Monthly Archives: October 2015

pour toi, mon amour.

***

she took a small knife and cut a green apple into four quarters, then eight pieces. she placed the eight pieces on a cracked bone china plate. she brought them with her to the living room, where she sat on her beloved couch. her cat walked over, in his quiet, slow pace. she put a piece of the apple into her mouth. it tasted like onions. she put the piece back on the plate, and fell deep into the couch, under the covers and below the throw pillows. the cat climbed onto her shoulders, crept onto her chest. he curled up into a ball between her neck and her heart, and slept.

you ask me if i was ever a modèle vivant; i say no. the next day, a man stops me on the street and asks me the same, jotting down the name of his group on a piece of newspaper – please join, he says.

i tell you i wish you could exorcise me; you ask me if i dream in colour. the next day, i dream of you holding my hands, your eyes summoning patiently, quietly, knowing it is on the edge of me, on the lines of my mouth, along my throat, fluttering behind my birdcage. you hold my hands with both of your hands and i begin to cry; i feel a child crawling out of my chest, my mouth, my nose and my eyes, and you smile as i thank you for hearing me.

she stood among the stationary. she stood among the notebooks, the cahiers canada, the lined paper. she stood among the compasses and the rulers. she stood among the pens and pencils, the markers. she stood among the erasers. she looked at the little paper squares scattered around the displays that people before her had used to test things out. it was always a scribble, or it was always “bonjour.”

let me in, let me in, let me in.

on most days her hair was thick and heavy, and remnants of the morning’s song clung to the base of her neck.