What tattoo do you want and where would you put it?
When I was in college, I thought I wanted a tattoo. Had it all picked out. It was my favorite ring, at the time. An open eye. I wanted the tattoo just like the ring. Except, the eye needed to be blue. ‘Wink, wink’ I have blue eyes. This ring was small-ish about the size of a dime.
A group of us, ring on my finger go to the parlor. With excitement, I show the ring to the artist, explain about the eye color, tell him where I want it.
This was late 90’s. Give you a time context. Dude says, “yeah I can do that. That’ll be 80 bucks.”
Well I about died. 80 bucks is a lot of money. Especially for a poor college student. Nope. I thanked him for his time and helped my friends pick out their designs.
In that moment, I knew I was too cheap for a tattoo. Even back then. ‘Wink, wink’.
If you read my work, you might be scratching your head thinking, ‘I read this’. You did. I got out of order. Sorry about this. The other post has been deleted so that we can keep the story in order.
The fall?
Two weeks after she had been shot, the wounds were almost healed. Oscar was the best nurse ever. She assumed it was because of all those years of being a caregiver. So every morning she made sure he had breakfast, and every night, she cooked him dinner. If he could take care of her, she could take care of him. Plus the fact he had been staying with her made it easier to make sure he was eating right.
It felt nice having someone around. She really liked having him in her life. She was trying so hard not to fall head over heels in love. It was obvious that she loved him. But she wanted to keep her feet on the ground. She didn’t want to get swept up only to be pulled away. It scared her to no end.
It was Friday, and she had fixed a big meatloaf. Oscar looked like a dead dog when he walked through her door. She wrapped him up in a big hug. He melted in her arms.
“Rough day?”
“I don’t want to think about school or students. All I want is lots of you.”
She smiled as he caressed her face, “is that a promise?”
“Oh, you better know it. You are going to get so sick of me.”
“How do you figure?”
He kissed her, gently at first but as the kiss progressed it was filled with fierce unspoken passion.
“Does that mean my meatloaf is going to be a midnight snack?” She panted.
“It might even be breakfast.” He continued kissing her.
They spend the night wrapped up in each other. He loved talking to her. Just laying on the bed, in the floor, on the couch, as long as she was in his arms.
“May I ask you something?” She was wrapped up in the warmth of his body and was almost asleep.
“You may ask me anything.”
He kissed her shoulder and then hesitated. “How’s your back feeling today?”
“Good.” She snuggled closer to him. “That wasn’t your question I presume?”
He took a deep breath, “no. I have noticed that when I get close you pull away. These last two weeks have been the most time that we have spent together consistently. And I must say it has been amazing.”
She rolled over in his arms. “You are right.”
She kissed him, “I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
It was her turn to let out the long sigh. “I very much love you. And like I said, depending on the outcome of the thing I can’t talk about, I do want to marry you.” She paused, sighing again. “What if the outcome of that thing I can’t talk about is bad? I might never see you again.”
She felt his breathing stop. “Is that a possibility?”
“A very real one.”
“Then why not love like there’s no tomorrow?”
“It’s not in me. That saying, ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ Tell me how that works. Tell me how the loosing isn’t more painful than never having known love?” There was a moment of silence between them. “I’m sorry that you are able to since my hesitation. I in no way want to hurt you.”
“I love you.” He whispered in her ear. “I don’t know what this dark cloud hanging over your head is but I do know that I want you. I have never felt like this and I like it. I love the way you feel. The way my stress melts away when you touch me. The sound of your voice lightens my heart. I like me better. Esther, I’m so in love with you.”
She held him tightly and cried into his chest, “please don’t give up on me.”
He held her has she cried and his heart broke. He wished she could tell him about this cloud. About this weight holding her down. But he loved her and would wait as long as it took.
I was going to put the answer in the comments of my last post. But I figured that wasn’t fair. So what was I?
