Shadows & Dust [poetry]

Winter Candy Flower

Content Warning: Brief reference to sexual assault.

The first winter after we met, I

dreamed you were sitting behind

me in one of my college classes,

trying desperately to get my

attention, but I refused to turn

around. Finally, you passed

something up to me, a gift,

a jewel-toned sucker on a

stick that you had somehow

shaped until it resembled the

sort of Dr. Seussian flowers I

loved most to paint. Waking

world you reaped the benefits

of dream-you's generosity

because I took it for a sign.

In reality, you told me, "It's

not that I don't have feelings

for you, but..." You never even

finished your thought. Forever

open-ended, like our romance,

paused on, "This time, I might

not be coming back." Memory

glosses over your occasional

efforts to skip the condom,

your subtle sexual assault,

but damn if I can't see that

fuchsia and violet, spiky and

sugared flower, delivered to

me in my sleep. We worked

a lot better in dreams, and

in fantasy. Astral you never

described your soon-to-be

ex-wife as skinny, with the

implied comparison to my

plus-size body. I never met

any of your friends or family

either and belatedly wondered

if that wasn't because you were

still seeing her; it would have

been a pretty lie of omission,

giving the kind of false hope

that brought me to my knees.