The white cake tiers are dolled up with blue frosting ribbons, seashells, and bows. Each visit to the bakery, I stand at the threshold of the hallowed wedding room, cupcake topped with a frosting puppy face in hand. I am mesmerized by what it means to be a wife, a celestial confection made of vanilla purity. The plastic couple is a glamorous toy mounted on top, triumphant. They are happy now, permanently. Their smiles will take centuries to biodegrade. My most beloved vision of the future is being clad in white lace and long satin gloves.
And where were you? I am your frilled wife with a pink satin bow still tied tight between my thighs. I foresee myself, yours.
Tell me, have you felt something so exquisite as hope? Have you known the jealous pleasures of imagining oneself differently, loved and swan magnificent in a ruffled puff of white? The white plumage of my pot smoke fills me now, replacing the gown, the child, but not you, my intended wife. White it out. All of it. Give me a blizzard of white and let my heart freeze numb. Oh, did that sound dramatic? Baby, let me take another hit. Baby, let me go back.
Here I am. The black pup colors my lips and tongue. Still high on sugar and love and some brain stem inkling of lust not yet materialized. I will get in trouble if I touch anything; I can feel my mother’s eyes boring into my back, willing me to stay put.
Tell me, could you feel me? A claw of my need snagging your girl mind even then?
You asked me to marry you once, though that was years ago now. It blinked as a text on my phone, a half ask. I’ll make damn sure nobody asks me again. I’ll make damn sure you still hear me in the blistering heat of an August night, slick as buttercream, alone in my bed. The kaleidoscope memories of you tilt and switch until a flash of convulsions snap through me and you fall away again. I push back against the pain of you. I push back and back and back. I won’t live long enough to heal from the ways that you’ve hurt me. There, I’ve said an ugly thing and you’ll hate it. I can’t stop the truth.
But in that wedding room was the scalloped interior of an angel’s heart. Who took my hand to lead me out to the tables and chairs? Who sat me down to a pink and white carton of milk? It was my mother and her cup of coffee. It was my grandmother and her Danish. They brought me back to life, such as it was, such as it would be, so partial and imperfect.
Hard to imagine you ever didn’t exist for me, except as hope, except as a pure clean line of desire. My therapist has told me to let you go, to not hear you anymore, to not speak to you daily in my thoughts. What kind of coffin would that be? What kind of bleached bones, turned to dust would I become? My god, I have swallowed your hair, licked your blood, kept your broken toenail in a trinket box. I have loved you and I cannot cease or desist.
I am standing at the threshold. I am not allowed to go in. But I’ll be damned if I stop staring. To every woman, her consequences.
Sarah Sorensen has been published over fifty times since 2009. She was recently featured in Archipelago and Flock. Her work is forthcoming from The Del Sol Review and West Trade Review. Sarah has her M.A. in English from Central Michigan University and is currently pursuing her MLIS.