May 29

The floor should be soaked in red ashes. My heart is a phoenix tonight, singed feathers float down from an invisible sky over my head. I’m taking all hell kind of chances tonight, writing here so close to him. I can’t say his name aloud; it burns so much and my heart is far too raw. We drank each other through the keyhole and i swore his arms were around me, holding me, holding my dark dress to my damp skin, breathing in the smell of salt from my fingertips - i’d wandered the docks all afternoon to see if the boats were coming yet..no sign and it’s almost the end of our last store..Never mind. Anyway, there we were, wrapped around each other without even touching and he leans in close to my ear and asks me a question..a horrible question, a question he asked me some days ago, the last time i wrote , when i heard it fall down to me from the ceiling above and i dropped the pen, bursting ink all over the floor, all over me and all over what i thought i knew about him, and about myself, for i almost answered him, there in the dark, in the single sphere of candle, nearly told him yes. And when he held me today, i did. I said yes and my heart shrank and disappeared into some wet pink void full of heat and need and now. And just for a moment, he stopped breathing; i turned to the door, pressed my whole body against it, shivering, saying please, speak, please..He remained silent,
I glanced hesitantly over both shoulders, expecting to see her grim face (child, what are you doing here?) but there was no one to see. And so I lifted my hands, pale from the attic cold, and unfastened the buttons of my dress, letting it melt down my legs to the dust. I stood there, more vulnerable even than when i was a baby, newfound at sea, and waited. I felt my flesh start to tremble, goosebumps rose on my bare skin, and still he was silent. I don’t know if he would even look at me and there I was, fresh from the bath and smelling like salt and hot and looking like nothing at all worth remembering..ready to lose, ready to give, ready to know. And he did not speak.
At some point, i don’t know when, I began to cry very quietly, letting the tears run down, warming my face for just that quick. I leaned down to the floor and lifted my dress, pressed it against me, wiped my face in its folds and buttoned it up. When I turned to go down the stairs, I felt strands of my heart rip away, clinging to the ancient door and its burning lock, and I knew I had just done something tremendously wrong - and had survived. I walked down to my room, where I lay on the bed for some time, watching the window for I don’t know what, listening to her below me, working and building a fire, and thought, how will I stand this? What will I say to her when I go down and she wants me to talk, to be myself, when I’’m not; I’m someone else now? So here I am, writing huddled by his door, waiting...

I have to go now. he’s calling me

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