About Elaine

Oh Elaine, the light illuminates the wet trails that streak your face and I know you are silent now, but do you remember the day at the pool? The day that the sun beamed and the seagulls cackled over bits of French fries and the lifeguards slumped lazily in their stands and the children ran around the slide and the static roared from the stereo and the wind fluttered in the fake leaves of the artificial palm trees. I was walking to the diving board and I saw you from across the pool but it felt as though we were standing on two edges of the earth. My eyes climbed from the pool’s reflection of you and I did not believe when I saw you more perfect than the ephemeral image flickering in the water. It was midday but the sun closed his eyes in reverence and there was only you illuminated by the eyes of the universe; I know why Narcissus starved because I would have been content to perish within sight of your reflection but you were real and you looked back at me. We jumped into the pool and swam to one another like two discordant waves meeting in the middle of a calm sea. We treaded water talking until the cold turned us blue and the water wrinkled our skin.

         You lay so still now Elaine, and I am sorry for our fight and I hope that you will forgive me. Will you look at me and stop staring off into eternity? On that night was our first kiss. We walked along the shore, our trip narrated by the roaring crash of the waves on the sand and the single-minded chirp of lonely crickets. I grabbed you and caressed your lips with mine while the stars exploded and the moon wept. We shivered in a cool breeze and sought refuge under a towel. Didn’t I make us a fire that night? I breathed and it ignited on our passion and you were entrancing in the unsteady light. You recounted the story of your life to my hungry ears and I studied your words while I became intoxicated on the liquid motion of your lips and the hint of your figure beneath your dress. Emboldened I told you the story of mine and we laughed because it seemed as though our lives had been directed towards each other like two cars speeding into a crash. We played in the sand and sang and hugged and that was the best night of my life. Did I tell you that then? I doubt that I did because we had just met and I was terrified of unabashed candidness.

         Oh Elaine, I can’t stand your silence. I long to hear you laugh like you did when I tickled you beneath the silky light of the crying moon. Why don’t you respond to my hand when I stroke your arm or my lips when I press my kiss against your pale cheek? Do you remember how we spent the next day wandering for each other but I couldn’t find you because without you I was like a blind man in a desert. You were my oasis and my throat was parched and scratchy when I could not drink your ambrosia. That day was worst of my life because I you were my ecstasy and I needed to consume your drug.

         You can smile now Elaine, you can smile because remember that night when we finally stumbled into each other and we embraced and heat from our contact set a tree aflame. Remember how you led me up to this room and we kissed again and I pushed you against the bed and you threw your legs around my waist and pulled me onto you? We ripped off our clothes and you guided me into your sweet whiteness and we made love and the clock stopped ticking because time had paused for us. The stars rearranged in our honor and we took our places in the pantheon of the gods and we were gods that ruled over each other’s hearts and hopes and dreams.

         I see you stiffening Elaine, and I know that it is because of what happened after our sweaty bodies fell down panting beside themselves and you got up to tell me that you leaving town tomorrow. Sick bile crept up my throat and fell out of my eyes in response to the uncaring cruelness of a world that would rip you away from me. We shouted at each other and when you yelled your voice was distorted from the musical melody of your song and your laugh and your face was contorted from the countenance of an angel. I hated when you yelled because you damaged the perfection that you are and I know that you are perfect. I touched you again but it was rougher than before and your eyes were scared and you screamed again and this was not the happy dream that I had imagined but a nightmare.

I love you Elaine, and your arm is cold and has lost the heat of the sun that burned when we met and your eyes are glazed and have lost the light of the moon. I love you Elaine, and I pull your bloody body close and feel the breast where your heart once beat, I love you and that is why I had to kill you. You wanted to leave me alone to waste away in melancholy and you wanted to stop us and I could not let you leave. So now you are waiting for me, and I am getting sleepy as the pills take hold and I think of you.