55 Laments for Grendelmouse
The first lament
The first time I met you
I knew, when you threw back
your head and laughed
that I would sleep with you.
We walked in the park until we
found a sheltered place to stop.
You took my hands and asked
for a kiss. Nervous, I acquiesced.
Later we sat on the damp grass
and I caressed your erection
through your worn work jeans.
You thought I was forward.
Your eyes were grey. A year
and a half gone, I would wonder
if that was the last time you
had looked directly at me.
The second lament
Emboldened by alcohol, I
called you at midnight on
Tuesday; you opened your
door, and opened all of mine.
Your house was all bare
studs lit by candles, scented
with machine oil and strewn
with sawdust. You wore boots.
Upstairs, wine in teacups, a
black futon and an altar of
massive sex toys. I didn’t
know what you did to me.
The next day, exhausted,
confused, sore, I wasn’t sure
if I’d liked it, but I knew
I wanted to do it again.
The third lament
In those early days you were
a mess, and I served to save you
from your thoughts. You said
you didn’t want to be alone.
You wore a grey skirt that
touched the floor, and your
skin was dry from alcohol
and from the sorrow of loss.
Standing in the kitchen, you
washed your few dishes
carefully, while I stood and
was grateful to be near you.
Sitting on the porch while
your children played naked
in the pool, I was a fill-in wife
while you bought groceries.
The fourth lament
I spent the night by accident
curled on your damp mattress.
I awoke in a panic at dawn
and fled back to my home.
As weeks went on I grew to
need sleeping sweaty beside
you, your body trembling
late at night with grief.
You wept in your sleep, and
I anchored you with my breath
whispering in your ear that
everything would be okay.
Lying awake in the middle
of the night, I stared at your
back as you slept, and I wept
because I had fallen in love.
The fifth lament
Your tooth, your lip, your ear
I fell in love with every thing
about you one at a time, as
if each was a whole person.
The way you sit on your heels
enthralled me, and your walk,
and the way you laugh. There is
a chip in your right front tooth.
I would marry the way your
hands move, and the crow’s
feet at the corners of your eyes.
Missing your lower lip, I cry.
I have your body memorized;
your gold, your tramp stamp,
your biceps and your thighs
and your grasping fingers.
The sixth lament
If there was one thing I could
change to make things right,
I wouldn’t know what it was.
Even the anger had its place.
The times she told you she
was never coming back, and
I ran to be the shoulder you
could lean on for a while.
The times I told you I can’t
see you anymore, that you
used me, that I don’t know
how to unknot my heart.
The times I told you I knew
from images in my dreams
that someday we would be
together, as if preordained.
The seventh lament
We watched movies together
and somehow over time you
became my closest friend. We
spent Sundays on your porch.
I knew we drank too much and
that I wanted more than you
were offering. Most of the time
it didn’t bother me. Not much.
It was a year before I told you
that my marriage was weak
to begin with, and that my
husband was always unhappy.
I nearly bled to death one night.
You were in Wisconsin, and
I didn’t tell you until later
that he and I had broken up.
The eighth lament
My husband wanted the open
marriage that led me to you,
and there is irony in my heart
breaking more for you than him.
You were to be my midnight
booty call, the cuckold that
fueled his fantasies and freed
him to philander without guilt.
Instead you became my home
base, my kindred spirit, heart
of my heart and coconspiritor.
We grew gradually entwined.
Even our children loved each
other like sisters and brothers,
so I read yours fairy tales and,
sleepy, sang to them at night.
The ninth lament
Do you remember how we
grew to know each other? How
talking between sex gradually
led to talking instead of sex?
You would open a beer the
way you did last week, and pour
it into two glasses, one for each.
The silences were comfortable.
You couldn’t sleep without a
movie on, and that became our
thing; two rentals and too much
wine, and I would spend the night.
I felt such delight the day you
told me you collect Star Wars
figurines. Such a nerdy thing,
I thought, to do; he is my kind.
The tenth lament
In the mornings I would wake,
and at first would run, but soon
I started to linger, to drink tea
and talk of our plans for the day.
