Saturday, February 18, 2012
When I Was
Monday, January 23, 2012
(Don't) Change
It feels easier to start something new than to fix something broken. I want to purge myself of who I am right now. Start over. Sometimes I wish I had amnesia so I could begin anew with a clean slate. Maybe next time around I would be a stronger person. Maybe I would be more persistent, work harder, believe greater. Maybe I would be the person I actually want to be. I wish I could be the person today that I’m supposed to be years from now. But you can’t skip steps.
I’ve become accustomed to the idea that I can get something close to what I want by waiting it out. That way, I can put minimal effort into receiving an outcome similar to what I desire. If I see what I want, but only aim well enough to get in the general area of what I want--well, it's a gray area, good enough for me. I've settled into this idea for so long that I don't know what I really want anymore. "I don’t know" has been my anthem for such a long time, I’m starting to believe it. I’m starting to believe that I’m not worth good things. I need to learn to ask. I feel like I can’t ask for anything. What if I don’t deserve it? What's the point in asking for things you know you don't deserve? I don't ever want to get my hopes up for something if I know there's a possibility I'll be disappointed; because disappointment, for me, is the worst feeling in the world. It seems like when I get my hopes up for something, the majority of the time, I end up being let down. Best just not to trust in anything. Don't hope. Don't believe. You know you'll kick yourself in the end. You saw this coming. Remain indifferent. Don't get excited. Dont. Move.
How do you move forward if you are uncertain of the direction you should be going? My mind is a war of uncertainty, every part of me uniform in ambivalence. I am a tidal wave of opposing seas. When you live out of a place of uncertainty, you become afraid of making the wrong move. You protect yourself from failure, preserve yourself from rejection. You keep yourself from any movement that feels too big. You guard yourself to keep from falling because if no one sees you fall, you can trick them into thinking you are strong.
How do you move forward if you are uncertain of the direction you should be going? My mind is a war of uncertainty, every part of me uniform in ambivalence. I am a tidal wave of opposing seas. When you live out of a place of uncertainty, you become afraid of making the wrong move. You protect yourself from failure, preserve yourself from rejection. You keep yourself from any movement that feels too big. You guard yourself to keep from falling because if no one sees you fall, you can trick them into thinking you are strong.
I have taught myself to feign strength.
Don’t give in. Don’t let them see you cry. Don't let them SEE YOU. Don’t give them any part of you so they will have nothing to exploit you with. Don’t let them in. Don’t give them anything. No part of you. Give them nothing.
If no one knows you, no one can hurt you. If you don’t let them in, they can’t set up camp inside you and burn their fires, sending smoke up through the roof of your heart. They can’t reach their claws in and ruin you from the inside out. Don’t let them. Don’t let them touch. Don’t trust.
But sometimes you need to be ruined. Sometimes you need to be told what’s what. If you are the only one you're listening to, how will you grow? How can you gain perspective?
A man who has been at sea for too many years will forget what land feels like, only believing in the gentle rocking of his ship, memorizing the tides and the winds of the only domain he knows. He is caught up in the mundane churn of waves and can no longer remember fresh water or the feeling of a valley gale. His heart is dried on the salt-winds and cannot find a bearing for what is grounding. He is unfamiliar with true inertia or stability. Waters are wide and changing, fickle and wild. What of the vastness of land? What of the nobility of mountains and valleys? The grace of meadows and deserts? Tundras, plateaus, crags, flatlands? A man too long at sea sees land and calls it foreign, clinging to the waters of familiarity. Man was not made to live at sea. There is a reason we cannot breathe underwater.
But sometimes you need to be ruined. Sometimes you need to be told what’s what. If you are the only one you're listening to, how will you grow? How can you gain perspective?
