Bird Shit

Date unknown - Time unknown

5th of July - 04:16 AM

Or

5th of July - 19:04 PM

Poppie just isn't sure any more

His hand carefully caressess her spine as she lies on her back simply enjoying his movements. What happened had never happened before to Poppie. It was pure magic taking over her entire body, mind and soul. There was only him and her and nothing else mattered. Poppie wants it to be like this forever. She wants to stay next to him until she dies and she has never felt so strongly about something before.

'Mother, do you believe in love at first sight?' She asks with a lot of strength, her head still spinning making her black out and puke then black out again.

'Why are you asking Poppie?' Mother sounds almost as tired as she is. Not because she's worried about her sick daughter, but because she scared that Poppie might puke over her. Just like Poppie she wants it to stop so for her own sake she tries to have a conversation with her daughter. Something they haven't tried in a long time.

'Harry?' She whispers when she thinks he has fallen asleep. Her sleep is quickly pulling her under as well but she's fighting hard. Poppie has always been a fighter but somewhere along the line she stopped fighting her mother. When did she settle for less than a happy life?

'What's wrong?'

'How do you know something is wrong?' Poppie wonders with the greatest interest.

'I can hear it.' He shrugs under the thin sheets and she shifts towards him. The closets she can get.

'Did you love daddy?'

'Of course I did,' she answers but Poppie has always doubted it. Dad surely loved mother but Poppie feels that if it wasn't for his money mother wouldn't have married him. All her life Poppie has been told that she looked like her mother but acted like her father. For the last year she isn't so sure if that's still true.

'He did love you,' she mumbles against the sheets that are wet with sweet. She's having one hell of a hangover combined with a heavy concussion. Making it hard for her to stay awake or maybe just in the present or maybe just in this universe.

'No one ever heard that before but my father,' she tells Harry as he keeps drawing circles on her back.

'Why not?'

'My mother just isn't perceptive about me. When I was younger I always wondered if I even was her child but I guess there's no denying with the pictures dad took when she actually gave birth to me and the way we look alike, yet I am nothing like her.'

'You're more like your father then?'

'I was,' she says. 'I used to be, but since he's not here anymore I'm starting to look an awful lot like her.'

'Well, can I meet your father? Then I can decide who you look like the most,' he kisses her shoulder as he says it. Scared that she'll once again tell him that after tonight they won't meet each other again. That the night still holds an expiration date.

'I loved him too,' Mother says raising her voice a bit. 'I really did.'

'From the moment you met him?' Poppie challenges her and her mother stays silent for a while.

'Maybe not,' she tells Poppie honestly. 'That doesn't mean it didn't grow as time grew. After Mary and Ariana and after my parents died. You grow closer.'

'It's funny that even now you don't mention me,' Poppie points out to her mother and through her lashes she can see her mother's face fall.

'Don't take it the wrong way Poppie,' she tries to apologize. 'You have just always been dad's child more than mine. He knew how to communicate with you and I still don't.'

'But you love me?'

'I'm afraid not,' Poppie tells him and she sees his frown appear for the wrong reasons. 'Not because I don't want you too but because he's no longer here.'

'He died?'

'Yes,' Poppie says for the first time, 'he did.'

'When?'

'I was twelve. He had been sick for a while and ever since it has just been my mother and my two sisters.'

'What was your dad like?' Harry wonders because something tells him he meant a lot to her. A lot more than her mother ever did or ever will.

'He sang Sinatra, he danced with me, he told me scary stories, he knew when something was wrong, he loved me.'

'And your mother?'

'I'm not sure if she ever loved me.' Poppie holds Harry closer. 'And I think because of that I forgot what love is about. Do you believe in love at first sight?'

'Why wouldn't I love you?'

'That's not an answer,' Poppie says her voice trembling. It's for many reasons but mostly because she knows her mother doesn't love her the way she should and she can't understand why.

'I do love you Poppie.'

'Then why does it feel like you don't? Like I can never do anything right?'

'You just are so... difficult sometimes. You can't deny that yourself Poppie.' The tiredness in her voice is hearable. 'Look at where we are right now.'

'I know you send them away,' Poppie speaks as she feels puke rise again. 'If I am so difficult you could have just left me with them.'

Then the gates open again.

'I do since this day,' Harry confesses.

'Isn't it weird to already feel like this after not even a full day together?'

'Does it feel weird?' He questions her.

'No, but I feel like it should.'

'But it doesn't, so why stress it?'

'I don't know, but for the first time I wish I could ask him about it.'

'What do you think he would tell you?'

'It pains me to see you like this,' Poppie's mother whispers. 'It reminds me of him. You always remind me of him.'

'Is that why you hate me?'

'I don't hate you, you must know that Poppie. I hate your choices that's for sure.'

'I don't want to marry Henry,' she says but she's pretty sure Henry doesn't want to marry her either after he must have seen the tattoo and left. Her mother is still here though.

'I know. That doesn't mean that you should just...' her mother sighs as she thinks about her words. She can hear them in her head; take tattoo's, go out with strangers, fall in love with a hipster.

'What if it makes me happy?'

Poppie wants to be happy from the beginning and feel close from the start, not grow there. She believes her mother loved father in the end, but she's fairly certain it was nothing like what Harry and Poppie shared after just one night together. Imagine what it will be like after they grow close.

'To follow my heart.'

'And what does your heart tell you?'

'That this is really good,' she says and she kisses his jaw. 'He told me on his deathbed to make him proud. I just always thought I was doing just that by marrying Henry but now... I don't think I am making him proud if you're not in my life.'

'So... you are not going to marry him?'

'No.'

'Then you should follow your heart.' It cost Poppie's mother a lot of strength to say it but in the end, that's what she wants for her daughter. To be happy just like she was with her late husband and just like he was with his daughter. If only he was still here by her side then things wouldn't have gotten out of control. It's because she misses him so much that she's pushed Poppie away and tried to make her more like her and less like him. Looking at her hurts her heart because she reminds her of him. But maybe it's time to let that go for all of them.