Eve’s Dilemma

Rachel Lock

Do you think Eve ever wandered around the milky night sky, naming white dwarves and constellations as she went? Were her knees covered in the dust of the garden, her days spent tenderly caring for the plants as a deer cares for its fawn? Did she garnish herself with the crowns of the pomegranates? Did Eve ever root her hands into the soft soil and pull forth the vegetation of the land, the pear, the date and the carob?

Do you think she ever weaved her body between the thick leaves of the fig tree, wondering what lay outside the walls of the garden, yelling out, hoping to feel the fiery bonds of human connection? And when her calls went unanswered she settled her body down on the soft bed of the lush garden floor, allowing the grassy tendrils to hug her naked flesh.

Do you think Eve ever thought to herself, laying under the cover of stars next to a man, his ribcage broken, bruised, and bloodied, that a mistake had been made? That maybe her creator had slipped and with one wrong strike of a blade created a world that was never supposed to be. And when the moon was at its brightest and the stars shone at their most brilliant, she turned on her side to face the stranger, his lips blue and breaths shallow, feeling the broad loneliness of their seclusion as she realized she was his only chance of life.

And it’s possible that as she wandered through the garden, searching for poppies and willow bark to ease the man’s pain, she saw the silhouettes of winding streams and hugging vines and felt as though the hills and valleys of this new land were sculpted into the cavities of her brain. The fleshy lips of the land smiled and laughed at Eve as she climbed from the garden’s hips, across her breasts and through the pond of her heart, her face warmed by the friction of the full moon against the velvety sky. The geese stuck their heads into the pond to quench their all consuming thirst, to feel the squirming bodies of the minnows and guppies between their teeth, to silence the bitter croak of the frog. And in the moments where Eve’s body was fully submerged under the surface of the water, her toes tangled in the hair of the seaweed, wolves cried out to their mother moon, longing for Eve just as the weary deer longs for the relief of the stream.

Do you remember the song of turtledove, the beating of hoofs of the young stag against the soft carpet of grass, or the call of the canary, which joined in on the symphony of the garden? Or do you just remember how the hand of existence pulled Eve from the warm waters of the garden’s soul and flung her into a bush of rose thorns, her fragile limbs bloodied and bruised as she crawled back to the cradle of earth where the man lay, clutching remedies in her right fist.

And as she mashed her ingredients on the back of a turtle’s rounded shell, she felt her heart pound against its cage and when she spread the paste on the man’s ribs, she whispered a silent prayer to a god who had long since forgotten her. Maybe as the sun peeked through the veil of night and the man’s cheeks blushed with the returning signs of life, Eve collapsed on top of his chiseled form and cried the world’s first, soul shaking tears. And the carob pods fell from their tree and the bells of the lily of the valley bowed their heads in reverence for what was to come.

Do you think that Eve wept with the willows when the man turned his back to her? When he arose from his sick bed and moved about her garden, as if Eve had never wiped his feverish sweat from his perfectly sculpted brow. Do you think that, as the man demanded her complete deference, Eve mourned for her holy hearth, who had only known her soft touch until the cries of the man rang across the canyons of her independence?

And what of the fig trees, adorned in the glories of Eve’s labors, left to rot under the man’s abandonment? The raspberry, blueberry, cranberry jewels of the garden’s crown strewn on the overgrown garden floors, corrupted and rotting from the inside out, slowly killing the garden’s limbs with infection. Did the man even notice the garden’s gradual demise? Did he notice the way pestilence ravaged her calves or the way that all her rivers ran brown with contamination? Did he notice when the warbler stopped crying out, or when the garden’s fiery fever blazed on? Or did he just pull a pomegranate from a nearby tree, scrape seeds from their shelves and shovel them into his mouth, their blood staining his cuticles.

Who told the chicks to waddle back to their mothers? Who kissed the head of the wolf as tears ran down his snout? Did the man hold the garden as she took her last, shuddered breaths? Did his scorched and weary palms feel her slowing heartbeat? Or was it just Eve, desperate to save her kin from a similar fate of neglect, plucking the grape from the vine and the apple from the tree, so that the children of tomorrow could enjoy what once was.

before hits harder than after; 4:27am

Anonymous there is something about regret that always hits you too hard too much, too fast regret and then regret and then regret who am i to decide my life what am i doing

but sometimes after is worse than before; 5:59am

Anonymous i can not sleep your snores a beacon in my ears i wish i was better at no than i want i really wish i was because i wish always turn into yes which always, as i drench myself turns into no what am i supposed to do he is here lending warmth i have never had except for from the friends i constantly long for he is here and i no longer want it but it’s six am and i cant leave anymore the hand to my stomach a possession a need a want a desire an obligation i told him tomorrow morning would be hard, harder than a tomorrow morning he’s ever had. i should probably leave so tomorrow is a never i have to deal with but here i am listening to the snores of a congested drunk man while i hate myself over and over again again over and over, as i long for something other than this me.