ankles in her too short, kitty-patterned pajamas can only imagine that nothing will be the same again. With a deep breath, she turns back to the blue pickup truck and hoists herself onto the old, fabric seat next to her little sister.

The smell of old, warm car seat fabric, an ancient air freshener, aftershave, and diesel fuel fill the spaces of the truck. “It smells like Daddy!” the littlest one whispers to her, with a grin on her face the size of the waning, crescent moon outside, remembering riding on his lap in his blue-gray jeep, guiding the steering wheel as they brought grain down to their barn. They both turn curiously to him as the pepper-haired man of their memories turns the key in the ignition and NPR’s “All Things Considered” plays through the scratchy speakers of the radio, just as it did the many summer afternoons she spent with him at his tool shelf in the garage, fixing yet another toaster.  Her little sister covers her face with her blanket with one hand, and with the other squeezes her hand and giggles as they drive away into the night. Once they leave the parking lot and drive out of town, all she can see is the road ahead where the high-beams reach, before fading back into darkness.  

For the entire ride, no one says a word. The awkward silence is broken by nothing but the fuzzy voices on the radio and the rhythmic humming of the blue pickup truck’s engine. Her little sister sleeps, leaning on her shoulder and occasionally mumbling nonsense to herself. Unable to sleep, for fear that she will wake up and find it all a dream, the girl gazes out the window, watching as everything she has come to know flies by at the state-mandated sixty-five miles an hour. Occasionally she turns to look at him. She briefly takes in the things that seem to have changed about him, his hair color; and the things that have stayed the same, his mustache, the shape of his lips when he is lost in thought, the crinkle of his eyes, although deeper now. Tears stream down the man’s face. She wonders if they are tears of joy for seeing his daughters for the first time in years. Maybe they are tears of shame, in knowing that he will never keep the promise he just made to his forgiving girls. Either way, seeing him cry makes her feel uncomfortable and she cannot look at him for long. Occasionally he glances at her. She’s taller now and her face, aged beyond her years, holds the same determination he remembers. He notices something else too, something he can’t quite identify, a sort of quiet, closed-off knowledge. She knows the truth, everything, and has known for some time, but keeps it to herself, and carries a small ounce of hope that, maybe, just maybe, she’s wrong.

He takes her in, but just for a moment before turning back to the road, not wanting to put his precious cargo in harm’s way. For hours, they take these small moments to look over at each other, each one trying to figure the other out. They try to force the person there now with the person of their memories: carefree, full of wonder, stuck in a naïve past. Not once do they make eye-contact, fearful of what they might see in the other’s eyes; fearful of what the other might see in their own.

A weekend at an unknown location in Cape Cod. A weekend of reconnecting with faint blurs of faces of relatives from just as broken homes. Of obligatory “wow you have grown”s and “so good to see you again”s only to be followed by hollow “hope to see you soon”s. Of empty promises. Moments of beaches all blending together. The faintest thought of crunchy peanut butter on whole-wheat bread with homemade jam full of seeds. Two make-shift couches thrown together in a basement full of long since forgotten toys. A still absent father attempting to make peace with himself by braiding his daughter’s hair one last time. A silent car ride lasting longer than the hope that this might work out, that everything will go back to how it used to be, that everything will be ok. Coming to a stop in one of the many crevices that has been carved into the parking lot by time. My little sister, wearing that very same patched peach onesie, feigns grogginess as if it was the stopping of the car in this pot-hole ridden parking lot that woke her, when I know she has been awake this whole time, hoping, if she just didn’t open her eyes, the car ride would never come to an end. A building abandoned by all but the termites feasting on the remnants of its unstable walls, barely standing, alone, in the wasteland of a parking-lot, made lonelier by the absences of the moon in the sky. A lamppost, corroded from its base to its ancient bulb, sheds just enough light to break up the monotony of darkness for only a moment. A rusted, red minivan between the two, idling, waiting. Along with it, long years of growing up too fast and taking care of everyone but myself. Years of not knowing the answers to any of the questions asked of me about my mom, why is she always sick? And my dad, “Where did he go? When will he be back? Why did he leave?” Or myself “how are you, are you ok?”. I step out of the truck and onto the pavement. I see my mother waiting, crying a drunk man’s tears of self-pity, guilt, regret, and empty promises. For a moment, I stand alone with nothing but the thoughts of you and your betrayal eating at my unstable mind, until I feel a hand wrap around mine. Beside me I see my curly-haired little sister in her worn-out, patched, peach onesie, clinging to her baby blanket as it drags on the ground collecting unnoticed dirt. Together, we run across the vast, uneven parking lot, to the rusted, red minivan, away from you.

