Soiled

"Soiled" was a difficult piece for me. It's rooted in truth, though not mine.

The boots in the corner of the room were still marred with mud from the rainy day.

Well, rainy yesterday.

I'm sitting here on the bed. My clothes that didn't slide off the side are heaped on the pillow, near the headboard. Perhaps longing for me to sleep there again. There's a splinter of light from the window; it's an invitation to leave or an allusion to where I'll be. But it doesn't matter now, my hands are soiled and I need a shower but I'm sure I can't make it through the hallway. Broken dishes line it dangerously and I'd rather save my strength to face the bearers of bad news.

After all, you're lying in the chair, eyes shut and head cocked like it used to be when we first met. You'd stare at me from that smokey stance and whisper how you loved me and I'd giggle and turn away, afraid you actually meant it.

More light filtered through the window in thin bars of morning sun. A faint smell of sweet coffee lingered in the air, I had tried to make a cup of cocoa with instant coffee for me when you came home, eyes ablaze with red fire. My hand reached to my left eye and I winced as my touch stung. You gave me purple tears in favor for your red eyes.

I remember you'd curl by my side and talk about the depression that longed to take you from me and I'd hold your trembling hand and tell you it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.

Your eyes were red in a different way, then.

Was I a loud canary? Did I wish for your touch too proudly? Did I bang against my cage? Because the broken vase next to you says that I did something dangerous to make me want to harm you—

I stared at my fingers. I knew they were soiled.

This wasn't a you thing, this wasn't a me thing—it was an us thing. While I was your bird locked in a cage to sing, you were the cat that taunted. You could paw at me and I could do nothing, but I could fly and you could do nothing. This is what happens when love is lost, no when love withers and dies to fester and rot upon a foundation of necrosis. I began to see you as pathetic when you'd cry under my wings about life and you saw me as a crutch to your pain.

I held my side as the light walked up the wall, it barely touched your unmoving face and I felt my eye try to cry. But it didn't. I couldn't for you. I saw your handsome face in the light and felt nothing, I didn't want to touch you, to cry over you, to love you.

I now know why you kept me in a cage for I am not a canary, I'm loveless and my hands are soiled.