By
Jessica Singleton
I sit on the docks when the sun is disillusioned into its own fate. I don't talk about it. I watch it relax and then I watch it bloom into a silver flower.
I used to work. Now I live on my inheritance and I write a collusion of thoughts for a local press.
Once I found that watching the boats take off was like having company.
Because I am alone.
It's like a familiar television show.
You get used to their voice and photos.
Once the credits start and the violinist begins-
Then you're by yourself again.
I clean my house and I read.
It feels like I am avoiding something that I fear. The truth is, I am afraid of knowing that I really am alone. Because that will make me feel surrounded.
I hate what war does to a home.
Other people want to fight.
I don't want to fight.
I only want to defend my own house.
But when people make decisions using other people's lives-
Then innocent blood stains the memory.
I have seen to many flags folded.
I have cried into the darkness hours of night.
I never thought that I would want the company of anyone else again.
It's hard to want to talk to anyone when you just lost everyone you ever knew.
What would they say?
Would they say that we should leave this place and forget about everything that mattered. Because they don't really care?
That would prove it.
I forgot how to smile.
Until I went hysterical with pain.
Then I couldn't stop laughing like a mad man.
On Wednesday I go for a coffee.
It's rich with texture and I love fresh cream.
I drink my cup looking out the window at the birds.
I read the paper.
It's the funny pages now.
Watching the news spread out in lines, it must be a sad pathetic joke.
But it's the truth.
War kills.
By the hands of people who when looked at closely aren't really anything at all.
I can't believe my eyes today.
But my right eye still knows.
Anyway a last Wednesday I met a man with a dog on the dock. He was tall and beautiful to take in. I found my eyes analyzing that man like he was a puzzle I had to put together.
But all the while I wanted to take his clothes off of him. I never have compulsions or wild behavior.
He was captivating and he looked like paradise.
He had dark skin and his eyes made me fall in love with him.
I wished for him as I spoke to him.
I did not want to be to foreword but I asked him to come over that night.
I spent time getting to know everything about him.
He took my mind off of my pain.
I forgot how good it felt to be relaxed and content.
He had a way of holding me in his arms that made me feel safe and cared for.
He likes early Americana advertisements, airplanes, black coffee, and 1950s restaurant furniture.
He collected strange lamps for years. He was an artist. He would weld the fixtures together to make Siamese lamps.
He took me for a boat ride on Indian water once. He told me about his father.
I never thought anything would end my perfect life with him.
And it was not the war.
He was just human with curiosity and lust.
I am fragile and needy.
So we could not have had worse timing to meet.
I pushed him as much as he pushed me.
Until the war was over and he found more comfort in lesser company.
Once he had left me I realized that he was more than a way out of my pain. Because the loss of that man was worse then my problems with the war.
It took me by surprise.
To see myself recover from the war.
I eventually got my life back.
Sometimes I wonder about him.
I wonder if he is happy somewhere else.
If I did not make him that happy.
It crossed my mind a few times what would have happened if only.
I moved away from Indian water.
I found peace.
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