My mother’s ghost will follow me to New York and I’ll leave my love tucked in a sand dune
[cw: parent death]
I
We met at the beach in Dubai. That day, there was a goose in the water. It was a black goose and the air was too warm for November. Majd joined my friends and I at the beach and put his chair down on the sand, showing up later than the rest of us. I was swimming when he joined the group. I looked at our spot and saw tattooed arms, a buzzcut, and black swimming shorts. I had to ask who this was and a friend explained that she invited him.
My mother had just passed away that October and my eyes added to the saltwater, hidden behind sunglasses and facing a best friend. I looked up at the sky and begged for Mom. I looked to my left and followed the goose with a grotesque persistence.
I wondered if he could see my thirst to swim with Mother Goose. I wondered if he saw the obsession. I wondered if the object would, one day, become him.
The universe makes it easy for me to start a conversation: I ask him if he saw her, my friend the black goose. He laughs and says he did. I learn he is a Capricorn and I make a mental note of it. His girlfriend shows up. I know her. She offers me her condolences in front of him.
Months later, I found myself in New York, calling him in tears to remind him of Mother Goose. He goes on to say that she still swims there, and that he sees her when he puts his chair down on the sand every Saturday.
II
I distract myself but still it comes back. I have no one to call, the skin around my eyes burns from the tears: maybe it’s the eclipse.
I touch myself and cry after the orgasm.
I have this dream where it’s just a screen of rolling Instagram stories about your lovers: the ones you’ve had for months without me knowing, and the ones you start to have immediately after our affair. After the rolling screens I confront you, saying, “What do you mean ‘eight months?’ Does she know about me?”
You’re quiet.
The following night, I tell you about the dream. You realize what the number of months mean quicker than I did, saying, “well, it’s been eight months since your mom, right?”
I think of all the prompts but never get myself to write a single sentence about you. What is it about you that feels too near? Is it your masculinity? Is it your fleeting femininity in moments under sheets, when I am too startled by it to speak?
You pulled on heartstrings I never knew were there. You don’t understand this sentence when I say it to you in your car, like I practiced. I start to explain how the grief has left me with an emptiness that only you have filled, how your skin reminds me of a youth I had forgotten, how your laugh makes the blood in my veins move just a little faster.
I can only watch you on screens past midnight now, when you play video games and speak to an audience of fans. I can never tell whether or not you see my name in the list. I watch for hours until I feel too aware. Why is it that I’ve been given this craft of obsession? Why is it that you’ve allowed it? I no longer recognize myself as a friend or sister.
I no longer recognize myself outside your framework, I am now only ever a lover of yours.
I told you I’d follow wherever you go. You repeated the words back to me.
Follow me to New York. What if it heals you?
Come with me where it could work: outside of everyone we know, outside of the nuances. Where there are no words you wished I’d have said instead, no judging whispers. Come with me.
I feel separated and untethered (words I use too frequently now). You’ve given me language. Have you ever understood mine?
Have you sniffed whatever scent I’ve left on your t-shirts? Have you tried to savor it? Have you looked at my photos? Have you touched yourself?
Come closer. Kiss me in your car, don’t be shy. This time, I don’t care if they watch.
When you read this, will you drive to me with lavender again? Will you listen to the songs? Will you picture us dancing? Have you ever?
Will you think of me when you do your laundry? Did you ever truly see my grief? I almost saw yours.
Did you realize how motherless I was? Did you understand why I lingered that day, wanting to say goodbye to you when we met at the beach in November?
Did the dried grief on my lips smell like lavender?
Come with me where it could work. Meet me in Westchester. Walk into the train. Walk upstairs. Come into my bedroom. Close the door. Come closer, closer, closer.
Before I leave, you drive to me. We do it too quickly, too easily. Our lips find each other like muscle memory. How is it that you do this so perfectly, like the words to a love song I’ll never find but will always hum?
My pillow gets a fresh dose of your smell, the collar of my t-shirt tortures me with wafts.
I refuse to wash it, if only for the day. I had let my leg go numb when you rested your elbow on it. I had let my heart lay bare underneath you, let you watch as I unfurl, as I melt in your arms. I had let you feel my breath as I slept. All my weaknesses were pinned on bulletin boards for you to gaze at.
Get on the flight with me. We never danced.