You always had an aversion
to making love, but in the dawn,
spooning, hard, I could coax you
to abandon your barriers.
Once, a year ago this week, I
told you that I wanted you to
climax while looking into my
eyes. You did. I couldn’t relax.
After sex you would curl up,
clinging to my body. I still don’t
now know if it was sensation or
emotion that seized you so.
The eleventh lament
You fell sick last Spring at the
same time as my husband. I
hustled from house to house
to tend you both to health.
Your son stayed in thrall to the
fever one week, two, too long. His
mother fed him broth and tea and
refused to take him to a doctor.
When finally you insisted on
bringing the midwife in, it was
nearly too late. I was camping
at the coast when you told me.
Outside anxious on the phone,
I blessed technology and cried
when you said “pneumonia, the
worst case they’ve ever seen.”
The twelfth lament
That summer, watching your
son recover, grateful all the
time for his baby-monkey
presence. His scars will fade.
I came over with beer and
groceries. You cooked meat
for me and the kids on your
backyard grill. So mundane.
Digging out and planting the
garden you said your wife
neglected. Fresh herbs for the
kitchen you almost never use.
Strawberries for the children
I loved, tomatoes for no reason,
spinach that never was eaten,
but the garden was a success.
The thirteenth lament
Making out while the kids watched
TV; your daughter turned to see
and said, “they’re just kissing”.
I had your belt buckle undone.
In the kitchen, your hand on my
throat while you did... that…
and I fell backward onto you.
Don’t come in here, children.
In the bathroom, my dark hair
entwined in your fingers, the
vehemence of your penetration.
My fingernails scrape the wall.
You kissed me goodnight with so
much tenderness, and the bruises
took days to fade. I worshipped
every moment they marked.
The fourteenth lament
On the futon, in the morning,
the taste of your skin and the
surge of blood, on top until you
overturned me and mounted.
The next day, on the way to
the beach in the family car, I
received a text: youfuckinrock.
It was everything. I hid a smile.
I told you once that sometimes
people demonize each other
in order to ease the parting of
ways. I must do it to you now.
The truth of how things are is
much harder than the stories
I’ve started telling myself. You
are neither a liar nor a fraud.
The fifteenth lament
Out one night at an art show
with friends, you kept texting
suggestions that shook my
hands and dried my throat.
You always were elusive, and
when I tried to call you back
to fulfill your promises, you
wouldn’t answer your phone.
Sometimes we would have
plans, but I’d arrive and you
wouldn’t be home. It made me
furious, but I always came back.
Once I ignored you for a night
or two, and the message you
left was so beseeching that there
was nothing for me but to relent.
The sixteenth lament
Monday was our night. Once
I arrived at your house only to
find you gone, and your phone.
Outraged, I threw it in the yard.
Looking through the weeds
for it, I never did find the battery.
I tracked you down and threw
the phone at you, but missed.
When you arrived at my house
a few minutes later I couldn’t
believe you cared that much
about me. A crying crazy girl.
You took me somewhere I
don’t remember. A club where
we watched women strip? We
could have talked. We didn’t.
The seventeenth lament
Your old Ford. I fell in love with
it too, or I was in love with it
already when we met. Red
and white, a dent in the side.
So many times you would run
out of fuel, and I leapt at the call
to meet you on the roadside. It
was like the truck read my mind.
It stank, and I could hear you
coming from blocks away. My
heart still pounds at the sound
of a vintage V8 in poor repair.
A neighbor a street distant has
one. It took me weeks to work
out why I wake every morning
at five to my heart breaking.
The eighteenth lament
I miss the smell of you, and
your hands. I miss the way
you lie so still in your sleep,
and I miss your small sounds.
Grendelmouse, no one else
has ever had so many parts
of me. Every lonely little bit
is a piece you have kissed.
Another cliché; missing you
is like missing part of myself.
There’s a hole in my chest
where you used to whistle.
We never had to talk. A look
was enough to be understood.
We never stopped talking. All
day we never dried of words.
The nineteenth lament
I had all these scars, heartaches
that never wanted to fade. Old
lovers who left a print so strong
I thought it couldn’t be outworn.
