Ally Malinenko- Three Poems

Two Allysons

I’ve been waiting for this moment

for over a year.

Just once, I told myself, it would happen.

After all the offices

and waiting rooms,

all the treatment centers

and hospital units

just once it would happen.

It would have to happen, right?

I would open the door and see someone else

as young as me.

But it never did.

Not at the surgeon’s

or the oncologist

or at the hospital

or the treatment centers

no

when I sat there in that blue

gown waiting to be burned

or when I wait in that beige chair

each month for injections

and this went on for so long

that I started to think

it would never change

it would always be me,

the youngest one in the room.

Until today

a year after

when my life is now

scans and tests

to see if I’m still okay

You walked in,

dressed in the blue gown

just like me,

your mother nervous beside you

like she was giving you away

to a lover she wasn’t so sure about.

We exchanged a look,

tried not to stare

because I hate when the

others stared at me,

but my dear,

I wanted to lay my head in your lap,

I wanted to kiss your face,

your sad scared eyes,

I wanted to tell you it was going

to be okay

to lie to you

like they’ve lied to me.

All these months

and you were the one I was hoping

to see

except now

I can hardly stand to look at you

How beautiful you are.

It breaks my heart.

When the nurse comes in

and says

Allyson?

We both stood up,

stared at each other

like mirror images

like a reflection we never wanted

and your mother said,

with a nervous laugh,

“Oh, two Allysons? How funny?”

Like we were at the salon,

waiting to get our nails done.

I sat back down

as the nurse took you away

and you glanced just once over your shoulder.

You looked me dead in the eye.

And then you were gone.

I want you to know, Allyson,

that I will never forget you,

your brown hair,

your nervous eyes,

the way you moved through the room.

I want you to know,

there will always be a stranger

out there in the universe

thinking of you

and wondering

and hoping

you made it out

of this nightmare alive.

Blankets

He told me his last girlfriend

was so tiny

that she disappeared in the blankets

and he would have to lift

them just to find her in there

and I thought of the Little Prince’s rose

kept under glass

something so delicate

that she needed to be carried around.

Something that would stay where you put it.

That would always be there

when he lifted the sheet

waiting just for him.

What is essential is invisible to the eye.

He was an epileptic.

If I have a seizure

he told me,

don’t put my wallet in my mouth.

That’s a myth.

Use the socks,

he said, handing me a pair of balled up sweat socks.

I kept them within reach all the time

just in case.

I held them in my hand,

wondering how they would fit inside.

How I would pry his jaw open

and ram them in.

This seemed like an impossible task.

But he never had one.

He told me a story about a kitten that died,

crushed under a rocking chair

and when he said it,

I searched his eyes to see if he was crying

because he always talked about how much he loved animals.

But he wasn’t.

He just said it like a fact.

Like he had to get his taxes done.

When we napped in his bed,

I pressed myself against the wall

attempting to take up less space

trying to also hide in the blankets

to not make an indent

to be un-

physical

un-

noticeable

to disappear

until I was needed

the socks

still clutched in my fist.

A Second, Forever

            -How long is forever? Sometimes only a second.

                                    Lewis Carroll

I spotted the sunset

after we had already bought

the wine

for the evening

and we’re headed back to the room

our feet blistered and sore

from walking so far

to leave a pen

at Franz Kafka’s grave

as if that meant anything

but we still did it,

the way we still cross the street

to line up at the wrought iron gate

of Karlov Most

to watch the sun explode

brilliantly against the palette of clouds

colored pastel like a Mucha

over the castle on the hill

and I have to hang on to the bars just

to keep myself from spinning right off the planet

as I realize

this is it,

this is the moment I have been waiting for all year

I didn’t know it would be a sunset

but it is

it is the world unfolding to me

a second, forever

and in that forever second

the year washes over me

the forever second

that I sat crouched on the bathroom

floor shaking with my death,

the forever second

when I woke up during surgery

and knew I was being disassembled on a table

like a toy girl. A thing no longer real.

One forever second after another

that I lived through

bravely sometimes

but mostly terrified

and weak

faking bravery

following doctor’s orders

because I was left with no other choice.

All those forever seconds

ticking forever

like a clock stuck

on itself

a crystal cracked

until finally they get me here

unstuck

thrust back into the life

I wanted to live

the one I was supposed to be living

the one I worked for

not the one that I had been given

the fake plastic replacement

of the life I had that I loved dearly

and I will remain here,

here

in this forever second

watching this day end

even after I board the bus

and then the plane and then the subway

and find my way back to the doctors

I will still be here

so help me god.

If I’m going to die anyway

I’m going to die in this second.