Left Alone

Most of what I want to say these days I put in my letters to you. That morning magic saved and used for you and you alone. Sometimes I feel as a writer I only have so much each day, and when it’s gone it’s gone and I should use my time on something else. It’s a place I can only get to if I am left alone.

You tell me there is a tension between wanting to be a mother and being an artist and you touch your tongue to something I have not been able to name. I feel this all the way down to the quiet places, the thing I do not want to admit, my fear of losing my solitude, that place where the magic gets in. What will happen to me? I ask you.

Everything has this irridescent timeless quality to it. Like I’m dreaming, or I’ve just woken up. I cannot tell which and I do not think it matters. What I want it to drive north and lie naked sunning on the rocks at the slow bend in the river. I would follow you anywhere, if we were still going places.

There is a tangle of balloons caught in the palm tree outside of my apartment. The water today is a blue so clear I can see all the way to the bottom from my balcony. I wander from room to room and start three different projects. I make new coffee. I water the orange trees. I wait for something to happen.

I want to have a daughter and name her Blue. I say this out loud, iterations of the statement like an incantation. As if I say it enough it will become true. I am always waiting for my heart to catch up with my body, this time I think, I will tell it where we are going next.

I go outside, and it is bright and light, and I collect tomatoes off the vine. When I come back inside I cannot see anything, my eyes have to adjust. I think, this is what it felt like to fall in love with him. I suddenly couldn’t see anything I could see just a moment before. It took me two years for my eyes to adjust.

I take my own picture in the mirror in the living room, like I have every day since this started. For lunch I make toast with olive oil and salt, thick tomatoes slices, and chunks of humble fog goat cheese. I sit naked on the tile floor and eat with my fingers and watch the waves come in and out. There is something feral about being left alone.