MABEL YU WITNESS

by Mariah Swartz

Mabel Yu Witness

Your opal earring hung steady on your right ear
too far too the right on your left.
I remember your white paper bag with
grease butterflies and a bottle of murky liquid
weighed at the bottom.
Hot oil stains skin a meat red
leaves scars like 6 o'clock arguments.
Pink wispy clouds settling beneath dusty canyons
sinking to red rivers and white water rapids.
Tell me about the license plate
with your two favorite numbers and initials of my name. Your opal earring
buried with you now, the other still on display at the
downtown market where you stole it. I still use
the bag with butterfly grease stains to put books in
your license plate still hangs above our bed frame,
engraved with the pink in your name. The last thing I remember saying to you was
somewhere in my dreams when I called your name, you didn’t reply.
I remember the grease stains came from
the house, we left the stove on while encompassing
our naked bodies into each other, whispering
into coves of stretched stomachs
while sunflower seeds plant into soil. Tell me you’ll remember me
when the sky’s grey and sunflowers bloom in fall, almost ready
for their second birthday. Tiger lily hair and summer yellow hearts.
She reminds me of you, Mabel. Come back to to my dreams
and return your opal earring.

I want an apology

Tall pines swaying East to West, but I’m going North.
                                    You’re selfish. Don’t put him on a pedestal and hate us for your mistakes.
Or maybe I’m going home. Home is where you should feel safe, joy and grass stained memories.                                                                                        You don’t deserve to be loved.
I taste the bitter tinge of her words in my ears, above robins chirping.
The sunset reminds me of pumpkin carving, hands cut and shaped awkward in the sky.
I never once said the sunrise reminded me of him.
                                                                                        If you leave this house never come back.
I’m not looking for red horizons anymore.
She doesn’t remember, but
she still wears the hoodie with
tears in the zipper teeth
blue not dark enough to wash the smell of chain smoking Newports
the holes in the wall.
Still, I can smell smoke in the entryway, himid with
                                                                                                  How are things? Good to see you.
I want an apology. To feel arms wrapped around my shoulders
let’s pack a lunch with three ham sandwiches and hit Highway 93.
I want an apology, tuck me in at night and tell me you love me.
                                                                                       You’re a piece of shit just like your father.
I want to hear the river current
Bailey panting, blowing water from her scrunched nose
shaking her body against hot sand.
I want an apology, I never asked you to play drug dealer hopscotch until
the stone landed on the number you wanted.
                                                                                             Are you sure you want to come back?
Still, you’re looking for red horizons.

The Time I Scored Front Row Seating at an MMA Fight

Every Saturday night it’s the same kicks to the head or blows to the mouth, but different bulky men. I’ve never really understood why anyone would watch MMa fighting on television. But maybe I’m just sensitive. The walls here are real thin, and I can tell by the sounds that there’s blood in his mouth because I remember my mother’s lips when she asked me to dial 911 on the house phone and she said don’t let him talk to you like that. I didn’t feel my fingers dialing on the house phone, or handing it to my mom on the ground while he stole a bike and broke the mailbox.

MMA- AAANNNNDD he’s got it! Look at that leg trip takedown. Oh now he’s going for the triangle choke by golly he’s gonna--

I don’t understand why a grown man thinks it’s ok to do cocaine in the master bathroom of a two bedroom trailer while the twelve year old daughter takes care of a one year old who didn’t get so lucky, doesn't have her own daddy because he’d rather get high on drugs than lift his baby up. He can’t remember her name or birthday but doesn’t ever forget where he put his pipe. But I can’t forget when he hit my mom in the kitchen the first time.

MMA- Oh, he’s going to get docked for that one. Pulled the most dangerous illegal move there is. The other guy is still trying to achieve a knee strike from the ground and there he goes--

It doesn’t many any sense. I don’t know how the score works any more than I know how to count the amount of dirty UA’s or days spent far away from the baby he left and never came back for. My mom tells me everyone makes mistakes, but she misunderstood what I was trying to say, when I said I didn’t want him here. He taught you how to ride a bike, she says. But when my sister asks where her daddy is, how does that help me explain?

MMA- He’s going to tap out, here he goes! The choke hold is too much for him, he lost another round..

I remember someone once asked me what I was afraid of.  I didn’t answer. I didn’t answer because I wasn’t sure what happened on a TV screen and what we watched in my living room. My mother always told me memory is tricky, maybe he was drinking. And sometimes we confuse our fears with reality.

About the Author:

Mariah Swartz is a senior at Big Sky High School in Missoula, Montana. She has lived in Missoula her whole life, and she is the primary editor for her school's literary magazine, Aerie International.