Like the line in Famous Blue
Raincoat; he never tried. You
took the trouble from my eyes
and replaced it with one greater.
I disbelieved in meant to be
before we met. I didn’t think
people could have a bond this
strong; such understanding.
The thing that makes me unable
to breathe properly is knowing
(or thinking) that it doesn’t feel
this way for you. It’s me, alone.
The twentieth lament
I did this. It squeezes the life
from my lungs to know that
I pushed you so far away in
my pain. I wanted to be close.
You said you loved me. You
said I was your girl as much
as anyone was. I wanted too
much; I made it all change.
I wish I could fix the way my
heart beats. I want to lay my
head on your chest and match
my irregular rhythm to yours.
You held my hands and told
me everything would be okay.
I wanted hard to believe you.
I want you to believe in, too.
The twenty-first lament
Remember the river in summer
with innertubes and a cooler full
of fruit? We sat on the stony bank
and watched the kids playing.
The water was cold, and deeper
than you thought. The children
liked drifting too far, and I would
swim across and retrieve them.
So much beauty. No one wanted
to go but the sun was dropping
and soon there would be be food;
steaks on the backyard barbecue.
Nostalgia is a hoary thing. This
is still too young to qualify. I will
forget sometimes that I won’t be
back there again – not with you.
The twenty-second lament
I don’t know how to chronicle
falling in love with you, or losing
you, or losing my mind. I find
myself hollow and sore inside.
I kept saying yes. I gave him
everything, including giving
myself to you. And then I lost
everything; I lost both of you.
I will never be the same girl,
Cori tells me this. I know it.
I don’t mind losing that girl,
she said yes too many times.
I can’t tell the difference now
between hunger and anguish.
They’re not the same, but they
share a similar kind of pain.
The twenty-third lament
Many years ago I had three
dreams. I began to believe
that the unseen man beside
me in them would be you.
The one most vivid showed
us in a dark truck in the rain.
You asked me if I was too cold
with the window rolled down.
We crossed wet train tracks
and you worked up to what
you brought me out to tell.
You could have not; I knew.
You’d realized you wanted to
be with me. I said, Where do
we go from here? You held
my hand, and said nothing.
The twenty-fourth lament
I once walked right past you
without noticing, meeting you
for a date- I think our second.
You are not tall or handsome.
But in your smell and your
voice, your hands and hooded
eyes and especially so in the
way you laugh; there is god.
You are beautiful in subtle
ways, a feral thing with your
heart, your art and your altar,
your insistence on being free.
I want for no one to clip your
wings. I want your children
to know they too can grow up
pretty creatures, unleashed.
The twenty-fifth lament
My friends saw before I did
how well we worked together,
the closeness of our fit. Like
puzzle pieces make a picture.
Little by little you lost your
elusiveness, and unfolded
your story to me in pages
made of evenings together.
You loved your wife with an
intensity I yearned for, and
ached for her return as much
as I ached over all my losses.
I watched you pursue her for
over a year, and on our more
frequent nights I would hold
you as your heart broke again.
The twenty-sixth lament
The second time he left me
I fled to your house, weeping,
bereft and certain that it was
now at an end. You held me.
I had kept from you trouble
that kept raising its head
in my marriage; my mate’s
dissatisfaction with our life.
When the dam broke and I
went to you crying, you did
not for a while understand.
You thought I overreacted.
When I went home it was not
as bad as I had feared; the
children were still away, and
my husband was still there.
The twenty-seventh lament
I was wrong to try to hurt
you with my words. I don’t
truly believe that you have
stopped caring about me.
It’s just impossible for me to
watch you do what I know
you need to do. Even with
the water under the bridge.
A year and a half ago you
were as broken as I am now,
and for the same reason, but
back then I was right there.
I know it’s hard to see how
I can be as broken over you
as you were over her. I was
after all, only your friend.
The twenty-eighth lament
I can’t work. It’s hard to eat.
Sometimes I try to sleep.
I’m not certain how I make it
through from week to week.
After he left I knew I could
not do my work alone, so I
hired you to handle things
an artist doesn’t have to do.
You came every morning
with a cup of milky chai tea
and became my reason for
getting up in the morning.
