Lullabies

by Lang Leav

  No one truly knows who they are, he sighs. The glass bottle does not know its own contents. It has no idea whether it is a vessel for the most delicious apple cider, a lovingly crafted wine, or a bitter poison. People are the same. Yet like the bottle, we are transparent. We can’t see ourselves the way others see us.

  How do you see me? she asked.

  You are a bottle floating out at sea, he says. One that contains a very important message. It may never reach its recipient, but as long as there is someone waiting, it will always have purpose.

  Will you wait for mine?

  I will, he promised. I will look for you every time I stand at the edge of the ocean.

  You

  There are people I will never know

  and their lives will still ensue;

  those that could have loved me so

  and I’ll never wonder who.

  Of all the things to come and go,

  there is no one else like you.

  The things I never think about—

  and the only thing I do.

  More than Love

  Love was cruel,

  as I stood proud;

  he showed me you

  and I was bowed.

  He deftly dealt

  his swiftest blow—

  I fell further than,

  I was meant to go.

  And he ashamed,

  of what he’d caused,

  knew from then,

  that I was yours.

  That he, an echo

  and you, the sound—

  I loved you more

  than love allowed.

  Second Chances

  The path from you extending,

  I could not see its course—

  or the closer to you I was getting,

  the further from you I’d walked.

  For I was moving in a circle,

  not a line as I had thought—

  the steps I took away from you,

  were taking me towards.

  A Phone Call

  We said hello at half past one,

  all our chores for the morning done;

  and as we spoke about our day,

  the world began to fall away.

  To our highest hopes and deepest fears,

  if I had one wish, I’d wish you here,

  the tantrums and the horror shows,

  the stories only you would know.

  All the while with the ticking clock,

  laughing as if we’d never stop;

  we said good night at half past ten—

  at midnight we said good night again.

  Entwined

  There is a line

  I’m yet to sever —

  it goes from me

  to you.

  There was a time

  you swore forever,

  and I am captive

  to its pull.

  If you were kind,

  you’d cut the tether—

  but I must ask you

  to be cruel.

  Stay

  The words I heard

  from you today,

  are said when

  there’s nothing

  left to say.

  What I would give

  to make you stay,

  I would give it

  all away.

  The Seventh Sea

  The answer is yes, always yes. I cannot deny you anything you ask. I will not let you bear the agony of not knowing.

  Yes I love you, I swear it. On every grain of salt in the ocean—on all my tears. I found you when I reached the seventh sea, just as I had stopped looking.

  It seems a lifetime ago that I began searching for you.

  A lifetime of pain and sorrow. Of disappointment and missed opportunities.

  All I had hoped for. All the things I can never get back.

  When I am with you, I want for nothing.

  Over My Head

  I count his breaths,

  in hours unslept,

  against hours of him,

  I have left.

  With him lying there,

  with him unaware,

  I am out of my depth.

  If My Life Were a Day

  You are the moment before the sun sinks into the horizon. The transient light—the ephemeral hues set against the fading, fading sky.

  Until I am left only with the moon to refract your light. And in your absence, the stars to guide me—like a cosmic runway—steadily into the dark.

  Chapter 2

  Interlude

  She was different from anything

  he had ever known.

  —THE PROFESSOR

  Nostalgia

  Do you remember our first day? The fog lifted and all around us were trees linking hands, like children playing.

  Our first night, when you stood by the door, conflicted, as I sat there with my knees tucked under my chin, and smiling.

  Then rainbows arching over and the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

  How the wind howls as the sea whispers, I miss you.

  Come back to me.

  The Professor

  A streak of light flashes across the sky. Thick heavy raindrops pound the uneven dirt floor, littered with dried leaves and twigs. She follows closely behind him, clutching an odd contraption—a rectangular device attached with a long, squiggly, antenna. “You were right about the storm, Professor!” she yells over the howling wind. “Yes, my assistant!” he cries, voice charged with excitement, as he holds up the long, metal conductor. She stumbles over a log as he reaches out to catch her.

  They tumble on the dry grass laughing. He tosses aside the bent, silver coat hanger, wrapping his arms around her waist. The little transistor radio falls from her hands.

  The sun peeks through the treetops.

  She thinks of their first conversation. “I live by a forest,” he said, describing it in such a way that when she came to scale those crooked, winding stairs, it was like she had seen it a thousand times before. As if it had always been there, waiting to welcome her. Like the pretty, sunlit room that remained unfurnished, sitting empty in his house, now filled with her paints and brushes.

