Esmé Shapiro

There was a point where I would have given you all the pedals in my body

but now when you turn around, know that I will no longer be there.

I could not find a place that I felt safe last night. I spent the mid afternoon trying to find a tiny island to rest my bones on, preferably an island with a willow tree so I could have some shade when the morning light began to shine. I could not find one though, the lake seemed to go on for an eternity, a universe of dark blue water and moss.  I began to regret going on this journey at all. The stars began to peak out of the clouds, and after an hour of paddling in the moonlight, I came upon an island entirely filled with blood red tulips. 

I tied my canoe to a stray root of a tree that had been cut down. I was so tired, and my arms felt like marshmallow cream as I lay down my quilt for slumbering. I collapsed on the warm strawberry blanket and fell asleep so quickly, I may as well have been a dead corpse. 

That night I dreamt of my mother, she had come back from the Sunday market with a bag of home made jam, and had proclaimed that there was a premonition of an earthquake and that we needed to leave the house for higher ground. I woke up from this dream because I realized I was bundled up in my quilt and being carried. I could smell a distinct smell of pine, blood, and berries, and when I looked up I realized I was being carried by a giant bear, who was walking on her two hind legs. She noticed me looking up and just kept on walking through the blood red tulip field, just like a human  mother would carry her child. 

Well what could I do? I felt oddly comfortable in this bear’s arms. I felt as if I was the happiest child in the world, a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. I let the bear carry me, and I would be lying if I didn’t add that I cuddled up to the wire-like brown hair of her chest. This went on for a while, and I had no idea the red tulip island was so expansive until the bear started walking up a cliff. I looked down and following us now was four manilla baby cubs, looking up at me like they had known me for my entire life. The moonlight on their backs made them look like little bread angels. I made a noise, but the mama bear took her paw and pressed it against my lips. 

Eventually, we reached the top of the mountain, the moonlight flooding the cliff we had been climbing up. The mama bear unwrapped me from the blanket and lifted me up from my arm pits to the moon. I suddenly realized that my idea that she had taken under as her other child was just a childish wish, for soon I heard the baby cubs drumming on rocks with sticks and chanting and snorting as the mother raised me to the full moon like an offering. She was shaking my body like an instrument, I could feel my entire body seize up in a fear I had never felt before. A fear, that was so ancient and profound that I could feel all of the people I had been in my past life preparing me for the next step - death.

What I saw next I will never forget. A papa bear began to rise out of the other side of the cliff, carrying a giant nest. He placed the nest underneath my body as the mama bear slowly lowered me into the nest. The drumming sounds were getting louder and louder as the papa bear placed blueberries all over my body. The next part was a blur for me, but I do  remember the cubs stopping their drumming, and each bear looking down at my body, a beige mound of blood and muscle, wrapped in the cloth of my pants, and the then silk of my nightshirt. The mama bear took my foot with her paws, and the next thing I knew, I was being eaten. 

written on January 24th, a strangely warm day. I was on my couch.