Without you here, there is
only a reason on the days
when my children are home.
They miss you after school.
The twenty-ninth lament
You told me once, after I had
fallen, that you couldn’t feel
anything anymore, you’d gone
numb. I’m waiting for numb.
Although I hate telephones
we started talking every day
for hours. You could barely
believe things he said to me.
I loved your honesty, and told
you so. You said it had been
hard to learn, and a long time
coming. You used to cheat.
I walked and cried while we
talked, and sometimes I went
to your house for an embrace.
It was almost solace enough.
The thirtieth lament
You brought me loads of
mulch for my garden, and
we spread them while the
children played in the dirt.
We merged in many ways
and agreed on the value of
homegrown fruit. Our yards
began to flourish together.
My garden and yours were
both given less care than we
intended, but were better
than they would have been.
One day I told you of how he
thought my garden was my
misplaced priority, and you
asked him out to disagree.
The thirty-first lament
It seems I was with you on
my birthday last year, but
like many things it could
be me recalling it wrong.
Remember the girl I used to
be? Man, she could weather
anything, always laughing.
I wish I was that girl again.
I hid my heartbreak from
you when he kept leaving
me. Lying foetal on the floor
of my studio, screaming.
He left and left. I won him
back once by nearly dying
but I couldn’t pull that off
again. Not by accident.
The thirty-second lament
I feel sorrow for such a sad
mother I’ve become, how
it must affect my children,
lights I am lucky to have.
I try to conceal it from them
and maybe I succeed, while I
sing and I bake and pretend
to be a woman in one piece.
I loved the life I used to have;
I loved where it intersected
with you, and imagined ways
we could enrich each other.
We are strangely compatible
in ways we think and speak;
even alone in our homes we
thrive to plan and rearrange.
The thirty-third lament
I woke up scared in bed this
morning, remembering that
you are no longer my friend.
Sad overtakes me with dawn.
When I first started spending
the night in your bed I hardly
slept; adrenaline and newness
kept me half-awake all night.
By the time I was banished
from your home all I longed
to do at the end of the day
was fall asleep next to you.
Once in the first few feverish
days after the end, I dreamed
that you came one morning
and slipped into bed with me.
The thirty-fourth lament
I thought I’d be over you
by now. It turns out it takes
more time than I wanted.
You got into me that deep.
The time you took him out
and asked why I thought he
was leaving me, and he acted
dumb, like he had no idea.
You called Cordelia to find
out if I’m crazy, and he came
home angry because I was
sharing our private mess.
I was in my garden, where he
stood and yelled at me. You
had been so sure he planned
to come home to apologize.
The thirty-fifth lament
There is disbelief at being
unwanted. I know I pushed
you away like I shouldn’t
have done, but I was afraid.
My whole body is shaking
along as my heart pounds.
I feel ashamed of who I’ve
become. I’ve turned mean.
The worst thing is thinking
that if I could have kept my
temper and your friendship,
what we had could remain.
In a way you are a fragile
thing, a creature who needs
to be handled carefully. Not
by I and my brute appetites.
The thirty-sixth lament
You told him once that the
first thing you loved about
me is how I do everything
wholly, with all my heart.
Maybe you didn’t realize
that would extend to you
too, and to the loss of you.
I can’t do things halfway.
Maybe it made me lovable
then, but now it makes me
easy to walk away from.
Is it simple to disengage?
I never learned the knack
of it. Even the ones I left, I
agonized over. Not quite
like this; this pain is new.
The thirty-seventh lament
The other week when I said
I thought you used me, I felt
something break between us
athough you were not here.
I told you to show me you still
care for me by talking to me as
a friend. You responded with
silence; all the answer I need.
I think there’s not a place now
in your life for a crazy broken
girl who can’t keep from saying
hurtful things. Time to grieve.
I would wish for forgiveness,
but I know it will do no good
and anyway, I’m still not sure
that it didn’t need to be said.
The thirty-eighth lament
Once, for a while, your wife
came back to live with you.
I was happy for you at the
time. She stayed one week.
You told me she had left you
before but she always came
home. Not this time. She got
a place with her newest guy.