  She would fondly call him her Frankenstein, this man who was a patchwork of all the things she had ever longed for. He gave her such gifts—not the kind that were put in boxes, but the sort that filled her with imagination, breathing indescribable happiness into her life. One day, he built her a greenhouse. “So you can create your little monstrous plants,” he explained.

  He showed her how to catch the stray butterflies that fluttered from their elusive neighbors, who were rumored to farm them for cosmetic use. She would listen in morbid fascination as he described how the helpless insects were cruelly dismembered, before their fragile wings were crushed and ground into a fine powder. “Your lips would look beautiful, painted with butterfly wings,” he would tease her.

  “Never!” she’d cry, alarmed.

  They spent much of their days alone, in their peaceful sanctuary, apart from the little visitor who came on weekends. When the weather was good, the three of them would venture out, past the worn jetty and picnic on their little beach. He would watch them proudly, marveling at the startling contrast between the two things he loved most in the world. His son with hair of spun gold, playing at his favorite rock pool and chattering animatedly in his singsong voice. She, with a small, amused smile on her tiny lips, raven hair tousled by the sea wind. She was different from anything he had ever known.

  The Dinner Guest

  The wine, sipped too quickly, has gone to my head. I watch the way your hands move as you tell your joke and laugh a little too loudly w
hen you deliver the punch line.

  His eyes flash at me from across the table. The same disapproving look he shot me earlier, as I was getting dressed.

  It’s a bit tight.

  Don’t be ridiculous, I say.

  How do you know him, again?

  Just an old friend. We worked together years ago.

  He clears his throat, breaking my reverie. My grin fades into a small, restrained smile.

  You top up his glass.

  The conversation drifts into stocks and bonds. My mind begins to wander, like a bored schoolgirl.

  Your hand brushes my leg.

  Was it an accident? I look at you questioningly, but you are staring straight ahead, engrossed in conversation.

  Then there it is again. Very deliberately, resting on my knee.

  Oh, your hands.

  They slide up my thigh and under my skirt, lightly skimming the fabric of my panties.

  It’s been so long.

  I part my legs under the table.

  The conversation turns to politics.

  A mirror effect, you say.

  He looks confused. What’s this about mirrors?

  The word sends a jolt through my body.

  Your hand slips into my panties.

  Vania

  Vania Zouravliov, that’s his name! My favorite artist. I wanted his book that time . . . very badly, in fact. I tipped my little coin purse upside down and counted all my money. I was short twenty dollars!

  She lies on her stomach by the fire with her sketchpad open, lazy pencil strokes lining the paper with each flick of her wrist.

  Oh, poor you, he says sympathetically. Do you know what, sweetheart, we’ll get you that book.

  Thanks, baby. She smiles at him then returns to her sketching.

  I’ll tell you how, he continues, snapping his laptop shut.

  She looks up, bemused. Pencil down, chin propped in hand. I’m list-en-ing, she says in a singsong voice.

  Okay, so here’s what you do. You go into the bookstore and you buy a cheap paperback novel. Smile sweetly and make small talk with the people at the register. Turn on the charm, just like the way you do when you’re trying to flog me your sketches. “Hey look! I just drew these. What do you think? D’you wanna buy them?”

  She giggles.

  Then, he says, after you’ve finished paying, wander over to where the book is, pick it up and flip through it, looking as if you didn’t have a care in the world.

  He lets out a small chuckle, leaning forward.

  Then my dear, you get as close as you can to the entrance without attracting any attention. And… you bolt! As fast as you can, down the escape route that we would have planned the day before. I’ll be in the car waiting so as soon as you jump in, I’ll put my foot down, hard, on the accelerator, speed off to somewhere quiet before we stop and I’ll look at you and say, Can you believe you did that? How does it feel? And you’ll be sitting there, your adrenaline pumping, your heart racing, hugging the book against your chest, saying, “Oh my God! I can’t believe I just did that!” Then do you know what I’d do?

  What—would—you—do? she says between peals of laughter.

  I’d take you out, fuck you up against the car.

  Dumplings

  Her impatient hands work slowly.

  Like this, she says.

  Then you dip your finger in the egg yolk.

  Put it between the sheet and press it down firmly.

  She watches as he fumbles.

  The little pocket of pastry is foreign in his hands.

  She reaches out, placing hers on either side of his face. Pulling him towards her, she kisses him warmly.

  This is why I love you.

