Where my pain I mean palm landed me...

I’ve never believed in psychics. Cinderella of course I am sure about to this day, right down to her glass slipper. But that’s Disney; Disney is real, psychics are not. Part of me thinks the reason I don’t believe in psychics is because I was raised religious. For some reason in my mind Christianity and the psychic network never really mixed, but maybe someone told me that when I was younger and it stuck: like no sex before marriage and no eating thirty minutes before you swim. I was never curious either; one of those people who would walk by and see a sign and it would peak their interest. I never daydreamed about having my fortune or palm read, never thought that maybe someone else could predict my future, never worried about the life line on my hand.
People I know believed in psychics, more so as I got older. I remember passing by shops in obscure little towns or at carnivals and imagining myself inside of a back room or tent, palm open, glass ball on the table, having a lady with a scarf and long blue fingernails tell me things I didn’t want to know. I just knew if I went in there she would uncover the tarot card of death, tell me I only had a year or so left, and that would be that. I thought maybe I would be cursed if I entered and accepted the help she might give me, the guidance she might offer. I thought knowing your future wasn’t fair. I don’t know why I thought this.
Last spring when my friend came to visit she had a psychic reading done. It was in Salem, Massachusetts, town of the witches, tourist trap for the enthusiastic believer of magic. But my friend had always wanted to get a reading and what better place then there, where psychics flock to make a buck or two on the naïve new comers coming from the witch museum, looking for an experience. What I didn’t expect was for her to come out crying, to be moved, to change in a small way. The psychic knew things, things he couldn’t possibly have known. Still I was skeptical, I made excuses, and I questioned this phenomenon.
Then in class last semester, my friend began writing a book on psychics and it peaked my interest. The psychic had contacted her father who had died and even told her who she would marry. She married him last summer. I was intrigued. The more chapters I read the less skeptical I became. Hmmm, I thought, maybe it really is possible for someone to see into the future. But the semester ended in December and so did my interest. That is, until this afternoon.
This afternoon was like any other, cold and sunny. I went down stairs and out onto Charles St to meet my friend Jenna and her mom for coffee and shopping. I only planned to stay with them an hour or so, carrying my grocery bags to go to Whole foods with afterward. I met them at a clothing store first and when we walked outside we saw the sign for the palm readings and Jenna showed interest in getting one. I smiled a little, thinking how this shop was right across the street from my apartment and that somehow I had never noticed it, despite its large sign and close proximity. We walked up the stairs to the tiny shop with gems and crystals and little scented soaps on a table for sale. The psychic was upstairs when we went in, but a man watching the shop called her down for us. We talked of nothing as we waited for her to come down, a tiny woman with beautiful brown eyes and dark hair, tan skin and small features. She smiled and gave us the pricing on the readings. Then we went to get cash.
I wasn’t sold on the idea as we went to the ATM, still too nervous to fully accept doing something like this myself. I took out the money anyway—just in case. I had Jenna go first, to test it out, and her mother go second. They both said it was great and told me things about their reading, so I decided to go in.
A lot has happened in my life, yes, I will say this. A short life thus far in my twenty-five years, I have had my share of turmoil and tragedy. A couple of weeks ago my life turned to complete shit, I lost a little faith in people, and maybe a little faith in myself. I began to question everything and with each day my anxiety has grown. I haven’t been able to sleep. I haven’t been able to find myself again. I’ve been broken, depressed, and not present anywhere but in my own mind. My thoughts whipping around like an inner tube coming full circle at the end of each day, or even the end of each afternoon. Maybe that’s why I decided to go. Because I felt I had nothing else to lose. So what if she told me I was gonna die? At least then I could plan for it.
I walked into the room and sat down in the chair across from her, nervous and skeptical.
“This is the first time I’ve done anything like this.” I said, sure she was a fake.
“That’s okay,” she said, looking into my eyes, reading my expressions.
Normally a person of many facial expressions I decided then and there to shut them off. I would give her nothing, nothing except my full name and date of birth. Then she looked at my palms and at me. She started out with some general statements about how I’m such a positive person, about how I’m too trusting at times. I thought, yea yea, that could be any one lady. But then something happened, something I still don’t fully believe all these hours later. She started saying things that she couldn’t possibly have known about. Things about my life now, about the past three weeks, about everything that’s happened and how it will turn out later, when things settle down. She talked about my love life, my health, my friendships, and my career. She told me things that left me with my mouth open, physically open in shock and disbelief. How could she have known I am a writer? That I’m writing this book? How could she have known everything else, about my family and my friends and the immense hurt I have been feeling lately and where all that came from?
I walked out of there feeling a little bit better. Maybe none of it was true and it was all a lucky guess and I’m the same as when I went in; sad and uncertain. But maybe she was right, about all of it. Maybe everything she said will happen. I don’t want to tell you what it is. I’m not sure why. I feel like it’s the same as making a wish on your birthday; if you tell everyone what it is it won’t come true. So I’ll blow out the candles and see if I end up where she said that I would. Then I’ll get back to you.

