jazz

love that does not waver in moments of fragility,

that lingers when the mind feels untethered,

that does not condemn strangeness but holds it with quiet concern,

noticing the unspoken, the smallest tremors beneath the surface.

perhaps I am starved,

perhaps I desire it more than reason allows.

I do not know if a mere “good morning” constitutes care,

for I have never been met with such tenderness.

I wish to belong truly, wholly.

I tire of returning each day to walls that feel unfamiliar,

to a space I call home yet struggle to believe in.

I long to grasp something pure,

yet purity doesn’t long for me.

While I lay upon the road, blood everywhere and a knife buried in my stomach, I watch as I awaken in a warm bed, feeling a tight embrace around me. We exchange our good mornings with soft smiles, and it will be great.

We’ll go downstairs and wake our children. Two or three kids around the same age, the eldest nearly a high school graduate, and the celebration will be great.

I’ll make breakfast and he’ll help me, making sure our children never skip a single meal just to become frail and sickly thin. The aroma of fresh homemade pastries will fill the house, bringing even more warmth, and it will be great.

We’ll pack their lunches and laugh and embrace one another, and our children will groan and tell us to stop kissing because we’re disgusting. We’ll laugh it off while preparing each child their favorite lunch, and it will be great.

We’ll hurriedly get dressed to accompany our youngest to parents’ day at school. We’ll sit at the back of the classroom, giggling at how ridiculous our child looks as he throws us little “stop!” glances, and it will be great.

My husband will later leave for work for a couple of hours, returning with flowers and chocolate for me and each of my children. Then our kids will come home from school, kissing our heads and wrapping us in embraces while recounting their day, from the worst moments to the best, and it will be great.

We’ll have dinner, each person receiving a lovely, nourishing meal, making sure everyone feels healthy, strong, and cherished. We’ll help one another with the dishes, blasting music and never ridiculing each other’s taste, and it will be great.

We’ll give each child their solitude at night, saying goodnight and pressing gentle kisses to each other’s heads, making sure nobody falls asleep with a heavy heart, talking if anyone isn’t feeling alright, and it will be great.

We’ll get into bed. That tight embrace will encircle me once again. I’ll be kissed on the forehead, reminded that I am loved from every direction. I’ll feel adored all day and still be reminded of it at night, and it will be great! Until I move my hand to let it rest upon my stomach, and something is wet.

I blink. Right.

I look down at my hand, a dark crimson liquid smeared across it. Something sharp still protrudes from inside me. I do not move.

I look up at the sky one final time. So many beautiful stars scattered above me. I wonder, if I reached up and touched one of those stars, would I relive what I lived? Or what I merely believed I did? I truly cannot tell.

I slowly reach for my phone to turn my music off. If anyone found it, I would be judged terribly. Nobody needs to know I listen to this kind of music. Will anyone even look through my phone later? Would they judge me, or listen to what I was hearing and wish it had been different? I truly cannot tell.

My stomach made a sound. Is it because of the knife inside me, or because I have not eaten properly in quite a while just to become sickly thin, and nobody noticed? I truly cannot tell.

I think about the way I always woke up as a teenager. I slept with a heavy heart and awoke with one too. I wished to wake up to a kiss upon my forehead from my mother, or an embrace from my father before school. Did anyone ever seem to notice? Ever? I truly cannot tell.

I was in my thirties. I was happy. I possessed everything I had ever longed for. But I was also seventeen, and I could not live like this anymore. I could not afford to survive solely through imagination anymore, so I remained seventeen, and hoped to remain seventeen forever.

I touch my chest one final time, feeling the beats, those faithful beats that continued for my brain while my brain had already begun to cease, and I took my final breath.