It’s fishing for her; she reels
in when she’s ready, and you,
with your hook, don’t even
realize you’re still on the line.
It was easy to see this coming;
new drama with her boyfriend,
you her renewed confidante.
I called it a month in advance.
The thirty-ninth lament
The last time he didn’t leave.
I was late coming home one
morning, again, and he left
for work without a word.
Pre-emptive strike; I texted
“You’re right, and besides, I
don’t love you anymore”. It
was a lie. I cried on the floor.
I am proof positive that if
you push people away one
time too many, they won’t
keep coming back for more.
For three months he slept on
the sofa and I took solace in
you, and too much hope. I
stayed together for a while.
The fortieth lament
I adored your appetite and
your unabashed displays of
sexuality. You made me feel
unashamed of everything.
You told me ribald stories of
giving head to friends in the
bathroom of the gay bar. You
would not hide who you are.
If I were only another number
of your playthings we could
not have felt the strong bond
we built back then between us.
Joking, you took to asking me
to fulfill ridiculous fantasies,
and then were astonished at
how often I was eager to try.
The forty-first lament
I used to tell you everything.
The funny thing is that now
without you, I still tell you
everything, from a distance.
I can’t make myself believe
that you’ve really given up on
me. Maybe you’re just trying
to give me the space you need.
Your silence is a loneliness
and no matter how I fill my
time with other men, I still
feel the ache of that absence.
Tell me one silly idea, friend
Grendelmouse, tell me what
you saw today. Tell me what
crazy things you’re thinking.
The forty-second lament
We went to the beach one
day and sat on blankets in
the sand. There was an old
overturned boat, decaying.
You wore nothing but your
sunhat, walking the waterline
all asscheeks and furry belly.
I thought you were beautiful.
The children played around
the wreck and I fed them fruit
and crackers, pretending not
to want to touch your skin.
Going home, a line of cars. The
late sun made our kids sweat
and squirm, and we saw boys
fighting brambles for the river.
The forty-third lament
How did I become someone
you run away from? Before
it all fell down for me I was
the one you came to in need.
This was not so one-sided as I
might make it sound; when my
world came down around me
you came and pulled me out.
This loneliness has been six
months in the making from
me, increasingly insecure, all
nervous neediness, clinging.
How much irony there is that
my fear of heartbreak would
make me push you away; how,
with my need, I seeded my loss.
The forty-fourth lament
Oh God, your love for art. My
hands have gone weak, they
no longer find their strength in
my making of beautiful things.
I am longing for a respite, some
kind of relief from missing you.
Of whose gods to ask the favor
of forgetfulness, or an email?
I have never prayed to Odin,
or any of your Germanic gods.
I am brown and Celtic, and my
gods are different from yours.
Somehow they are the ones
who hold the control over my
heart and my trembling hands.
Freyja, please give me release.
The forty-fifth lament
My friend said she saw you and
your wife the other day, buying
building supplies for the house.
She said you looked so happy.
Finally she’s there for you to
do what you need to make right
the roof over your children’s
heads where she once left you.
I wish you would allow me to
tell you how it makes me feel,
your happiness. Without me,
but at least the family is whole.
I would give anything to be a
part of it now, but the time for
that has gone by and I have the
work of making my own way.
The forty-sixth lament
When I met you your house
was squalorous, in shambles,
damaged from the fire before
she left you to those wolves.
There are things that only you
and I will know; I can not spell
out on paper all the conditions
of your terrible abandonment.
I will spell out only the picking
up, the bit by bit as I helped you
scrub your house clean of debris,
of clutter, garbage and despair.
I made curtains to replace the
pieces of sheet you had tacked
up over your cracked windows.
I washed the wood floors clean.
The forty-seventh lament
Sometimes I wish I could go
back in time and not feel so
keenly, react so immediately.
Would I still be who I am?
Would you have loved me in
the first place if I had been
reasonable and levelheaded,
not strung out on passion?
You once loved my voracity.
Maybe you still do, and have
only been consumed a little
too much from standing close.
Maybe two people who contain
this bright of a flame can’t touch
so much or so long without one,
burning, needing to turn away.
