Wires and Light
For C.M.
Marshmallow ducks bulge into giants, just like the way your hands grow shaky when the world lights up. Your palms touch the glass for warmth. I stand on the outside; my feet, cold from the kitchen tile.
There are details etched in the turntable, spinning in that white box with number buttons and a window. It's kind of like a payphone, during those days where beepers went off more than iPhones and Blackberries. We were both one of those people who kept beepers in our pockets and dialed and hoped, but got impatient and expanded the phone cord. The heat of the dial-tone grew shaky, unsteady, rhythm cut off by an answering machine.
There was warmth in your voice, snow in my boots. The world was just starting to grow, becoming a dome of wires and light. We felt lucky if we could leave a message. Now voicemails are a pain, just like waiting for microwaved Peeps, even though it only takes a few seconds for the heat to stretch sweet yellow neon.
The first time I got a microwave, I was fifteen. My heart was a giant thing that bulged and stretched bedroom walls. Your heart was far away, just like my mother made me stand whenever I pressed the start button. But I thought it was so cool, that disk of light. I still do.
We spin and the box lights up, giant sweetness inside. You grow restless; your earthquake hands want to re-wire the world. You are twenty-two and so am I. You say, "Everyone has a microwave!" You say this decreases its significance. Still, the turntable details stretch for us, reaching, reaching, reaching.
Swelling neon leaves sugar on your lips, and you whisper sugar onto mine. Yellow smears scatter light in your pocket. Payphone dial-tones grow into giant and sweet sounds, heating up wire and glass.
Globe lamp in my shoes.
About the author:
Ashley Inguanta grew up in a world where hooves and feet are the same. She grew and grew in this world, and at twenty-four years old, she's still growing. Ashley is an MFA student at the University of Central Florida and works as a Graduate Teaching Associate for two introductory creative writing courses. She has also taught creative writing at Lakeside Alternative, a mental health facility.Along with teaching and writing, Ashley is a photojournalist whose work has appeared in The Central Florida Future, Moms Like Me, The Seminole Chronicle, and REAX music magazine. Her prose and poetry have appeared in The Cypress Dome and narrative approaches.com, an anti-anorexia publication.