-
The Story I Tell Myself
- The Kent State University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
26 t h e s t o R y i t e l l M y s e l F i fell for a music-man. i loved his sharp inhale between verse and chorus, the bird-chirp of his fingers sliding to the next fret. i loved what came next. every time we parted, i checked my face, my hands, for his marks on me. his hymns always sounded like elegies. he wore his hat all day, except in the shower. he went walking alone in the woods, came home days later with poison ivy sores, which wept as they healed. Hold me don’t hold me, he sang again and again. i ate an onion, to see if it would clear me out. i don’t know what happened to my eyes, but the onion itself wept all over my hands, which i washed for a quarter-hour and which ended up smelling like the troubadour himself. i started singing myself to sleep. ...