Unmade Bed
We were just lava hitting the sea, in the end. We moved slowly, forced to destroy our path to suit our shape. I wonder if we could have done it differently. Those great sparks and that great noise we threw off, were they worth it? Worth the destruction of them, of us, just for the sea to envelope you like it was nothing.
I went to your funeral, as promised, my love. I just wasn’t as brave as you wanted me to be. I didn’t fight when they said I had to slip into the back, unspeaking. I didn’t fight when they said I had to deny us. I hovered at the edges, like some old school friend, an acquaintance maybe. Your absence draped over me like a weighted cloak. I’m sorry, it was too heavy for me, and I could see your parents struggling with their own, heavier guilt.
I can’t get past this doorway. I tried to step through but I couldn’t, wasn’t able to. I saw the bed. Saw the large crease in the sheet there and I wasn’t sure if it was yours or mine. There’s still a soft dent in the pillow from where you last lay sleeping. That must be where you live now, in the empty spaces. So temporary. I wonder if I can find someone who can cast them all in plaster, so I can rebuild you from the outside in, before they get filled accidently.
I’ve been staying at Kath’s the past week, I hope that’s ok. I know you don’t…I know you didn’t like me being so close to her but she offered me a room when the air in here tasted too much like you. Nothing happened, of course, but you inhabit everywhere acceptable. It was a single bed in her spare room. I needed that, not to have to swim the great expanses of our double.
Right. I’m in.
I’m closing the Attwood you were reading to me. The Handmaids will have to find their own way out. I’m throwing away the wine glasses, even the one with proof your curved lips existed. I won’t throw you away, love, I just can’t breathe in here unless I put some of you to the side.
The Dublin photo will stay standing proud. Remember that? The first time we held hands without backward glances. No disapproval, just a couple of girls happy together. ‘Too normal to register,’ that’s what you said. So cool, so nonchalant, so out of my league. I’m just going to slide it over to the other pictures so it doesn’t hit me so hard on its own, but it’s there.
The wardrobe I’ll leave for now, I’m scared the scent of your ghost will rush out of your clothes and push me over. Are you a ghost? I don’t think you’d like it, never one to be tethered to anything, you. Haunt me if you can.
I’m going to make the bed. I’ll settle the tides of the duvet and straighten the sheets. I’ll keep your pillow cave as long as it’ll hold. It will collapse, I know. The empty spaces will be filled. But I’ll stand inside them, scaffold them until my body breaks. I won’t let them fall until the sea comes for me too, until it sweeps and sucks me down. Just an unbroken surface, a light ripple, then no more.
Debbie Kinsey writes in Yorkshire, UK, on a diet of cake and tea. She has previously been published at The Pygmy Giant.