Ian 21

Ian,

 

Clyde waits shy like a heavy stone pinning gauzy curtains to the windowsills you sat on as a boy in your romance while the moon set low, Matthew, while the moon set low and your tears gathered in the pendulum soak of your soft and unshaven chin.  He's the walking gentle footsteps of the ghost who lost your toys when you were a child. 

 

I loved him when we were children.  You're meant to recall or be recalled to the nursery I'm sure we shared, white walls and dusty corners, where the dragons were treated like humans.  Where we learned about our world, under the instructions of our parents.  It's meant to feel English, and the green world beyond the wide windows is what darkens, surely, to let us know the magic of Peter Pan.  It's meant to feel woody and dirt-covered, as if the war has only newly ended. 

 

Clyde is a dark stone on our windowsill.  I loved him, when we were children, and I saw his scabbed knees fall to the white floor where we ran the train set together, and his wide mouth puffy from his baby fat spoke about creation.

 

"Feathers," I told him, confused, and he didn't answer, his blonde hair brushing his cheeks.  I touched one wing, and he sighed.

 

"Don't."

 

Clyde ran the train set while in Brooklyn, I climb the catwalk stairs to the roof and listen for his voice. 

 

"Clyde?"

 

"Fox?"

 

I raised my head to him, so very slowly, on our wedding day, I thought I would die at his chest, or the world would end at his throat.  All the family attending in finery, all the children dressed in yellow and black and blue, all the stars looking down at us, all the dragons looking on, how...?

 

His mucus slapped the wood floor and he crouched like an animal, his hair in his face.  Blood stuck the black of his t-shirt to him in a glossy darkening patch, and the tear in it matched the length of the knife in my hand.  He lunged at me, his face, the face of an angel, but the fur I felt in my hands was as black as the river at night. 

 

We wrestled the knife from between us, and he held me down to the floor, struggling to get his cock out and keep my hands pinned at the same time.  I loved him more with every murder.

 

"You have a soul," he growled low enough to sound like a threat, and his hair made a curtain around us as he covered my mouth, perhaps to steal it from me.

 

They were wet, his eyes.  Wet, and wide.  Betty was sobbing onto my mother.  Our daughter, a toddler at the time, clutched at my legs. 

 

"Momma," she said.  "Happy Birthday!"

 

"Thank you, Bluejay," I told her.  Adam collected her away, and Clyde's body collided with mine, and we spoke close behind our hands the secret that comprised our wedding vows.

 

"I've loved you since we were children."

 

Love,

Annik