MY FLICKERING SELF | TANIA HERSHMAN I stood under the street lamp, my flickering self lit up by doubt and lit up by the lamp and by the moon. I waited under that street lamp for you, all the while vibrations inside me filling me with questions. And you, where were you? Untethered, floating away, leaving me, a stranded star, to shimmer and blister on dark street corners alone. I wait for you to rush up to me but where you should be rushing, there is only silence and where your feet should be there is a cat, moon-widened eyes, afraid to cross my path, a witness to my inner ache. The next day and the next I imagine that street lamp and the rushing of you towards me and the longing in me would fill white bowls full to the brim and overspilling. You do not call. You do not explain yourself, and so I insist that I am still of some use to you by waiting here. I sit in my living room and there is the phone, to hand, by my side, if I can be of use, and I am longing and filling up the bowls. Finally, a god speaks to you, it seems, and you arrive on my doorstep. I don't know why you waited, you say to me, a hat on your head but half-falling, and you inside a raincoat, wrapped tight. I told you not to, you said. I told you, and the disappointment is too much for me and I shuffle backwards, back towards my seat and the phone, on whose other end you would have been safer, less poisonous. I sit and watch as you march around and around, lifting and dropping my things, the pieces and bits I have collected, that make me up. As you drop each piece, each bit, wrongly, sadly, I don't get up. I resist. I borrow stillness and wisdom from the ancient pine tree and it is only when you leave, your hat still on your head, your raincoat wrapping you tightly, do I lock the door three times, and begin to put all the pieces back in order. Tania Hershman is the author of “The White Road and Other Stories,” commended in the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers, and founder and editor of The Short Review. taniahershman.com.http://astore.amazon.com/contrary-20/detail/1844714756http://www.taniahershman.com/shapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1
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