A man who has been at sea for too many years will forget what land feels like, only believing in the gentle rocking of his ship, memorizing the tides and the winds of the only domain he knows. He is caught up in the mundane churn of waves and can no longer remember fresh water or the feeling of a valley gale. His heart is dried on the salt-winds and cannot find a bearing for what is grounding. He is unfamiliar with true inertia or stability. Waters are wide and changing, fickle and wild. What of the vastness of land? What of the nobility of mountains and valleys? The grace of meadows and deserts? Tundras, plateaus, crags, flatlands? A man too long at sea sees land and calls it foreign, clinging to the waters of familiarity. Man was not made to live at sea. There is a reason we cannot breathe underwater.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Corporeal: Lila
I am the other woman. Not that I ever wanted to be. It wasn’t a conscious choice; I didn’t just wake up one morning and think, today’s the day I steal a man from his family. But I guess that’s what happened.
I watch the woman and her son from between two trees. The overcast sky is so pale in contrast to the green grounds of the cemetery. She is a very nurturing mother, always placing her hand just so on the boy’s shoulder. She takes off one of her black gloves, fixing the boy’s hair and adjusting the black veil covering her eyes. The boy doesn’t look up much, just stares at his shoes and keeps his hands at his sides. He looks like his mother--all fair and neat--but the slump in his shoulders is so much like his father’s.
His mother stares straight ahead, the hand at her side clutched around a tissue.
I suppose she doesn’t know about me. Maybe she has some idea.
I see a tear fall on her son’s shoulder from beneath her veil and I try to usurp her sorrow, make it my own, feel the same kind of sadness she is feeling right now, but our mourning will never be identical. She has the right to cry for him when I don’t. You’re not allowed to cry over something you’ve lost when you stole it in the first place.
The priest makes the sign of the cross over his chest and the woman steps forward and kneels down to toss dirt into the hole. I can see a run in her tights inching up the back of her calf and I pity her. Even her stockings don’t have the decency to keep it together. She turns her head my way and I duck behind one of the trees, my back pressed against the bark and moss.
The breath catches in my throat as I imagine his body there in a box just a few yards from where I stand. I wonder what suit he’s wearing.
He wouldn’t have cared. He would say something like, “Why the hell would she put me in a thousand dollar suit if it’s just going to get buried? What a waste of suit.”
I can hear the woman and her son’s footsteps as they make their way through the grass to the car. She sniffs and I peek out through the gap between the trees. She has her head down, but the boy is looking straight at me. I quickly pull my head back behind the trees, but it’s too late.
I can hear the boy asking, “Who’s that girl?
The woman sounds confused. “What girl?”
“The girl hiding behind those trees.”
I don’t wait for them to get near enough to see my face. I know she’s seen me before--just once, but that may have been enough. If she saw me now she’d be wondering why I’m at her husband’s funeral.
I book it for the parking lot, my heels catching in the soft grass and dirt. I can hear her calling after me, but I don’t look back.
I watch the woman and her son from between two trees. The overcast sky is so pale in contrast to the green grounds of the cemetery. She is a very nurturing mother, always placing her hand just so on the boy’s shoulder. She takes off one of her black gloves, fixing the boy’s hair and adjusting the black veil covering her eyes. The boy doesn’t look up much, just stares at his shoes and keeps his hands at his sides. He looks like his mother--all fair and neat--but the slump in his shoulders is so much like his father’s.
His mother stares straight ahead, the hand at her side clutched around a tissue.
I suppose she doesn’t know about me. Maybe she has some idea.
I see a tear fall on her son’s shoulder from beneath her veil and I try to usurp her sorrow, make it my own, feel the same kind of sadness she is feeling right now, but our mourning will never be identical. She has the right to cry for him when I don’t. You’re not allowed to cry over something you’ve lost when you stole it in the first place.
The priest makes the sign of the cross over his chest and the woman steps forward and kneels down to toss dirt into the hole. I can see a run in her tights inching up the back of her calf and I pity her. Even her stockings don’t have the decency to keep it together. She turns her head my way and I duck behind one of the trees, my back pressed against the bark and moss.
The breath catches in my throat as I imagine his body there in a box just a few yards from where I stand. I wonder what suit he’s wearing.
He wouldn’t have cared. He would say something like, “Why the hell would she put me in a thousand dollar suit if it’s just going to get buried? What a waste of suit.”
