The Things We Miss

It’s…soft. Damp. Filters between my toes and warms up like our iron kettle under the summer sun. I wiggle them, such an unconscious movement that the coolness takes me by surprise, splashing all the way to my ankles. I giggle. How many little creatures live under me now? Can they feel the undulations of the earth as my feet move through the mud? If they could, would they tell on me?

I have the urge to lie down and submerge my whole body in the pillowy ground. I need to know if I will find the familiarity of your body and mine on cotton sheets during the winter, tangled and happy.

For the first time, I wonder if you miss me.

It baffles me that we missed each other for half a decade. We could’ve met in Quebec during my semester abroad or crowd-surfing in Chicago to a Santana song. We ended up meeting in the most mundane way, at the only coffee shop that was open past six in a city where everyone lives. I had a hot drink in my hand the time you tried to ask me out oh-so-smoothly, a little coffee cup with no sleeve on. My fingers were burning, and yet I waited for you to find the courage to do it. I would happily burn my hand again.

That time in Rockaway, two years ago, your back was unevenly burnt, and I couldn’t stop laughing, “This is your karma,” I thought, oppressing the urge to trace the red pattern on your skin.“It is just a burn,” you would’ve said, so I never told you. Maybe it is only me who collects these cutouts of our lives.

The rain doesn’t burn.

I can count how many times the chill water has made you sneeze: Twenty-eight. That’s, too, how old you were when we met. Two and eight. Two plus eight. Ten. One: A symbol of wholeness and fresh starts. Now would be a great time to start believing in numerology, wouldn’t it?

That day I ran home, switching the coffee cup from hand to hand. By the time I was in my kitchen, I realized the cup was still full and lukewarm. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, so I had forgotten about it. I took a single sip in the name of not letting it turn into a complete waste and threw the rest out. Not the coffee cup, though.

My mouth is open to the skies. I don’t care. My eyes can barely focus under the curtain of raindrops. If I squint, I can see the little Amaranth we planted in that coffee cup, but that’s as far as I will go. I cannot see you.

I do miss you.

You picked me up on the steps of my old apartment, no flowers but a big green balloon. Odd, I thought. We walked for almost an hour, my feet in pain from the heels, to a small Irish bar on Second Ave. Ah. You’re introducing me to your roots. The beer was cold, and the food was okay.

Remember how you used to look at me? Like stargazing. You were so beautiful.

I was so beautiful.

This is the fourth rainy day of the week. The amaranth tilts to its left; it’s drowning. I would bring it inside if I dared to move from this very spot, the only one lacking gorgeous, green grass. I can’t escape the dirt between my toes.

You told me then and there what your plan was: a farm. A first date prewritten line. An excuse to make you appear more interesting, perhaps. It wasn’t until you got Kamoo that I believed you; we couldn’t keep a cow in my one-bedroom apartment. I never thought I’d end up living on a farm. We got chickens, horses, and a second cow. Moved to where we could be only with each other. I got a loan for a second car so I could drive when work required it, and you changed yours for a pickup truck that would take you from East to West. There was no one else, and somehow we kept growing further apart.

The sky is suddenly lit up. I can hear animals’ remarks and complaints as thunder unfolds. I move towards their barn, but then I stop and turn around, commanding my bare feet to proceed towards the coffee cup.

The amaranth is dead.

I am surrounded by acres of grass, and our flower is dead. I missed my window.

I promise I did not intend to fight. You had been driving all day and arrived exhausted. I know this because I heard the horse’s excitement, not because you bothered to say hello. I was starting to think you had forgotten about my presence here; you’d become so rattled whenever I came into frame.

The money had been short, and you’d set out to sell the cows for meat, you said. “We’d sell the farm”, you said. “I’m sure you can find some place else to live”.

You left, and I had no choice but to run behind you. It wasn’t raining then, and the grass tingled my feet. Growing up, I’d always been fast; it was the weight of the kettle slowing me down. I came through the door and thought I lost you, but the doors from the barn swung open still. I thought we could talk this out.

Then I saw you, measuring Kamoo from head to tail. Getting her ready to ‘sell’.

She looked at me as if stargazing.

The grass doesn’t tickle tonight. I still hear them mooing and neighing, and in harmony I sneeze. So I go inside and make some tea, careful not to upset the dent on the kettle. The smell of burning hair drowns the kitchen. I thought I had cleaned it all up, but blood sticks, and it hides where the metal meets the flame. I'm too tired to clean it, so I wait, and breathe you in.

I listen to the wind bringing the rain north, to the boiling water meet its release. It’s August again. In a few months, everything will freeze, and I’ll miss a day like this, so I pour a cup of tea and sit.

Perhaps I should rest the amaranth over the bare land. Let her reach for what’s left of your skin.