Messages

by Jen Larsen

It’s been hard on my relationships. We kiss at the door, and his hands move down my sides, cup the back of my head, his hips fit against mine and I have to push him back, and tell him “I’m sorry. I really can’t.” And then I go upstairs, all by myself, the way I do every night.

Every night, I set a half-full glass of water on my bedstand. I turn the covers down, and smooth the sheets. I brush my hair out, and when I lay back against the pillow, I have to tell you I think about the picture it makes. Do the dead think I look like Sleeping Beauty, with my curls spread around my face, tumbling over the duvet, spilling across my pillowcase?

My pillowcase is cool against the back of my neck, and I close my eyes. Do the dead think about anything? I have to think they do, or else why would they demand this of me, the ritual every night, the darkened room and my hand, palm up, laid across the bed. My fingers relaxed, not trembling at all at the thought of cold hands touching me. Or maybe they are dumb creatures of habit, maybe they run along the rails I lay down for them.

I lay down for them every night, spread my hair across the pillow, and close my eyes in the dark room. I never try to look. I try not to think about what might be brushing against the curtains, rifling through my dresser drawers, standing over me and watching me with dead eyes. I hold my hand steadily and still, and I breathe evenly, slowly.

Slowly the pressure fills up the room and then my fingers curl around what they have left for me. They have given me a button, a length of twine, a bobby pin. A child’s impossibly tiny sock, a curl of hair tied with a ribbon, a piece of quartz, the delicate, paper-thin gear from the guts of a pocket watch.

Watch me line these pieces up along my dresser in the morning, rearranging them. I don’t know what they mean. I don’t know why they are, but they are, and I do. Every night, every morning. These tiny things fill up my life; these ghosts fill up my room, my head. The cupped palm of my hand.