Bow

These right angles are all wrong.

Angelic Pleasures (1943) by Dorothea Tanning

Bones aren’t straight arrows, they curve gently like a bow: Pull, don’t push, let go and watch your energy transferred into something more rigid and rote than you are, aimed narrowly at one point on a plane. That’s not you. Your bones arch sweetly like the lines of a harp, waiting for the heavens to part, waiting for hands soft like bread, waiting for the chattering to wash away, waiting for that sea of silence, held breaths as the high priest raises his arching arms to the gilded dome above.

Pull, don’t push. Let go and make this sad, straight line smarter. Give it a taste of the breeze, daffodils and mulch, heartache and bliss, hallelujah and amen. Do you remember the day we met? Standing on the dock, outside the restaurant, your family right behind you, you wanted them to leave, you wanted me to stay, they never listened to your words, they were aimed at small targets: polite, concrete, unyielding. Come on downstairs and say hey to Mrs. Holderness, y’all. You already had panic in your eyes. My pet. Panic fuels devotion. Pull, don’t push.

I was expansive, explosive, careless. Leaves dancing four stories above our heads, sunshine dancing across our blanket, across the grass, BBQ sandwiches with cole slaw added exactly the way your grandfather taught you to do it, hush puppies with tiny butter packets opened and neatly spread on top, reciting Michael Stipe’s words like Bible verse, you were struck dumb by devotion on every front, naïve and enraged, my pet, my rubber ball, soft hands like white hamburger buns, eyes filled to the brim with sweet tea.

You cried for me, over and over, alone and in public, in the hallways of your frat house at night. It sounds divine and unparalleled when I think about it now, a breathtaking aria that should’ve filled their hearts with awe. Instead you took the shape of a cautionary tale, an outcome to avoid at all costs, and I took the shape of a villain. I still believed that your friends were my friends when the mob arrived at my door.

Your heartache made you smarter, transformed you into a cathedral with soaring arches, sad arms raised to the gilded dome of the night sky. My heartlessness made me rigid, isolated, unsweetened: Green was not their best album, this is not your best look, I am not at my best today, hungover, mouth like a dry lake, tear ducts crusted over, liquid cells desiccated, every oval hardening into a square.

I didn’t search for my lost heart. I looked for another tin man instead, hollow sound when you bang his chest, empty clanging echo, sweetness rusted over, push, don’t pull, trying to look shinier, always forgotten or ignored, always falling sideways, bad weed and cheap red wine and rotten apples launched at your face until you’re down for good.

***

Bodies are not formed from right angles, like a warehouse packed with boxes of junk you don’t need. Our microbiomes are made of liquid arcs, smooth submarines, sweet bubbles of longing, ponds full of miracles. Grab a blanket and go backwards, into the curving halls of the past, where we’re still just weird, panicked children with no one to talk to, neat ballpoint print on your mix tapes, on your letters, on your cards, so many words and sounds to share, so thrilling, giddy children climbing into a single cot, giggling, sighing, curving gently like a bow.

I’ve been striking up new friendships when I should’ve been looking behind me, so many good hearts left in the dirt. I saw something shiny across the room but it was rusted out. It wasn’t about you. I just missed that panicked feeling of trying to look shinier, trying to be better and then best, pretending to know everything, righting every wrong take, besting every opponent, banging empty chests together, pushing, pulling, and falling sideways. I straightened these bones into an arrow, made my head into a warehouse full of empty boxes, all right angles and wrong targets, no curve to absorb the shock, no miracles to soak your bread in, no sweetness bubbling up from the sea inside, no leaps of faith, no quivering shadows, no leaves whispering: I want to tell you just how much I love you.

Your guilelessness, your wonder, singing at the top of your voice in the car, sailing across the freeway in tears, reaching for my hand, the sweetest thing, unsorted, unsifted, your pull, your panic, my love she throws me, red heart, turgid cells, like a rubber ball, your power, your glory, unguarded, unfiltered: The shape you should take at all costs. Watch me try.