Charming etcetera 

IV

I see brave kids with ballerina buns and expats with fashionable dogs. I see naked children flinging themselves into the water off the pier. In the park, trees stitch a living ceiling, while I read bike brands with rugged names—Cowboy, Batavus.  “Make me happy” is out there, walking, alone; graffitied on a wall, tattooed on someone’s bicep, mouthed by predators and prey of cheap love. A plea, a dare, a warning. I wonder who lives in the Protestant houses and stretch my body beneath their windows. Just like them, I’ve got nothing to hide. Are the windows watching? Let them. 

V

I slip into a bookshop then slip out like a black cat, crossing the road. You are there, waiting. You always are, with your crossbody bag and your heart worn on your droopy sleeves. I promise, I won’t bring you bad luck. Not this time. Tonight, everything new belongs to me. Let’s eat apple pie and read tarot cards.

VI

Honey melon doesn’t taste like honey, but like sweetened cucumber; a disappointment I’ve come to expect. And I really am a curtain specialist. Dream curtains are my specialty. I can open and close them the way eyelids do. I find it easier to provide this service for others than for myself. I can admire and be repulsed; praise and scold, all in the same breath, all for someone else. I used to make fun of my parents for drinking fresh OJ right before going to bed, but here I am, squeezing oranges, about to drink OJ instead of chamomile tea, saying “see you under the weeping willow, tonight” to you, half-heartedly, unable to close my own curtains. 

Naomi Ronner is a bilingual writer of poetry and fiction in Dutch and English. She’s interested in how identity takes shape across body, place and time, and in the ways these are all connected. 

Follow her on Instagram @naomironner

You can read parts 1 to 3  of Charming here: https://www.productmagazine.co.uk/new-fiction/charming/

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