The bones that had wrapped me in just months ago in choking heat of August, turn hostile toward me now. We are a hundred dollars from home, the ground here white and grey with the slush of early winter. There were signs this was coming; stranger asks if she knows her name. Rat bones now steeped in a mix of gin and cheap beer shove violently, kick angrily, and slurred truths are laid between us that cannot be redacted. Damn the song of alcohol.
“Stay,” I say. “Fuck you”, she says.
I have never understood the meaning of grieving before now.
Last day in this city, I stretch my hands through telephone wire to Beast, looking for reprieve in borne witness. Alone in a coffee shop a thousand dollars away from his, I am met with terse reply, and my stretched hands retract by instinct as if I have touched fire. The word Saturnine rolls up from my throat and sits in my mouth like gravel. I scold myself to think of laying weight on his unsteady ground.
Gratitude comes now in overwhelming waves for Tyler’s shoulder, offered always in earnest. The ground between us has held more weight than I know how to audit, and he meets a sober burden with the same ease he gives my levity. I am so thankful for this soft man. An hour passes curled around Tyler’s voice through phone. Woman at the counter takes pity and buys me coffee. Feeling seen, I pack my bags and leave. I give the paper cup to a man flying sign on the corner. I don’t drink coffee.
I spend the next hour whispering prayers through the negative space left between red sandstone buildings in the port of Old Montreal. The last eight years shared with Rat rattle behind my eyes, animated by the sound of bus fare in my pocket. My nose pointed west now, on tracks that parallel the 401. Empty seat on the train home looks pointedly at me, chides with fickle voice wavering between accusation, regret, and relief.
I offered her the ticket.
Salt rings circle a spell for release. I cut the sprouted knots Rat tied into my hair, and burn them with sage. Prayers. When they are ash, burn the unsent letters addressed to a beige and powder blue Cleveland suburb. More prayers. I hold nothing but gratitude for these bonds; there weren’t any illusions of character to my love. Severance of one come hot on the tail of the other- must have been the stars, huh?
Tourmaline in my pocket, I smile an unexpected relief.
Back to work. There is paper to paint.