A Kitchen Scene
Brynn Lemons
Brynn Lemons
There is a part of you that is desperate.
Don Mclean is singing a love song from the radio. It warbles, static-filled and polite, over the dirty tiles and the counters with their fleets of crumbs, mixing with the baritone of the sink into a messy, dissonant thing.
There is a desperation here. In your lungs, in the tight struggle of a breath too wide to fit inside the confines of your sedentary body. In this kitchen where she stands washing the dishes with her sweet hands. Where you can see the knots that fall down her spine and disappear beneath a thin tank top. Where the sun is white with morning and all the windows are bared, and you love her in a similar way — white and bared. You are desperate, and in this morning kitchen scene there is nothing you would not do for her.
Where did this come from?
This prowling creature in your stomach, where did it come from? From what dark forest where its teeth are gnarled; from what salty beach where its paws are sopping? The answer matters less than the reason — it is here because she is here, listening to a Don Mclean song, washing dishes, and still warm from the sleep you shared. This creature is desperate, but it wasn’t always.
Not three years ago when her knuckles were hard bone. She looked at you behind the smog of music and people. Her eyes at half-mast. Her skin was wet. You turned to the few beside you, their idle chatter, and forgot her name when she told it to you. Her face was not as it is now — like dove wings, as in flight, shifting with a careful, fluttering grace that rivals your quick turns. Then, her face was a hard column. Today, in the kitchen, it is all softened by time like the depleted masts of Roman monuments.
You were not desperate days later, either. She was still there, this time at a house party, awake and sober, watching you. You asked for her name again, sheepish with embarrassment, and she only smiled, and what little you knew of it then. Of her smile; a quiet, melting candle.
Did it show its face during the night, when she was all skin and muscle? Or when she laid across your floor, dragging a finger through the rug, curling her toes into her patterned socks and kicking your shin? Maybe, it was when she dragged a box from under her childhood bed, full of spine-bent journals and faded photographs of her grinning, braces-clad teeth.
When she read aloud the voice of her twelve year old self, how she interjected her own speech with added histories and you rolled your eyes and motioned for her to hurry. When you tried to snatch the book from her hands and she whacked you with it, that wide, burning smile on her mouth, her face fluttering. She read of past crushes, said their names with a reverence and memory that sparked your jealousy. It reared that ugly beast’s head and hissed, how many names are in her diary that are not yours?
Maybe it was then, when desperation finally came. Desperate to have her, and more than have her. Desperate to share with her, everything — the sky and its molded clouds, the snatches of eavesdropped conversations, past secrets and old, rusted skeletons who moved from haunting her closet to dining with you at picnics. Their bones stacked in a warmly woven basket, light enough to blow into the wind.
Now, the kitchen scene and whatever that means. You are standing in the open doorway and she has not noticed you yet. The radio whines. The sink thrashes. It is a final exam. It is your flesh changed, grown out from you and into her.
There is only this. You don’t remember when it came. Through the woods or out of the stormy ocean banks. Into this ending sequence where all the light in the world is made up of her nails, her veins, her fine, soapy wrists caught in the torrents of tap water.
You want to eat her alive. You want to hold her in your arms. You want to run your hands all over her. You want her to cry until her voice cracks. You want everyday to rise and set on her shining face.
There is a part of you that is desperate. When has there been anything else?
She turns, catches you staring, and the blotchy life of a blush crawls up her neck. You walk to her. You place your arms around her waist and rest your chin on the dip of her shoulder.
Don Mclean croons, and I love you so.
Don Mclean is singing a love song from the radio. It warbles, static-filled and polite, over the dirty tiles and the counters with their fleets of crumbs, mixing with the baritone of the sink into a messy, dissonant thing.
There is a desperation here. In your lungs, in the tight struggle of a breath too wide to fit inside the confines of your sedentary body. In this kitchen where she stands washing the dishes with her sweet hands. Where you can see the knots that fall down her spine and disappear beneath a thin tank top. Where the sun is white with morning and all the windows are bared, and you love her in a similar way — white and bared. You are desperate, and in this morning kitchen scene there is nothing you would not do for her.
Where did this come from?
This prowling creature in your stomach, where did it come from? From what dark forest where its teeth are gnarled; from what salty beach where its paws are sopping? The answer matters less than the reason — it is here because she is here, listening to a Don Mclean song, washing dishes, and still warm from the sleep you shared. This creature is desperate, but it wasn’t always.
Not three years ago when her knuckles were hard bone. She looked at you behind the smog of music and people. Her eyes at half-mast. Her skin was wet. You turned to the few beside you, their idle chatter, and forgot her name when she told it to you. Her face was not as it is now — like dove wings, as in flight, shifting with a careful, fluttering grace that rivals your quick turns. Then, her face was a hard column. Today, in the kitchen, it is all softened by time like the depleted masts of Roman monuments.
You were not desperate days later, either. She was still there, this time at a house party, awake and sober, watching you. You asked for her name again, sheepish with embarrassment, and she only smiled, and what little you knew of it then. Of her smile; a quiet, melting candle.
Did it show its face during the night, when she was all skin and muscle? Or when she laid across your floor, dragging a finger through the rug, curling her toes into her patterned socks and kicking your shin? Maybe, it was when she dragged a box from under her childhood bed, full of spine-bent journals and faded photographs of her grinning, braces-clad teeth.
When she read aloud the voice of her twelve year old self, how she interjected her own speech with added histories and you rolled your eyes and motioned for her to hurry. When you tried to snatch the book from her hands and she whacked you with it, that wide, burning smile on her mouth, her face fluttering. She read of past crushes, said their names with a reverence and memory that sparked your jealousy. It reared that ugly beast’s head and hissed, how many names are in her diary that are not yours?
Maybe it was then, when desperation finally came. Desperate to have her, and more than have her. Desperate to share with her, everything — the sky and its molded clouds, the snatches of eavesdropped conversations, past secrets and old, rusted skeletons who moved from haunting her closet to dining with you at picnics. Their bones stacked in a warmly woven basket, light enough to blow into the wind.
Now, the kitchen scene and whatever that means. You are standing in the open doorway and she has not noticed you yet. The radio whines. The sink thrashes. It is a final exam. It is your flesh changed, grown out from you and into her.
There is only this. You don’t remember when it came. Through the woods or out of the stormy ocean banks. Into this ending sequence where all the light in the world is made up of her nails, her veins, her fine, soapy wrists caught in the torrents of tap water.
You want to eat her alive. You want to hold her in your arms. You want to run your hands all over her. You want her to cry until her voice cracks. You want everyday to rise and set on her shining face.
There is a part of you that is desperate. When has there been anything else?
She turns, catches you staring, and the blotchy life of a blush crawls up her neck. You walk to her. You place your arms around her waist and rest your chin on the dip of her shoulder.
Don Mclean croons, and I love you so.
//
Brynn Lemons is an 18 year old from Littleton, Colorado. She is currently a student at the University of Oregon with a major in English. She has not been published elsewhere, but hopes to explore writing through communities like Chewing Dirt.
Brynn Lemons is an 18 year old from Littleton, Colorado. She is currently a student at the University of Oregon with a major in English. She has not been published elsewhere, but hopes to explore writing through communities like Chewing Dirt.