good ol’ days, pt 2

Let's give it up for the good ol' days.

It's April and I’ve regained sensation on my hand (the one with the tremor.) Odd, isn't it? How the passing of time can break heart ligaments but suture synapses; soften skin but starve the soul. A part of you can only stay dysfunctional for so long before it becomes an afterthought. Now that I can open both hands again, I don't even know what to do with them anymore. A hand is an impossible responsibility. Two feel too heavy, too burdensome. I developed an affinity for that pesky little tremor, the way it made the coffee taste like static by the time it made its way to my mouth, how it rattled this naked hand under the hold of another—a rattle I could chalk up to my condition, but now I can no longer shield myself behind that pretense. Now, if my hand trembles when I pluck a blooming daisy or cradle the face of a beautiful man, I've got to scavenge my heart for the reason.

Let's give it up for the good ol' days.

The mimosa tree that used to tower over my window collapsed sometime last January. Three months before I got admitted. Word has it, someone cut it down in an attempt to tame its brutal branches and the smoldering smell of its puffy flowers. Word has it, someone hated the color yellow and couldn't stand to see it each time they looked out of the window. Two days after I got out, the first thing I did was go to the nearest Home Depot, buy a potted mimosa, and plant it in the patch of soil directly beneath my window. I hope it still stands tall when I swing by this time next year. I hope it puts up the best of fights against whoever tries to axe it next.

Let's give it up one last time, for the good ol' days that, in retrospect, weren't half good.

The world has since collapsed and re-birthed itself, and I am a free man. Lightning flowers still wind across my arms and chest. The tremor may have left, but there's a comfort in knowing they're forever branded into my flesh. This time of year, they blossom in a rosy glow my lover soaks up when his lips trace their branches. My lover, the man who always came back. The man who has carved me open a hundred times and stitched me back together a hundred and one. The man I once craved to kill to kill my craving for him. We've spun in the chaos and come back with pomegranate seeds in place of teeth. We've hunted our skeletons down until we ran out of bones to shoot. Now we float the world unchained, me the unassuming messenger, him the infamous corpse. Both free in the way only we know how to be. Both free in the only way it matters.