“I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,
the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips aglow in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don’t do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.”
-Sharon Olds
1.
Pink skin and clear blue eyes
horizon and void
mortality circles within a chest
spinning webs of muscle fibers
tiny hands outstretched and willing
welcoming the swirling incandescent sea of a star-dotted mobile
the flutter of warm milky breaths and arms to comfort cries
swim up, up and through
Delilah Jane was born on the 24th of March, 1993 in Richmond, Virginia. The air was cool and crisp, but it was one of those days where everything seemed clearer, illuminated by the sun; the sun overhead, the sun radiating off the asphalt, the sun reflecting off the hospital’s windows. After six hours of excruciating labor and 56 ice chips, all eight pounds and thirteen ounces of Delilah took her first breath.
She was welcomed into countless arms and her tiny pink fingers reached towards the promise of a warm embrace. She seemed content to doze while the others doted. With golden hair and pacific blue eyes, no mention of, “Oh! She has her father’s nose!” or, “Oh! She has her mother’s eyes,” occurred. With a first daughter of an olive complexion, think dark hair, and brown eyes, Delilah didn’t compare.
…
“Hey diddle diddle, the Cat and the fiddle…”
It was 2:43 am and a nightlight shaped like the moon illuminated a patch of the wall above the outlet it was plugged into. The navy blue curtains were drawn, and the Mother was silhouetted in darkness. The Mother, full of devoutness and love, tried and failed to keep her russet-colored eyes open. Her head was drawn down, tempted by the lull of sleep in her crib-side rocking chair.
“The Cow jumped over the moon…”
Delilah was awake in her crib of pale wood bars. She had no cries within her, only an occasional coo or gurgle. Her bright blue eyes were wide open, framed by her sweeping golden eyelashes. Those eyes, which were open to the world, and thirsting for information, were mesmorized by a star-dotted mobile, swirling and turning above her.
“The little Dog laughed to see such sport…”
Delilah reached one tiny hand up, up to reach those stars. At first it was pure enjoyment in simply watching the stars whirl in the darkness. But her tiny hand fell short, she couldn’t quite grasp them. So Delilah tried the other hand. She tried again, and again – they still couldn’t reach. But Delilah didn’t mind. Those stars would be in her sky the next night too. With one last peek at her stars, Delilah’s eyes fluttered shut. The corners of her rose pink lips turned up. Delilah smiled as she slept.
“And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.”
2.
Skinned knees and broken barbie dolls
postage stamps and gardenias
tiny hands tugging on grandmother’s apron
a butterscotch candy, sweet and familiar on the tongue
swim down the lobotomy of remembrance
gold finches with ballet slippers
they sprout lies like dandelions
swim around and explore
It was a lazy Saturday afternoon on the 24th of October, 1999. There was nothing special about this Saturday, but Delilah loved these days; when Saturdays were full of pink pajamas, eggs and bacon, play dates, and family dinners. Time seemed to move slower, a contrast to the weekly rush.
Delilah was sitting at the kitchen table facing the large bay window. Her feet dangled down, not quite touching the linoleum. Her tiny toes danced within her pale pink socks. The sun was setting and the stained glass ornament hanging in the window cast a sliver of a rainbow on the smooth wood table. Delilah was hard at work.
For a six year old, work was squishing cool, messy play-dough through chubby fingers. Delilah was not methodical in her work, she simply enjoyed the carelessness.
Delilah was at ease. On Saturdays she knew exactly where everyone was. The Mother was at the counter preparing the evening’s dinner of roasted potatoes and carrots with rosemary and barbecue chicken. The kitchen was consumed in aroma and warmth. The Father was upstairs in the office, with parsed lips, reading numerous email. Delilah’s older sister was caddy-corner to her, carefully constructing a play-dough penguin with precision and ease. Delilah found comfort in knowing where every single one of them were, especially when in close proximity.
Delilah’s sister’s long brown hair fell into her face as she fabricated the play-dough penguin’s beak. She tucked her hair behind her left ear and continued.
Delilah looked at her sister with a twinge of jealousy. Delilah’s play-dough resembled three colorful lumps. She had to focus; she grasped two of those lumps, the pink in one hand, the green in the other, and twirled the two together.
