Fireflies

In her eyes, I could see fireflies dancing in the shadowy woods in every golden fleck that swam on that deep liquid sea.

Now forever closed: only dusty cells remain where electricity once pulsed.

Those eyes, I see them when I close mine.

I see the mischievous smile, and her perfect teeth.

The smattering of freckles across her nose lent her an impish air, but never conflicted her wisdom.

On old souls she once told me – you confuse me, you are like a brand new heart, and yet, you are so incredibly old.  She was an old soul through and through.  Partly jaded, she taught me that sometimes it’s OK to be ‘bad’.  Gratefully, the only time I was an accomplice, she did all the bad things…..  and didn’t tell me about it until after it was too late for me to have changed anything.  No, it wasn’t all *that* bad, and no, you won’t get me to tell you….

Her voice was like warmed honey, and she was forever making up names for things, little silly names that rhymed.  We were forever breaking into song: songs that didn’t rhyme; songs that were about silly stuff that we made up as we went; songs that often included lyrics like poopyhead; poopyhead, unlike orange is surprisingly rhymeable.

I don’t sing that much anymore, only really to my dogs, and only rarely.

The music is hushed.

Cobwebs hang from the rafters of the dreams we built.

The house is empty, uninhabited, and the light breaks in greasy streaks and dusty gashes across the still air.  There are no more future plans.  

I sit in the attic of the abandoned house, the place we once thought we would share.  I pick through the recollected memories, and dust off the conversations.  I flop down on a sheet covered wing chair and try to breathe in the hot thickness that is the atmosphere.  It’s hard to tell whether it’s me or the environment that causes me to choke and my eyes to water.

When I leave, I lock the door behind me and stand in the painfully bright sunshine again.  Part of me feels like hiding: digging a deep hole and crawling inside it.  Part of me never wants to visit again, to turn around and never look back and never turn the latch and return to the empty wasteland of lost dreams.  Part of me can’t let it go, as if by doing so, I erase it all.  Part of me feels that it’s already gone, and nothing can change that now.  I hold a shadow in the Sun, if I open my hand, it will disappear.