Marream Krollos
Reincarnations
A long, long, long time ago there was a slave girl who lived here. She cried a little every time her master pulled out of her. One large tear would well up all around the bottom of one eye and smear her face coming down. In the little room shaped like a house, while she was lying on a bed, he would pull out of her in the middle of the day. She would wait until he walked out to sit up, pull her dress down, and walk to the door to stand in the doorway and stare at the trees. The other slaves would see her tear-smeared face and ask her what went wrong. I don’t know. It’s as if I am sad about something. It’s as if I am sadder when it is over than while it is happening. His broad mouth she thought was ugly, but she had become so accustomed to staring at its full, trembling lips. What happens to you is just what happens. It is how it is. You know this. Yes, but it’s as if when he pulls out of me something goes missing, my heart which had not beat the whole time he was inside me leaves me through my place down there. What is wrong with you? I don’t know. They feel too distant from him to understand her closeness. He is one thing and they another. They would kill him if they could. They would not cry when he left their bodies because they are one thing and he another. I don’t know why I feel it. Maybe it just makes me sad when he leaves me because nobody is inside me then. I am quiet while it happens and empty afterwards, my heart does not beat during and then it leaves.
She came back many years later as a man who, in his youth, was in love with a girl. She had a very wide, full mouth. He couldn’t have her because she didn’t want him to have her, so he could only imagine her beautiful face in his hands, her broad mouth on his fingers. In his old age he would have to imagine her beautiful, full lips on a fair-skinned man to feel anything. Then that face would turn into the face of a boy with fair hair and a broad mouth on his bed. His spotted, wilted hands would reach for them. When he was ashamed of this he would remind himself that really he was reaching for her. As a very, very old man, he would leave his bed only to go buy things to eat to keep him from feeling hunger and come back to his little apartment in a building shaped like a tall house. He would feel so much joy to be all alone again that one large tear would well up at the corner of one eye as he pressed his trembling lips together and pressed them against the door.
He came back years later as a man who, when he saw a woman with full lips on a wide mouth, wanted her mouth so desperately that he felt he had to have it, whether she wanted to give it or not. He believed he needed her mouth more than she needed her mouth. He would watch these women, follow these women, and think about bringing them back to his house. Their mouths were so beautiful that he would need them to be still while he kissed them. He dreamed of tying these broad-mouthed women up and kissing them hard while they deformed their faces. Their mouths were good. They were bites of food, morsels, perfect bites. Were they given willingly, he would have felt as if he was being fed. He was, after all, a man not a child, if he could eat all by himself, then he could feed himself. Sometimes you just want the good thing in life in your own hands. It just doesn’t feel the same when it is handed to you, placed in your mouth. He wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much.
The fires have turned everything in the city into a beautiful candle
We are all over this place. We eat here and sit here. We lay our arms here after we have done what we have done. We fill this place with smell. We face each other in the kitchen, then land on the table, or floors, where we will later sit or eat. We spread open and claw. You are obsessed with how I react. You make my hands hurt. You know I need you because it is you doing this to me. We don’t worry about space, or the open curtains. When we are done, I turn around to hold you, and we fall asleep, no matter what time it is.
You are always here in the mornings, but when I don’t see you, I get restless. I go out. I walk down the street with a woman who can have any man she wants and the man she wants to have. Today we see a fire in the city. They walk behind me, concerned about how I leave them to hide in corners. I miss you. I slump with my head back and my legs wide apart to try to fit my hands inside my face and body. I can hear her say to him, “Look inside the windows of the burning buildings. Everything, the chairs, the lamps, the tables have flames on top of them. Huge flames that look small from so far away.”
Now I know why you want her. She is pretty. She thinks everything is pretty like she is. She makes everything pretty for you that way. Sometimes she picks up your hands and puts them to her face. Her lips graze your fingertips right before the back of your hand touches her cheek. She can do this. She can touch you without looking for you afterwards.
I try and fit my fingers anywhere they will fit.