this winter i take the hot bath that i used to and break out the old winter sugar scrub with its smell reminiscent of men and its sweet scratchiness and the oil it leaves on my skin. oh those memories and when i dress i put on the colorful sweater that has hung for weeks in anticipation. but before the cloth is situated on my shoulders i feel the sensation that it has grown. i have shrunken. the sleeves too long, the warmth too intense and i'm reminded that yesterday's fall jacket had sleeves that were not enough. 'i'm getting another growth spurt'
?
but i'm shrinking too.
she says get through one holiday without him. she says in one year you'll be fine. 'three hundred and sixty five days? is that all?'
then i think it's not as if someone has died. he didn't die.
the whole thing is banal, i declare.
(and outside through a morning that should be bright clearlight but instead is the hazy winter tornado sky, i hear it low and full of history, the train whistle. it makes the air sound like fog and the day sound like cold lonely night. and my heart clenches and i wait in hope for it --there it is, again-- and i find a little girl inside me reaching up and receiving the familiarity. her tiny fingers close around it and she smiles a low, warm smile.)
bow.
