My Cat Didn’t Like Me Much. I Saved His Life When He Wasn’t More Than Two Days Old, But I Never Was
My cat didn’t like me much. I saved his life when he wasn’t more than two days old, but I never was his favorite person. He’d meow at me all angry like whenever I got near him, so I left him be. He’d let me pet him once in a blue moon and I treasured that. But he got sick. The sort of sick you don’t get better from. And even though he avoided me most of his life, and I respected his wishes, deep down he remembered what I did for him. His last days alive he came and sat with me. Maybe asking me again, save me. I know you can. You did it before. And with everything in me I wish I could have. I would have saved him a thousand times over even if it meant he stayed in rooms I wasn’t in, and preferred people other than me. I would give everything for him to dislike me a lifetime’s worth. But I only got four years.
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16 years old, five people around my table, two legs, and no bombs. I eat dinner with my family and we laugh at my dad dropping Qidreh on his chest. He looks at me with an embarrassed smile and I hand him a cloth to wipe himself with. 16 years old, one person around my table, one and a half legs, one bomb. My dad amputates my leg as I lay on the dinner table. He looks at me with anguish and I cry out to him as I feel every cut he makes. There is no anesthesia, there is no hospital for me to go to, my father the surgeon looks out of place operating in our family home. But my leg must come off, and the laughter of past dinners must quiet to allow for my screams. 16 years old, one leg, too many bombs to count. I clench my jaw to keep quiet as my father changes my leg’s dressing. He looks at me with apologetic eyes and I hand him a cloth to wipe my wound with. 16 years old, one leg, and one hope left: to make it to 17.
She paws at the gentle glade’s hair, and twirls the green betwixt her fingers. Nothing tastes sweeter than the dew procured there, nothing hurts more than having to leave it.
The Girl who Cried Wolf
Was never met with hurried steps coming to her aid in the dead of night. The first night she watched for the beast, his golden eyes burned from a breath beyond the treeline. She shouted out for pitchforks, torches, and only felt wind and moonlight rushing to her side. Nobody believed her the first time.
I can’t explain the joy I feel. And isn’t that so wonderful isn’t that so perfect to have a problem doppled in sugar and cherries with pits you suck on until they are bare in your mouth.
My sister drops her head underwater and I follow shortly after. I close my eyes as tight as I can and with cheeks full as balloons, I hold my breath. We both breach the ocean surface and look for each other. And we’re right where we left one another, of course. I miss that feeling of certainty, of knowing who I’m swimming with. Now we are grown and childhood is a twinkle in my eye. I see broken pieces of it if I look hard enough, disappointed at friends that don’t keep their pinky promises, at my husband for leaving the chores to me when she never would. She hated the dishes, the dirty refried beans dad would let soak in the sink and float into patches of dark pinkish slime. But she didn’t let me do them alone. I sit at the beach with my legs long and in the sun. I am warm but not complete. I look around at the flurry of faces, the assortment of multicolored swimsuits striped and polka dotted. It’s charming, but I don’t think I’d know where to look if I put my head under like I used to.
And when the night took his knee, and the sun grazed his face with her locks long and blonde as she stood, his eyes rested only on her.
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REBLOG IF ITS OKAY TO TALK TO YOU.
Please.
Have I always sought permission so fervently, or was I confident in myself once? I can’t remember.
Something bent so far in me, but never broke. I kept thinking if I went far enough in the wrong direction something would pull me back. That’s what they don’t tell you about abandonment. When you do it to yourself you don’t even feel it. You don’t feel anything anymore.
If you want to know what someone wants, watch what they give away. Love, time, compliments. People think others yearn the same way they do, and they reveal themselves in these little interactions; the way daylight escapes blinds midday.
