by S. L. Naeole
POE-TRY
As if nothing had happened, the day after Thanksgiving started with breakfast, followed by a long shower. I grabbed my book bag and went downstairs and into the garage. I rolled the used bike that Dad had bought to replace my old one outside, got on it, and started pedaling towards the library.
It was the first time in months that I had ridden one, and I don’t care how the saying goes. You do forget how to ride a bicycle. I fell off before I had even made it past the driveway.
“Stupid bike,” I grumbled, standing up and brushing off the dirt and grass from my jeans. I righted the bike back up and got back on. A few not so pretty starts, followed by a few more quite horrendous falls, and I was about ready to give up. I looked around me and I could see some curious faces peeking through their windows. Well, if I was going to give up, it surely wasn’t going to be in front of an audience.
Picking the bike up one last time, I climbed on it, and prayed: Balance—that is all I want. I placed my foot on the pedal and pushed off, and smiled as the bike rolled smoothly down the street.
I rode the bike the few miles up the old wooded road towards the library. If I was going to finish my paper about Poe, I would need to borrow a few books, and the quiet would be nice. Graham’s dad and a few of Dad’s work buddies were coming over to watch the multitude of football games that would be playing today. A house full of loud, drunk men was not my idea of a good place to write an essay.
I nearly felt sorry for Janice until she told me that she was going to visit her sister up in Newark for the day, and wouldn’t return until later on in the evening. Instead, I found myself feeling quite jealous of her freedom.
As I pumped my legs, I came upon the area where I had been hit. I slowed the bike down and stopped on the side, looking at the two lane road with the small dirt road shoulder. There were no street lights here, but I hadn’t been hit during the evening—just found then. I hopped off of the bike and knelt down to pick up something that sparkled in the morning sunlight. It was a piece of a blinker light. The orange, reflective piece of plastic wasn’t exactly hard to place. I put it in my pocket to inspect later, and got back on my bike and continued towards the library.
It felt good to walk through the door when I finally made it there ten minutes later. I felt at home here, felt comfortable among all of the books that had been my constant companions for so long throughout my lonely childhood, even with Graham in it.
I headed towards the back of the library, the poetry section being one of the least frequented sections there, and began looking for the books I had searched for online earlier that morning. Finding just one of them, I pulled it out and settled into a chair to start reading.
The first poem was too long to read, but a few of the others that weren’t caught my attention. I pulled out a notebook from my book bag and started taking notes, copying the poems themselves first, and then segmenting out specific lines that stuck out.
Miss Maggie toddled over to me, her spindly little legs peeking out from beneath her dress, and said happily, “I’m so glad to see you back here, Grace! You’re looking quite healthy and chipper.”
I couldn’t help but smile back at her. She was always so sweet and sincere. There really wasn’t anything one could do to avoid feeling “chipper” whenever she spoke to you. “Thank you, Miss Maggie. How have you been?”
She waved her hand at me, as if to brush off my question. “You know how I always am, and yet you always ask. What are you reading there? Ooh, Poe. Good stuff that one. Have you read the first poem? It is the best one. Might interest you a bit.” She winked at me and toddled off, disappearing amongst the shelves.
I put my notebook down and flipped the book back to the first poem, the one that I had avoided because it seemed to go on forever. Miss Maggie had never steered me wrong before when it came to things to read, so I took her word for it and settled in.
As I read, I realized that this poem was about angels, and that I had read it before. I read further and stopped at a verse that sounded so familiar, much more familiar than having simply read it once in passing. It was an intimate familiarity. I continued reading, figuring that the memory would come back to me as I kept going.
The further I read, the more personal the dialogue became, and I found myself imagining that I was the angel named Ianthe, who shone brightly and was madly in love with her angel lover Angelo. My mind took me into their world, and I felt the incredible emotion that surrounded the two lovers, their love being so strong, so demanding of their energy and attention, they failed their duty as angels, and were locked out of Heaven.
I realized that deep inside of me, I secretly wished that Robert would do the same for me, for love. I was instantly filled with shame at my selfishness, and closed the book, not wanting to read anymore of angels or the price one paid for loving someone too much. Robert had already paid a price for loving me. I couldn’t demand he sacrifice again because I wanted him near me. I couldn’t even think it. But I did. I thought it, and then I hit myself for thinking it. I must have looked like a complete idiot, smacking myself in the forehead and talking to myself while doing it.
Taking my little moment of insanity as a sign that it was time to leave, I went to place the book back on the shelf, but found that Miss Maggie was standing there, her hands full of some ancient looking books.
“Ah, Grace, there you are. Did you read the poem? Wasn’t it lovely?”
I shook my head. “Not really. I think that there are some things that you simply don’t sacrifice for love.”
She looked at me in shock. “Really? Like what, dear?”
The inability to lie paid off for me then because it was a question that I had wanted answered myself. “Your dreams. You don’t sacrifice your dreams for love. Especially if you’ve had them for your entire life.”
