The Last Time I Left You Was Actually Before the Last Time I’ll Leave You

“Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.” As the old song goes, or is it a proverb now? An adage? We have no dictionary, and I was never one for remembering a true definition…But dancing, yes, that’s one way to see it. No, it’s not. That's one way by choice. Have I ever seen it in such a light, in the rare event I’ve been out at the right time of any day or night, in the last few weeks (years?). No, there’s never been any dancing. It’s not what I see. It’s not what I feel. In any case, dwelling on how I feel does about as much good as saying what I know, to the elders especially, when they gather at these midnight hours in the worm caves. Notta lotta.

Even his little whines are like purrs. And giggles. I’ve never seen him more than slightly less jovial. Not in all his five years.

So he doesn’t eat peanut butter anymore. Makes him feel “cannalstylistic” Oh brother. I know where he got that idea. Ms. Gator and her ades are some of the few along this region, to be traded with or trusted in recent years. There is a price though and they do love to pass long days in the mud wallows, weaving tails and tales. I’ve tried to untangle such thoughts and make my dear boy understand that we cannot become cannibals just like that, because the nuts, well they were never of our tribe; The ones we eat were farmed to nourish, they cannot speak or think or feel. He would never think of me as a liar, his sweetness and willingness to trust is overwhelming; Yet I can tell that he’s not buying my reasoning. It’s true though. Mostly. We don’t cause them pain. Not for a long time now. We’ve learned. Retained some kind of humanity within ourselves and put it to use (albeit in our own historically known cherry-picking ways).

We move on and the willow whisks help me distract him by tickling his butter softened feet until he must run and play a round of “I hide, and you seek.” I’ll take advantage of the help and do something more productive. At least that’s what I always convince myself of. I’m already scolding as though I’m not even trying. What is my problem with myself? Why am I so self-loathing? You’d think I was born cursed, my manger set beneath the cracked wheel of a driver’s cart. But I know that I ask myself “why” in vain. Every time. Just a split-second spite-induced pity party I like to throw myself every other minute.

I cover the slats with the mustard tar. A pecking rat fills in the gaps I’ve missed. “Thank you” I say, and she just nods and scuttles off to her own brood. As usual. Not one for a chat. I understand. She’s got no time for trivial delights. Eight at least in this batch, I can’t imagine how she does it. And honestly, how much pleasure could we really take in commiseration out loud? We share our sympathies via spatula and grease. Eight of them take cover under her single healing wing. I’ve only got one little, but to look at me you would think I’ve been caught in this unrelenting storm raising more than a dozen and for twice as many years.

I say, “to look at me,” but I haven’t looked at myself in a very long time. I wouldn’t know where to start, or if I could even survive my own spectating eyes. I have enough judgment warring on the inside. I don’t need to see it grinning maniacally back at me from the outside. And besides, it wouldn’t be prudent to let myself escape so easily.

“Purple clouds dancing with the blushing sky…” Get out of my head. You are a farce. You are folly. The truth rings in my mind, aggressive in its reproach towards the old wives’ tale. The solemn imagery of fighters from lightyears ago and ahead, bleeding along our horizon…bleeding out from the deepest shades of eggplant to the palest of eggshell pinks. If you could smell what appears so pretty, it would smell of rot. Luckily, I lost my olfactory senses long ago (even before I lost my footing) but I never lost the memory, and thus the stench still lingers. Woefully. Spoiled. Haunting. “Dancing.”

My little spider reminders are tapping on all twelve of my fingertips and along my phantom toes. Tsk tsk mustn’t forget. Mustn't forget. Dum diddy dum dum.

Huuuuuu mmm.

“Without light, the world…” I’ve caught myself drifting–no, waking–in the midst of ruining yet another lovely bedtime story. No matter, he is gone, adrift in some handsome and heavy slumber that I can only ever envy. I finished the passage in a whisper anyway. “Without light, the world would create a new dawn by making use of your simple and innocent love which colors my world pure, for all of eternity. So please little bug, always allow yourself a childhood. We need your youth and luminous energy. Goodnight, sleep tight, and never, ever, let your own fright bite. The End.” Kiss.

Add another night to the list of lost time where I missed the steps figuratively and quite literally (I make myself chuckle somehow with that one every time, guess you still can’t kill funny, hunny, hm?); Steps taken to get you into bed and instead woke up somewhere in between the middle and the end of our little nighttime routine. These precious moments we have together, so few left, and so many have managed to escape me already.

Violence imbued in the most dangerous hue of violet holds me under, drowns me beneath my own melancholy.

You presented yourself differently than who you became, or than the person I came to know anyway. And worse, you made me feel like a fraud, left hanging on to your coattails, because you were the scent of home; As my own whole body and soul had once been, you bottled it like perfume and maced me with it, holding me hostage by way of nostalgia. I had been your kind, but now you’ve vanished and in the realm of bow–

Oh right, yes, the pizza. Thank you, my little spider reminder. “Pleeeeaaaassssssse,” he had purred in a practiced beggar’s stance, fresh out of the bath. His fine hairs curled the color of moonlight itself (an inherited trait, not from my side) and set it to rest as it weighed him down, spiraling and soaking his tiny, furrowed brow. “Please can I have your pizza for my lunch tomorrow? I can’t eat the nuts. I can’t do it. They never did anything to me.”

Tsk tsk, yes, my little spider reminders. Mustn’t forget. Mustn’t forget.

It’s death you are seeing darlings, not dancing. Some have argued that a fight is like a dance, a good fight that is, then so should death be considered. The dance of the dying. A dance I am joining. How can I be such a cliche? Oh please, like you didn’t know you were basic. I get a kick out of rolling my own eyes at myself sometimes. Like an actual grown-up suddenly entered the room and took away the loneliness and burden and filled it with some sense-wafting incense. Like you used to do. You with your perfumes. I swam in your forbidden oils so wantonly. Their colors deeply vibrant, reflective of the midnight skies under those purple clouds. I noticed, but the observation was as easily dismissed. My consciousness had no interest in connecting the dots to dots.

When he wakes up under the next “purple clouds who come to dance with the blushing sky,” please let him know that I am the golden fire light he sees in slivers, which wrap him in warmth while he dreams. I always told him we could meet anywhere we like in our dreams. All he needs to do is summon me, I’ll never leave him to wander his midnight hours lonely.

He’ll need the strength of love and fond memories, and even your whimsical stories, Ms. Gator. Please my little spiders, be his tsk tsk reminders now, and don’t forget to always pack extra mustard tar; A willow whisk can be a toy or a dangerous piece of armor, teach him well, but not yet. For as long as possible, you must let him have his childhood.

There is strife and battles surplussed for him ahead, enough to last. But we hope for better. We fight to break the rest free from under our purple clouds. Pray there be less blushing in his midnight skies, but please do not leave my boy unprepared with only hopes and prayers.

Tsk tsk, no longer my little spider reminders. Yet mustn’t forget.

Mustn’t forget.

Oh yes, warm the rest of my pizza pie just before he begins to stir. I’ve left it for him, to help assuage his morning tears. An insufficient parting gift, I know. But still.

Huuuuuu mmm.