Onion Skin

Onion Skin

Anita said I was her onion-friend,
and I was puzzled by that.
Of all the things she could have said
this was unexpected.
We were in my kitchen, the one with
the chocolate-milkshake coloured walls,
and she’d said it,
without much contemplation,
like it made perfect sense,
like it were known.

There are layers, she explained
when my expression begged
for more, and I listened as
I stirred the teabags in the pot.
The loveliness of the tea as it
rolled reddish-brown fog into
the boiled water almost
numbed me as she spoke.
So pretty, I was thinking,
the most beautiful colour I’ve seen.

If one peels enough, she continued,
they’ll eventually get to the heart of
you, but you’ll not give that heart
to just anyone. One must take time
to peel.

I thought about that, and how I’d once
peeled an onion and studied the
epidermis, marvelling at the
small white misshapen pickets,
like microscopic fences made to keep
everything behind it pretty,
and everything beyond it, out.

All the onion seemed to do was
bring a tear or two, stinging my eyes,
making everything uncomfortably pink.
The scent overpowered, bordered on
unsavoury, not unlike the putrescent sweat
of an unclean stranger on the subway.

I also thought about how there
had been no heart in the centre
of that onion. No heart at all.

It’s been years now since I’ve seen her,
my friend Anita, and the friendship ended
for reasons that once seemed material,
but now are strangely forgotten.
The chocolate-coloured kitchen
is now painted pearl white
but I don’t live there anymore.

I think of her, mostly when I make tea,
watching the gorgeous russet haze
whirl in my favourite painted mug.
I think about what she said,
that I was her onion-friend,
and how that had felt vaguely
like mockery, though now I see
she didn‘t intend it to be.

Tonight,
under this filmy,
flimsy sheath,
I still don’t know
what beats underneath.