Butterfly Umbrella

The umbrella has butterflies on it. A little nod from Delirium. Hail, Eris. Hail, Discordia. You won’t have to take the pink one out with you after all. It’s red, too, for luck – hopefully enough to outweigh the fact that you opened it indoors. Its insides remind you of spiders’ legs, all hunched up ready to spring, and the light in the handle probably hasn’t worked in years. But still, it’s something. A little gift to keep you out of the rain.

The rain has stopped anyway, by the time you get downstairs. And you can’t remember what you were going outside for. Fruit, maybe. Good resolutions. The street is slippery. You get the usual stares. The walk there is the trickiest bit, trying not to talk to yourself out loud, lips moving just enough to let the words out without giving the game away. Cracks in the pavement, deliberately ignoring your own rules, wondering if, had you been born with brown eyes, everything would have been different. Someone told you to never go back. You fell in love with this country and it seems to have broken your heart.

The smallest things bring the tears to your eyes. Like watching him play ball with her the other day, smiling the way he used to smile at you, everyone having fun and you on the outside, wandering around, looking for someone to play with. Or the fact that after all these years you’re still just a stone’s throw from breaking, stumbling from one glass house to another, homes that are never homes. Trying to pick bits of broken personality out of the disorder, carve out an identity that everyone can live with, make up a new story to explain away the scars.

Your head throbs with last night’s drinking, conversations you shouldn’t have had. You remember the walk home but not the reasons why. There’s an aftertaste of rejection at the back of your throat. Another evening wasted. Another night alone.

It gets old, doesn’t it? All this falling apart. Like you’re always in tatters, waiting for another loose thread to snag, wondering when the unraveling will be complete. Neurosis as flower, tearing off petals. And what will be left at the end of it all?

She loves me, she loves me not...

Time will tell. But it’s time to go home now, with the fruit in your bag that signifies your good intentions, and the butterfly umbrella, a talisman to remind you that it’s the little things, just the little things you need to make you feel loved.