Lana Bella |
Published: December 27th, 2014
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Lana Bella has her diverse work of poetry and fiction published and forthcoming with Atlas Poetica, First Literary Review East, Cecil's Writers' Magazine, Deltona Howl, Thought Notebook, Earl of Plaid Lit, Kiki Howell for a War Anthology: We Go On, Undertow Tanka Review, Wordpool Press, Global Poetry, Family Travel Haiku, The Voices Project and now Eunoia Review. She resides on some distant isle with her novelist husband and two frolicsome imps.
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The Great Sleep
If I had only known you would forever be an open memoir that would forever haunt my bed… While the outside world hovers just beyond the gated white fence to which the swallows stretch their orchid wings, vines of scarlet Bougainvillea hug terra-cotta walls in vivid clusters of papery bracts, and the rustling bells of beaded wind chimes toss about echoing of sweet lullabies. Yet here I am again, lost roaming this lonely house and kept vigil with the whims of yesterdays within these cold concrete bars. The familiar essence of you once more alights and courses through the wisp veil of air puts to flight misting my mental plate glass; its crawling tides clutch at the frayed strands of my senses and over and over again, threaten to pull me into its deep. The afternoon sun winds its way between the tears of the half-drawn shutters, casting jagged rays of copper and gold upon the strewn paperbacks and aged magazines on the tabletop, and the lamp that lit my corner bed is turned low. While the quiet earth recedes from me, I force myself to hold back the remembrance of your ashen face from seeping itself into my mind, and of the rawboned body of a suffering man and those sad green eyes. Like the time before and the time before that, I would heave myself from our strange empty bed, follow you out into the narrow corridor, down the long dark spiraling stairway, to where your body lies upon the tiles of cold pale stones beside the dying hearth. You half-turn then, eyes fractionally masked, possessively taking hold of the fluttering wisps of my hair, and breathing me in. Even now, as I'm four days, six months and two years already gone after your death, the pale scent of your cologne lingers on our champagne satiny sheets; the gossamer ribbon of your presence caresses still the fine bones of my cheeks, hums that intimate merry breath on my paly lips, raking its lithe fangs over the hollow curve of my neck, sloping upon the gentle rise of my breasts, as it dipping lower forming a sandy fist around the marked blue veins of my upturned wrist; and there at the edge of my once fine-spun fingertips, twirling while beads of sweat take their solitary hunt from the top of my unfurled midnight curls then down earthward to the delicate fan of these honey-shaded toes. Everything stirs where the ache of nostalgia dissolves into a rousing requiem, where the farewell lays its everlasting pulse on the seawall of my shell, and where my mournful fingertips shift through the fine grains of sand. Some says that we forget too soon the things we thought we could never forget, and any word of grace and comfort will eventually leave our heart indifferent and all emotion unstirred. Then why am I ill-fated to cling to this state of despair, endlessly hoping, waiting, longing to catch the husky timbre of your voice, and to feel again the lean muscles shifted beneath your flawlessly tailored cloth. But instead, it's always the same relics that be ever present with me, the grim outline of encroaching overgrowth a dark still mass which threatened to swallow the churchyard whole. That high-wrought iron gate of the burial ground thinly veiled in mist, nameless figures tread on dampen ground in solemn black shawls and rain-overcoats. And before long the heavy echo of your coffin as it's being lowered into the soft-dug mound, blooms after blooms a never-ending flash of brilliant white spiraled down, down with hypnotic speed through the damp June air. Then just as suddenly a soft breeze goes sailing past, startling me out from the deep reverie; all my brooding thoughts, secrets kept and sealed silence climb out with me from the grave, frantically tearing through the clawing spaces between rotting dirt and sweltering air, and in paralyzing haste, rushing back into the airless chamber, where they weigh me down upon your beloved writing chair in the drawing room that still permeates of death's sickly balm and cloying incense. My bare skin rises in an alloy of the day's gold ashes and your scented silver scotch; I bathe in rings of smoky yellow and gray afternoon while hope falls softly from my hands and rust of time clings to the haggard bones. Shakily I touch a raw finger to the trail of wet tears, giving leave to the lurking musical notes of some unearthly vignette to ease me into a half-sleep, while patiently listening, hovering, waiting. Always waiting for the sound of your footsteps, to step out from the depth of stirring shadows behind the quartered shades. |