Smearing my chest with cool thick mud, he makes the sign of the cross all the way down to my navel and across my breasts before using me the way he likes to do when we both need a way out. The strangeness of the crooked stars high above and his crushing body pounding over mine makes me wet but I am used to my body betraying my mind by now. Still, it makes me struggle and gasp which only serves to hustle the whole scene along until we both find our animalistic release.
It isn’t pretty but it’s honest. This is what I tell myself as I straighten up and light a smoke from his torn up pack which falls out of his coat pocket along with a gold wedding ring. He thinks I don’t know but only because he doesn’t think much and because he’s afraid that if I did I would care but I don’t. I’m eighteen and he’s forty six or something close to that but none of it matters to me because I’m on my way to much better things and he’s got a wife he can’t stand and a career that’s killing him, a slow kind of seedy death one stale-ringed Styrofoam coffee cup at a time.
Pulling my knees to my chest, I suck in the smell of summer grass and gaze out across the deep black lake which is sunk low at the center of the park where we trespass in the darkest hour. Watching as the moonlight pools and dips on top of the rippling water, I think about how tight my body is, how satisfying. I spread my legs and admire my pale limbs as they soften into the fresh blades of sweet green weeds speckled with dandelion and periwinkle. A girl gives up her body to keep hold of her mind. It is a sordid trade but nonetheless expected. A shit bargain which must be made in order to play the game, which has fuzzy rules that only make it more intriguing. Smart girls like puzzles. Good girls like pleasing.
I pick up a stone and carve my name into the dirt. I lick at the tiny cuts on my knees and talk to myself like I know what I’m doing but something inside is seething and feels like if I turn toward it for even just a split minute, it will morph into a giant ocean wave and swallow me whole. I am strong, though. I keep it in. I push it down. I am the ruler of the tides.
Little fireflies are dimpling the silence of the night air. I can see them glowing gently as they multiply and surround me like sweet honey droplets, amber coordinates of a heavenly guidance system. The more I look, the more I see.
I finish my cigarette alone with my winged companions and wrap his flannel around my small shoulders. He just sleeps it off.
Allison Marie Conway 
I’ve been reading you for a long time and I should be used to it by now, but when a story tastes to me of sadness or heartbreak and it is also written with an extraordinary and impeccable style that moves me deeply, it can plunge me into a total desolation. I don’t know why, this story has made my whole body feel a great shiver. A tremor of centuries in a few minutes of reading, in a few minutes of bitter reflection.
Have a nice day, Allison.
P.s. I’m still having some trouble with my English. I hope you will bear with me.
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It is always an honor to hear from you, AW. To know that my words have had a visceral effect echo through your body, this humbles me, and I am so grateful for it. Thank you for being so open and so kind. I wish you a good day, also.
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Thank you, Allison. Tomorrow the sun will rise again, I’ll open the window, look at the sky and put on my best smile to dedicate it to you. 🙂
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I am so very warmed by your sweet thought. Thank you ever so. ☺️
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I come here for the excellent work, for the play.
I come here for the the aroma, the visceral, the heat.
I come here for Allison Marie Conway.
I come here for a cigarette.
ps. on fleet.
xo 🙂
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Haha you make me smile, Nick Reeves, I love your verse here. I feel so very touched and honored. I am imagining you and I just now skipping stones and smoking and carving things into sand. x
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…probably smiley faces and profanities!
xo
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Rascals!
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I know!
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This is not to say that you necessarily intended this, but I keep reading that line and thinking of you, carving your name in the sand, just as he and they and all have sought to carve their needs and meanings on you through the course of your life. You know, Allison, one of the things I love about your writing–and I don’t mean necessarily what you write (although you know I love that dearly), but the very fact of your writing–it feels so liberating. Painful and vulnerable, thought it be, at least in terms of what you write and revealing yourself like this–but the very act of it, carving into sand, into flesh, into paper (however digital)–and in doing so, you reclaim you. And that is beautiful and inspiring.
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I have written in the past a verse which is called ‘regeneration’ ..and reads like this: ‘ when I write I raise myself from the dead / all of the beauty they cut away from me / begins to bloom again’… sometimes I hate this world, my dear sweet George. Sometimes I hate it with every bristle in my tiny bones. But if you are inspired by what I do, well, that feels like everything to me. As ever, for me to say thank you to you, it feels like not enough at all, but I do thank you. Your comment is so insightful, so compassionate, so gentle. Just like you.
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You are so kind, dear Allison. To feel such compassion in me. And I certainly do feel your gratitude, and the inspiration that you bless me with.
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Reblogged this on The Reluctant Poet.
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♥️
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