there were no sidewalks in Bel Air the night I decided to fling my ashes into the sky–
I walked down the center of the street balancing my childlike wishes with the pessimism that was seeping in my bones
I closed my eyes—
jasmine wafting in the air—
and I summoned a picture of you.
“BOY!”
—I cried—
“how many wounds have you cauterized?” don’t be mistaken,
my words were no arrows of hate
you see, I’m watching you shrink—
starve yourself of a bond—
“no no let’s not talk of love, or worse, ROMANCE, ugh,
no,
please,
let’s not.”
I only feel pity now where my pulse used to be.
a sprinkler dispels the illusion and I keep walking
watching your face
evaporate
into the night air.
crickets chimed in a symphony, passive.
no, there were no sidewalks in Bel Air that night, only glimpses, shards
of your eyes
puncturing the cerulean ether.
“After I took a long walk odyssey from the top of a museum, situated on a hill, back to my apartment, the images of the serpentine, maze-like journey I had just gone on hung with me. The city I was currently living in did not encourage walking for walking’s sake—you needed to be doing something—pushing a stroller, walking a dog—if you were alone, you might as well jog. But walk?
“No buses were running—my phone was dead. So, onward I went. I walked through neighborhoods that did not have sidewalks; serene in their hedges, manicured with the motivation for privacy. I walked past jasmine bushes that were letting their twilight perfume waft through the air. Cars whizzed by but no one was walking. When I finally got home after an hour, I couldn’t forget the images that passed through me. Like the images of someone’s face you could never forget.”–Davia Schendel
“no sidewalks in Bel Air” appears in in The Gallatin Review, volume 34, which will be released at a celebration reading on Wednesday, April 24, 2019.
Thumbnail Image: Adapted from “Night blooming Jasmine at full bloom” (2017), by SKsiddhartthan on Wikimedia Commons, published under a <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en>Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