III
I close my eyes and try to smell you but all I smell is the air conditioning and the minty smoke that’s been stuck on the roof of my mouth.
I watched you paint a sunset today. Did you talk to God to make it last longer? Are you stretching days out for me? Are you making music sound better and touch feel softer? Are you doing something to get me to dance through it?
Sometimes, I feel euphoria without guilt. The strobe lights hit my eyes and I see beautiful people moving. Sometimes, two of them kiss. To my right are two whom I don’t speak to anymore. Facing me stands the one I’m here with and I find him so charming.
He’s beautiful. He looks down and smiles at me and asks me if I’m okay. He holds my hand as we dance in a dark room. I text him to come meet me at the bar when I’m anxious. He duly obliges. His hand grazes my waist and I find it mischievous. His lips are drawn so sharply, designed to torture me. All of this is electric. The punchline is that I don’t get to have it.
Is it my fault that things leave and die? I was never good with plants. All I will ever feel is longing.
IV
I dreamt that we were in love and that you took me somewhere and threw me away. I kept calling you asking why you did it. One night you heard me whimper in my sleep mid-nightmare. You called out my name through the Zoom call.
A few days later and we drive away from a sunrise: the sun a glowing spiral, cut in half by a cloud only the cameras see.
The morning is quiet and filled with dread. How could it be that it was a dark and starry night only half an hour ago?
Once the sun comes up so does my shame: I don’t look good, I don’t know where we are. Please stop taking pictures of me. Please take more pictures of me. I’ve taken so many of you.
I remember looking up at the stars earlier and seeing them so much closer than they ever were. Some of them seemed to shine just for us.
The silence shook me and my ears rejected it. It was a silence I’ve never yet heard. It let me in on your breathing.
I look ahead through the freshly washed windshield and what surrounds us is a long road: its grays, blacks, yellows, and whites cutting through a vast beige of desert.
The sun rises above so swiftly as we drive away from it. Do we drive away from the shameful light?
The sand glows. It burns around us. To me, you’re prettier than all of this.
In your car, I find the morning is too bright, too sudden. Under the sun I can see you morph into a friend, a brother, almost. But, under the stars, I knew you were nothing but a lover.
Our shame quickly turns into anger. You notice that I’m upset with how little you like to document me. Were you not afraid of losing me?
I like you from all angles. I like you on my screen right now, as you sit facing a glowing pink light, freshly showered, with your TV on.
In my head, the TV is always on and your thumb is crossed over mine. In my head, my hands latch onto your arms infinitely.
My fingers get sewn onto your tattoos: a warmth you’ll soon crave, a stitch you might miss undoing.
I’ll miss our days and nights where my life is forgotten and all I become is your counterpart. I’ll miss our nights where the mindful separation boils our hearts into a deep sleep. I’ll miss the smell of your laundry, your cats’ purrs and meows, the sounds that come from your computer: endless WhatsApp notifications and Fortnite gunfire.
I’ll leave you in a few days. You won’t be my lover and I won’t be yours. All I’ll have is your temporary. All I’ll ever have is a grief too permanent.
I make you sad and I make you anxious and I leave. All I do is leave.
My mother’s ghost will follow me to New York and I’ll leave my love tucked in a sand dune, where we were, under the stars for one moment and a burning sun for another. It will cool down and burn until the end. I’ve marked it on a map for when you miss it. Please visit it. Touch the scars from where my fingers held onto you. Smell the places where my scent lingered. Play the record and sing. Laugh at a joke about New York. This city that gave you so much to grieve. Wash my socks and hang them to dry. Track a flight and wait for a call. Find my pin on your iPhone.
Get in your car and drive away from a sunrise. Let the songs play until they fade out. Read the poetry and whisper it back to me. Let me leave and never wait for me. I’ll make you sad and I’ll make you think.
V
25 August 2024 at 3:41 PM
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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
Noor Tannir was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon and is currently based in New York City, where she is pursuing her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Sarah Lawrence College. She has previously worked as a Junior Curator for independent art initiative Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah, UAE. She graduated from the American University of Beirut in 2018 with a BA in Art History and minors in Philosophy and Film & Visual Culture. Her personal essays appeared in ManbouZine, Postscript Magazine, Şerābi Zine, Thin Air Magazine, and Quarter After Eight.
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