H. E. GRAHAME - PENNY

H.E. Grahame is a Salt Lake City, Utah writer, poet and student at the University of Utah studying Writing and Rhetoric. She works as a Writing Consultant/Tutor and Publications Coordinator for Salt Lake Community College. She enjoys cooking, travel, photography, music, and words. (www.HEGrahame.weebly.com)

PENNY

​You never knew your heartbeat could be so loud. Pounding like a bass drum of an erratic dance song; out of sync with the melody yet somehow a perfect tune. You wondered if the sound was loud enough to carry through the silent room or just a throbbing in your own head; intertwined with your racing thoughts in a messy dance, bouncing around in your skull.
 
She stood in your doorway, watching you, pink lips pinched nervously between her teeth. Waiting. Wanting. Hopeful.
 
You had dreaded this moment for months. The second you met her you knew. You knew it would come to this. In that first moment with her - bright eyes, soft voice, sly smile - you had seen it, like a crystal ball prophecy. She would be more to you than you could have imagined. But you had never predicted it would be this complicated or this hard to tell her what she needed to hear.
 
She was the smell of crisp winter air, springtime daisies and dusky summer rain. Her thoughts and words tumbled past her lips like a lazy stream, always moving yet never hurried, splashing the world around her in colorful and crazy puddles of curiosity. She lit the room like moonlight on an autumn evening, silver and calm. And she captured your attention and your imagination like fireflies in a jar. You followed her stories in circles and chased her through mythical battles and enchanted forests. You decorated castles walls with spray paint and watercolor and let her laughter sing you to sleep. Innocently, she had wrapped herself through your fingers and slid into your pocket like a lucky penny.
 
You watched her as she memorized your curves and angles like an actor learning new lines. She carefully combed though your baggage to see where you had been and what marks had been left behind. You wondered sometimes if you were as much color-littered canvas and dulcet melody to her as she was to you. You wondered if you had just as modestly become her charm as well.
 
You cleared your throat, the sound ripping through the too-quiet room like a car crash, drowning out the thumping of your heart and the speedy flickering sound of florescent lights. Now was that moment; with well-rehearsed marker inked words to run up the flagpole. The wave of the flag in the wind would announce what you had become or identify your chalk outline on the sidewalk below.
 
"Let's make this easy." You said to her, the fabrication heavy on your tongue. "You never mattered."