Fractal Memories

Writing exercise #72: Synesthesia.

For bluebell.

I remember learning to write,
gripping the pencil
tight in my fist, tracing how
love is yellower than live, and
life, a champagne's breath fainter.

*

When I told the grownups the sky was not blue, but red-blue, "because the s is red", they laughed, tousled my hair, said I was imaginative. I doubted my reality even then. Perhaps you saw that. You walked over and whispered, "Such pretty colours, princess? Those who see differently need to breathe a purer air." Then you picked me up, tossed me high above the others, as I laughed and forgot what being different meant.

Reality fractures so easily. You saw the pretty colours too, didn't you?

I'd show up at your doorstep whenever it rained. You'd smile gently as I chattered on with eyes brighter than bright, about the rain, how her droplets were small, blue-brown cylinders, and how they tinkled so. Bedraggled, hair clinging to my face, I would drip puddles on your doorstep and you'd listen.

When you left, a part of me went silent. Sometimes in dreams, I see a little girl at a doorstep, waiting with bright eyes that fade, at a door which opens no more.

*

Tom. The memories of him taste of pomegranates and sticky summer afternoons. He was a clean rain on these senses. I'd cling to him, memorizing his scent, the lines of his body, the make of his feelings. Those nights we slept together, every thought, need, unnamed desire, burning deep into my psyche. I will always carry you in my bones. Perhaps it was love. Yet it wasn't enough.

*

Holding my pictures of you, these bleeding senses drench the mind. I know your fear, a curling blackness that crosses the ether. It watches me too. These days are spent waiting for the elusive blue of your shadowed smile, that lets me know you are alright.

I wish I could pick you up and toss you in the air, and see you smile freely, as I once did.