Vanessa Valliere

Eleanor by Vanessa Valliere
November 21, 2014

Eleanor woke up – sat straight up in her bed- and the words came to her instantly: “I have no children” and they rolled over down a hill and fell deeper and deeper inside of her. She was half asleep , her usual defenses melted away like a tablet on the tongue at bedtime and she began to sweat through her t-shirt and then was instantly cold and shivering. She counted frantically back from a hundred, trying to picture each number in bold black print. But by seventy five she was turning over and over. And then she was up and grabbing for a new shirt in the dark – all fabrics in her drawers familiar, all of her night clothes familiar, the longer she stood rummaging the deeper she went into a sleep that was at once deep and fast-moving like a bowling ball sinking hard and fast to the very bottom of the ocean.
Posted by onetimesometimes writings by vanessa s. valliere