As Delilah twisted the colors in her hands and squeezed the play-dough through her fingers, the colors began to muddy. And Delilah began to get frustrated. Her brow furrowed, and her blond hair fell in her face. Delilah got even more frustrated. She shoved her hair back, while letting a low hiss escape her lips, wondering why she couldn’t ever be as perfect as her sister.
And then her mother scolded her for the mess she had made.
3.
Crumpled papers and piercing alarm clocks
red faded bandanas and splintering picnic tables
jointed fingers calloused with the creation
tide pools rippling; the surface dancing with deceit
stubborn voices collide and crash like tidal waves
angst and pent desire blinds
polluted permanence and linked limbs
swim to the depths, become a bottom-dweller surrounded in darkness
It was the 24th of July, 2008, and Delilah and her family had just gotten home from her grandparent’s house. Delilah had gotten into a torrid fight with her two best friends Sarah and Olivia earlier that day, and those thoughts consumed her. Fights and friendship drama seemed like the end of the world. Sitting at her grandparent’s dining room table earlier that evening, surrounded by chatter and the clinks of forks and knives against plates, Delilah thought with a proud contentment, “Even if I don’t have any friends, I’ll always have my family.”
How ironic…
Delilah and her mother were in Delilah’s bedroom, and Delilah was complaining. Complaining about her father. Delilah’s still-childhood room was dimly lit and her angst was pent up in between those pale blue walls. And her mother just agreed with her. As Delilah ranted, she paced back and forth in the small space between her twin bed and her desk.
Delilah’s mother appeared tense, but this was nothing new and Delilah was so consumed with her own thoughts, she barely noticed. Delilah’s mother sat down abruptly on Delilah’s bed and averted her gaze from her daughter’s piercing eyes.
“Delilah, I am leaving your father.”
Delilah’s eyes burned with flame. She screamed, “No!”
All of a sudden Delilah was out of her room; she flew down the slippery wooden stairs and out the front door of the house she grew up in, home. It was late and dark, except for a singular street lamp illuminating a patch of sidewalk in the suburban neighborhood.
Delilah’s ears were ringing, “I am leaving your father, I am leaving your father, I am leaving your father.” She was running, faster than she had ever run in her life, not even feeling the pavement scrape her bare feet. A neighbor had sprinklers on, maintaining the perfect lawn.
Someone was yelling her name. It was her father, crying out for her to come back. Delilah hadn’t gotten far. Suddenly she was back, collapsed in the front yard’s grass, crying.
In that moment as Delilah’s father reached to pick her up, Delilah felt smaller than she had ever felt in her life. Small in size, but also insignificant, inconsequential. As her father struggled to pick Delilah up off the damp lawn, his knees shaking under her weight, but not buckling, Delilah became confused as to why her father was struggling under her weight; she was a molecule floating in space; a particle of dust, settling on a surface. No permanence.
Delilah’s father eventually managed to scoop her up and he carried her inside through the forest-green door, which was left ajar.
He carried her inside to a cold house, to sickening hatred, and a shattered version of a future built on the fragile pillars of lies. Delilah lost faith in the things she held so close to her young heart; she succumbed to darkness, internalized, grew quiet, except for torrid screaming matches with The Mother.
But time passed, like it always does, and with time, Delilah gained perspective, distance. But Delilah did not forget.
4.
Lacerated nightmares and carbon copy fingerprints
foreign foliage and letters on a blackboard
get to know that river bed
when water runs uphill and smoke filters through the air vents
I swam that river, head first
greedily fill lungs with each promise to be sustained
foam piles like dust; blindness ensues
swim up, surface, blink, and breathe
It was the 24th of September, 2010 and Delilah had fallen. He had come out of the blue; a friend of a friend. A Facebook request. With three complements, two kisses, and one look, Delilah was hooked.
He was three years older than Delilah, a college boy, uncharted territory. Elliot was a German major at Temple University, and Delilah was still stuck in the monotony of High School. He commuted, and the hours when he was not in class, he clung to Delilah, and Delilah was more than happy to cling back. Elliot had soft brown Paul McCartney hair and puppy dog eyes. He seemed real, sincere. She was sure, especially with his anxiety driven tears, his promise of forever. Delilah was naïve. And he was persuasive. She dove in, head first. She was in love.
