pretending not to care only made me care for longer
Andrea Camille D'Souza
as if looking for a door in a pitch black room. On the floor, many nations. Their citizens have fled, and everyone lives on one small island, hearts like seeds returned to the dandelion in the mind of a boy who regretted a wish. Every morning, every citizen rises from their bed, opens their window, and belts out the anthem of their country at once. They repeat it. They repeat it, until the agitated sky spits a freckle on each face. The presidents meet in a booth in a Denny’s. They brainstorm ways to make the people love the island. A tennis court. A night club. A Denny’s, but with a drive-through. We’ll simply print more money. Another round of eggs, and we were their Olympics, us in the pajamas we have kept since ninth grade because we wanted to feel child-like in that freezing arena where we’d battle like parents for the monopoly on something we needed but couldn’t name. I wanted to say something that would burn down your asylum but still build a bridge and buy you a bike. I wanted to tell you, in the week we stopped speaking, I realized I never asked you if you believed, as a kid, that the tooth fairy was real and that she built herself a city from all of the teeth that we had to send away, if somebody told you teeth leave us for a reason since it hurt a little less than saying everything moves on, but I opened my mouth and out rolled a boxer, and you spread your lips and yours rolled out next, and as they beat each other bloody, we both walked away as if each of those men were not still some part of us, still gutting each other on our now abandoned ground. When the people stopped cheering, I headed back home, my old faded shirt clinging tight on my chest as I clung to believing you’d choose absolution over love any day like a favorite brand of beer. I set my alarm, I showered, and then I returned my body to the same tiny clothes. I spent some time wondering how you will do the whole tooth fairy thing with your children if you ever have them. Blind to my mattress, I slept on the rug.
Andrea Camille D’Souza is a graduate of Princeton University where she studied Operations Research and Poetry. Her poems have been published in Tilted House, Olney Magazine, and elsewhere. You can visit her on Twitter at @animalcamille.