She smiled a knowing smile and patted me on my shoulder. “You know, dear, sometimes the things we dream about are merely the heart’s way of protecting us from what we really want, and what we’re really afraid to lose.”
I watched as she placed her books on the shelf and took the book from my hand and placed it back in its original slot without even having to look. I suppose that is what comes from being a librarian for so long.
“I’m gonna get going so I can start on this paper of mine, Miss Maggie. It was really nice seeing you, and thank you for the little talk.”
She waved her hand, “Bye Grace. I hope you found what you were looking for.”
***
When I arrived home, I rushed to the stairs, raising my hand in a mute greeting to the loud male chorus of “hey Grace” that arose from the living room, and headed up to my room. I threw my book bag onto the bed and took out my notebook, needing to read the notes that I had jotted down.
The poems that I had copied for my dissection essay were no longer holding my attention. My mind kept drifting back to that first poem, and how selfishly I had reacted to it. It was like it was pulling all of the worst possible feelings I had inside of me and laying them on top of everything that made me who I was. It smothered everything, and all I could think about was Robert and me, tumbling through the sky.
I tossed my notebook onto the ground and placed my face into the mattress. The whole day had started out as a mission to complete an assignment, and it had turned into a life-altering experience where I was suddenly the bad guy, and I didn’t like it.
***
It took me another week before I was able to finish the final draft of the essay. I took the easy way out, and wrote about the Raven and Lenore. I knew that it would just disappear amongst all of the other essays about the Raven and Lenore, but I didn’t really care at that point. I just wanted to get the assignment done and out of the way so that I wouldn’t have to think about any Poe poems anymore.
When I turned it in, I felt relief when I saw it disappear under another essay, exactly as I expected it. I didn’t think about it again until that Friday, when Mrs. Muniz called me to her d
esk before class began to discuss it.
“Grace, I would like to ask you to consider doing this paper over again,” she said matter-of-factly, holding out my neatly typed, double spaced essay in her hand while tapping it with the other.
My head jerked back in response to her suggestion. Do it over again? “Any reason why, Mrs. Muniz?”
She pulled open a manila folder on her desk and pointed at the contents inside. More essays. “You have an incredible gift for writing—a passion for it—and yet there isn’t even an ounce of emotion in this. You might as well have been writing about earthworm mating habits.”
I took the insult in stride because I knew that she was right. I hadn’t put as much effort into the writing as I did with avoiding the thoughts that were running rampant in my mind. I took the essay from her hand. “I guess I could do better.”
She seemed annoyed by my response. “You can do more than better, Grace. If you want to turn that in, and accept the grade it would receive, then that’s fine. But, if you want to turn in something that will get you the grade you deserve, then please do. You have until the end of next week to decide.”
I nodded and returned to my desk with my essay, unsure of what I was going to do.
The answer came by way of Lark, who had been avoiding me since we returned to school the Monday after Thanksgiving. Stacy, who had learned about what had happened and had repeated the same story that Lark had told to explain Robert’s absence from school, had been acting as a slight go-between, understanding that I was full of questions that Lark just couldn’t answer, and Lark was full of answers that I just didn’t want to hear.
Stacy had continued with my Tae Kwon Do classes in the same upbeat and yet violent manner since Robert’s call, but today, she was giving, or should I say, she was more open to my getting in a few good hits without feeling the need to retaliate in some painful manner.
“What’s up, Stacy?” I asked once class was over and we were on our hands and knees wiping the floor and mats. “You’re not usually this…nice.”
She threw her rag on the ground and placed her hands on her thighs as she sat on her heels. “Lark has been bugging me to get you to talk to her. She doesn’t want to just pop up in your head, or at your house, and so she’s been doing it in mine. She has a lot of stuff she has to say to you—stuff about Robert.”
My heart started racing when she said that Lark had something to tell me about Robert. Was he coming home?
Stacy held her hands up, her face screwed with what looked like too much information. “Ugh—Lark wants to know if she can come and talk to you now, because I’m kind of done with this mind-telephone operator thing.”
I nodded my head, and then there she was, as if she had been there the whole time. “You were hiding out nearby, weren’t you?”
“Well, I’m not as quick as my brother, plus I get a kick out of seeing the two of you beat each other up,” she replied. Looking at her was painful. She was so beautiful in her own way, but she was also so similar in appearance to Robert, I had to look away. I didn’t want to see anything that looked like him until it was him. I didn’t want to ruin his face in my mind.
“Well, thanks,” Lark huffed, “I’m glad I’m able to ruin Robert’s perfection in some way.” She took a step towards us and Stacy shrieked.
“Take your shoes off! No shoes on the floor!”
Lark rolled her eyes and removed her sneakers. She padded over to us in her socked feet and then gracefully knelt down and assumed a very ladylike seated position that I knew I would have never been able to pull off.
“I wanted to tell you, Grace, that Robert is coming back-”
“When?” I grabbed her arms, interrupting her, too anxious to hear anything else but a time, a date, anything.
