voodoo |

Lift me in your arms – I can see the world from here… bright and shining, a sparkling orb of hope. The dark spots are hidden under your gaze. Or outshone by your love. Either way, they were much smaller and far less frightening back then. The sounds in the night were muffled, the monsters in my head subdued, the daylight hours long and full of spring blossom promise.

You almost-died once. Your pickup smashed to smithereens on a dusty dirt road to nowhere. You came out unscathed, like a god emerging from some deep ocean of long-lost secrets and power. You strength was in purity – or was it humbleness? I saw you cry only once, as you broke the neck of a bird with a broken wing. You said that strangling the life force out of an animal was far harder to do than shooting it. That guns made death easy and life cheap. I never let you drive that road again.

I still remember the day the light left your eyes. You seemed happy that morning, if perhaps a little shy. All smart in your church suit – one eye a little bruised from the weekend’s festivities. No one ever knew how you got that black eye. But I think I could guess. I was happy for you. Well at least I thought I was, and I put on a pretty smile and a prettier dress. You promised to look after her, and she promised to look after you. I wanted to scream what about me? but it’s not the done thing to show emotion like that. Strange how we can show happiness and joy in public but sadness and anger must always remain hidden. It’s all lies, anyway and we are more often sad than happy. Your spirit started leaving your body that night, I saw it with my own eyes. There was voodoo in the room, everyone could feel it, but no one said anything. A little girl in a pink party dress with red curls sat in a corner, crying. A dog barked incessantly in some far away yard and I was sure he was watching your ghost ascend, alerting the heavens to your arrival. No one objected, no one cried out. Not even me. And I’m sorry now. Her blade was sharp and there was madness in her eyes. And still no one said anything, as if in a trance.

He is just a shell now. A lost soul wondering, looking for the girl he once saved, a heart he once mended, a grazed knee he kissed better, a forgotten lullaby he sang. She wants to find him too and she wants him to save her again. Or perhaps, just this once, she could save him.