Work Text:
The first time we talked was in the rooftop
cafeteria at Cal State Northridge.
Misplaced poets, we sat amidst a crop
of clean-cut freshmen while, round the college,
smog-smudged San Fernando Valley beckoned,
panoramic and bland.
- David Trinidad, A Poet’s Death
Something within Lana felt like a slap, told her not to pity herself, told her that these things happen, they have happened and they will. She couldn’t speak back, couldn’t tell that something to shut its mouth and let her feel - she couldn’t only attempt the latter.
She missed Mia - that was a given, everyone who had known her missed her. But the way she missed her flooded her, clogged her senses with molasses sadness. She missed her voice, when she shook her awake early in the morning, sifting her mind out of her dream and into reality. She missed Mia’s smell of warmth and cooling charcoal. She missed Mia’s eyes, wide and brown and knowing, as though she could read Lana’s mind. She missed the way she could press her lips to the other girls; gentle, firm, close - mouthed, and without a word. She felt Mia everywhere, the caresses of phantom hands through her hair, against her forehead, and locked onto her shoulders.
Habits were suddenly cruel. Feeling for her on the other side of the bed just to touch cold, strewn covers, filling two instead of one - if Ema were over, she’d humour her and help her set the third glass at the end of the table. Pawing out for the air when she was confused, reading over notes and re- watching lectures , and waiting to wake up from this nightmare, just to rest her hand back on her lap.
Certains shows got to be more comforting. The ones Mia would joke about and criticize, out - of proportion portrayals of law, health, politics. She had begun to get invested, and it was oxymoron - clinging to something to get your mind off of why you had clung in the first place. It was a momentary respite, sleeping in a fever dream.
And irony, the irony, fickle and subtle - the days passed on.