Tonight Well See The Stars

tonight we’ll see the stars

“What’s his name?”

“Suzuki…Or was it Nakamura?”

Edvin didn’t say anything as he opened the matchbox that had been in his pocket and carefully plucked a match out. In an abrupt motion, he struck the match. A small flame kindled at the end of the wooden stick. He carefully observed it, letting it take his full attention as his thoughts went blank. He didn’t want to think about her. But he couldn’t control it. His eyes crawled towards hers. An uncontrollable smile formed on his face as he broke out in a nervous chuckle.

“How do you say ‘fire’ in Japanese?”, he asked, feeling the tears bordering his eyelids.

“Do I look like I fucking know?”, she answered, her voice slightly breaking on the fucking as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

She blew out the match. A small cloud of smoke slowly whirled, tinting the darkness. Edvin watched the smoke dance with the cold breeze and almost imperceptibly inhaled it.

“You’re probably tired of me”, she suddenly said.

Edvin didn’t say anything and threw the match on the cold ground with a bitter smile.

“Your eyes… they’re not quite blue are they?”, he asked avoiding to answer to what she had just said.

She turned to look at him. The only source of light being the streetlight down the street, she could only make out his silhouette.

“It’s just that, at the party, they seemed a little lighter”, he added, his voice cracking with emotion, justifying the question he had just asked.

She remembered the party. She was haunted by the smell of beer in her nostrils, by how his sweater brushed against her chin, by the foggy music’s unclear words that seeped into her skin and mind…

“No, they’re blue”, she answered, as she got up and walked away into the night.

© Margaux Emmanuel

coal

He had been working in the mines for the past three months and he was beginning to cough like the others did.

A crooked picture ornamented the otherwise bare wall. That and the piano were his only valuable possessions. He would come back home every night and see both of them, one hanging a little too much on the left, one yawning with some of its off-tune teeth missing.  There used to be a midsize mirror on the floor, its back against the wall, but as the weeks passed, as his arms and legs grew thin and as his eyes adopted a permanent look of worry, he had gotten rid of it.

Before lighting the kerosene lamp, seconds after entering through the door, he would sit down in front of the piano and would let his weakened, tired, fingers fall onto the keys. He wasn’t a very good player, he would have to pause between some of the notes in order to cough.  He played clumsy nocturnes, only alighted by the moonshine, the grime on his hands making the keys stick to his fingers. It was always quiet, the neighbors were fast asleep and he would be alone with his moon. The tears would trickle onto his cheeks, mixing with the dirt on his face, as he thought of her.

He was scared that he would forget what she looked like. He would slightly tilt his head to the left every day, but the picture was blurry and he was certain that she was prettier in real life. You couldn’t tell by looking at it that she would always say “Keep the change” at the cashier, even though they could’ve used the extra dollar for another day’s worth of soup.

“Keep the change”, he would sometimes whisper. His lips pressing against each other, his tongue touching his palate while he said those three words- it made her seem more real. It was the concrete in the abstract of sentiment, it was feeling her pulse beat against his skin.

The moon seemed far away that night. It looked as if it were crying.

