This time would be different. He would leave behind all those jagged, ragged, useless things. Drop them in the road like stones. He would shake them off like dust from his sandals. He would leave behind the curses, the broken promises, the narrow beds and solitary half-empty glasses, the regret and revenge, the acid etch of envy. He would leave behind the taste in his mouth—bitter, salty and sweet as her skin. He would let the craving build as it must, let it swell and throb and spark, until it thundered and roared and burst the bars on the cage of his longing. He would grind his heel into what remained and it would stay where he’d left it. The air would clear. This time would be different. This time.
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Lauren B. Davis is the author of five novels… Against A Darkening Sky; The Empty Room; Our Daily Bread (long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize); The Radiant City (finalist for the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize); and The Stubborn Season, as well as two collections of short stories, An Unrehearsed Desire and Rat Medicine & Other Unlikely Curatives.
She can be found at: LaurenBDavis.com
*Photo credit: [someone sent this to me and I’ve misplaced the name; if yours, please let me know!]
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“this is the sort of prayer I make now/ as I tie my tobacco ties”
The Litter I See Project 