Some Lives Consist of Missing
There are the boxes still unpacked along the wall where you dropped them
upon moving in four months ago. Then you were too giddy to be bothered
with the banality of setting up house. Then you were consumed with the
anticipation of your future commingling with his.
There is the outfit, hanging mockingly in the closet lined with homeless
books, still very much in need of shelves. There it hangs, the view
accessible from your bed, a constant reminder of the night on which a
year's worth of hopes were pinned and then lost. That outfit so carefully
chosen, so long shopped for, the most expensive garments you have
theretofore purchased, the most seductive clothing you ever donned. There
are the pants, uncommonly long, requiring the additional purchase of one
pair of stilettos, you wondering as you paid for them if you'd ever be
able to pull it off, whether you'd ever be able to walk in them without
twisting an ankle or falling on your ass, you having worn nothing but
flats in your life. For three days thereafter you devoted yourself to the
art of walking in four inch heels, wearing them down to the curb to check
the mail, out on the back deck in your bathing suit, striding in circles
as you chatted on the phone with your best girlfriend, performing every
mundane household chore with newly discovered sensuality. There is the
shirt, crinkled and sleeveless, damn near see through, requiring a new
bra, lacey and cream.
There again are the shoes, that laced and tied midway up your calf, the
laces being hidden from view beneath the long pants, the laces meant for
him to untie later in the evening, the two of you finally alone. He, in
your mind, sitting on the edge of some bed, your foot between his thighs,
fiddling hurriedly with the laces. There are the shoes, the heels still
encased with soil from the ground you walked before him that night, some
pieces of grass visible from across the room, grass you contemplate
eating, believing it a part of him, his foot perhaps having touched those
very blades. These are the shoes in which you attempted to be a woman for
him when all you ever really wanted to be was his girl. These are the
shoes that in the end you untied yourself, alone in your girlfriendC-s
guestroom, the tears high-diving from your eyes onto your foot as you
leaned over it, struggling with the goddamn laces, vision blurred, fingers
shaking.
There is the suitcase yet to be put away, still containing the gifts you
were never able to give him. There inside a zipper is the construction
paper heart you cut and glued for him one cold, wintry night months back
when you had missed him more than you thought imaginable. There, too, is
the Benjamin Franklin pamphlet, "The Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams,"
spied one rainy Saturday morning in a teeny-tiny bookstore just off
campus, you having smiled to yourself upon pulling it from the stack,
knowing he would love it, and in turn, perhaps love its bestower as well.
There in the smallest, zippered compartment is the silver, bullet-sized
capsule containing the rolled white paper onto which you so carefully
printed the words pulled from your heart. And finally, there is the
children's book, the one you had asked if he'd read, it having been one
of your favorites, him having admitted somewhat shamefully that he had
not. You having inscribed it for him with these words: Dearest, someday
you can read this aloud to our children.
Here is the bed you now never want to leave. The dreams contained within
the head that lies upon the pillow all that you have left of him, and you.
There beside you is the stuffed animal you sleep with in his place, a
large spotted cat of the jaguar or leopard variety, the toy manufacturers
not giving enough detail, or conflicting details, to distinguish which,
you have christened it Jack in his honor, in remembrance. Each
night
Jack is scooped lovingly into your arms, placed next to your tan belly,
enwrapped in your extremities, his head tucked safely beneath your chin.
Here are the lips not met, the hand never held, the eyes unpierced.
There are the boxes still unopened, the pictures yet to be hung, the life
that misses.
Elizabeth Ellen resides mainly in her head, where the weather is always good and the tacos plentiful.