I can hear the woman and her son’s footsteps as they make their way through the grass to the car. She sniffs and I peek out through the gap between the trees. She has her head down, but the boy is looking straight at me. I quickly pull my head back behind the trees, but it’s too late.
I can hear the boy asking, “Who’s that girl?
The woman sounds confused. “What girl?”
“The girl hiding behind those trees.”
I don’t wait for them to get near enough to see my face. I know she’s seen me before--just once, but that may have been enough. If she saw me now she’d be wondering why I’m at her husband’s funeral.
I book it for the parking lot, my heels catching in the soft grass and dirt. I can hear her calling after me, but I don’t look back.
Corporeal: John
Listen, don’t think I’m a creep just because I’m in a strange girl’s bedroom. I don’t even know how I got here. And the girl is nowhere to be seen, but I can tell it’s a girl’s room because it has that neatness about it. Guys can be organized and everything, but girls have a certain order to things.
Also, there are lace curtains.
There’s a neat desk beneath the window with a laptop resting on it. The comforter on the bed is dark blue and has some sort of herringbone pattern etched across it. Beside the bed is a black metal table with a silver lamp on it and a few books--Hemingway, Shakespeare, and Charlotte Bronte.
I remember those names, vaguely. There’s some comfort in the name Bronte especially, and I’m suddenly reminded of a red room and a house on fire with a secret burning to the ground with it.
The sound of keys in the door brings me back to my surroundings. Panic hits me as I realize I’m somewhere I really shouldn’t be. Looking around, the best place to hide seems to be the closet, which is slightly ajar. I slip through the space between the door and the wall as quietly as I can and press myself against the back wall just as I hear the bedroom door open.
I can hear the girl breathing heavily and sniffling like she has a cold. Then her breathing hitches for a second and a sob rings out against the bare walls. She’s crying, and by the sound of it, over something immensely sad. Stepping carefully over a pair of boots, I look out through the gap in the door.
The girl is sitting on the bed, hunched over something in her lap. Her purse is on the floor, its contents spilled at the foot of her bed. She looks a mess. Black tear tracks stray down her cheeks and her dark hair is frizzy and half-wild. Her black dress is so neat against her tiny frame, but there’s a smudge on her side as if she’d been leaning up against something dirty. She’s pretty, even in this chaotic state, and something about her feels familiar and comfortable. I suddenly have the urge to comfort her, but I remember that I am a stranger and I’m hiding in her closet.
The girl stays in her hunched position for a long time and I can see now that she is holding a newspaper clipping and her fingers are smudged with the ink from the page. Her sobbing has quelled for the moment, but suddenly she lets out a loud cry and throws the paper on the floor, covering her face with her hands.
My attention is drawn to the paper lying half crumpled on the floor. It looks to me like an obituary with a large title and picture. The large letters grab me first: “Local Professor Dies in Mugging.” I feel some vague empathy for the professor as my eyes rest upon the photo beside the heading. A contented face stares up at me with dark eyes and a very straight nose. He looks younger than what I expect a professor to be, but old enough, I suppose. His dark hair is short and curly and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache rest on his face. There’s an odd familiarity to the half-smile he gives me, as if I’d seen it a thousand times.
A sudden wave of nausea overwhelms me as I realize that I have.
In the mirror.
Because that face is mine.
My lungs feel like they’ve stopped working and I stagger backwards, confused. This isn’t possible. I can’t be here and dead at the same time. Besides, I haven’t been mugged recently.
I think. I try to remember what I was doing before I was here, but my brain can’t come up with anything.
I think I recall a darkness. Not like the night, but that dark that feels full and thick. Like night-swimming in a murky lake. A very present darkness.
But before that?
My head aches as I imagine the last thing I saw--just the flash of a knife and then...this?
How did I get here? And why?
I hear a gasp and I look up to see the girl standing in the doorway to the closet. There’s a moment of silence where she just stares wide-eyed at me, and then she screams, backing away. I try to stop her screaming, but as I move forward, she slams the door on my face.
Literally.
