Sin as a Woman

My sin came to me as a woman in my dreams before dawn this morning. The vision started in a diner. I was waiting for her next to the window in a booth. I was sipping my coffee. She approached and I offered her a seat across from me. She missed the facade that was me and I wanted what she would never be. We sat across from one another in bashful silence for a while, hearts thundering. I gazed on her beauty feeling the sweet stabs of hope and the real pain she had caused. Her familiar smile finally broke upon her face; the smile reminds me of a young Cher – before plastic. It was bitter sweet, one of regret and hope. She reached across to take my hand. She was warm and inviting. A million memories flashed through my mind. She knew things were ending.

I told her that I loved her, but that it was in all the wrong ways. She gave a knowing nod and rubbed my hand in sorrow. She got stuffy, tears brimming, eyes glistening …those beautiful amber eyes glowing like a hearth under a brunette roof. I had known her for many years; when she was young her face soft and innocent. Now her features had those angular turns of a maturing woman, her beauty different but not diminished. I wondered how she endured the life I gave her.

She told me that she loved me too. I could tell she meant it, or wanted to mean it. She said the words as if striking a wet match, hopeful yet un-ignited. I told her I was sorry for contributing to her problem, leading her on and on. I wanted to let go for so long. Being so committed, I had sustained her illusions of eternal life with me. I wanted to save her. She was my secret friend, the one I was ashamed of, in many ways a authentic friend. I told her I knew better than to ever get involved, that our mutual weaknesses had led us to self-destruction of the soul. But, that I had found a door out.

Her eyes got wide for a moment. She knew what I was talking about. I had been bringing it up a lot lately.

She looked out the window into the gray morning, while still gripping my hand, eyes dripping tears. She was even making me cry. She said as she blinked, “I’m a Christian too,” as if trying to flip on a dead light bulb, as if by magic it would suddenly come on, but the dismay returning anew, the sadness fresh in her heart.

“That is a nice lie Satan,” I said quietly. She broke up like a Picasso, the shards disappeared as smoke in the wind. My hand was cold. I looked around. Then I saw her reappear outside the window looking in, her palm against the glass. I put my hand to hers and she smiled that beautiful bittersweet smile. She mouthed goodbye. I said that I would forget her…every day of my life. Then she faded into the gray and gathering crowd to wander among the other ghosts of my soul; the cloaks, and passes I gave as cover to the darkness in me.

I turned to see the waitress staring at me. She asked, “What were you looking at?”

“I used to not know.”