The forty-eighth lament
My sorrow must be becoming
because I’ve never been pursued
by so many suitors. Is it me they
want, or is it the shadow of you?
Your intellect, your magic, your
mild madness… these are things
I look for in other men, knowing
as I do it that it’s a futile search.
The smallest words from your
direction erase my sorrows for
a moment, and then, for a while,
I believe again in my wholeness.
When other friends call for me my
heart rises just for a moment in a
wish for you. A truck, passing by,
stirs my hope. It’s getting weaker.
The forty-ninth lament
The sunny days are the hardest. I
never knew what you meant when
you used to tell me that. Now the
light drives loneliness through me.
When your parents came to help
with the mortgage and the divorce
we worked days straight to bring
your home around to presentable.
We dug the new firepit over your
old dog’s grave, and in the summer
heat burned scrap wood until fire
engines were beckoned by smoke.
I got sick that night, and you held
me in bed as I shivered with fever.
You brought me tea and broth, and
went to work at dawn while I slept.
The fiftieth lament
I am going through it far too fast,
and I’m not ready to be done with
this, not yet. Maybe there will still
be more to the story between us.
Perhaps I need to stop believing
in the connection we thought we
had; let you go, even the part that
is your friendship. Open my hand.
After all this time, could I still not
really know who you are? It’s too
hard to believe I would be wrong
about that kind of understanding.
Could something so singular just
be another love affair to get over?
I can be simply any other girl, my
Grendelmouse, and you, any boy.
The fifty-first lament
Last night a restless dream; your
mother said to me, “As long as his
wife is with him you have no place
in his life.” I know that she’s right.
I was never quite sober with you,
was I? Tonight is the drunkest I’ve
been in a while, alone. We always
drank together in our loneliness.
In a few more days I will be ready
to fall again, my friend. I feel it. But
there will always be a little piece
reserved. I have it tucked away.
Wanted or not, you will always own
that small portion of me, even if it
is buried deep. There; it lives at my
body’s center, permanently waiting.
The fifty-second lament
We tiled a floor together once, the
week my husband agreed to leave.
You took me to lunch and told me
that you and I make a good team.
You cut the tile on my tile saw, water
spraying us both with a muddy mist.
Knees sore on the floor for hours to
assemble the pieces just so. Grouting.
I liked working with you and I liked
watching you work, your deft hands
cutting and putting together pieces
of things people want in their homes.
Our hands were dry from the alkaline
mortar, and I showed you how to rinse
with vinegar to neutralize it. We were
filthy, tired, aching and smug. Satisfied.
The fifty-third lament
I always admired your skills with
wood, and dreamed with you while
you made plans to build a business
out of some oddball brilliant idea.
I remember your arms, and the way
muscles in your back tense and shift
when you carry your tools to the truck.
I miss the sawdust on your shoulders.
You smelled like your truck, chemical,
combustible and old; like aging vinyl,
exhaust and machine oil. You smelled
like wood, pomegranate, and blue sky.
I hope that you’re still dreaming that
dream and haven’t let it slide to the
ground with so many others. I wish
I was helping you make it come true.
The fifty-fourth lament
I am remembering our camping
trip together, in summer when
things fell apart. You called me
“honey” twice, and I loved you.
The little ones played in the dirt
naked, filthy like little cavemen
and we played like a family for a
weekend in the mountain woods.
We got drunk by the campfire,
and then on the picnic table we
fucked, face to face, eye to eye as
lovers for the first and last time.
In the morning I bathed in the icy
snowmelt river, bracing against
cold and current as I washed the
sweat and hangover from my skin.
The fifty-fifth lament
And then, this abruptly, it is over.
You receded from my dreams and
my clenched fists opened; I am free
to begin falling for someone else.
You are drinking more and more
in the bar where we used to meet
and the last time I saw you we had
a friendly talk about small things.
You never called me after that,
and it’s just as well. What could
I be for you now? You have your
struggle ahead, and I have hope.
You’re driving a different truck.
I think I never told you that you
smell like sky. I miss you, my old
friend, Grendelmouse. Goodbye.