Page 67 of Poems He Wrote

Noah is sitting on the carpet next to the bed, already devouring his meal, humming at the delicious taste of Sichuan-style chicken. I love watching him eat. He enjoys food just as much as I do, but he doesn’t also use it as a punishment or as a reward. To him, food is a gourmet fuel for your body. For me, it’s my best friend and my worst enemy.

“Do you mind if I sit behind you and braid your hair?” I ask as he looks up at me.

“What is it with you and my hair?” he laughs. “Sure, but it’s tangled.”

“I don’t mind. I just want to touch it. It brings me peace.” I scoot up behind him, taking a brush from the nightstand on my side of the bed.

It’s funny to me how it’s now myside of the bed,because till not so long ago, every side of the bed was my side. Noah makes me sleep on his left. He says that way I'm closer to his heart.

Toma lays next to him as he keeps munching on his food and gulping huge amounts of water down. I brush his dark silky strands, separating them down the middle to make two long braids. The calmness is slowly taking over. The thoughts of my mother possibly threatening my found family are slowly going away. She isnotgoing to do anything, she is just angry.

26

Her - Rosenfeld

Noah

Another week has passed by with complete radio slence from Christine. Ronan called Corey, who only knew that she’s left town, but didn’t know where she went. I made sure my dad knew about her leaving, but he says he doubts she will do anything crazy. She hasn’t sent the divorce papers yet, and dad can’t send them because he doesn’t know where she is.

Since the whole dildo situation, Ronan and I spend every night together. I either pick her up from work, or she takes a walk to my place after she drops her stuff at her apartment. Toma is officially my new roommate. We get along pretty good, but the poor thing sleeps eighteen hours a day.

As I’m vacuuming my apartment, I notice how much of Ronan’s stuff is everywhere around me. Her curling iron, her bookshelf on the wheels, her favorite slippers. The bathroom is full of her toiletries, makeup and q-tips. She says those are for her eyeliner. She has a huge bottle of some ‘take care of your ink’lotion, and I honestly prefer it over mine. I guess that’sourlotion now.

As much as it scares me, it makes my heart warm. I mean, I know for a fact that she is safe when she spends her time at mine, and I really like having her here. I like having someone to come home to. I like having someone to cook for, someone to wake up with. But that’s not just a regular someone, it’s the girl of my dreams. Maybe I should ask her to move in with me, for real, full-time.

Idiot, you didn’t even tell her you loved her yet.

Okay, yes, that’s true, but… How do I even say it? I’ve never said it before. I’ve never felt it before. It’s all her.

If this happened two years ago, I would’ve writen for her. I would’ve writtentoher. And she would've known just by looking at my words on the paper.

I keep trying, but nothing ever comes out of my damned hands anymore. It’s just scribbles and scratched words all over. I have my woman back, but my poems stayed behind in that stupid club. I so desperately want them here, on these empty pages and among these failed scribbles. Am I even a poet if my words have all died two years ago? Am I a poet still if all of my poems went up in flames? I have no proof that I ever was one.

I drop the vacuum in the middle of the living room and head straight for my desk. Papers are scattered all over it, pens with no caps lay around, the ink in them drying up.

I need to write again.

I need to try again.

For her.

And for me.

Toma runs up and sits on my lap as soon as I settle in my chair. She purrs herself to sleep as I stare blankly at the empty white sheet and it stares back at me. Mocking me. I can practically hear it.

Why are you even trying, you haven’t written a single verse in over two years?

Because I need her to know. I need her to feel what I feel. I want her to know thepoet-me. I want my poet life back. I have people in my corner, waiting for me to get my inspiration back. No matter how hard I try, I always come up with nothing.

I heard someone say that poets do their best work when they are wrapped in copious amounts of sadness, but I was drowning in it for two years, and couldn’t write a single word.

I grab a bottle of blue ink and a crow feather pen, the one my mother left me. She used to write her own poems and stories with it. I don’t remember her all that well. I was just a little boy when she died, and the memories are quick to fade, but there was this one evening when she told me that being a poet means being a tortured soul. And being a tortured soul means feeling everything around us so intensely that we leave a piece of us behind with it. Just like a crow leaves its feathers as gifts if you feed them. She said it was nature’s way of giving us our feelings back.

Because of that evening alone, I have never written a poem with anything other than a crow feather pen. Either the one my mom intended for me, or the ones I colected myself over the years.

My hand shakes above the crinkled white page. Where do I even begin? At the hurt? At the sadness? Happiness or love?

It all began with Ronan. Maybe I should also start with her.

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