© Margaux Emmanuel

“What do they call you?” He let the crickets answer for him, continuing to stare into the bonfire crackling in front of them, his arms extended perpendicularly against his thighs, palms pressing against the burnt grass, and puffing out his grimy bare chest. His cornflower eyes, where orange flames flickered in the night, were framed by his short brown hair and a finely chiseled nose. His thin lips rarely moved and if they did, they only trembled. Suddenly, he turned to his side, his skin rustling against the rigid grass, and grabbed a light green soda can out of a wooden crate. He handed it to her, letting his eyes meet hers for the first time. “Thank you”, she whispered with a small smile. She had been eyeing the sodas for the entire time, longing for the sweet liquid to trickle down her throat cracked with thirst. She lifted the soda tab and let it hiss. As she passed the can to her right hand, she noticed that red ink was smeared on her left hand. She looked at the side of the can and noticed the familiar red stamp. “So you were in the hangar?” He raised his glance back towards her and let his head settle at her level before giving a small nod. “You could’ve died”, she said. His gaze was once again lost in the fire. As she lifted her chin towards the dark sky to let the prickly drink pour into her throat in one longing gulp, she heard, in a velvet voice splintered with sadness: “And many of us did”. Her neck went erect in surprise, leaving some clumsy soda trickling down her chin. She gaped at him, astonished. Pushing against the ground with fatigue, he got up with a slight stagger. “We should get going, the sun will be up in a couple of hours”, he said, his eyes looking towards the east. “Ye-yes, you’re right”, she answered, her drowsy mind awakened by all the questions she wanted to ask him. His skinny arms lifted the two crates of provisions, making him wince in pain. “Do you need help with that?” He replied with a scowl, making her blush. “Let us go” They left the flames weaken. The morning sun would shine onto the ashes of the night that had reigned beforehand, and they would be gone.

of war and silence | © Margaux Emmanuel

visiting hours are over

a melody from western japan

    sticks to the tears you begin to cry

“visiting hours are over”

    the curtains of your heart close

you sit on the stage

    and fold

origami feelings

    delicate

intricate

    intimate

weak

now

    you can take off your mask

and let yourself hum

    quietly

nervously

    and wait

to hear the same tune

    from the audience’s side

© Margaux Emmanuel

amber & hyacinths

The birthday card was slightly slanted. The front was a clumsy neon yellow with the words “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” written in multi-color capital letters. One of those cone-shaped birthday hats sat on the “B”.

In the shower, she would sometimes press a little stronger against razor blade, letting it delicately and, at first, painlessly, cut into her skin. She would just sit in the shower, letting the toast grow cold, blood trickling along her leg. A spider would creep along the steamy mirror, running across the soft blurry colors of her skin, as if it were ashamed to see her naked.

Her small breasts rubbed against her tight shirt.

She would open the fridge, only to be confronted with a four-day salad and an empty jar of jam. The kitchen countertop was sticky with filth, weeks worth of dishes were piled, a spoon sadly laying on a bowl’s sides, dipping in moldy milk, a fork still sticking in a store-bought quiche, a bottle of vodka stood, open, a never-ending source, empty ones were on the floor.

“Doing that will only make things worse”. That’s what the doctor would have said. 

“Fucking moron”, she muttered to herself. 

She sat down on the kitchen floor and lit a cigarette. She remembered a conversation she had at the port a few weeks, days or years ago with him. Not the doctor him, the other him. 

“Those things will kill you.”

“You eventually will anyway.”

She laughed by herself, inhaling a puff of smoke. That’s when he had given her the week late birthday card. She never kept birthday cards but his was wedged into the windowsill. It was difficult to believe that he would never write another birthday card for her again.

A tightness crawled into her chest, she felt it even in her yellowed fingertips. His name came into mind. Doctor Alban had said that she should get rid of the card.

“Did you ever desire her?”

“I think so”, he said, his stern tobacco-colored eyes were darkened by the night.  He was stretched on the bed, his bony ribs creating a bowl of darkened moonlight.

“As a memento mori, perhaps”

“She must’ve been beautiful”

I perceived his nodding in the dark. He stayed silent while staring at the ceiling.

“Very”, he finally said.

She knew that he still loved her.

The faucet was running. Maybe it had been running the whole time. Probably.

She got up to close it, her long, untidy nails uncomfortably enclosing around it. The metal left a cold impression onto her hand. She remembered.

His eyes weren’t brown. They didn’t deserve to have a color. They were all the crumpled paper poems, they were all that she had searched for in vain during her entire life without exactly knowing what. They were the sneers of incomprehension, they were an abandoned shivering cold desire, sticky with the poison of indifference. They were a neon yellow happy birthday card, with one of those cone-shaped birthday hats on the “B”.

© Margaux Emmanuel

note to self

a glimpse of melancholia

in the lukewarm saké

of a child’s laughter

© Margaux Emmanuel