small monuments

Susan liked to think of herself as a pair of gossamer wings startled by their own impermanence.

She lived on the fourth floor of a walkup apartment on the bad side of town. She kept the fridge stocked with apples, lemon juice and cartons of lo mein. The water was a force, a breathing, aching force in her life. When it rained, the walls would sweat and the corners would leak into the buckets she never moved unless she was emptying the water into a kettle to make tea. The toilet pipes groaned and bent. The tub dripped at all hours, its large claw fingers clutching the damp ground. The air was a feeling that touched her skin, chilled and moist as it crept backward into her skinny bones.

She held her dreams in a mattress on the floor of the living room. The windows of the bedroom were covered over with cardboard, cloth, and plastic sheeting; memories hanging from strings under burning red lights.

Most nights she felt alone, as though the solitude were a blanket she could wrap around herself. Most nights she felt like her lungs were made wax paper tied up with silk thread; if she breathed too quickly or too deeply she might punch a hole right through them. Each breath was a gift, like the heart of a newborn bird beating too fast, like cracked pearls choking a painter's brush, like seaweed, like arson, like anger, like dreams of desire and the old reassuring way the hands of someone else used to fit perfectly and comfortably around her neck.

Susan liked to think of herself as a pair of gossamer wings, waiting for the wind.