Where I Write You
I’ve written you here, again, placed you on my doorstep, wearing that awful winter hat. It’s spring, but there are those articles of clothing with which people become attached. The hat is one. It’s gray, like your eyes. It has become part of you, like that bent up bicycle you used to pedal around all winter, the one you snitched from behind the Salvation Army, telling me that it was meant for you, that God had left it there, as if you were religious. It was the winter our attraction finally culminated into that afternoon we spent with our clothes off, sketching each other, poorly, pretending we were artists instead of who we were: a couple of college kids too afraid to touch each other.
Forgive me, you’re waiting at my door; so, I open it. You are as I remember: unshaven, wearing that half grin, half grimace, in need of a shower, t-shirt on inside out. But this doesn’t seem to concern me. I see that squirrels have ravaged the bird feeder again, left it empty, hanging askew, and, worse, raccoons have been into the trash, sanitary pads and tuna cans strewn across the lawn for all the neighbors to observe. Amidst the wreckage, I see small signs of hope: budding leaves on the Japanese maple and the unbent trunk of the baby white birch I wasn’t sure would make it through the winter. I see you, too. I do. And now that you’ve arrived, here is the question I’ve been afraid to ask: Why, when you said you would, did you not come back?
You think I can forget, but I can’t. The truth is, I’ve tried. I’ve tried to leave my memory of you in the park, at the grocery store, on the bus. It’s not possible. You follow me home. We walk down the sidewalk, past the overgrown twin pines, forever green, forever unaffected by the seasons. They stand there, slowly growing, so slowly we almost don’t notice until years have gone by and the electrical crew has shown up with their cherry picker and chainsaws, expressing concern for the power lines. We hold our place: you on my doorstep, me having just opened the door.
And when I turn to you, what is it that catches my eye? It’s the hint of skin showing below the hem of your t-shirt, the spray of tiny black hairs just above your belt buckle. It’s your thumbs hooked in your front pockets, the way your fingers fan out beneath them, everything leading into the center. It’s been days and weeks and months. Your lips part as if you’re about to tell me something that will forever change us, move us forward or back, I’m not sure which. It’s been years, and I still can’t write it any further. We’re permanently fixed. The words never leave your handsome mouth. For whatever reason, I don’t ask you in.
Beeper Peddle is a writer and healer living on the East Coast. She lives with her partner and their beloved soul puppy. Beeper writes about sorrows, lies, and deep loves. When you read her work, you will dip down into her heart and end up in all manner of body parts. Should you find yourself reflected in these words, it is merely coincidence; however, it does not surprise her you share the same heart. Find her at bethpeddle.com and @beeperpeddle on Twitter and Instagram
Maria McLeod (she/her) is author of “Skin. Hair. Bones.,” published by Finishing Line Press (2022), and “Mother Want,” winner of WaterSedge Chapbook Contest (2021). She’s been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and has won the Indiana Review Poetry Prize and Quarter after Eight Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Prize. Her poetry, fiction and monologues have been published by literary journals in U.S, England, Scotland, and Germany. She lives in Bellingham, Washington. Find her on Instagram @mariapoempics,
miniskirt magazine 