Her eyes narrowed as she pulled her arms out of my grasp with a slinky, effortless movement that made my grip—the strongest I could have ever formed—appear weak hearted.
“He doesn’t know for sure. His call wasn’t what he expected. It wasn’t what I expected, that’s for sure.” I detected a little bit of dismay in her eyes, but then her eyes widened and she smiled widely. “He says that he loves you, and that you’ll see him soon. And, he says to read it again.”
Her smile was infectious, made more potent by the news that Robert loved me—even after achieving his greatest dream—and that he was coming back to me soon. But that last part, about reading it again. What exactly did he mean by it?
Lark shrugged her shoulders. “He just said to read it again.”
I looked at her with doubt written plainly on my face. How could she not know what he meant?
She shook her head, annoyed by my thoughts. “He’s going through a lot right now, a lot of information is flowing through his mind, the entire history of our kind, things that we only find out after we receive the call. There is too much information in there to sift through, Grace, and I’m sorry if I didn’t stop and take the time to run through everything to find out what he meant.”
Immediately contrite, I reached my hand out to hold hers. “I’m sorry, Lark. I’m being an ingrate. I was trying so hard to not think about Robert and here you are, with so much of him in your head. I’ll figure out what he meant on my own. It shouldn’t be so hard, right?”
And, it turned out that it wasn’t. The next day, Stacy, Lark, and I went back to the old library. I was convinced that whatever it was, it was something that I had read here. I scoured the fiction section, looking for anything of importance that I might have read. Stacy sat on the floor with a book in her hand and proceeded to read. I asked what she was reading, and she held the book up. I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you think you’re a little old for that?”
She grinned. “No one is too old for a little Seuss.”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I headed towards Lark, who had posited herself in the poetry section. “I found a few books that might interest you.” She held up a couple of books with worn covers. One of them I recognized as the Poe book that I had read a week ago.
“I read this one already,” I mumbled.
Read it again.
Confused, I took the book, ignoring the other one in Lark’s hand, and went to find my own corner to sit down. I flipped the first few pages until I came upon the first poem. It was the one that I had avoided that first time, the one that I had gone back to read after Miss Maggie had insisted, the one that had made me start to imagine being enough to leave Heaven behind.
I found myself once again becoming immersed in the rhythmic verse as I was swept away by the tale of an angel doing as she had been commanded, and two who had not. I read it twice, and had started to read it again for the third time when something struck a chord within me.
That feeling of familiarity that I had felt the first time I read the poem had returned, this time with far more clarity. I could hear the voice in my head, see his face.
Somehow, Robert knew that I had read the poem, and he knew that I’d figure it out. “He loves me,” I mouthed to myself as I rubbed my fingers against the words that he had spoken to me that night after the wedding, after I told him that I loved him. That first night I had slept in his arms. He had recited a verse from this poem because he couldn’t tell me directly that he loved me. But now I knew.
I hugged the book to my chest, my newfound knowledge wedged deep between the two, and I looked over to Lark. She was smiling at me, relieved that I had figured it out.
When they dropped me off at home later that afternoon to rewrite my essay, my mind was ready to flow onto the paper, and I spent the next few hours typing away on the computer in the living room. I waved away any mention of food, and refused calls from Stacy and Graham. I was going to complete the twenty pages that evening, while the words were still fresh in my mind and the emotions still new in my heart.
It was one thing to know that Robert loved me. It was something completely different to know that his love hadn’t been something that he discovered when near death, as romantic as th
at notion might be, but rather something that had been in him for as long as it had been inside of me. I was giddy—there’s that word again—with my newly discovered piece of information.
As my essay printed, I ran upstairs to grab the note that he had left me. I had taped it to my mirror—at the time, it was a masochistic thing to do. I flipped on my bedroom light and rushed over to grab the note, but it wasn’t there. Instead, an envelope had been taped to the mirror in its place.
My name had been written on it in the same fluid script, and so I tore it open and pulled out the small sheet of folded paper inside.
I will be home on the following Friday. Please meet me at the retreat at four. With love, Robert.
He would be home in a week! That was just before Christmas break; the thought of spending two weeks with Robert, unfettered by homework and school nights sounded like my own piece of heaven. I put the little piece of paper back in the envelope and left it on the dresser. I silently made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t touch it again until Friday.
And I kept it.
***
My alarm went off screaming like it always did: loud, loud, and way too early. But, today was different. I jumped out of bed, quickly gathered up my things, and headed to the shower. I stood there for what felt like ages. In reality, it was only about a half an hour, which is usually how long it takes before the water runs cold.
I performed all of the normal girlish rituals that involved a razorblade and foam in a can. I needed to feel feminine, even if only underneath my clothes.
I dressed in a pair of jeans and my Skellington shirt, and put my hair up into a neat ponytail. With the exception of the shirt, I was dressed in the exact same manner that I had been when we had first met, although with the weather being as cold as it had been, I would need to wear a thick jacket over everything. Fortunately, it hadn’t snowed yet, which meant no need for boots and gloves.