a letter to Melinoë

Today, i stared death in its eyes, again. I saw the figure behind the black car windows—it was staring back at me. With those old pairs of hands twisting—the mouth; salivating. Death. I met death when I was only a little girl, and ever since then, I’ve felt it following my footsteps.

No one ever thinks that they’ll be able to look at such horrendous things, but we did—he was all over us, all of the time. The neighborhood nobody desired, the visit no one prays for. The brute pair of hands that carries a caliber .43 in his back pocket. How can something so fundamentally evil raise something so fundamentally kind? I guess things have been this way ever since Persephone fell for Hades. Something morbid blooms in hell’s fields, and you can see it in their eyes—how they beg for salvation.

With copper hair and puppy eyes, spring follows my memories like a ghost in one of my grandparents’ paintings—the ones that used to hang above our heads. If you stick your fingers in oil paint, it will still bleed.

Spring is a beast, and it came back to greet me in autumn, once its flowers were dying. Puppy-eyed. Shotgun heart. Apologies on the tip of the tongue, which danced off-beat—just like our old sneakers hidden with the badly written love letters and hair locks. Off-beat. Never quiet, or loud—always weirdly in the middle. Burning, but not to the point of simmering.

We will stare at our wounds, and we will fixate on the blood around our nails. Do you miss it? The summer night getaways? I bet not.

Nowadays, I cannot stop hearing the voice of the sea, and my hair rests on my back like I always wanted. I did not get married; nevertheless, I am still the very same, identical woman. What about you? I am still scared to stare into your eyes and see that you’re not dead. And, by the way, i could never understand you anymore. You have no clue of what you're talking about. Not quite like you used to/ not quite like we used to be: soft lips with dried blood hidden in between 'em. Harsh truths, white lies. Back when death did not had a name, or a car, or a bloodline attached to kindness. I will never understand how, maybe im the rut inside your bones, who knows. 

Regardless—yours, somehow.

Lu.