The International Writers Magazine: Contemplate

---

Next Year • Lauren LiFari Some do without. For holidays, an objective appreciation of thematic nostalgia can get you by, orphan gifts from well- meaning acquaintances, uneasy smiles or an afterthought of a free perfume set from Macy’s. Time spent staring at someone elses's tree, hung with anonymous ornaments, foreign memory.

Your sad smile - as you watch the snowflakes fall, knowing that each individual one is it’s own Universe, comforts you because you know they think the wrong things about you, they think you've never been loved.

You know the truth, that you were loved the most, and now it's gone.
This simple fact stretches your own love to places usually only filled by promises that people make in the dark, not meant to be kept. The word death is a shameful one, it makes you feel apologetic when you say it. People look at you after you speak it as if you’re looking for a donation, when all you’ve ever looked for is truth. People wonder why you have such disregard for your self, as you hang half -way in and half -way out, there sometimes, but always about to fade away.

You’re looking for where faded things go, looking for blurred daugerrotype faces that look like you, your eyes, your lips- there's a place they go when they're forgotten. Surely the dead remember you, and surely they feel the sun and rain on your face, still.

You're looking for an end to the confrontation, an end to the question that you can't stop asking. You sit in a remnant chair, all thats left of 100 years, earned by fields upon fields of tobacco. A legacy can be elegant and at once dispersed, it can happen to anyone.

I have: a few pictures, a round, silvering mirror, and a horsehair upholstered chair. Next year is the year I will outlive my own Mother, and you know 29, really is such a young age.

© Lauren LiFari Dec 2005
phoenix1013@earthlink.net

More Stories in Dreamscapes
see also

An Interrupted Run
Marja Hagborg in the snow

Home

© Hackwriters 1999-2005 all rights reserved - all comments are the writers' own responsibiltiy - no liability accepted by hackwriters.com or affiliates.