Sydney E Anderson

The small plane nudges left along a thin green line as the big plane finally smooths itself out under me. Four hours and twenty two minutes to go back in time. My fiancée and I drove away from Houston with a carload of our shared life and heart-loads of love for the city that held ours. (Sometimes I wonder if we both had right then and there left it behind.) That drive bears down on my mind heavier now than it even did then. The turbulence of my reality, somewhere over rural Illinois, overlays the ride east that hot August day. Two years later, my feet would be on the cold ground of Peoria, as his family shivered over a mound that would become Grandma’s grave. I knew it might be the last time I’d hold his hand while I held his heart. The green line confounds me as time moves both later behind me and earlier before me and all I can think of is how and when on this life-flight I began to disappoint the people who bore me. But this story - the sadness that floored me - isn’t for them, it’s for me. It’s through my words I survive remembering that I’ve felt the depths of true love and I love Being Alive. He sang those words in the summer of 2019 When we watched our cat climb trees along the river Where we learned what it meant to shovel our own shit learned to collect our wash water and it was the first time the light crept through the cracks. We followed the fireflies home at night - planned a wedding in a quiet space at the base of a rolling hill, as days of poverty rolled by until - the light peeked through a crack. When a dress I once had no longer held the weight of the armor I built. The red lipstick no longer covered the lies and the guilt. My voice, too, cracked before I had even sung - (I discovered that what I loved most was what I least wanted done.) His touch hovered that morning above me - even as my skin moved, and I knew that he loved me - He, too, knew what I knew That there was no glue - no plaster, nothing to do to mend what had escaped on that morning in June. (As the flight today again begins to smooth, I fixate on the joy - the memory of holding my favorite spoon. This is true.) Back to the river - Eyes open, heart uncertain. Time had sped up to match my grief, and by afternoon, drawn was the curtain on the depth of its reach. The darkness ballooned behind my eyes - the light leaked out the more I tried to hide the truth that I still can’t find. As I fly through storms In the LITERAL SKY - it’s as if I - am still sitting with him in the desert at night misting my succulent soul to keep it alive - I exhale I sigh I long for the light. Back up (not up high) Back up in the story, relive the time. We. Together. Decided not to invite our guest list to Texas the following Spring. We went there to retrieve our four hundred dollars from the charity chapel on the Ides of March. I often forget That. Perhaps you can tell from my tempered tone that it’s a sobering Fact. I have to admit that amidst all of this - I was living alone. (I was angry, felt unheard.) We lied to ourselves our friends our families we assured them that it was the distance that drove us - the space that erased us - When all along there was pain in the music a weight on my chest as I sang Emily’s song, and faced a panel who insisted the audience who picked me was wrong. (I was wrong) But I won the award. I heard the crowd. I have the receipts, I wrote it all down. The light was still there, in the depths of my longing to be held by him - to come back to my skin - and to be able to trumpet the truth from within - which, even now, I’m skirting around. The green line projects a smooth path to be found Ahead. The green line is headed Straight, toward something. (I have always been straight, or something.) I pushed him away because I was afraid - of not being seen of having to play a role play along play piano play a song but play from a place of fear of doing it wrong. As that year came to an end, and 2020 loomed from the lakes of Switzerland I felt the light flicker again. Hope might have mended a crack or a few as my flight home to New York was flying toward you - Home was you - Alone with you - Remembering how to dream of a future with you - Just a few months to Go before we could each take a corner of the book (or the chapter) find happy-ever-after and recharge the light with the sunset’s Glow. From there it felt like a daredevil stunt - a ramp up to nothing right from the gun. No soft landing, No applause, no relief. We got our wish - experienced bliss - the path to the ocean impossible to miss. But the rug was waiting. Fate pulled out all the stops. “Together” was a sentence - A double bar - future locked. What happened next? Well, what do you think? Let’s look at the clock. The crack opened its wound - the light spilled out - No one was there to cover the spout. This time I was the one to crack. I needed care and despite all the vows he wasn’t there. It wasn’t his fault - he couldn’t understand he wasn’t aware. “The seatbelt sign is on” I snap back - to that thin green line that I’m on in the air. I’m chasing the sunset in the southwest while somewhere soon, my favorite spoon will scoop up the morning with a smile and a tune that lights up the room of a new “Together.” They are writing the next chapter of the book that we started. (I made the mistake of thinking the story was ours.) The problem with this story is that it has no end. It’s been nearly four years, and yet the tears feel as real and as raw as back when we first felt the darkness begin to descend. But as long as I am aware of the light, I’ll try and I’ll try and I’ll try as I might to hold fast to the part of me that still wants to fight for the story that was started for me. For now, I run my eyes along the ridges of the Rockies and I run my mind over the mountains of memories that I’ve shared (again) for the first time. I keep running to the past and back because without that what am I?