I am thrown into things past. A dream swims up to me and drags me deep into that night. I can see it all. It is so real to me. The way Alisons hair dangled over her darkened eyes as we kissed. They held a lucid alure. She then pulled me in close. Reunited under mother midnights dark expanse. Lost from me when a fatal car crash took her and our unborn child from me. But I remember so vividly that night. The frost encased on the grass and trees. Glistening under the moon. The flowers I brought to lay at her headstone were trampled under my foot as I stumbled backwards. When the clouds parted and Alison appeared in a white dress, descending towards me.
We fell into each other's eyes as we hung in that moment. We moved closer to each other until our lips met. We were the children that danced in maternal spectacle. Her form pressed into my chest. Like a static shiver she echoed beneath the moons milky glow. We took refuge in our closeness. Lost in each others embrace until her faint touch slipped from mine. She ascended towards the clouds from wence she appeared. Her voice cried out, Edwin and she disappeared.
This dream lingers in the remnants of her essence that fill my mind with her feminine contours. Her delicate voice. Her smell. The way her face contorted when she laughed. All that made her beautiful. Gone. I toss and turn, lost in rememberances of her. Wishing for death. Anything to escape this torment. I awake as another restless night comes to an end. Watching the morning sun rise through the window. I get out of bed and put on some clothes. Slowly walking to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. While the coffee is brewing I pour some food into the cats bowel and put fresh water into the other one. I grab my cup of coffee and sip at it gingerly until it is gone. With no work today at the textile plant I decide to go for a walk into town to escape these anxious feelings this house brings on. I leave the house.
The outside air is bold with heavy scents as I step out the door. Thankful that it is a nice day. Perfect for a walk. Fresh air always helps me when I am anxious. My therapist told me to go for walks whenever my anxiety got to me. I have been seeing her for two years now after Alisons and our unborn childs death. A little girl we were planning on naming Emily. She put me on anti-depressants, they worked for a while until recently. This hopelessness has filled my being again. Memories of Alison sever any sembelence of joy I have found after her death.
A breeze snakes its way around me as cars whir up Camden Street. It doesn't take me long to get to town. It is a quiet morning in Sommerton, Virginia as most places look empty. I make my way to the library and step inside.
I aimlessly scour through the books on the shelves, searching for anything to occupy my mind. My fingers touch the spines until I spot the complete poems by E.E. Cummings. Alison always loved it when I read his poems to her. She tried being a poet but she didn't think her poems were any good. I begged her to keep writing but she was convinced that she was no poet. I still keep her poetry in a small cedar box along with all her other mementos. It has been months since I opened that box, the grief is too much for me to be surrounded by reminders of her. I can now feel the sadness take hold of me again as I lose myself in these thoughts of Alison. I take a seat on a chair near the large windows at the back of the library and gaze out to the woods with its aligned trees, sprang vibrant from springs arrival. Lost in these thoughts. I start to wonder why life can't be as simple as it was when we were children? This brings up memories of me as a young boy of ten sitting on the rickety steps of a wooden porch during the middle of summer. I was watching my friend Shaun dash across the green front yard, his sister Amanda, hot in pursuit. I was already out, I never did master the game of tag. My mother was busy inside preparing our snack. She was babysitting at the time. Every summer, a gaggle of gleeful kids would come in the morning while their parents went off to work. Amanda and Shaun were regulars. My mother watched them everyday, even on the occasional weekend like that day. I continued to watch them as Amanda reached out a hand and slapped her brothers back. He was it and in that moment of realization that she was not it, she ran away. Shaun grinned, and keeled over. He was out of breath and looked disappointed.
