RPWF Week3: The Unknown (part 1)

Sometimes I feel like I see my grandmother in your eyes. The way the soft lines across your speckled face crinkle when you laugh. How your hair reaches up to the sky like the winding branches of a tree. I think sometimes I see my grandmother in you where she is not. When your eyebrows crease and I can't tell if I had just made some grave mistake or if your dinner was simply a bit too salty. When your skin brushes against mine and I feel the impulse to retreat into myself, where I am safe. I'm sure my grandmother would have said she loved me the best way she knew how. But her love sits deep within me, warding off anything honest, true, and different.

We had a cold front last week where the blooming trees and pollinators were shocked by a sudden 15° drop in temperature. We were walking side by side when I realized I couldn't feel my fingertips anymore and that the tip of my nose was frozen to the touch. I tried my very best to stifle my shivers but your kind seeking eyes saw right through me. I remember you slipping off your big wool overcoat to place on my quaking shoulders, assuring me that you had enough layers on to be warm. I resisted, not wanting to give you another reason to see me as a parasite, sucking all the warm tender energy from your system. You wouldn't let me give it back, insisting that I keep it with me on my walk home. During that walk, I reveled in the worn in fuzz of the fabric. there was a hole in the left pocket that I found myself caressing the threads of. The smell was intoxicating.