The Red Doorway

The red door dustily banged open temporarily scrubbing the dirty grout of the men’s conversation. She paused there in the opening, a sudden wind taking its cue to wrap around her silken form the particles of the failing daylight.  Her swollen pout threw daggers at the men, her final words a commandment, a gale force whisper.  The men dispersed, their eyes following their smiles down to the gutter.  Slithering down the steps, dark tendril hair reaching out against the street lamps, her form rocked from side to side, the machinations of her walk hinted at behind taut clothing undecorated by intimacy.  From my vantage point, I wondered what words she spoke to fill the men with such fear.  But then, without realizing my blundering, I found myself staring at her.  Her twin souls locked with mine, reaching toward me with a purpose as I backed away.  I tried to ignore her as she strode directly toward me like a predator.  Her heels announced their devious intention like the impolite hammering of secret police at the door.  I klutzed myself back into a park bench in time for her sharpened index finger to pierce my chest.  She spread her lips past glistening teeth and inhaled, lips approaching the curve of my left ear, switch blade fingernails gleaming near my right. 

Psychologists call it repression, my inability to remember the length or breadth of her words to me.  It’s the brain’s way of handling a trauma.  All I remember is the waterfall of love that fell from my heart the moment she spoke, the emotion, the liquid singularity.  I am looking at my body floating in the sunbeams dividing the ocean in an endless dance.