Open Heart Surgery – A Creative Nonfiction Short Story by Leah Bunner

PROLOGUE

It was

Love

you fell in

-different

I saw you sleeping

Next to me

Though you were not

there

awake eyes open

I saw you next to me

One day we’ll talk

about your tattoos

I’ll listen with my head

resting in my hands

one day I swear

I saw you next to me

I'll be here, If you’re here next

To me

I’ll be here, I always was

You

Know that

dream I had you

Naked chest cut

open everything

On me

Everything

I desire

Everything

all of you

****

1. SEE

your mouthI liked to look at it, in all of its illuminating gloryI think it is the most naked part of you

I see it play out sometimes, we’re on a boatMy heart has needed surgery since the moment it formed in my mother’s tired womb.

2. LISTEN

your mouthI think I have only heard your breath shake once. It was after we tried to have sex that one time, when I turned into a ghost.

I trusted you to cut open my bones, reroute my blood. I wanted to have sex with you. You know, I knew I was ready, because you have steady hands, steady lungs. I think I’ve only heard your breath shake once.

I still trust you, you know? I don’t think I could ever not love you. I remember that one time I got really drunk really fast. I called you in a blind state of mind. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember how you felt– angry– you know it had only been five days and I called you anyway. I meant to say “here is my heart, but it’s fairly intoxicated right now, so please don’t listen to it, here is my heart, thank you for caring” You answered– You’re saying I don’t careI should’ve said I’ve only ever heard your breath shake once.

I remember that one time I texted you 92 times. I don’t think you would hold that against me. I think you would pretend it never happened. I think you would pretend we never happened. I don’t think you can hear those texts in my voice. I’ve only ever seen your face beam once. It was after an idle conversation. I think you just liked the way I sounded.

3. SMELL

your mouth I remember that one time you didn’t get onions on your sandwich, even though it would’ve tasted really good. You wanted to kiss me instead, and you did.You smell like a perfect bedYou smell sadly familiar, like a city I could live and die in and never call home. You smell like youYou smell like my hair, because my hair smelled like you, all the time.

4. TASTE

your mouth There are some insects that taste with their hairMy hair always smelled like you bitter morning-after nostalgia before the moment ever got a chance to age

You taste like earth, like lavender. You taste instinctive.You’re something that I’d like to have in my coffee every morning, if I didn’t need it strong, pure, honest. You’re something that I’d like to have in my coffee every morning, if I didn’t need to be a person, if I didn’t need to be awake. If I could just be a bug, sucking the sweetness out of your softness. You’re too gentle to smirk. I envied that about you. You don’t even know how to grin. I’ve only ever seen your face beam once. You never smiled after we had sex. I think you were afraid you hurt me. Or maybe we’d just been reduced to bodies. But I was never afraid of you. I drank my coffee this morning, no trace of you. But when I bit into my scone my tongue landed on a burnt sun-dried tomato and then I was in your apartment then I was in your bed only for a moment I tasted you again.

5. FEEL

your mouth I hope one day I feel your mouth on my heart againI see it play out sometimes, we’re on a boat, under a Van Gogh night sky, we’re alive, we’re sedated we don’t have bones. Our flesh only exists when we look at it- we like it this waybecause we don’t like to look at it the scars over our chests a tattoo of what had been ripped out of us

we like to look at the ocean waves Hokusaki’s Great Wave brutal insatiable it’s mad at us because we’re laughing we’re laughing because it’s funnyyou and I how we’re there though we shouldn’t be we should beresting after open heart surgerytaking it easy alone we shouldn’t be together

but we arewide open barren you part your lips for me and I look in your mouth to see if your breath will shake again but there’s nothing inside your mouth it’s a vacant black hole as if we never existed at all there’s nothingmore for me to be afraid ofhere I am not afraid of the unknown we are not afraid of impermanence because we are here and it is now both our bodies dance rocking cradled in the hands of the waves so we’re shaking but we’re shaking in sync finally we’re on the same timeline I try to focus on the wind whistling against the weathered edges on our vocal cords

6. BE

/// but

I amI am too drunk what’s left of my melted limbs thrown around your shoulders drunk smiling so hard that my face aches drunk I don’t know how to express that I am here and it is now and everything around us hates us everything we know will end but I love you so much that nothing else matters drunk too drunk but this time I don’t say the wrong thing and this time you’re not mad at me this time it all played out like we wanted it to this time I am the most naked part of you

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