I will not ask you where you came from
I will not ask, and neither should you
It seems to Michael like he closed his eyes to blink, and when he opened them again it was winter.
Where Michael grew up, it rained a lot. Winter was not so much thick pads of snow as it was a constant and dreary trickling from heavy, dark clouds. Here the sky is as white as the courts below and Michael is struggling to pull himself together in Isra’s absence, to dedicate himself to anything but waiting for her to come back home. It was not Michael, in the end, that was called to action (and probably with good reason) but he cannot help that he still feels restless even as his legs are heavier than his heart has ever been.
He has tried to write, carries with him a pen and scrawls bits and pieces here and there, now and then. He wants to be something he’s proud of. He wants to be anything at all.
The words do not come. He thinks of Isra and how she was a bubbling spring with words rising from her depths that she could barely contain, a balloon ready to pop.
Michael’s pool is still, his body unstirred even by the quiet chirping of the year’s last birds as they gather up their things and head out. He has stood here so long that snow is bunched in the valley of his back. He supposes that one must have genuine feelings to write. He supposes that the wide and hungry canyon into which all his attempts to reach anyone falls is eating him, too, from the inside out. He worries it’s going to be like this forever.
He swallows. He shakes, and the snow falls off him in wet clumps. Michael is fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s doing fine.
Where Michael grew up, it rained a lot. Winter was not so much thick pads of snow as it was a constant and dreary trickling from heavy, dark clouds. Here the sky is as white as the courts below and Michael is struggling to pull himself together in Isra’s absence, to dedicate himself to anything but waiting for her to come back home. It was not Michael, in the end, that was called to action (and probably with good reason) but he cannot help that he still feels restless even as his legs are heavier than his heart has ever been.
He has tried to write, carries with him a pen and scrawls bits and pieces here and there, now and then. He wants to be something he’s proud of. He wants to be anything at all.
The words do not come. He thinks of Isra and how she was a bubbling spring with words rising from her depths that she could barely contain, a balloon ready to pop.
Michael’s pool is still, his body unstirred even by the quiet chirping of the year’s last birds as they gather up their things and head out. He has stood here so long that snow is bunched in the valley of his back. He supposes that one must have genuine feelings to write. He supposes that the wide and hungry canyon into which all his attempts to reach anyone falls is eating him, too, from the inside out. He worries it’s going to be like this forever.
He swallows. He shakes, and the snow falls off him in wet clumps. Michael is fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s doing fine.