My face is halfway through the door and as I step through the rest of the way, it’s the oddest sensation. Every molecule of my body is separated as I pass through the slab of wood; it feels like moving through deep water. The girl screams again as I step toward her, arms out.
“Wait!” I try to say, but her screams drown me out. Now she’s throwing things at me, but they just go through me. As Jane Eyre passes through my chest, the girl screams, “You’re dead! You’re dead!” She pauses before throwing a pencil sharpener through my head. The force of it pulls on the backs of my eyelids and I have the sudden urge to sneeze. Now she grabs the chair from the desk behind her and uses it to guard herself from me. She’s bawling now, her hair fully wild and black tear marks smeared down her chin.
“You’re dead!” she screams again, jabbing the chair at the air in front of her.
“I know!” I yell back at her.
“Then why are you still here?” she screams, throwing the chair at me. It breaks a leg on the wall behind me. The girl falls to her knees and begins to cry even more now, pressing her forehead against the floor and shaking with each sob.
Her crying dies down eventually and she whimpers, “Why are you still here?”
I don’t have an answer for her. I stand there helplessly with my arms at my sides.
“I don’t know.”
She looks up at me, and her large brown eyes search mine for some answer I can’t give. She feels so familiar to me, but I can’t remember who she is.
“Who are you?” I ask, and that surprises her. There’s a mixture of confusion and hurt on her face.
“I’m Lila,” she says as if it should spark some memory.
“Lila,” I say. She nods. Then she cocks her head and squints at me.
“You don’t remember me,” she says. It isn’t a question.
I shake my head no.
Also, there are lace curtains.
There’s a neat desk beneath the window with a laptop resting on it. The comforter on the bed is dark blue and has some sort of herringbone pattern etched across it. Beside the bed is a black metal table with a silver lamp on it and a few books--Hemingway, Shakespeare, and Charlotte Bronte.
I remember those names, vaguely. There’s some comfort in the name Bronte especially, and I’m suddenly reminded of a red room and a house on fire with a secret burning to the ground with it.
The sound of keys in the door brings me back to my surroundings. Panic hits me as I realize I’m somewhere I really shouldn’t be. Looking around, the best place to hide seems to be the closet, which is slightly ajar. I slip through the space between the door and the wall as quietly as I can and press myself against the back wall just as I hear the bedroom door open.
I can hear the girl breathing heavily and sniffling like she has a cold. Then her breathing hitches for a second and a sob rings out against the bare walls. She’s crying, and by the sound of it, over something immensely sad. Stepping carefully over a pair of boots, I look out through the gap in the door.
The girl is sitting on the bed, hunched over something in her lap. Her purse is on the floor, its contents spilled at the foot of her bed. She looks a mess. Black tear tracks stray down her cheeks and her dark hair is frizzy and half-wild. Her black dress is so neat against her tiny frame, but there’s a smudge on her side as if she’d been leaning up against something dirty. She’s pretty, even in this chaotic state, and something about her feels familiar and comfortable. I suddenly have the urge to comfort her, but I remember that I am a stranger and I’m hiding in her closet.
The girl stays in her hunched position for a long time and I can see now that she is holding a newspaper clipping and her fingers are smudged with the ink from the page. Her sobbing has quelled for the moment, but suddenly she lets out a loud cry and throws the paper on the floor, covering her face with her hands.
My attention is drawn to the paper lying half crumpled on the floor. It looks to me like an obituary with a large title and picture. The large letters grab me first: “Local Professor Dies in Mugging.” I feel some vague empathy for the professor as my eyes rest upon the photo beside the heading. A contented face stares up at me with dark eyes and a very straight nose. He looks younger than what I expect a professor to be, but old enough, I suppose. His dark hair is short and curly and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache rest on his face. There’s an odd familiarity to the half-smile he gives me, as if I’d seen it a thousand times.
A sudden wave of nausea overwhelms me as I realize that I have.
In the mirror.
Because that face is mine.
My lungs feel like they’ve stopped working and I stagger backwards, confused. This isn’t possible. I can’t be here and dead at the same time. Besides, I haven’t been mugged recently.
I think. I try to remember what I was doing before I was here, but my brain can’t come up with anything.
