PDF

Morning Night (2,3,4)


by mourning light


Monday Morning

I wake slowly. My breath still escapes me.
He's asleep on the sofa, legs hanging, hand hanging, lips hanging, a river of saliva somewhere. He tries to be the one that's okay when I'm not, but really he's just as bloody as I am. I wait til he starts to stir, “I wake up feeling like this, like I can't catch my breath, like everything is running away from me. I feel like I'm driving backwards into a tunnel 90 miles per hour.”
He's still covered in clouds, “oh, sweetbuns, maybe - what time is it?”
“Eleven”
“Maybe it's because you haven't eaten yet,” he wipes away the puddle, “will you just eat that fuckin' soup - already?” He shifts around for a while and retreats back to sleep.
My stomach feels sour even without food. It's hanging here inside of me like my body were a free clothes line and it were a massive winter coat of the utmost insignificance that decided to plop itself down on my flimsy strings in the middle of a dry summer. Food. The thought of it makes me nauseous.
Or maybe that's just how being hungry feels like.
I look at the soup.

(2)


Monday Night

She cleaned up all her shit. And I mean all of it. The trash in her room, the rubbish in her drawers, the dishes in the sink, the expired food in the kitchen cabinets, the dust on the floor, the fingerprints on the windows, the bird shit on her car - the All of it. It's her way of ignoring the ocean of thoughts brewing in that delirious head of hers. I could just imagine the waves crashing at her skull, impatiently waiting to be tended to.

She vacuums.
She ignores me as well, hustling around me while I'm trying to talk some sense into her, sweeping under my foot, pushing the sofa while I'm surely still on it. I let her be and watch the expression that hasn't met mine the entire day. Most of the time it's blank, but almost every other time she passes the living room I'm able to catch the smallest pang of conscience in her eyes that had suddenly surrendered. And then it's gone and she's off cleaning out some more shit.
Night comes hastily for both of us. I guess I have a lot on mind as well.

We order pizza and she eats again. Hah! That crazy woman thinking she could resist food for that long. Along with this first article of good news, we sleep not long after midnight - thank God. And of course, I'm so jolly that I could feel my heart laughing at this sudden change in progress. I swear to God, I was smiling my damn pants off the whole time I was asleep - that was until I woke up fifty minutes later. That inconsiderate nymph just plops down and awakes the sofa and me who, mind I say, is sleeping on it ever so peacefully.
I can't see much more than the contours of her light figure. My insides immediately twist. She's hurting.
So I sit up and sit here with her, staring at the night in front of us. We continue our unconversational day.

(3)

Monday Night - Tuesday Morning

“I just don't know anymore, you know?”
“Sure. I have no idea what you're talking about, but I know what you mean.”
I want to lay my head on his shoulder and find some safe haven in his aura, but I know I'm not ready. I don't want to cry yet, I don't want to feel warm yet. He knows not to touch me.
“When will you tell me what's wrong?” any other person would ask, and I'd scoff and curse them out of my presence in record time. But he knows better.

“Mmm,” he sings, “Honey why you calling me so late? It's kinda hard to talk right now. Honey why are you crying? Is everything okay? I gotta whisper cause I can't be too loud.”
I smile and join in, “Well, my girl's in the next room, sometimes I wish she was you. I guess we never really moved on.”
We both stand up at this point and “It's really good to hear your voice saying my name, IT SOUNDS SO SWEET, coming from the lips of an angel, hearing those words IT MAKES ME WEEAAAK.”
We're pounding on our imaginary electric guitars, “AND I NEVER wanna say GOODBYE, but girl you make it hard to be faithful.”
We probably sound like two screeching monkeys at this point,
“With the lips of an angel.”

(4)
Endcap