Across the water of my native river, there lives a tower.
WHOLE, UNBROKEN (insistent on life and living and on keeping its stone body WHOLE UNBROKEN it almost hurts, it almost dazzles but you are the heart. and the tower is the body—-is the home—is the promise—is the security so you are NINE and you look at the tower and think that’s where i’ll live when i grow up)
(what is it like? To be waiting?)
The tower never talks, only looks at you, pulls you apart and ripens you whole, complete behind the kitchen window. In the sun’s wake, you exchange clandestine meetings. About the water in the river, the kids at the park. How many were in them Were they alive? In memory? Soul? (Body?)
Then the tower would stiffen and listen to you go on and on about the immortality of the crab until footsteps felled the staircase like rose bushes collapsing and writhing on the ground. TEN years old and you would scamper away but the tower did not move.
From across the river and the trees and the kitchen, your bedroom window. Tied like a thread to your house, your room with its grey barren walls (WHOLE UNBROKEN). The tower was a collision of stillness, but it was always you who stumbled at the force of the earthquake. Buckling and smiling at it like an accomplice
“We are made of the same things”
(WE ARE NOT MADE OF THE SAME THINGS)
You are TWELVE, shelving yourself away in the backseat of an aging toyota.
Your father, he drives close to the water, bending to its invisible will.
His eyes bore into you from the rearview mirror.
Contemplative. Invasive.
Seat belt digs into your skin as houses roll by, like chalk being washed away.
“I thought we would avoid traffic this way”
Oh..”
“At least we get a view of the prison”
“The what”
Oh.
Oh oh oh oh no no no
(IM SORRY IM SORRY IM SORRY) IM SORRY
SORRY
I SAID IM SORRY HELLO? IM SORRY !! IM SORRY IM SORRY
The tower says nothing. You resolve to stop speaking to it
(I LIED. I AM NOT WHOLE. OR UNBROKEN)
THIRTEEN
(WE ARE MADE OF THE SAME THINGS)
FOURTEEN
WE ALL HAVE SECRETS
(I KNOW!! I KNOW. LEAVE ME ALONE.)
FOURTEEN. Gripping the kitchen sink of an imploding home.
(let me look at your hands. then,—a breath a cough, a regurgitation of memories—
Did I hurt you? —another cough, a handful of tears, quivering lips, a horrified stare—)
(In the distance, a tower.)
Close to your home: an immensity.
(In the distance, a tower)
Closed in your fist, the beginnings of blood
(no. no you didn’t) a shaky breath, gaze turned away, a lie
IN THE DISTANCE. A TOWER
But you’re a prison.
I KNOW. I KNOW AND I’M SORRY.
(in the width of the tiles, a mishap. A prayer)
We are made of the same things?
(a scream)
Yes, we are.
(whole, unbroken)
Andrea Granata is a creative writing student in Montreal who likes to hit her pen to paper and write poetry, prose and short stories. She’s a big fan of deep metaphors and stories with hard packed meaning. Although she’s just starting out, she has been recognized by the Scholastics Art and Writing Awards and published at Ambré magazine, Poetry in Voice, The Battering Ram and Cathartic Lit among others. When she’s not caught up in the wraps of a new poem, you can find her reading, scrap booking, or bothering her cat.