At First
By Emma Zwickel
It would be soft at first, the kind of sweetness you would expect from a honeysuckle pleading harvest, the knuckle of candied fruit. And he would be soft at first too. He, with his indigo eyes, bleeding blue, the swallow of the most seasoned skies. He, with his skin, velvet to her touch, unfathomably sensitive. And he, with his hurt, impenetrable. Unbreakable. She would try to break through her doubt with pretended aptitude, forcing herself to lie beneath him, perform for him, hold the weight of his hunger and rage. But soon, she would loosen her grip, and all that should have come naturally would dull away.
It would be warm at first. And she would try to pretend he would always be a hot summer’s night to fall back into. She would remember her parents, those six years stationed in Alaska where there was never enough warmth to sustain the winter ice. Hand in hand, there would be Gospel on Sunday and early Monday coffee stalemates with harsh realities and hell-raised fists. One by one, the days would drift away and one day, she would find herself already half-gone. She would watch through fogged eyes as he whisked her off to sunny San Diego, as they’d feign joy and solace and all dawns beautiful. But as she’d become mellow, he’d grow cold. And there wouldn’t be room for comfort anymore. There would simply not be room.
It would be childsplay at first, a combination of a boy-meets-girl-meets-universe and an assortment of myths impossible to decipher. Back when hell was a bad word and storks brought babies to her neighbors' door. She would finger the pages of her roughed-up King James Bible, massaging each verse as if she could squeeze out its mysteries. Is it a sin to want? One Sunday, she would realize the fullness in her breasts and a subtle protruding of her stomach. Then, too many Sundays later, she would be pushing, pushing for a reason to go on and give somebody else life, a better life than her own. One night she’d dream of a flock of storks who’d mouth-carry wide-eyed newborns to her hospital bed. But she would awake the next morning, rubies splashing up and down her thighs, and there would be no sign of anybody ever having lived within her.
It would be easy at first, bodies soothed by the dim candlelight of oh my God, forever could finally be a possibility if only we can hold on long enough to savor this moment. She would imagine herself associating those words with a woman. Again, and again. Like a spell that would stink to the innermost grievances of her conscience. Her parents would consider it a curse. At first, they would. But someday, they would forgive, would reconcile, and give her their blessing. She and her lover would twirl in the moonlight, hands caressing each other’s waists. It would be only in the darkness that they could touch but it would be enough. The message would be passed along, offered on a silver platter until it was finally understood I love you like the stale crunch of childhood when the sign of the cross never felt ugly and I knew which corner of the chapel you sat in with your grandparents. I love you like all of God’s rainbows could never compare to the cascade of colors we have created here inside our own sanctuary. I love you like you never left. I love you like His tears never mattered to me if you were the one crying. In all the ways you tell me you could never love me, I love you.
She held onto estimated facts and figures. Her hope was like a boomerang flung into artificial lamplight.
It would be new again at first and she’d recall how his mother stood in the uppermost pew in the left aisle, weeping until the tears wasted her away. She would wear white, something borrowed, something blue, and something melted in the reflection of his smile as they’d spin the night away. They would have two children, a boy, and a girl. A picket fence. All the works. The four of them would live happily ever after, perhaps in a mansion, perhaps in a quaint cottage splattered in cobwebs. “As long as they were happy,” he would tell her. As long as they were happy. Five years later, she would ask herself, “Am I really happy?”
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I was unscathed at first, and then I found my history. It was my blood bound in ropes and my spirit shoved into the sunshine and myself whom I blame for my hardened shell and demand for constraint. I have imagined locking lips with men who love me only for my edges and have slept beside women who were not able to flesh out the idents of my curves. Every day, I am reminded of my bloodline and how it pricks at me, winks from the hidden shadows of alleyways and broken streetlights. Daring me and the rest of our descendants. Betray the natural order of His Kingdom.
I have come to learn that love is not meant to be loved. It swerves and it dips in and out of phases, swooning beside dusk and ducking behind heaps of gold. Sometimes I think love is not meant to be mine. In the closet, I’ve avoided the infinite possible pathways of my past, turned away schoolboys who courted me with strawberries dipped in chocolate and grocery store carnations. Somewhere they are men now— alcoholics, ice fishermen, priests, and deadbeat fathers. By now, they have forgotten their boyhoods; they know no better than to. But I cannot. I remember who I have arisen from. My eyes bleed blue, and I picture what my future could look like: California Christmases, the gift of life delivered to my front porch, the first rainy rainbow ever smiled beneath. It all comes down to now. At last, I close my eyes and see the name lesbian painted across my body, a name never before proposed to me. I think that before I simmer to nothing, I must learn to love that name with everything I am. With every misstep that in walking the paths of my foremothers and forefathers, I would have taken.