All of the dreams that you made nightmaresThese days I eat, sleep and breathe petrichor, or the idea of it, anyway, since it never actually stops raining long enough to become anything close to dry. These sunny days will be shortlived, like everything good. Who needs anything else when you have this? You just scrape the moss off your skin as it grows and marvel at how your blood has been replaced with rainwater. It's inevitable. The problem is, I like my rainwater mixed with salt and sand. Grit and glory, twenty-four-seven. Keep your rainforest, I'll be in the sea.
all of the silence, deafening stares
All of the ships who can't carry loads
you wrecked in anger, along distant shores
All of this would have been
all of this could have been yours
I'm pretty sure if I were in the sea he would stand disdainfully nearby, on the drier rocks and wait for me to surface, holding one of those envelopes like a bullet, meant for my heart.
Every one he gives me Lochlan takes to burn. Every one unopened. Caleb's birthday is a week from today. He'll be fifty-three, an age I still can't comprehend as it seems like just last night he was eighteen and piggy-backing me home from the ballfield or driving me to the mall. Or saying goodbye as he packed up his room down the hall from Cole's as he went off to University a few years ahead of the rest, while I was still in grade five and unable to even spell university.
Certain dates of the year I am required to spend with him, his birthday being the most important date above the others. The second-most important date is New Years Eve. I defied him that night for reasons I can't talk about. I don't plan to do that again, in spite of Lochlan's rules, so we shall see what next week brings.
I have a plan of my own, you know.
If I were to give out envelopes they would be glitter. It would get on everything. It would be great. Maybe I should do that. Make them fight for my time instead of making me fight for theirs.