Moth-Like

Sometimes I place my hands over my face and, after a while, blink rapidly. My eyelashes feel like moth’s wings, smooth and almost powdery. I think of how it feels to hold a moth between my cupped hands, the insect’s wings fluttering against my palms as I run toward an open door to release it. I think of how the creature chooses a smaller world out of curiosity, drawn from the moon to the glow of a table lamp and then, though momentarily, makes itself to suffer the claustration of my cupped hands before it’s exhaled back into nature.

I’m not really sure what all that was about. Somewhere tucked neatly amongst the dramatic phrasing and colourful prose is an insightful metaphor with regard to our personal choices and the reasoning behind them or where curiosity may lead us or how life comes full circle. And maybe it’s none of that. In the meantime, I remove my hands from over my eyes and see my boyfriend standing there and smiling down at me trying to understand what I’m doing.

At the beginning of our relationship, I found myself pitying those poor suckers forced to be in our company. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Every spare moment, every pause between words, was spent kissing. We were unable to walk past each other without allowing our hands to graze the other’s arms or lower back, or bottom. At present, we’re still as excited to touch and kiss each other, but we’ve managed to control our public displays.

And now, as we approach the breadth of our relationship, we lie in bed next to each other and talk about our new place and our excitements and worries. After a few silent moments, he sighs and moves his face a bit closer to mine. He looks at me thoughtfully and asks, “Is this what love feels like?”

We kiss and then I press my face against his and blink, letting him feel the moth’s wings.

Banana Bread

I love banana bread. I love it so much that I will try to make it again, only this time, I will understand that baking powder and baking soda are not the same thing, even though they look the same outside of their packages. Naked, you would not be able to tell the difference between the two, until you put them in your banana bread batter. Baking soda sits there under the heat and does nothing. It has no benefit to the bread and what comes out is a dense loaf. But oh! The batter was so promising, beautiful and glossy and so sweet.

The childishly cute, curly-haired supermarket attendant didn’t know the difference. Why didn’t he know? He spends all day shelving it, shouldn’t he know the difference between powder and soda?

Now my beloved first-try banana bread smells like heaven and tastes like gross. Yeah, it tastes like gross tastes. But the scent is heavenly. We should sling this thick mass against every wall in the house, tuck slimy chunks into every drawer and even toss a few of the flavourless sultanas into the laundry for added fragrance, because that’s all it’s good for.

When the boyfriend walks through the door, he will inhale deeply and experience the same giddy euphoria that children experience upon coming home from school to warm, freshly baked cookies. He will sigh in disappointment after following the scent to the kitchen where he’ll find my flat, raisin-studded loaf.

He’ll come into the bedroom after trying a piece and, forcing a smile, say, “Hey Baby.”

“It didn’t come out right,” I’ll whine and chuckle a bit for humour.

He’ll laugh at my banana brick and hold me saying, “At least the frosting’s good.”

Everything All At Once

Women like us, we wear ourselves out. We check ourselves into mental hospitals at age forty-five, seeking some kind of rest. We, at age 23, sit in our bedrooms and cry when our boyfriends leave for work or basketball. Not because we miss them in their absence, no, actually the contrary is true. We cry to give release to all of the emotion and little stresses throughout the day. And they are little things:
I can’t run three laps around the park without having to stop and breathe for a few seconds; I’m feeling fat.
I can’t cook in time for you to eat without rushing and that’s because I was reading a novel when I should have been chopping peppers.
The people at work throw the word “rape” around like it’s not anything at all. On a busy night, they say, “We totally got raped tonight” and upon hearing this I wonder if I’ll always react with a pang in my stomach. Will I always be a victim?
The dishes in the sink are waiting for me and they certainly are not going to wash themselves.


And I look ridiculous sitting on the bed crying. The boyfriend comes in because he forgot to ask me something and he sees me wet-faced and red-eyed and I smile because maybe that will hide it. I make sure my eyes always light up when he walks into the room. I make sure I empty my arms when he approaches just in case he wants to hold or be held. I long to take care of him. It is my thankless joy, though he is appreciative. But I’m never satisfied. Women like me are insatiable.

What is this need to please? Am I sick? Are women like me sick?

He finds me crying on the bed, and I’m smiling up at him trying to hide the sincerity of my tears and whatever emotions caused them and his sweet face crumbles, his shoulders slack, and he asks, “Are you okay, Baby?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” and as I nod and smile, two more tears make their way down my face, “It’s nothing at all. I’m great.”

“Can I hug you?”

“Sure,” I say nonchalantly. But I really wish he wouldn’t. I really wish he would turn and leave the room. Don’t come any closer, Boyfriend. If he approaches, I know I’ll sob.

Between sobs I stammer, “It’s nothing. It’s really nothing at all.” And I believe this because it really is nothing, but it’s everything as well. It’s everything all at once.

And as his arms wrap around me, my hands find his back, which I rub soothingly, like I would were he the one with the wet face and red eyes. And I think, “It’s okay, Baby. You just let it all out. It’s okay.”