Exerpts from a Murderballad
December 12, 2010 at 5:35AM You won't mean to kill me, was her opening line, sotto voce, cheeks sublime, the colour of strip poker and just enough wine. It was in that precious glimmer of time that I knew, unconditionally, she would be mine, and that I would love her, unconditionally.
Shari-Lyn McArthur
Now she– she was appealing. A peeling apple with an empty core, yes every bit as much a whore as I was, and that– that was one of my conditions. Straight case, honey, I would not be under-whored around 2:30 in the afternoon, again.
Shari-Lyn McArthur
And amongst her magnetic flaws, the one I was plotting to exploit: being possessed of a personal space that was a mere veneer. Non-existent, more-like. Yes, this one would let me touch her right away, no need to court and dance and read the signals past the light of her green eyes. Flawed eyes that were the green green of those coloured contact lenses. Flawed eyes that would see me in my worst best light– the light I throw that has me be seen as I want to be seen.
Yes, just like me, she would welcome the touch of a stranger. And this stranger's touch would make her know she was real, that she hadn't just imagined herself into being. Make her know that she was birthed of a mother sometime or another, and that maybe she should have listened to Mother. Yes, she should have listened to Mother.
Wish I could say that Nick Cave's The Kindness of Strangers was playing, it would have added so much to the telling. It wasn't, but I was hearing it loud, as loud as the obvious charms in that white t-shirt.
"So mothers keep your girls at home
Don't let them journey all alone
Tell them this world is full of danger
And to shun the company of strangers"
Then again, maybe this core-less girl never had a mother. Maybe I imagined her into being, to fill my empty core.
