Last night I cried the quiet sort of tear, a book of poetry that has lived with me for aeons split open on my chest, my head cradled on Mr. Pyke's ribbed stomach.
Last night my books came out of their boxes, into their own space at just the right height, and my hands danced across Denise Levertov's definitions of the backwards woman that I have worked so hard to become.
Last night in between each word I looked across my Samhein veil, and for the first time Mr. Pyke pointed out that maybe, maybe
maybe I don't hear her anymore, these last couple of years
Because she's finally found rest.
And so I waited for midnight last night, to the background sigh of a slowly slumbering beloved, and shed heavy wet tears with nary a sob in between them. I lay there and they rolled without me, pouring down paths carved into my cheeks, pooling by my ears until they would go cold and I would wipe them away with a torn sweatshirt that I've owned as long as these memories.
Crazy Jane and the woman that smelled of apples or grass, feathers and torn taffeta, a thousand secret nights spent dug into the deepest shadow we could find on the mountain, Kim sitting with her knees against her flat fifteen year old chest, her tougher than thou grimace laid aside for the evening while she urged that "crazy little blonde" on to recite one more, just one more because it's cold outside.
"If we shadows have offended
Think but this and all is mended..."
"Oooh, yeah, I like that one. Say the one about the girl dancing too. You know which one."
"And there's a turbulent moon-ridden girl..."
And she'd sigh and tell me how we'll never smell of apples or grass and I'd point out how that's precisely what we're lying in despite our torn taffeta, and for an hour or until whenever her jackass or my jackass would come stomping angrily through the brush to find us
we'd be dreaming little girl dreams in a world that had very little room for little girls.
Twelve years ago, and Mr. Pyke is right. I've told her story, and I still kiss her every night
and I'm still afraid that if she saw me now, would she be proud of me?
Would she understand that I don't want to be tough anymore, that every bruise she taught me to take in silence was what brought me far enough to not have to bruise anymore?
Would she understand the new windshield on the car? The crystal wine carafe? Would she understand carpet shampoo and stilleto heels to the opera?
Would she understand that with every soaring laugh, I steal a piece of my melody and tuck it away for the person and people who taught me to fight and to breathe --
I miss you, dear Kim, first of us to find peace.
And you Drew and Jacob and Jimmy and Spike and Nat and Thom and Lizardbeth and that boy who never told us his name, I remember every one of your grimaces and with every ounce of anything I've got
I'm trying to honour your grimace by trying to make as many as I can never have to be that cold.
All of you. I spoke to all of you last night, and the tears were heavy and fast and wet as they are suddenly again right now, and oh gods do they feel good.
My face is soaked and I am smiling and despite all of yesterday's rollercoasters
Right now my heart is so very very full
and Mr. Pyke's arms and the deepest rumble of his voice because last night someone finally understood
are filling this universe with winged creatures I had never allowed myself to fully believe in.
And I can feel myself grow wings.