Out on the Ice

CW: References to self-injury

She wants me to go play pool with her. I have eggs burning on the stove, and she wants to go play pool. What am I supposed to do? Let the house burn down?

I know I was out there on the ice for too long. Cookies on the ice. Brownies on the ice. Sitting waiting for something to bite. That’s one kind of meditation. Pool is another. She plays pool. And I’m not allowed to remind her of two years ago. I’m not allowed

To bring up when we met.

To bring up when we were introduced to each other

To bring up our kids

Our kids

I can’t talk about our kids

They come to visit and I have to say

She’s out playing pool, but she

Could say that I’m out there on the ice, and I take a big gulp of

Anything she puts in a thermos for me

I appreciate

That’s the thing about me

I appreciate

I appreciate her

I can’t talk about the kids, but the kids come visit, and she goes to play pool. They ask me why they can’t address their childhoods like it’s a case going to court, and I chop up an onion like I was taught to back when I thought I was going

To be a chef and I had my grandkids small pieces of onion

Smells funny!

Smells funny!

It’s an onion. It’s supposed

To smell funny

Aren’t they teaching kids what onions smell

Like anymore?

My kids worry about the ice cracking and me falling through, but I tell them it’s only ever cracked once and when it did I knew it so I didn’t

Move

I didn’t move for close to four hours. I stood there waiting to plummet and then night came over and I don’t know I guess it got cold enough where the cracks filled in and so I made my way back up to the house nearly frozen solid and when I got inside there on the kitchen table was a note from her and I’m going “She left me she left me I almost died and now she’s left me and after I’ve been so good to her and never even cared that she won’t let me talk about our wedding or how our first baby smelled when the nurse handed it to me or when I burned my hand so bad we had to go to the emergency room and there was a guy in there with a knife lodged in his shoulder” but the note just said she was at the bar playing pool and god help her if she beats one of those guys too bad or takes too much of their money it won’t matter that she’s an old lady, because everybody knows why she’s so damn

Good at pool

Thursday had a midnight like I’ve never had and I went out on the ice with nothing but my nightdress on and I called out to the water that it better be ready when I get there.

Looking down at the ice I could see the fish swimming and I slipped thinking I’d break my hip, but I bounced. Would you believe that? I bounced like I was made of rubber. A rubber lady. I bounced right back up and I spit through my teeth “It’s a dream It’s a dream dammit It’s a dream” but it wasn’t a dream it was just a part of life that feels too much like bloodletting. Like you’ve been charged something you can’t pay. I knelt down and kissed the ice. My lips got stuck and a hole opened up and a fish swam down my throat and then I pulled back and my lips came free and I stood up and I walked off the ice and back to the house and she was standing in the kitchen over the stove watching some bacon burn, because in this house, we burn breakfast.

In this house

We burn

Breakfast

But who eats breakfast at midnight?

Maybe that’s

The trouble

Maybe I’m trouble

Maybe I learned the word “trouble” and now I don’t want to

Say any other word, because

That word fits best

My kids say I need to sell the house and move somewhere that doesn’t

Have any water nearby, because if I see

Water I’m going to try and walk out

On it and my daughter thinks it’s

Because a part of me thinks I’m Jesus,

But I don’t think I’m

Jesus I think I’m a lizard like one

Of those frogs or

Newts that can skip over

The water like they understand

That a surface is a surface and what

You can do on one you can do on another

I put my hand down on the stove and it

Burns, but if I put it on ice nothing

Happens until it does and when

It does it burns and you put your

Hand down on a pool table and if

You leave it there long enough it

Burns, doesn’t it?

She hustles me when I ask

Her to make me some

Cereal so we don’t have

To smell that smell

Anymore

But she wants eggs

But she wants bacon

But she wants to leave

The pancakes on until they’re part

Of the stovetop

I asked her not to go play pool tonight and that’s why she asked me to go with her. That’s her

Compromise

That’s her

Negotiation

What am I supposed to do?

She knows I’d rather be out on the ice. She knows who I am and I know who she is, but I’m not allowed to say. I’m not allowed to tell her who I think she is, because that doesn’t belong to me. Who she is doesn’t

Belong to me

And I don’t belong to her

And our kids don’t belong to us

And when I put my lips on the ice and the fish and the kelp and the water go down my throat none of that will belong to me

Some people like nature, because it makes them

Feel small

I like being around things that don’t

Belong to me and when you cook eggs on the stove they’re yours until they burn and then they don’t belong

To anybody