Work in Progress - Shorts and Swimsuits
I go to the dry cleaners on the way home from class. It isn't the same place Fanta took me to - this place hasn't been remodeled, it's brand new. But it's where Marianne takes her clothes now. "It's a way to move without moving," she said. She did this with our grocery store too. We don't shop at the same place Delucca does anymore. "We're in a fight," Marianne said. And each day feels like an endless stream of consciousness. The world is black. Beast from months ago tells me to go out a have a Slurpee.
"Pick up my clothes," Marianne says. But it sounds as if she tells me to go home and clean up my closet. Shade leaves last year all over the place. And she's not a tidy memory, she doesn't fold our jeans or straighten up the dust covered heels. Racks of floating, headless people disappear in my rear view mirror on the drive home.
"Shorts and swimsuits," Beast says. He says it as if every day this summer is going to be spent at the beach. He's been a ghost for more than half a year, and he speaks in incomplete sentences and without middles or ends. Sometimes there aren't beginnings, I'm supposed to read his thoughts. Dead boyfriends don't talk enough. And the pieces of Beast still alive in me are dying.
Patti says this is grief. "You'll remember good times," she says.
I open my reader.
"Beast is a bad boyfriend," Fanta says. Fanta and I watch the volleyball boys and girls on the beach, and Beast is there in the middle of the game. Beast looks super gorgeous. It is as if Aphrodite plucked swim shorts and sunglasses out of a magazine ad.
Even his suntan lotion is name brand, the Mean Girls say. They trot up to him and ask, What's your name?
"Pick up my clothes," Marianne says. But it sounds as if she tells me to go home and clean up my closet. Shade leaves last year all over the place. And she's not a tidy memory, she doesn't fold our jeans or straighten up the dust covered heels. Racks of floating, headless people disappear in my rear view mirror on the drive home.
"Shorts and swimsuits," Beast says. He says it as if every day this summer is going to be spent at the beach. He's been a ghost for more than half a year, and he speaks in incomplete sentences and without middles or ends. Sometimes there aren't beginnings, I'm supposed to read his thoughts. Dead boyfriends don't talk enough. And the pieces of Beast still alive in me are dying.
Patti says this is grief. "You'll remember good times," she says.
I open my reader.
"Beast is a bad boyfriend," Fanta says. Fanta and I watch the volleyball boys and girls on the beach, and Beast is there in the middle of the game. Beast looks super gorgeous. It is as if Aphrodite plucked swim shorts and sunglasses out of a magazine ad.
Even his suntan lotion is name brand, the Mean Girls say. They trot up to him and ask, What's your name?
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