I. I’m standing in front of a stove starved for heat, shivering before a *** of boiling water, my stiff fingers attempt to fold themselves into my chest. it's unusually cold in California this week, I know you would be pleased. I am focused on a gifted bouquet of orange roses decorating my dining table; only you would understand why they make me so blue.
II. I thought about you this Thanksgiving, how your hands drew a line through the air showcasing points of chaos, as you recounted the turkey fire, and your grandfather's drunken speech, 8 years ago this week. I couldn't remember the punchline, but we laughed so **** hard.
I figured that's why you were writing, you too recalled a time I made you laugh, but edited the sad parts out.
III. You ask how I am. I want to tell you I feel not like myself, but I think it unfair to make you a reference point of whom I think I should be. So I'll say, I feel less like the girl you would remember, and more like a stranger living in her body.
IV. I had a dream three days in a row where we were sitting on the shallow end of an empty pool avoiding remnants of algae water, settled in small ponds. I was wearing a burgundy, babydoll dress that I used to wear when I was in eight. I whispered something in slow motion, you laughed, teeth grinning towards the sky, like a child; how bittersweet it was to remember the way the lines find their place around your almond eyes.
I guess you will always be a place where my subconscious goes to ache.