I think I recall a darkness. Not like the night, but that dark that feels full and thick. Like night-swimming in a murky lake. A very present darkness.
But before that?
My head aches as I imagine the last thing I saw--just the flash of a knife and then...this?
How did I get here? And why?
I hear a gasp and I look up to see the girl standing in the doorway to the closet. There’s a moment of silence where she just stares wide-eyed at me, and then she screams, backing away. I try to stop her screaming, but as I move forward, she slams the door on my face.
Literally.
My face is halfway through the door and as I step through the rest of the way, it’s the oddest sensation. Every molecule of my body is separated as I pass through the slab of wood; it feels like moving through deep water. The girl screams again as I step toward her, arms out.
“Wait!” I try to say, but her screams drown me out. Now she’s throwing things at me, but they just go through me. As Jane Eyre passes through my chest, the girl screams, “You’re dead! You’re dead!” She pauses before throwing a pencil sharpener through my head. The force of it pulls on the backs of my eyelids and I have the sudden urge to sneeze. Now she grabs the chair from the desk behind her and uses it to guard herself from me. She’s bawling now, her hair fully wild and black tear marks smeared down her chin.
“You’re dead!” she screams again, jabbing the chair at the air in front of her.
“I know!” I yell back at her.
“Then why are you still here?” she screams, throwing the chair at me. It breaks a leg on the wall behind me. The girl falls to her knees and begins to cry even more now, pressing her forehead against the floor and shaking with each sob.
Her crying dies down eventually and she whimpers, “Why are you still here?”
I don’t have an answer for her. I stand there helplessly with my arms at my sides.
“I don’t know.”
She looks up at me, and her large brown eyes search mine for some answer I can’t give. She feels so familiar to me, but I can’t remember who she is.
“Who are you?” I ask, and that surprises her. There’s a mixture of confusion and hurt on her face.
“I’m Lila,” she says as if it should spark some memory.
“Lila,” I say. She nods. Then she cocks her head and squints at me.
“You don’t remember me,” she says. It isn’t a question.
I shake my head no.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Wombs
I had a vision once that I was a butterfly still in its cocoon, trying to wrestle its way out before its time. (You're not ready to be revealed, little one. Don't struggle against the protection of your rebirth) But all my sisters are transformed and beautiful, taunting me with their outstretched wings, displaying their vibrant new colors brightened by the sun. They proclaim, "Look at me, sister! Today I learned to fly! I felt the wind under my small body carrying me on currents of endless sky! Today I danced through clouds and air, and warmed my wings on the rays of the sun!" All the while I tug at my unformed wings, pressing against the walls of my second womb, struggling in vain to break through this second skin. (You are not ready. You are not strong enough. It is not your time. Wait. Be patient.) I have been waiting. Three years a stillbirth waiting to be revived. I crave new air. I want to raise my arms, but they are squashed beneath my body. My voice is caught in my throat and muffled by the walls of this womb. Not fully caterpillar, not yet butterfly, I am a changeling caught between two worlds.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Mysteries like Symponies
Mysteries like symphonies hum in the current of his breath,
sidling along a leaf to expel it from its home, or uprooting an entire church from its plot.
There is a quiet chaos in the shadow of a breeze,
an unpredictability in its potential to loose your hair from its neatness,
without shame,
without apology.
Wind has no desire to make amends.
It can kiss your neck or burn your cheeks, but it will never apologize for what it was made to do.
It is not responsible for its effect, only its direction.
Its purpose is to move.
sidling along a leaf to expel it from its home, or uprooting an entire church from its plot.
There is a quiet chaos in the shadow of a breeze,
an unpredictability in its potential to loose your hair from its neatness,
without shame,
without apology.
Wind has no desire to make amends.
It can kiss your neck or burn your cheeks, but it will never apologize for what it was made to do.
It is not responsible for its effect, only its direction.
Its purpose is to move.
Moon Thoughts
The moon strays from twisted branches, their crinoline arms reaching out to strangle its freedom.
Wow. That sounds depressing. But really, tree branches are no match for the moon.
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