  The sides of his face are white from her flour-coated hands.

  It makes her laugh.

  If only you could see yourself the way I do.

  He smiles sheepishly.

  Yours are so pretty, he says.

  He puts down the oddly shaped dumpling.

  And picks up another sheet of pastry.

  The Garden

  The curtain, a smoky gray color, drops from the creamy white ceiling. Crawling with strange bugs and eight-legged creatures, from where an ominous fan whirs.

  His hand reaches for the cord. A string of shiny, black beads that glisten against the bright, early evening sun.

  Flashback to the time he found her in the garden. White cotton dress pulled up around her thighs, feet blackened by the rich, lush earth that she had just been turning. With an apologetic smile that said, I couldn’t help myself.

  That Night

  It was one of those nights that you are not altogether sure really did happen. There are no photographs, no receipts, no scrawled journal entries.

  Just the memory sitting in my mind, like a half-blown dandelion, waiting to be fractured, dismembered. Waiting to disintegrate into nothing.

  As I close my eyes, the pictures play like a blurry montage. I can see us driving for hours, until the street signs grew less familiar—the flickering lamplights giving away to stars. Then sitting across from you in that quiet, little Italian place. Your hands pushing the plates aside, reaching across for mine.

  The conversations we had about everything and nothing. And kissing you. How I remember that.

  It was one of those nights that my mind still can’t be sure of. That wonders if I was ever there at all. Yet in my heart, it is as though I’ve never left.

  Chapter 3

  Finale

  They gave us years,

  though many ago;

  the spring cries tears—

  the winter, snow.

  —MELANCHOLY SKIES

  Three Questions

  What was it like to love him? asked Gratitude.

  It was like being exhumed, I answered. And brought to life in a flash of brilliance.

  What was it like to be loved in return? asked Joy.

  It was like being seen after a perpetual darkness, I replied. To be heard after a lifetime of silence.

  What was it like to lose him? asked Sorrow.

  There was a long pause before I responded:

  It was like hearing every good-bye ever said to me—said all at once.

  Acceptance

  There are things I miss

  that I shouldn’t,

  and those I don’t

  that I should.

  Sometimes we want

  what we couldn’t—

  sometimes we love

  who we could.

  Fading Polaroid

  My eyes were the first to forget. The face I once cradled between my hands, now a blur. And your voice is slowly drifting from my memory, like a fading polaroid. But the way I felt is still crystal clear. Like it was yesterday.

  There are philosophers who claim the past, present, and future all exist at the one time. And the way I have felt, the way I feel—that bittersweet ache between wanting and having—is evidence of their theory.

  I felt you before I knew you and I still feel you now. And in that brief moment between—wrapped in your arms thinking, how lucky I am, how lucky I am, how lucky I am—

  How lucky I was.

  Thoughts

  Dawn turns to day,

  as stars are dispersed;

  wherever I lay,

  I think of you first.

  The sun has arisen,

  the sky, a sad blue.

  I quietly listen—

  the wind sings of you.

  The thoughts we each keep,

  that are closest to heart,

  we think as we sleep—

  and you’re always my last.

  Dyslexia

  There were letters I wrote you that I gave up sending, long before I s
topped writing. I don’t remember their contents, but I can recall with absolute clarity, your name scrawled across the pages. I could never quite contain you to those messy sheets of blue ink. I could not stop you from overtaking everything else.

  I wrote your name over and over—on scraps of paper, in books and on the back of my wrists. I carved it like sacred markings into trees and the tops of my thighs. Years went by and the scars have vanished, but the sting has not left me. Sometimes when I read a book, parts will lift from the pages in an anagram of your name. Like a code to remind me it’s not over. Like dyslexia in reverse.

  Dead Poets

  Her poetry is written on the ghost of trees, whispered on the lips of lovers.

  As a little girl, she would drift in and out of libraries filled with dead poets and their musky scent. She held them in her hands and breathed them in—wanting so much to be part of their world.

  It wasn’t long before Emily began speaking to her, then Sylvia and Katherine; their voices rang in unison, haunting and beautiful. They told her one day her poetry would be written on the ghost of trees and whispered on the lips of lovers.

  But it would come at a price.

  There isn’t a thing I would not gladly give, she thought, to join my idols on those dusty shelves. To be immortal.

  As if reading her mind, the voices of the dead poets cried out in alarm and warned her about the greatest heartache of all—how every stroke of pen thereafter would open the same wound over and over again.