The picture was of the inside of my friend’s hard top convertible. I never could find the name of the material. The internet kept taking me back to shade cloth. To touch it, it felt like the foam mattress topper on my bed. I was leaning backwards when I took the pictures, door open, feet on the pavement so I could talk to her as she pumped gas. I looked up to see the sun blazing through the cracks.
I want to thank everyone. If you enjoyed, I’ll do it again sometime.
There were a million things going through Oscar’s head. Was this really his family? Did they really do this? Why? Why did they shoot into his house? Did they know they would hit Esther? Or him? What if they would have killed her? Was it to scare him? To let him know that they were pissed? To scare him back to them? Dear God, WHY?! What if they would have killed her? Would it have mattered to them that it would have broken his heart? This is the first woman he’d ever loved. And he knew that. It would have destroyed him. Did that matter? Did they think he had everything left to them? If this was aimed at him, WHY!? Did they really want to hurt him? But what if someone stole the gun? What then? Was it too big of a coincidence? As far as he knew, he had no enemies that wanted to hurt him or warn him of anything? He laid his head in his hands. He couldn’t think about one thought. He couldn’t line out his emotions.
“Talk to me.” She encouraged. “Chet’s gone.” He didn’t move. “May I offer a suggestion?”
He lifted his head. Big tears were rolling down his face. “Please.” He sobbed.
“This is going to be hard, but please try. Your mind wants to go in a million different directions and come up with a million different ideas. Let Chet finish his investigation before your mind goes to those places.”
“Too late,” he sniffed, wiping desperately at his face. She put her hand over his that was trying to wipe away the tears.
“All of them but one, but possibly all of them will be wrong. Don’t put yourself through the agony.”
He stood up looking from her to the wall. The tubes from the IV machine were behind her coming down her right arm. He laid on the bed with her. She wrapped him up the best she could. In the quiet darkness of the room, they heard a low growl.
She giggled. “Was that your stomach?”
Despite everything he smiled, “perhaps.”
“Let’s get you something to eat.”
He kissed her, “what would I have done if anything would have happened to you?”
She caressed his face, “go on.”
The nurse came into the room and flipped on the light. “Good afternoon.”
Oscar clamored out of the bed.
The nurse checked Esther’s bandages, “I think someone can go home today.” She showed Oscar how to change the dressings and what medicines to put on them.
Around three, they let Esther go home. As they were walking out the door, her four state trooper friends and Chet were waiting for them. They all went out for breakfast. You should have seen the looks on the people’s faces that were in the restaurant. Four state troopers at one time in one place in this town was uncommon; unless it was a drug bust. There was a glass room in the back of the restaurant that they chose.
No one talked about the current event. It was all about old times. They all got to know each other better.
“Many ignore what they don’t want to deal with. Ignoring doesn’t change things. It doesn’t make them go away.”
EGYPT-THEGOODVIBE.CO
I’ve been trying to ignore something since October 2022 and it just won’t go away.
The ability to say what I need to say escapes me. When I try to verbalize my feelings I either: a. sound like a push-over dribbling idiot or b. go full out post apocalyptic nuclear. There’s no coming back from that. This is not a new thing. I’ve always been this way. I’m working on this. Good progress is slow progress.
So, I just don’t say anything. When you go nuclear and say all those things; yes, you can apologize and seek forgiveness but they are always there. Under the surface. Waiting for the right moment to do an encore. And inevitably they do.
Words, oh the words. I write. Writing helps me say what I need to say. In typical me fashion, I wrote a letter. Saying some of what I needed to say without going nuclear.
What to do with said letter? Pray. So, that’s what I did. This morning, I woke up (reluctantly because of the time change) but feeling it my heart that mailing said letter was the right thing to do.
Because I can’t say what I need to say when it needs said, I made a copy of all the poems I’d written about this issue. To the tune of $3.00 worth of postage.
Trust God. His timing isn’t our timing. Perhaps mailing said letter (with poetry) will give new light to an old problem.
Poetry & More 