Don’t Hold Your Breath
Dawn is glowing from between the floral blackout shades which are trimmed in an obnoxious buttercup yellow thread. I am stomach sleeping, head to the left as always, left arm extended beyond the mattress, right elbow drawn back into a sharp V. Were I an archer, had I any natural inclination to self-defense, this position might represent a horizontal shooting stance, but I have remained this way with shallow breath in order to honor, savor these hours. My vigil is here, in this bed, cataloging and committing to permanent memory the sound of every sigh, the exact shape of each dust particle falling just beyond my open hand before daylight takes you from this place, and shuttles you into the respectable life you’re creating on this day; one that will make you whole in ways I cannot.
Before I started requiring a double gin and tonic in order to let the air out of my heart at night, to manually aerate the panic encrusted along my spine enough to finally drift to sleep, I did not rumble or toss around in an attempt to find comfort, or arrange the pillows into a sort of cocoon beneath the blankets. Then, I had not known the complex thrill and humiliation of being the girl who gets left behind in the hotel bed, sweat still glistening on my thighs and oxytocin sloshing around in my skull, melting ice and a few remaining sips of $60 hotel bar bourbon in a plastic cup on the particleboard nightstand. I had not known much, really, plagued by a lifetime with someone whose very survival required that I never truly trust my sense of worth. I lie here at once completely healed from an expectation that love and partnership is both forever and underwhelming, while trying to steady my heartbeat. The swell is all around us now, the wave I have been doing everything in my power to deny is here, and it is going to take me under.
The alarm from your phone sounds, and your hand brushes over my fist as you turn to rise from the bed, quietly collecting the evidence of what has transpired from the various surfaces of these rooms. The canvas of your hat being swiped off the bedside table. Zips and keys and your soft exhale, lifting a heavy bag from the armchair, the contents of which will provide you with necessities to carry you through the next few days. Weighted by the obligation to chase after this dream that looks good on paper, you are less brilliant now than the person I have known these years. You no longer converse with a light banter or punctuate my days with laughter and endearing emojis. This is play without passion, topics of conversation regurgitated from dinner parties with the kind of people who surround you now; those who rely on larger-than-life experiences to absolve them from the need to examine or contribute in any meaningful way. They don't ask big questions, and that brings you an easy peace.
The final exchange of I love yous melt deep into my skin, voice in my ear soft like lilacs rustling, and you hover for a moment above me, whispering one sweet thing. You draw back, turning toward the door, and the fragile, electric conversation being had between our bodies for years at a level of sophistication and amplitude I would have otherwise considered fantastical, simply mutes. The future is still, insolvent, irrefutable. I close my eyes.
As the “privacy please” leather tag swishes against the door, the latch clicks, and I become alone.
"I'm never going to see you again, am I?" you posed just last night, as we polished off room service fries. In the moment, I balked, rolling my eyes at the audacity of employing rhetoric while the whole world is ending. But later this morning I will shower and pack my things, wheel my midnight blue suitcase back out into the pastel desert light, catching a ride to the airport and turning toward a life I will make up as I go along. Running my fingertips along the car windowsill, I will glance up at a frozen expanse of sky and it will occur to me that perhaps it was not a question, but a final prayer.
I'm never going to see you again, am I?
Originally created as a standalone piece of writing, “Don’t Hold Your Breath” has become a spoken monologue in a live performance piece, and a recorded piece for the album, “This is the Truth.”