Tails

    Tails


When I was little, no one ever warned me about Love.

They warned me about the drugs that could make me an addict, a mindless, fix-seeking
zombie.
They warned me about the booze that could flood my mind and make my movements slow, my words garbled.
They warned me about sex, which could make me put on the pounds and the maternity clothes or cause me to waste away in a bed while my body surrendered to AIDs.

But no one warned me about Love and the things it could make me do.

Love is a coin with two sides: Heads or Tails. If you flip Heads, you win, congrats! If you flip Tails, you lose, better luck next time.
If there is a next time.

I flipped Tails.

If I close my eyes, I can remember your body and how you moved with me. I can remember your voice and how your laughter harmonized with mine.

For the life of me, I cannot remember your face.

I remember how small and weak I was in your arms. I remember how smooth your skin was, olive toned. I remember the white scar on your stomach where you were stabbed by the scissors you ran with.

I guess you never learned.

You found me crying and, trembling with anger, asked, "Who hurt you?"

"Them."

You held me close and wiped away my tears with promises of how you would protect me from Them. We both acted like we believed it, even though you couldn't actually protect me from anything; you could only bandage my wounds when no one was looking because I was never supposed to mean so much to you.

It was nice to pretend.

Once, you walked into the bathroom while I was fussing over my makeup. You picked me up and
dropped me into the hallway so that you had time to grab my makeup bag and flush it all down the toilet.
I screamed myself hoarse at you, and when I was finally out of breath you pressed a fifty into my palm, crisp, fresh from the ATM, and weighted with your next words:
"I wish you could see that you didn't need it."

You loved my hair, so long and thick and soft. You would lie underneath me and smile as it covered your face like some shining curtain. I remember you would tangle your hands in it and say you were wrapped in strands of the sun.

I cut my hair short and dyed it black last week, so I could see what colour the sky was, sans sun.

I kept a jar in my room. Every day, I would go out and look until I had found five four-leaf clovers. I thought that if I filled that jar with four-leaf clovers, we would be alright.

I filled that jar three times. After that, I broke the jar and threw out the pieces, and got sick whenever I saw a four-leaf clover.

It's been ten years. I think we'd be okay now. You've vanished though, the way you used to vanish from Her to visit me.
I lie in bed at night and clutch at my memories. I touch my hair, unfamiliar. I've stopped wearing makeup. I think about all those four leaf clovers until I feel nauseous.
And then I wish you'd come back, because I still owe you fifty dollars, fresh from the ATM.

But I flipped the coin and got Tails with you.
So maybe tomorrow, I'll go out and spend fifty dollars on a new pair of jeans, and then go find someone new to flip the coin with. Someone new who will be free from scars, who thinks the night sky is lovelier than sunshine, who really can protect me, who doesn't believe in luck from four-leaf clovers.

Maybe I will.

But we both know I probably won't.