Deposit
This story was published in Lilies and Cannonballs Review
Your mother was the estate agent or whatever we say of people who showcase for other people our lives hemmed in vases. God I was shocked by my arrival to town, coming on a place I was sure men like me were better left remembered. I had this tongue. Towns like stories. Loss and closure. Love and fracture where windows, like mirrors, had lost all meaning they might’ve one day hoped to displace. I don’t know, all I wanted was a room where my money wouldn’t run out. Where the walls would hold me. Enveloping pictures, frames and things. She moved through each room. Touching the carpet and the wall, sure to show me how real everything could be if only I took my life and got it here. But it was her fingers, the chewed nails, the barbered skin, I liked best. She showed me closets, doorknobs, sinks and counters, always careful to avoid any reflective plate that could put her face to her face. And right when I was about to commit, she ornamented for me her shoulders. Two plates of chalk flaking off into my hands. Snow grains dusting an ashtray I eventually set beside your bed away from the windows.