I keep watching this scene over and over.
I poured the red wine; the dusty old wine bottle in my grasping hand.
I poured it over my face.
I stole the wine from my Baba.
She didn’t notice, or she maybe just let me have it—-I was always her favorite after all.(or maybe that’s what she said to everyone; I don’t believe that.)
But, Baba, you’re under the cold, indifferent earth, and I wish I could talk to you. One time.
So... I poured the whole bottle on my face, my hair, my chest, my legs.
I felt the bars come up from the ground,
I heard the whole entire planet caving in,
The layers upon layers within the earth were trembling and diverging,
And I felt the prison sentence of my childhood grip my entire body—-
My nerves, my veins, my stomach, my cornea—-and the (death/life)sentence concluded
That my larynx was also on a state of lockdown.
The red trembled down, and I could believe for a moment that she was there,
Holding my hand; and I really felt her hand—-
I really did.
I never really cared about drinking wine or anything else for that matter,
I just wanted to feel the red cascade over me, like the most beautiful preserved piece of a moment—-
And have it replace my tears, and my blood,
And my water.
And the planet was covered in water, but
I imagined that it was covered in red,
In my wine,
All over, and I felt like I could feel
Everything changing within me, and everyone, because
I always truly felt like humans and the earth had a primal connection to one another.
I had a primal reaction to you, too,
Like how different species can coexist
In symbiosis—-completely like an instinct,
And I fought it until I
Could not bear it,
Until my heart was so strained and
Near frozen,
I had to unthaw it
With the warmth—-the security you brought out in my life,
And I know I took too much for
Granted, I know.
And I kept hearing this over and over, again and again,
And I dreamt I was in between the spaces of the composer’s pauses,
In between the notes and the languishing
Brilliance,
But I was not actually ever able to understand music, like you did,
And each sweet kiss I imprinted upon your breath
As I closed my eyes—-
I dared
To live vicariously through your smooth, sweet voice,
Tumbling into it like a wave of red,
Thinking of all the ways to change your
Pitch, and make yours vibrate—-
A hum only we could hear, because we dreamt it together.
And when I told my Baba I liked girls,
She said in so many words,
“You can have strong feelings for other
Women,
But don’t let it go too far,”
And I love her so much, I miss her
Like an extension of my heart beat—-(like a piece of my heart was cut from my chest and no one sees it but now,
It ticks wrong)
But I can’t stop
Dreaming of kissing you.
I would kiss you, from dawn to dusk.
I would dream of us
Covered in Merlot;
Not physically,
But openly,
We’d love out in the open,(like the dream date I always longed for)
Yes,
And the wine would be all over the valley—-
Like the gorgeous red sunset I picture whenever I hear
Your
Twinkling laughter.
But here I am,
In my sparkling red prison
Of my own design,
Wishing to go into the earth
And wander
To see my Baba
One more time.
I didn’t know what your favorite song was, Baba,
But I want you to know
My Jewish spirit that resides
In my heart and my blood,
That also resides in you,
Carries me with the wind.
And the prison I now can escape—-the red now
Turns to pale blue.
Pale blue is our sky,
And I am the rain—-
You fell upon the rainbow,
And I fell into the earth.
About the Creator
Melissa Ingoldsby
I am a published author on Patheos,
I am Bexley by Resurgence Novels
The Half Paper Moon on Golden Storyline Books for Kindle.
My novella The Job and Atonement will be published this year by JMS Books
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