By Amelie Nail

I wake at eight to the aromatic scent of a new story.
Cold tile nips at my toes, I find a seat at the kitchen table
where my father smiles and slides a handful of euros near;
the token for our short journey, a gift that has become a right.
Yesterday’s bread erupts from the toaster as my brother passes it my way;
every breakfast, each summer morning, eternally the same.

I complain about going out, to which my brother replies the same.
We leave the heavy wooden door unlocked as I begin a story
of last night’s unintelligible nightmare as we tread along the lichen-mottled way.
The street fosters a conversation where white lies are laid on the table,
like the rabbit stew I couldn’t eat last night, but it seems right
to exist loudly and presently in a place so far yet so near.

In the distance, I hear the river pace the rocky shore. We are nearing
the town at last. We cross the stone bridge, full of bullet holes and geraniums, the same
ones that perpetually guide us into the heart of the village, but now comes the time to turn right
at the gothic cathedral our parents got married in; the one we hear stories
about daredevil antics and wartime miracles in excited conversations at the dinner table.
Sometimes the voices in the wind are enough to carry your breath away.

The cobblestone street bites my ankle as a neighbor waves our way.
We’re known as the Americans, from the place that’s both foreign and near.
Our French is corrected politely at the boulangerie when I place the money on the table;
annoyance would fester any other day, but now I find comfort in what remains the same.
The summer is a time of growth, apparently, a time where the dwindling stories
join hands in a larger narrative of who was wrong and who remains right.

The marrow of our bones melt as the sun shines bright.
Warm bread tantalizes us as we make our leisurely way
back to the house that only knows us in the summer. Our stories
have changed tune. The mourning doves overhead call reality near.
The morning is a ritual. There is comfort in what is the same.
The only words I throw to the wind is a wish that life could forever be this stable.

My foot crosses the threshold as I’m asked to set the table.
My brother asks me if I’m alright.
He too will remain the same.
The tide won’t turn our way.
The morning’s end draws near.
This won’t always be our story.

Somehow routine feels like the only way.
The kitchen clock chimes that the end is near,
crying out “there isn’t any time left for this story.”

–

Amelie is a poet, short story writer, and aspiring screenwriter from Palm Springs, CA. She is a current undergraduate student studying communications and writing and hopes to make her career in film.