The memory of that weekend has long since faded to nothing but frayed fragments of a patchwork past. I collect bits of memories of you like other kids collect fireflies, catching them and keeping them in a jar to stare at them, mesmerized. Eventually we stare at them long enough to realize just how ugly they are. All that has survived the destruction of time is the memory of a promise. Two things were exchanged that night: two small girls and a promise. My mother exchanged my little sister and me for the promise that you would return us safely, and unharmed. We ran across that parking lot and into her arms, in one piece, as promised. My hand lingered on the handle of the sliding door of our rusted, red mini-van. We should have sold that car, it was a death trap, but mom chose to feed the dog, the cats, the rabbits, the guinea pigs, the horses, and us instead. I looked to you, smiled, and waved good-bye for what I knew would be the last time. You told us you would see us again soon. As you handed Emily the Tupperware container of your famous home-made chicken fingers, you handed her the hope that everything would soon be as it used to be, because she was too young and too naïve to understand. The world was still full of possibilities to her, and you ruined that by ruining the trust in her and her innocence when you said you would be there forever and walked out that door, never to look back, leaving us, your four daughters, not one of us old enough to truly understand, to pick up the pieces.

Our mom exchanged Emily and me for the promise that you would return us safely and unharmed. You made sure we didn’t go near the water without our lifejackets. You made sure the car wasn’t even started before we had our seatbelts on. You made sure we felt comfortable, and happy, and safe. You made sure we forgave you for leaving us.

You promised you would return us safely and unharmed. Unharmed. I find myself standing, staring, scrutinizing, trying in vain to discern what I see, only to find nothing but hollow eyes gazing blankly back at me. Remnants of what was once there still linger and flicker every now and then: distant thoughts of touching clouds and singing among the stars; dreams of dancing with the trees and living high up among the leaves. Every remnant clouded by concerns a child could not truly understand. Concerns that were thrust upon me in your tangled web of lies, that I had always hoped would turn out to be true, even though I knew they never would. You said this was only temporary. You said you would be back. You said that everything with Mom would be ok. You said that she would be ok. You became nothing to me but another profile picture on Facebook I have deleted from my newsfeed. Every year, without fail, messaging me on my birthday to tell me that you miss me and wish you were there to see how I have grown, and leaving a comment here or there, voicing your concern of my poor judgments, while blatantly ignoring your own, to remind me of your presence in this world but your absence in my life.

After years of learning to go on without you, I find myself standing, staring, scrutinizing deep into those eyes, a gateway to my battered heart. I search for a fragment of what you somehow see, to force your favorite smile upon my withered face, worn years beyond my age. A face affected by wrinkles from worry long before pimples from puberty. Every time I am overcome by a wine-stained nostalgia for a past that must be put together like a jig-saw puzzle. Now I have come to realize that it could never be whole for I have misplaced the pieces years ago. Every time I end up breathless, gasping for air as my defeated heart attempts to pound its way straight out of my chest and into more deserving hands. I try in vain to string together fragments of thoughts and ideas into a patchwork nonsense, which not even I can understand, because you asked me to write from my soul. All I find there are shards of smudged hieroglyphics, shattered by broken hearts, broken thoughts, and broken dreams. Shattered long before I could even tell the difference between the good and the bad in you, and now I never will.

One blurred weekend broken into fragments of time, strung together like multicolored beads on a child’s forgotten craft table, no real order, with no ends tied up. My last memory of you. With each new sunset, bits of the weekend are lost to me, someday to be completely gone. Until you become nothing but an empty face in a picture frame collecting dust on a shelf I never even glance at. I will never know why we stayed with you that weekend, or what the outcome was supposed to be. I was a confused, scared child, expecting no explanations because I wouldn’t know whether or not to believe them. I’m sure Mom gave some reason, an incoherent after thought, as we pulled out of that parking lot, but it was lost to me moments after I heard it. With no expectations of your further involvement in my life, we pulled away. I, being the only brave one, turned back to see, but your face was shrouded by a shadow cast down from that lonely lamppost. But I know, though your eyes were lost to me in the darkness, you never looked up. That is the one moment engrained into my memory. The most vivid of all the memories of you. The one that I will never forget.