Love As A Phone Call

By Christianez Dennis

The first time I called someone forty times in a row

It was my father who didn't show up for my dance recital

I called him before I got on the stage

I called him after I got off the stage

And it's a miracle I didn't try to call him as I tiptoed and twirled.

The second time I called someone forty times in a row

It was my boyfriend who needed time away after a fight

I called him throughout the evening

Well into the night while he slept

Wondering how anybody who said they loved me could sleep peacefully knowing I was upset.

Tring Tring...

Dad! did you know the audience was a blur because I cannot wear spectacles while dancing?

Tring Tring...

Love, do you know your intentions are a blur when you say you need space?

What do you need space from?

Me?

Us?

The crushing weight of the knowledge that out of these several billion people, you managed to pick

the one girl who would place her fragile glass heart in your roughened arms?

From knowing that you might forever have to walk around holding it like a ring you once liked but

now cannot take off your fingers because you let it stay there a tad too long, now it's melded onto

your skin?

Tring Tring...

Dad, did you know what it feels like to dart your unseeing eyes wildly landing on familiar and

unfamiliar faces and not knowing if you're there?

Tring Tring...

Love, do you know how those midnight hours feel when I walk around feeling like my next step will

be on water, threatening to drown me?

Like I'm fishing in dry ice with my bare hands

Like I'm trying to hold liquid mercury with my bare hands

Like I'm digging for water in a desert with...

You guessed it...

My bare hands.

Tring Tring...

Dad, did you know when I got off the stage I was scared to go looking for you, because what would I

do if I didn't see you there?

What if you'd come, but I somehow missed you?

What if you'd come, but you left because you were somehow embarrassed by me?

Tring Tring...

Love, do you know I feel like I'm lost in a vast expanse of darkness

Black silk around my eyes and deafening silence in the wake

Do you see how I reach out with flailing hands and grab anything that falls in the way?

Do you see the way your friends first pick up my calls, asking after you?

Do you see the way they stop?

Do you see the way they now snicker behind my back for agreeing to play this game of hide and...

Seek...

Seek...

Seek...

Keep on seeking...

Tring Tring...

Dad, someone else picks up your phone and tells me you are in an important meeting now

And I wonder why you even promised to come.

Tring Tring...

Love, someone else picks up your phone now and says you're at a party and you're kinda drunk

And I wonder after all these years, why haven't I learnt to not trust promises?

By Christianez Dennis