The Isle

Dripping delicious tears, I can’t help but bubble when she cries. I want to get closer; closer until the tip of my nose touches hers. It begins with huffs and puffs. Hot blows of hot air, streaming hot streams like a dragon—a dragon defeated and exposed. Her breath is victorious, even though she feels like she is resigning, weak and fallen. With every blink, her drips drip; with every drip, her blinks blink. Rhythmic with her blowing breath, hot, hotter, hottest. Her eyelashes stick together in pointed triangles, moist and dark. Her eyelids are shiny and juicy. I want to press my lips against them, maybe lick them—a rainforest in the arctic of her white, light skin. She explains herself, even excuses herself.

Chin tucked near her chest, all I am left with at this point is the canvas of her eyelids. Outside it is raining. Like her tears, the drops awaken me more and more. Who says rain is sleepy? Tears, too, can be jubilation. My face stays solemn and I listen intently. She has: fears, uncertainties, multiple maps of the future. Plot your time, I think. All that is certain is where you want to be in that moment. The strongest contract is your presence in time that simultaneously causes the dissolution of said medium.

The stampede of rain is not trickles on a tin roof and I do not desire that illusion of inspiration. Sobs, too, are not to be muffled. I refuse to believe otherwise. I further fought the urge to lick her salty face. I picture the grimy, untouched pool outside my apartment she had told me was flooding with water. I finally kiss her puffy pale cheeks; I hoped she didn’t think I disregarded her emotions. They are too good for me not to get up, not to enjoy.

This is time and here you are! I’ll watch you cry again and again. Don’t hurry to laugh. We are awake and asleep. The sky is falling down and has left you with freckles.

The rain kept me up that night, for which I was grateful. She slept soundly and I wondered willingly when it would be my turn to cry.

Have you ever watched yourself cry? It fascinated me as a little girl. I use to run to the mirror and watch. I challenge you the next time to do the same, whether you have or have not done it in the past. The challenge is: try not to taste your tasty tears.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,


Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.


Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments


Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices


That, if I then had waked after long sleep,


Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,


The clouds methought would open, and show riches


Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked


I cried to dream again.

[Spoken by Caliban in The Tempest]