This time this year

Who knows right now if any of it will stick? You and me, the cancer cells, my anger at you, my distrust of her, the snow on the ground. Some mornings I wake up and it’s melted, all of it. I see the sun through my window and I walk to yoga with my head phones on; some days to Pilates. I think of getting through the day with it gone, with you off my mind. By afternoon it’s snowing again, and my thoughts mimic the storm, blowing in heavy and damp, sticking. I walk home and it’s dark and I think about sleep that won’t come, another day without an end. I get under the covers anyway and try to clear my head. I think about yoga breath and the beach that I go to in my mind with tan sand and green water and my swimsuit that matches. I always go to the same place when I let go and that’s where it is, a beach someplace I’ve never been and my hair is long and wet, soaking wet, and I’m wearing a green bikini that accentuates my tan and I walk for awhile and then lay in a hammock, alone. Sometimes there’s a man there with me, he lies in the hammock next to me, caressing my thigh while I reach for my water. I smile with contentment. I never can see his face though I know he’s there. Sometimes I go there alone though, it’s just me and the ocean and I walk into the salt water sun in my face, sand in my toes. This has always been my place to go, to hide, to escape to. It’s only mine and no one else’s.
But I am jarred from it now after 2 minutes at most. Mere moments of rest before I feel the weight of reality again and my body tenses from trauma. I wonder if you’re sad too or if you fall asleep after a moment as you usually do. I think about you laughing and drinking, playing the guitar and singing a little. I wonder if I even miss you now with all these miles between us. I think I would miss you even if you were here next to me, humming your song and stroking my hand, holding me as I pretend to sleep. You can’t comfort me now and you have stopped trying. I try to comfort myself.
I’ve told too many people, or in my head I have. Four is not a big number, but one should have been enough. At first it was, before the Xanax didn’t work and neither did the Ambien and I started drowning from lack of dreams to escape in at night. Their reactions didn’t faze me though. I knew how they would react before they did and when they did I failed to react because it was already reality for me, I had already reacted. There’s nothing they can say, any of the four that will change how I feel but I listen anyway, because they love me, because it comforts them a little.
Love isn’t something I think about now, when these days turn into night and back into morning again. How will a word make it better? It’s not enough anymore, that word. Not like the night it was new and you said it for the first time to me and I felt it filling my body so full that I might burst. It doesn’t feel good now. It aches in my chest. I don’t want to say it. Maybe if I don’t say it it will go away this love. Maybe it can disappear the way it appeared. I grabbed onto it when it arrived and held it for a little while before giving it to you that morning with stale breath and tosseled hair. Can I let it float away as easily? Or does it still comfort you now, even though I can’t show it to you? So much meaning for such a little word.

Do You See What I See?

It’s snowing outside my window. The first snow of my New England season and I can smell you on my sheets because I didn’t change them last Sunday. But I have changed them every Sunday since I moved here last summer; taken them off, washed and softened them, put them back on, making my bed on that day so it can become disheveled the rest of the week. So now I see the snow and I smell you and it’s like you’re here in bed next to me, your hand rubbing my bare back while you watch TV and I write quietly beside you. It makes me angry, and maybe a little sad, but I let the anger take over because the sadness swells tears in my eyes that I don’t need any more of during the snowy season. I text you without thinking.
It’s snowing, my sheets smell like you I say
When I was there your sheets smelled like you. I’m jealous of the snow You say
Well now they smell like you. And I’m alone in the snow
I wish I was there with you
They lit up the tree tonight, in the park I say
Wish I was there to see it
Me too
And now the anger gives way to sadness; the kind that comes from longing and wanting when alone. The white flakes are wet and washing over the city out my window and I want to open it and touch a few, to feel their magic rub off on me. So I go downstairs and walk out the lobby doors in my sweatpants and t-shirt; with a hat and mittens but no coat. The crystal flakes fall on my nose and on my bare arms, but I’m not cold. I stand there watching the glittering snow wash over the water across the street from my building, imagining how perfect this would be if you were here now, if we were holding hands and kissing on the street, or even just holding hands and never kissing at all. I think back to that moment when you were here, that almost kiss that got lost in my unanswered questions and your crying and my needing to be stronger than tears.
The door man stares at me, sensing my sadness and solitude he asks if I am okay.
“What gave me away?” I say
“You’re not wearing a coat for one.”
“Oh”
“The snow can be lonely.” He says
And I turn my head to stare at the sight of it, barely able to see through the storm, “Yea, I guess it can.”
I stand there in silence and so does he, and I don’t even know his name but now I feel like he knows me better than anyone in this city. I smile at him and I walk back inside while he holds the door and I push the up button to the elevator where I ride to the sixth floor and lie down on my cozy comforter and try not to smell the sheets with your scent. I stand up to shut the blinds to my window and collapse on my side, calling anyone and everyone in my address book; except you. No one answers. I shut off the Christmas music blaring from my alarm clock and I try closing my eyes; but it’s only 9pm and my body refuses sleep. I am sad, but I should be tranquil in this winter wonderland of white and wishful thinking and whimsical snowmen and reindeer. I want to tear the sheets from my bed but I can’t bring myself to move and so I breathe in and rest upon them, beside you.
My phone displays your words, I miss you
I read them without response, hoping that when the snow is finished falling I won’t miss you too.