“Ich liebe dich…”
Elliot did everything a hopeless romantic like Delilah craved. He played guitar for her, sang to her, wrote her love notes, wrote her songs, opened the car door for her, gave her his sweatshirt, paid for her dinners, brought her to family events, visited her at work, bought her a stuffed bear, gave her a diamond necklace, told her secrets in the dark, whispered his love for her across a shared pillow, promised forever, a flawless future together … It was cliché, but Delilah believed every goddamn word that came out of his thin lips.
…
College parties are all the same. Dirty row home, girls in short skirts, preying guys, sweaty crowd surrounding the keg, a fog of cigarette and marijuana smoke, red cups with Keystone Light sloshing out.
It was Friday night and Elliot was at one of those parties. Delilah was home, of course, home at 11 o’clock PM like a good little girl. She was not permitted to go down to the city for the night with Elliot, and this caused friction in their relationship, revealing the age difference between the two that usually was not apparent.
It was 12:49 and Delilah was growing tired. “I miss you and I love you, have a good night baby,” Delilah typed out on her cell phone and pressed send.
But Elliot never read it.
He was too drunk. Elliot stumbled over to a brown dirty couch and ungracefully plopped down on it. The dark room had one lamp turned on and the ceiling was spinning. Shortly after Elliot slunk down on the couch, a girl entered the room. She had short black hair and a not-so-skinny mid section. After already fucking everyone who had lived in the house on 17th and Norris at various times during the year, she had made Elliot her next target.
She climbed on top of him and kissed him first.
Or so he said…
But he kissed her back, and Delilah’s face blurred and didn’t cross his drunken mind.
…
Months passed as if nothing had happened, and Delilah lived in ignorance. And Elliot lived in guilt. He drew away from Delilah and became distant. So Delilah clung to him more, not wanting to loose him.
Elliot eventually broke it off after picking Delilah up from work and parking his red Honda in front of her house.
“I don’t need a relationship holding me back from my goals right now.”
“I’m not in a place in my life where I need a long-term girlfriend.”
“Its not you, its me.”
bullshit, bullshit, bullshit
The night was leeched colorless by the moon and as Delilah got out of his car, and slammed the door behind her, her shadow was cast across her driveway from the one streetlamp behind her. The shadow stretched from the bottom of the asphalt, all the way to the top. Delilah’s shaking hands reached up and pushed her bangs out of her face as she walked towards her house’s door, her shadow shrinking with each step she took.
Delilah didn’t find out about the coward’s infidelity till weeks later. She found out from one of Elliot’s acquaintance who was at the party. It crushed Delilah, to say the least.
Wer bist du jetzt
Und wer waren Sie damals?
Ich dich geliebt, so
Yeah, ich liebte dich, so was
But Delilah was strong. Well she wasn’t that strong, but she was resilient; she was brave.
Her shattered image of love, had just began to heal itself. Sure, it was scarred, it was stripped down, bare. But, she had let Elliot break through her walls. See, Delilah always saw the best in everyone, believed everyone was born inherently good. This, and her unrealistic, fairy tale influenced image of true love cause her intense trust in Elliot’s intentions, while his heart was already pushing over the red routes of other’s road maps.
fingers tangled in my tangles
in my heart stings
like the surf envelops the shore
unties the knot
the elevator in the fire
melted wax dripping like desire
nature is full of teeth
and the stones write this silence
the furnace of your chest
the lullaby of your skin
i migrate toward the fog
the blackness is murderous
tied down time with a rope
threw out the wrinkled map
faces in a parade
a thin tangled poison
your fingerprints
metallic rains tracing
sweet honeysuckle and red wine
your eyes in mine
...
Delilah’s life was defined by many moments. Some were fleeting, some were prolonged; tortuous or pure bliss. These moments had lingered, enveloped in a sheathe of protective memory, that swirled in the effervescent brain until the excavation. Forever stuck in time, nothing ever moves. This excavation can be circuitous and harrowing. Or it can be a rapture of euphoria that transports a smile to a whole new elevation. Delilah Jane Cook was made from these moments. Her eyes held the pain, her arms the burden, her mouth the joy. They defined her. And they made her, her.
“When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold on to them. They are the life boats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely illusive.”
-From the movie One Week
