Have You Had Your Brown Sugar Today? - K Matthews

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Here's an excerpt from Lisa's Dress - my own contribution to the anthology Bubblin' Brown Sugar. 

     It sounds stupid, but I stood in my bedroom closet in complete darkness for ten minutes, then I eased to the floor like a helium balloon with a tiny pin prick allowing air to slowly escape, folded my arms across my knees and dropped my head. In the closet, no one, not even I, could see my tears.

     I'd actually come in the closet to pick a suit to wear to church, trying to force myself to go. It had been weeks since my last appearance, and the more I stayed away, the more various people reached out to me to make sure I was alright. I was too ashamed to tell them the truth, to admit I'd messed up, to ask for help. So to prove to everyone that they were worried about me for nothing, I was going to force myself to enter the house of the Lord, clap my hands when the choir sang, shout out a few amens when the pastor preached, and just tell everyone that I'd simply been working overtime. But the first thing my eyes fell on when I walked in the closet today was Lisa's wedding dress. It was hanging where it had always hung since we married just under five years ago. Zipped in a clear garment bag, mid-way the rack, it had served as a separator between her clothes and mine. I'd been in this same closet a thousand other times since our break-up, and barely even saw the dress, but today the shimmering white fabric embellished with Svorkian crystals demanded my attention and held me captive.

     Lost in a sea of thought, I stood motionless, except my eyes which randomly scanned the garment until I flicked the light off. I remembered how Lisa took my pure breath away that day, our wedding day, gliding towards me like the angel she was. And still is. And just like now, it had brought tears to my eyes, overwhelmed that God would bestow upon me such favor to bless me with a woman like Lisa. No, not a woman like Lisa, but with Lisa. No one but the two of us knew at the time, but my seed was hidden deep within her belly, and that, mixed with her radiant beauty, forced me to take my handkerchief from my pocket to absorb the slow trickle of moisture that had expressed to our audience the emotion I felt that day. She was my queen and I vowed to honor and treat her as such. It's funny how tears can express both unspeakable joy and unspeakable pain.

     My own sniff broke the silence for just a fraction of a second, and even though I was hidden from the world, I refused to bawl, although it's exactly what I felt like doing. Instead, I shifted to lie on my back, staring up towards a ceiling I couldn't see, looking for what I'd been frantic to find for three years now - a ray of light.


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