Lara's Song

We met in-between the lines of a craigslist rooms/shared add:

“Female seeks female roommate for summer sublet. No thugs, no drugs.”

Upon meeting her, she looked me up and down,

convinced I was no thug, she asked me if I did any drugs. I told her I’ve smoked

a lot of marijuana. She laughed and said, that’s no drug, that’s a way of life. She laughed

and drank cherry kool-aid spiked with vodka on a Wednesday morning.

She had a cat named See-Saw, who was never completely awake,

his head always tilting from side to side and walking in diagonals across the floor,

little paws criss-crossing over each other to headbutt the wall by the furnace.

She liked to sing to him on Sunday nights when the church bells rang for evening mass

and his head would move along with her tune, drifting in harmony.

Her most sung song was “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”

and her name was Lara B. Sanders.

During that two months we lived together, we co-

existed in our shared space, waiting for the leaves to change and take us home.

But, when she danced to the Queer as Folk theme song or dusted

her giant fake pink hydrangea flowers that she always kept on the kitchen counter

I never would have guessed that on July 23, 2012, I would find her

hanging from the exposed pipe in her bedroom,

See-Saw sitting below. He followed her body

as they carried it out under a blue sheet till the front door

was shut in his face and he cried like a wild banshee and clawed

at that door till the light blue paint came off in chips and rained down to the pale

carpeted floor. I sat on the couch that was not mine and listened

to his wild cries till the whispering crowd cleared the alleyways and the door was scared

a half inch deep. At last I stood, swaying and quivering, and plucked

him up from among the shavings and whispered

Don’t cry --for me -- you’ll think it’s strange

I still need you ---- Have I said too much?

I was choking and tearing at my throat and I swore I could have drowned

if that cat had not been kneading CPR against my chest,

headbutting my neck in tune with my heartbeat,

purring like a rescue boat that would pull me from the raging waters.  

A week later they painted over the door. I pushed the hydranians

into the ground and See-Saw headbutted the stone and we walked

out of the floodplains forever, watermarks inked into our ankles

but out heads relatively dry.