Trash

I bought this book at the library sale, not because I wanted to read it so much as I was drawn to this first yellowed page.....

How
perfectly
and neatly
the librarian stamped
the word
"DISCARD"
under the title....

placed there with great care,
or caution,
or trepidation.

I can't help, but wonder, what thoughts passed, when this jacket was opened....
The words, "LOVE is the drug"
hanging there,
an empty prescription bottle on
a dusty bathroom shelf......

And how hard it was, for even the slightest addict, to reach up and touch it, pull it down from it's ageless safe place,
and finally
throw it out.....

Wild horses and other love songs

The very first ever kiss. A 5th grade feather on the cheek. Double-eye winking, looking away. Feathers falling everywhere. Down our arms, down our legs, in a heap on the dusty playground. I laugh and run. Gangly arms doing the breast-stroke in the lunchtime wind, running faster….toward the girls….away from Ronnie-freckled-McCartney.

Eskimo kisses. My father’s broad Indian nose touching mine. His black eyes, small and shining, locking mine. He lifts me up into the air, nose to nose and I flail...kick my skinny legs in every direction, giant Ked sneakers banging his shins, and shriek in laughter. Eskimo kisses on a hot summer night.

At the Bayou….I’m in the eighth grade and I’m not allowed. My Father said so. I’m all dressed up in borrowed shoes and a chopped up make-shift dream-come-true dress and he scooches in closer and kisses me hard. I love it. “Take me home” I obediently mutter ….. It’s midnight, now…..

“Have you ever been French kissed before?”
“Yesssssss” I whisper, eyes closed …….
“Oh my God, this is it” my heart screams…….

Chubby little cheese curl toes. I touch them. Marvel at their perfect imperfections. Smooch! I pucker up and kiss the little pink soles hard. “You’ll never ever be too old for Mama to love you”…….

Grimy glass covered in hand swipes, nose prints. Snot. Standing like a barbed wire fence between us. They lift the steps up and the engines roar. I search frantically for his face in the little oval windows. I kiss my own fingers and lift them up… blow. Praying he sees me. Praying it reaches him. Praying for an end to war…..

I’m next to her now. Trying hard to breath in rhythm. Counting in between her sudden gasps for air, for life.
1, a million, 2, a million, 3, a million……15, a million, 16.…….
I don’t want to stop her going. I don’t want to save her now. I want nothing more than peace so I’m trying to be very, very quiet. We’re breathing in labored sync. I can’t stand it. Roll over and kiss her fragile little forehead, “it’s okay. You can go now”…..
And we start again…..
1, a million….2, a million, 3.…..
“I’ve loved you for a million years”……. My sweet, sweet, Nadine…….

My hands cupped around his sweaty block-head. Holding on. Grasping at the real live HIM! I squeeze. Lean in and kiss him, Italian style, on both cheeks. Muah! Muah! My fingers, shaking, trace his nose,His I-just-recently-could-grow-this-stuff chin. My son. Free. I hold on to him for dear life.

Floating in the lazy round river. It’s hot and his eyes are blue. Then teal and green and yellow… an endless ocean… frothy beer suds on laughing waves.
Without ever touching…..without ever letting go…….

The kiss goes on and on….

Love stories and left-overs....

I whipped the twice-baked potatoes out of the oven and slung them as hard as I could at the cold tile wall above the kitchen sink. I watched them stick, cheese glued, to the riveted grout, and then slide, like lazy slugs , down the wall, and plop into the stainless steel sink.

I hit the button.

The disposal devoured them like a pit bull on a pile of baby rattle snakes.

THE BREAK-UP.

He freaked. Had never seen me so volatile. So Alive, really. Had never seen me so…“So what?”

It was raining, summer sleet….the sliding glass doors were covered in a hard-water stained film, the rain pounding on the other side….steam rising off the concrete patio. From the kitchen, where I stood, Michelob in hand, he was just a shadow on the other side of a dirty shower curtain…..

I watched, cat-eyed, as he mounted the bike and rode off into torrents, the rain pelting his face….

“God, I hope he’s okay…he makes it home safe”

I glanced at the sink. Little dribbles of bacon, aged Wisconsin cheddar, and remnants of potatoes tattooed the stainless steel.

“I’ll worry about it tomorrow”

I plunked my skinny little fanny onto the corduroy couch and finished my beer. “There!” I waited for the tears to come, the wailing, the flailing, the “Oh my God, I just called off a wedding" blues to come……

I drank another beer. And looked at the clock. Got up and looked at the sink again.

It’s twenty years later, and I’m still hungry for those twice-baked potatoes……

The Kiss...

I’ve been in love only once. A very long time ago. And for a very short time. But it lasted forever.

A romance Untainted by the first four letter word. The first harsh ugly word. The first possessive, jealous, bigoted, arrogant, righteous, selfish word.

We talked. He spoke seven languages, English not his native, and spoke them all well. But it’s what he did with his words that grabbed me with octopus arms and hugged me in tighter.

He wove them. He used them for music, for background effects, for medicinal purposes, for tickling, for thinking out loud. He sent words instead of flowers, and gifted me with stories. It was as if we had known each other a lifetime in no time at all…. And we did, because we shared our lives, our childhood secrets, our silly dreams, our disappointments …. The brown bagged everyday stuff, the chaotic “Isn’t this a crises to anybody, but me?” crap, the “I believe in…….” fairytale endings , the “I’ve never told anybody else this….” secret lives that we tote around in dirty Samsonite luggage….. Afraid to pitch, for fear it will be discovered, weary from hauling it around all these years.

We danced and sang out loud, added words, made-up words, used other world words. When he left for Desert Storm, we mailed words across the ocean , army lugged in duffle bags, wrapped in yellow envelopes. We traded tiny cassette tapes, weeks, sometimes months, in the traveling, just to hear each other’s words….

We listened. To each other. And danced in the kitchen.

I married a man whose vocabulary consisted of one, two, three, and four letter words. Occasionally graced by a few BIG words like… Toyota, Delmonico, and some expletives best left off the list. We talked about who fed the dog last, what the neighbors were up to, and the interest Rates on our credit cards. We danced on occasion. We ate well always. We fought like hell.

I listened last night. I watched the words as they were born. As you struggled to build them into a formula that I could understand, as your body spoke the words before they left your lips. When you finally quit fighting with yourself , the words fell fluid like into our space. Where I could touch them. Sense them. Hear them.

And then we danced in the kitchen….