luz

here's a story.


there had been affairs.

right after her son was born she fell in love for the second time. he was a colleague.

she only married her husband because she was broken-hearted in the first place. he was kind to her and helped her heal. but she always thought of him as a type of vulture. a scavenger. picking up the dead thing he couldv'e never had if it were alive.

she fell in love for the second time and for the second time she was left broken-hearted. the colleague broke it off at work.

she called her husband from work and said, "come pick me up."

she got in his car and said, "You might as well take me to the hospital."

she was in the mental ward for a while. when she came back, she tried to erase her heart every day.

her husband was kind. he helped her heal.

one day a few years later she decided to have a tree cut down. the lawn man came to cut down the tree. he was young with long blonde hair. he looked at her.

he saw her.

they talked, but nothing more.

weeks later, she got another tree cut down.

then another.

one day at church she ran into her old colleague. he was married with a baby. he didn't speak. she couldn't.

another tree down.

the blonde boy told her about his life in the northern country. he told her that where he was from, dark-haired women like herself were considered the most beautiful. he taught her how to make a blade of grass whistle. once, when attempting a whistle, she got a speck of dirt on her face. the blonde boy moved in so close, touched her cheek, and lightly blew the dirt to the ground.

her thoughts pushed the image of her tits flat against his chest, and her still a woman, with secrets and shadows and a story. she told him instead of her children's accomplishments and new recipes and her husband's promotion. yet she always walked backwards into the life she claimed so that she could watch the blonde with every step.

after a few months the husband decided they would move. he picked out a house in the city. he signed papers.

but when she went to see the house, she said, "I cannot live here."

her husband asked why.

"Because," she said, surveying the city block, "There are no trees."

he let the deal drop. he was kind. he was a vulture.

she was alive and he could never have her.

and she had every tree in the yard cut down that year.



LUZ.