Category: Juteau
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Caledonia
The last time I saw Juteau cry was in October. Truthfully, I didn’t see her crying, but I saw the aftereffects: the smear of mascara trailing like dirty rainwater down the side of an abandoned building, the eyes as red as a desert sunset. She didn’t want to talk about it, and I didn’t want…
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A Shadowed Patience
Here now, at three in the morning, I find a whisker on the floor outside of Juteau’s room, laying parallel to her door, like a black line drawn on the old hard wood. I bend to pick it up, and I can hear a sound beneath the deep breathing of the sleeping Juteau on the…
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Old Music Remembered
Juteau is tracing power lines with her fingers as we lay together in the grass by the old school near the airport. Her hands dance in the air, sliding this way, crossing over that, like she is conducting an orchestra of electricity. She hums a tune as she goes, something I can almost place, but…
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Mermaid’s Tail
Juteau is sleepwalking again, the first time I’ve seen her do it since her uncle died. She comes downstairs and into the living room where I am laying on the sofa reading. I am invisible to her, and I pull my legs back before she sits on them. Her eyes are open and focused on…
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Navigating the Latitudes
Bez lays beside me on the mattress, still asleep. It was a late night last night, and she and Juteau were up long past the point when I went to bed. I never felt her slip in with me. She is facing me, hand curled palm-up beside her chin, the blanket riding low and covering…
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Afraid to Sleep
The funeral is a small affair, attended mostly by friends. The only members of the family present are Juteau and her uncle’s wife, who was his second wife, and therefore according to Juteau is to be referred to as Patty and not as her aunt. Family dynamics are always a tangled mess of secret pains…
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Fearless
She whispers her name in my ear, while Bez sleeps beside me and Juteau stalks the house in her sleep: Sabina. The scent of eucalyptus faintly slips through the air as she leans near to me. I can feel her breath as she whispers, cool like fog, and I turn my head in her direction,…
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A Tiger In the Hollow of the Throat
There is a tiger in my house, stalking through the halls. He is thick and terrible and the color of snow on ice. He smells of spice, hot spice that stings the eyes and burns the back of the throat. He crawled out of my bathtub two nights ago, dripping water all across the small…
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Illumination
“I want to tell you a secret,” Bez whispers in my ear. “We don’t have any secrets,” I say softly. “We just have things we haven’t told one another yet.” We are in my bed, which honestly has become our bed over the past few weeks. Juteau still occupies the guest room, when she’s not…
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Undiscoverable In the Atlas of Love
Bez reads over my shoulder as I work on a story in progress. She is the only person who is allowed to do that. No one else can see a piece until it’s done. I like to present a finished work to the world, and not let them see the nails and tape and bits…