As Icarus; For His Spirit Overflows

By Animisha Saxena

16^th October 2005,

Walking down the street today, I found a dime; luminous, prominent, brand new, I honed it as mine. Grasped a very slight blood rush for this dwindle of a crime. I bid that’s how the start of love is supposed to feel like; like you’re snatching something you felt like you didn’t deserve all this while. Like a dooming bet with the universe you won, a charm of a look, dazzling and you're pouring all your wishes into a boundless, deep-seated well, gasping.

21^st October 2005,

I heard from Cassidy tonight. Cassidy and I were girls together.  She bade me a lasting goodbye last Halloween. Amongst all the devils varnished for the night to see, me and her had dressed up as bird and bee. We were drunk on flowers; we were drunk on our lovers. We clinked our glasses of whisky up high and wished to god they showered back down over us as flowers. 

Tim had raised Cassidy’s spirits all evening divine and my Walter, my beaming, bountiful lover, put me up in the clouds by them, kindled time. It was a drastic, the soar, the fall, the fire was to engulf us all. The spirits from my cup had fallen in on candlelight; the blazing, burst of flame that spurred, flared of devilish whim, it chased, hunted, stunned, threatening to kill us on its call.

 I can’t find a way to pardon my reflexes from the night; the fire caught on to Walter, with Cassidy close behind. I gripped her hand with might, rushed out to the doorway, and slammed the door for the devil’s demise. Cassidy begged; she had taunted with cries to go back, Tim’s left behind. I didn’t listen to her poor soul. In the end Tim was fine, he had managed to escape from a window at the back, though a sizeable, swollen, wound  was prominent on his left arm side.

The fire had caused a decisive termination. All was decided and all was done. Tim would never have her back. 

She blamed me.

No words can capture how hard I miss Walter.

Today she sent me flowers as an apology. 

5^th November 2005

The November sun always talks of a promise, that he’ll be back here when winter goes away, leaves you like you left your mother when school was over, only to come back to her, with an apologizing flower.

15^th November 2005

You should see what a man he was.

I grew him from a wish, he’s sweet tangerine, from a soaring, sheltering orchard tree. He’s divine and mine; he’s darn sanguine, came from a fluttering bereft plea. I am over all the grief of trepidation.

How he politely requested a dance with a confidence so seeming, and spun me around, in circles, falling in and out of each other, it seemed as a scene cut out a little girl’s dream.

29^th November 2005

Cassidy tells me I’m much over my toes by Oliver’s stance. “You’re too astound, as if you’re off the ground. As opposed to the classic pessimism test,  your glass seems more than half full; your spirit overflows.

I defer. I won’t mind this regurgitation of emotion. 

I’m not alone in this dance. I’ve seen a lot of this in supercuts, from the first fall of love. The ladies all laugh and prance. Its dazzling, to watch the men in love carry their hearts, astir, as their graces fly by.  The ladies are birds in their arms.

7^th December 2005,

He goes on for hours, he tells me he likes how my words seem so shy, trips him up, it’s the high of a firefly.

I’m downright blind, when he’s gone for more than an hour.

I’m unable to lead my life, I only follow it home, follow his breath, sighs, stamina, his strength, daze, laughter.

15^th December 2005,

I gaze at the solid ground and empty sky, 

No one knows what’s of Oliver now.

I only scream when I write, write when I cry, wriggle out my worm, for he loved me as a worm. Not a walking, talking one, but a wiggling, trifling one. A pet. Doing the dancy prancy, hiding away. I sit down and write that I won’t, be that, do that; watch your stampede. I sit as a heaving, screaming worm, a worm that turns the earth.

He’s far gone now. We had not been so solid ground off late. He tried to trip me up as his friend at a party. He died in my fire. 

By Animisha Saxena