Once There Was Wendy

Once there was me with Wendy, in a time plucked back like bass strings before the drop. A picture once lived in my mind, before time spit it out like grass tore up in the hum of a lawnmower’s chomp.

If honey is love, was our circumstance the bees? All day they worked, their tiny legs and wings, but the garden thrived even with the invasive weeds. The auburn of her hair, like autumn leaves, I see its color sometimes when old memories breathe.

In mine eyes were the smoldering conviction of the sea, unwavering even as the waves lapped against my cheek. In them was salt that stung my flesh, but it always felt familiar, even as it gnawed at cuts born deep.

But still, my Wendy, she believed in great dreams, believed we could fly even as our lies played on repeat. The tape winding back, each song the same loop, I too danced to the music, for us—it was our truth.

Like the truth of her hazel eyes, like greened pebbles glistening beneath soft streams. Or the lull of her touch, more real than the musings that holy men oft preach. Or how I held her in my arms, as she was the world to me. Once I gave her my heart, boot strapped and enlisted to my lover’s decree.

Darling WENDY, she felt it too! She saw it too! I was her dear Kirriemuir, and for all my love, she gave me all her devotion. Our webs wound into each other like coppered strings conducting a symphony. Storms raged and winds tore at this silk, but years pressed on, she was my Wendy still.

And then I fell back to the sea, the fickle pied piper child in his green kilt. Wendy held on, she dreamed as I could not, though I disappeared into the immutable deep. And oft she called, a shrill cry that broke my heart; I heard it from the depths, but I did not believe. Even as she tried, tried to get me to breathe, I receded into the myths of my self-deceit.

Months passed painfully, as fingernails that claw at hard concrete. When I finally surfaced, her voice faded into the trees, and in that silence I recalled all the love I had for my darling Wendy. Oh! Wendy, my discovery too late.

Once there was Wendy, in a time plucked back like bass strings before the drop.