Inherited

Megan, my half-sized housemate, presses her baby blue Princess Elsa stamp on the back of my hand. She nods when I tell her it’s pretty.

Her mother finds us in the shared living room. From a grocery bag, her she digs out a lock of braided hair - a thousand shades lighter than hers. “Why the hell is he keeping this?” she asks of my landlord. I know better than to defend him.

Megan eyes her mother, then scoots closer to me. She stamps below the original, then completes a triangle. She blots each of my knuckles.

Alongside the braid, her mother finds a plus sized swimsuit. She holds it open to show how two of her could fit. “Is he hoping she’ll come back for this?” she asks, but answers herself in Spanish. She uses words I only guess at, but Megan heard them all before.

Swarmed over my wrist, the Elsas spread to my forearm, claiming open territory. I tell Megan it’s pretty, and she nods.

Her mother rubs beneath her eye, baiting tears. “Is he talking to her?” she asks.

Megan maps crowded constellations from elbow to shoulder cap. Her stamp suspended, she searches for new placement.

I tug at my shirt and pat my chest. “Here.”

Fresh Cut

For two months after my friend got dumped, he refused leaving his house. When he emerged, I saw he took clippers to his head and shaved himself to roots. I mentioned how it suited the season, but he denied the weather having any say. Instead, he brushed his fresh cut where locks used to be, and said, “It just felt right.” He explained the process of how easy the inches came off, how months of time could clump on tile.

While I adjust my clippers, I push my hair back for an idea. My cheeks could be tighter to the bone. My chin could be more sharp, show more prominence.

After I wipe the fallout from my brow, it pleases me to see my head doesn’t peak the way I thought. The square of my jaw might even carry the look.

Still, I don’t prefer it, this open line of sight to my eyes.

I tell the mirror that my clothes are dated, that I should work out more.

Skipping

I chaperoned three students on a sailboat. With nowhere for them to get lost, I reclined while our skipper, gray haired and skin creased, tried to teach them when to flip the jib.

But it didn't interest them, this mechanical information. Instead, they stuck their head out the railing to see if they could spot fish through the foot of translucent water.

As our skipper grew to know the kids, he favored giving instructions over explaining them. To help the situation, I belted, “Listen,” but it came just as one of them swore he saw a turtle - though there was none - and each of them scampered to the stern.

Once they laid the sighting to rest, our skipper squinted, adding toes to the crow's feet at his eyes, and said, “The wind's dying down.”

To my surprise, someone responded, “Is that good or bad?”

He replied, “It's temporary.”

In the silence that followed, I hoped they thought it through. But one spoke up with, “I'm hungry,” and the others agreed.

Implications

I imagine Jennie sitting across the fast food booth, pausing from picking at her fries while I mention the stresses of seeing multiple women. “Really should start keeping note cards,” I’d say, “Before I get their hobbies mixed up.”

I draw out the look on her face as she sees the latest picture I posted - with a woman whose shoulder melds into mine in front of a fake Christmas tree.

I see us sitting on the curb of her house, her asking about my work, what I’ve been up to, who I’ve been hanging out with. And I trace the trail of her questions past her lips, down her throat, back into her lungs, then collapse the walls by muttering a foreign name.

I fantasize because of the reality: I haven't heard from her in weeks.

So when she approaches with a text of “I hope you're doing fine,” I unwrap the gift to mean, Yes, I still matter. And only now am I prepared to reply with nothing.

8 ball

You couldn’t lean the way I’d shown you, though I guided your hips to be just so. And you didn’t quite grasp how to keep your wrist flat, but your knuckles up. Your conversation, too, was failing. Bringing up your mother who cheated you out of your paychecks. Your ex-boyfriend whose baby you miscarried the past month. I’d met you on your last week before Sacramento. It was happy hour at the bar. Why ruin what this was supposed to be?

Yet there we were, me giving cue advice you couldn’t translate.  You knocking in balls on my behalf. Saying things like, It was fucking crazy; I don’t know how I made it through; My life is a movie. Things I wish I could say and mean. Despite yourself, you kept the 8 ball alive.

After we wandered into that tattoo parlor, I joked how we should get matching 8 ball tattoos on our hips. You asked what it’d cost when I stopped you and explained how I planned for my first tattoo to be a poem - strewn across my chest - in the likeness of an equalizer. Meaningful. Original.  Thought out in advance.  But you were willing to etch the permanent reminder on a whim.  Of course you were! It would’ve gone with the woman snake charmer on your opposite thigh. You didn’t need courage, you were practiced with the needle.  I’m that way with the pen.

So how’s Sacramento?

Lolo

My grandpa’s was a language of staring.  He stared when I had something to say.  He stared when I should’ve had something to say.  He stared when there was nothing at all to say.  Being young, I took this as reason to avoid him.  But once, while my parents were out, I found him in his room, staring at a movie.  I preferred it to being alone, so I sat without permission, saw Mel Gibson driving a dune buggy on TV.  After the first explosion, I exclaimed, “Wow.”  He echoed, “Mm.”  We went on this way, in simple agreement of what was cool, who deserved to be shot, how we wanted the hero on top.  Before the movie finished, though, my parents came home.  Being young, I ran out the room to be with them.  I left my grandpa staring at the TV, whispering to the end.