Medusa (a scene inspired by Caravaggio’s painting)
May 31, 2010
“I can’t look at you.” 
She hunches over the sink in the dark bathroom, covering her ears when an ambulance screams by outside the window. “I’m sorry for ruining the evening.”
“You didn’t ruin the evening. You broke your month and a half of detox.” I turn on the bathroom light, her shoulder is bruised. She turns it off. “This trip was to get your mind off of this. You promised you’d try, for me.”
She arches her back, thin and beautiful like a dancer stretching. Her sharp shoulder blades extending and relaxing with the movement.
“Run the water… So the sink doesn’t clog.”
Her knees shake and she falls, a little slump, half nude and clutching the bathmat to stay warm.
I hate her and what she’s put me through. “I love you… hold on” I tell her and put my overcoat over the naked slump.
“I” she swallows and sniffs hard, her nose is bleeding, “love you. I’m sorry.”
In the dark, her blood looks black, thick like India ink, which she rubs with the sleeve of my coat. I don’t hear her crying anymore. I haven’t heard it for years.
“Sorry” she tells the dark bathroom, “I’m so sorry” she says in gulps to the boy across from her, his head on her shoulder.
