Bohemian

I am sitting up in a bed that is not mine and staring at a smooth white ceiling.

The doctor has just departed my hospital room.

In the blank space that is left  

I have been envisioning home and an empty glass bottle etched with lilacs and the word “Bohemian” which lives in my top dresser drawer.

It once contained perfume I purchased when I was 20 and vacationing in New York. 

When I gave it a little trial spritz, the air was exchanged for something secret and magical.

It struck me that it wasn’t warm, floral or fruity

I wasn’t sure what it was

Yet it felt as if it was memorably and extraordinarily mine. 

I can’t seem to get rid of that empty glass bottle

Although useless, it is a dream. 

Part of my secret museum of trinkets.

These days I am bored of everything but my memories and

It is nice to know I can visit what happened. 

I left New York feeling quite fresh and chic 

And suddenly stumbled upon him again 

This time we saw each other in new ways 

Quite unexpectedly

I felt beautiful wearing my differences around him

And not knowing anyone else like me, he said, he was just happy to be around. 

When I became immobilized

And tried to disappear

He quietly yanked me back into the world with one arm

And grinned

Knowing that with or without him, there could be no such thing.

There is too much life in me

So now he is a memory that I hoard.

Because what drew us together was the power we brought out of each other

The best of each other 

He saw that I am secretly magic,

Begrudgingly strong.

I decided I surely lived up to the meaning of the word etched on my little glass bottle. 

And when I declared “I will buy this forever, I feel so beautiful in it,”

The stores stopped carrying it.

He grew up and married her, as I knew (and told him) he would. 

She could make him happy. 

And I was glad to see that she could give him a life and a child

That I couldn’t

While I consecrated myself to books and sometimes wrote things that 

I’d grow up and sell to magazines 

There was never emptiness as life came between us, but a peaceful gratitude that he served his purpose.

And I served mine. 

Now I am thirty-something in this hospital room.  

I have never been so bored

There is no one around who sees me 

I am only at peace with memories because I can rearrange 

And replay them however I wish. 

 The room I’m in now is strategically empty. 

There is not a real bathroom door, it is padded 

And closes with only the help of Velcro and a magnet

This is a holding place where I have been sorting out life and death. 

And I am about to go home again.  

Before the doctor left 

He told me what he saw in simple terms

“There’s something about you.

You always make it through. 

You have something.” 

I thought, “I will pretend his words are lilac seeds and bury them somewhere 

Where I can watch them grow

 for the rest of my life.”

This way I can be certain

That all of the women who will replace what I am now

Can tend to that garden

Knowing that in their future, if they are lucky, they will see life multiply

And grow

And change

And become lovely

in the place of belief.