linger long

march diary 01

I remember march like a tug of war with memory. I remember the last time we dismantled our lives for loving and this does not happen to me very often which is to say that I restrict it from happening. when God or whoever it is that made you and me looked at us, she decided that only you are so brave and so sweet. Two sweetness in a family makes rotten teeth. One is to be bitter and inept and cruel and ugly on all days except Friday. She decided that our parents will love each other in ways two soldiers love each other after war. As if to say that they were the soldiers, and I was the war.

I remember march because it was the month when you decided you’d teach me how to swim in a four-by-four bathroom with a pipe for oxygen intake. You’d plunge my head in the bucket, I'd breathe through the pipe and flail everywhere. We forgot swimming isn’t just controlling our breaths. We forgot that there’s not much room for spreading in a four by four.

Last week you were moving into a new apartment, and I lived a block away. It was a Friday, so I decided to not put on any makeup and went out bare faced chewed nails empty. I lined your books one by one on the cupboard while your boyfriend swept the floor. You got it cheap because the previous owner's husband had killed himself and she believed in “bad omen” your boyfriend told me with air quotation fingers around the omen part and I wanted to punch his ugly face because he looked like someone who had a twelve feet bathroom and a private tutor. He could also sense my blotching hatred so, to not make harm we talked about the weather instead and he walked me out.

Maggie Smith says that I want you to know if you ever read this there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any blue in the world. It’s very lousy of me to quote writers instead of writing. It’s very lousy of you to cut the apple in perfect slices only to eat the remaining core.