by Cécile Savage
I touched your hand and held it in mine for a while. Your eyes were closed as if asleep. I was driving as smoothly as I could as if not to wake you. You manifested no attention, no particular awareness that I was holding your hand in mine. Then, as if I was bothering you, you removed it, and remained quiet. Not one word was spoken during this trip.
Once upstairs, you went straight to the couch, turned on the TV (that damned TV), lulling witch robbing all spirits. So as not to stir troubled water, I went back in my corner. Watching the July evening skies go from light pale, bluish orange and to progressive shades of grays. Saying nothing. I already spoke too much, said too much, to no avail.
That damn dope has fried your brains and worse, grilled your soul and your heart. Where are your feelings? Your eyes open but your touch remains absent and empty. That damn dope made you move through your pain and left you oblivious to that of others. They don’t count. I don’t count. At least it seems like I don’t count.
As long as you lodge yourself on the couch, I will lay in the office, leaving the bedroom (our bedroom?) empty. Where is the life of your heart? Where is the vibrant timber of your voice, has that bitch already taken your hand away so that I’ll never feel it against my skin? Touching me softly between my thighs? She took all your interests away. You don’t even want “none”. You’re already dead. You’re here on the couch, eyes opened, glued to the flickering screen, but your mind is not here. I could not tell where it is, since you do not share much of anything with me. “What are you thinking?” receives an immediate and unchanging answer “nothing”. What great dope! It can annihilate your past and make the present livable, sure to kill all future.
I can’t write, or why should I? It’s been 2 years since you answered my last letter (bafouille in French)
So I’ll write to myself, to help pass the time, as if time needed help passing!
Firecrackers popping in a dark sky of unsolved anguishes.
And the TV goes on and on and on…
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