by Alexei Raymond
We’re no longer on speaking terms.
We’re still close, but she’s stopped talking, or responding at all. A whisper-quiet treatment. I look at her in the mornings, how she serenely sleeps, sometimes twitches in dreams. I get the urge to kiss, caress, hold her to my chest. On weekends I watch her walk beside me, or run ahead. I, of course, cannot help myself and call out her name, trying to say whatever remains. She acts as if she doesn’t hear and refuses to stay near. Maybe she really doesn’t hear, or my voice is no longer dear. I cannot know for sure, but perhaps it’s depression that mars us so. I see the way she lounges on the couch before the TV, her gaze downturned to some sad corner of the room, away from me. I’m sure anyone else, had they seen her, would tell me I’m simply overthinking, projecting, she just looks tired, looks peaceful to me, but trust me, I know what I see. And this depression—no mere seasonal thing or vague distaste. She feels abandoned by me, hurt immeasurably. Sometimes it’s as if she’s finally looking at me, but I know that cannot be, for her mind is elsewhere, far from me. It’s why even on sunny days when the weather is godly and the wind flutters against her face, her sweetly shut eyes—a sight the very picture of animal contentment—my heart remains pinched. I know those moments, to her, are alternative grace. There are, also, nights when I am struck by fear, that by now we are simply strangers to one another, in this new configuration, no longer near. How they wound me, these moments in which she seems wholly new, materially immaterial, as if never before have I laid eyes nor planted kisses nor palmed caresses unto her. Never before held close. Are we through? No recourse? I do still believe in her soft spot for me, somewhere in her distant heart—should luck do its part. And yes, memories of better days do keep me afloat, but as we drift further away, as on separate boats, what good are they? Yesterday I felt as if our eyes finally locked; she could see me; I her. I wished she’d see into my very core and I’d peer into her, praying we’d overcome whatever drives her secretly sorrowing, avoidant heart. But the moment was a far cry from cinema and its minute facial nuances, last-minute reconciliations.
My face was frozen, matching hers, across all these photos and videos.
Alexei Raymond offers his heart, shaped by life and love in the Middle East. He chases visions of unspeakable loveliness. Find pieces of him in a variety of publications. https://x.com/enemyofcruelty