I can't think straight lately. I've been losing my shoes and taking my dog for walks and cutting my hair with Mom's scrap-booking scissors, and I've been doing other things, too; I just don't remember what they are. I try to write things down, but words seem so insufficient.
They only catch so much, and so many real feelings and concepts fall through the cracks undefined that how can we know anything about ourselves, let alone each other? Give something a name and it is real, solid. But the inexplicable is dismissed just because there are no words to anchor it and so it floats away.
Balloons.
No, at least balloons are something; have some substance.
Warm air, maybe. Puffs of warm wind. Brief, invisible, insubstantial but you still feel it and for a moment it engulfs you completely. Then it is gone, as if it had never been. Language is so limiting.
I'm tired, and I think I'm over-thinking, putting so many words—or trying to—to whatever is in me that I lose it; lose what it really is until I don't know anything anymore.
Can't anything just be what it is? Why does everything seem to require such analysis and subsequent documentation?
Like the meteor shower the other night; the annual fiery Tears of St.Lawrence, hurled across the sky by Perseus. I saw twenty-seven of them, those brightly-broken chunks of Swift-Tuttle. It was surreal, almost cartoon-like,the way a point of light would sail straight across a section of sky. A few left burning trails across the black, but the lines behind some of the smaller ones were so faint that I can't be completely sure I didn't imagine them.
Sometimes the intervals between meteors were long, and my eyes grew tired and sore in all my probing amongst the stars. They went still and unfocused as my mind wandered, and vaguely I forgot why I couldn't just close my eyes and rest.
But then, No. Swiftly, like a sudden convulsion, I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. No, I can't forget what I'm looking for. Not now...and not ever.
I might be weary and stiff; sore and losing focus and even starting to lose hope that I might ever see another streak of light, but until my ragged consciousness can no longer cling to wakefulness...I can't forget what I'm looking for.
And besides, there was beauty to be seen between meteors; infinite glittering, suspended stars and Venus in the south-eastern sky.
And I talked to God some, feebly tossing my tired voice into the atmosphere, where it mingled with the distant sounds of coyotes' primitive songs in strange harmony with the arrogant barks of farmers' dogs.
I told Him that I think I spend too much time looking at little things, at simple things like TV when two steps out my door there is a vast scope for intrigue and beauty.
I said, I think I do that because I know I can't grasp the full grandeur of the starry sky or silk-square pastures or thick-thatched woods full of little creatures, and so I'm afraid to even try to see them.
I comprehend them just enough to know that they are wonderfully complex and majestic and pull from me some primitive feeling of reverence and ceremony; and I comprehend them just enough to know that they are far more beautiful and far more grand than I could ever understand.
And that if I did, I would fall weeping in the dirt in sheer wonder, run through the fields and swim in the lake and climb the trees; jump off the edge of the Grand Canyon or or drown myself in the ocean just to be enveloped. Just to be submerged in the heartbreaking loveliness of it all.
I look at the TV instead, because I'm ashamed to gaze in what awe I may when I know that if I only understood, I would see and it would change my life completely. But I don't understand and it makes me so sad, to know something's missing in me.
I look at the cheap instead of the priceless; I look at me instead of You.
And I'm so, so sorry.
Two of the larger meteors I saw came at perfect times, punctuating certain thoughts, as if in tangible answer. I won't write them, those thoughts; they're just for me. Not because they were at all scandalous—really they were very mundane—but because I need to keep some things sacred and secret, whether or not they are of that nature.
Maybe it was coincidence, the way the meteors fell when they did, but I need to believe it was my God. I do believe it.
It may be stereotypical—everyone in the world has been stirred by the stars—but the tears felt good in my eyes as I smiled.
I counted the little lights as they fell and for once tried to revel in the simplicity of what is, now. Nothing had changed in my life; no problems were solved, nothing was magically "better". But, how could I not be happy when it is raining stars?
Besides, it was now and I was here and so was the grass and the sky and gravity, and I figured that had to count for something—even if my mind could not wrap itself around the reality.
For a moment I thought maybe having someone there to share it with would help make it real; make it true, prove to myself that this isn't a dream and that it really is. But, no, I don't think another human wouldn't have helped. I think nothing can reinforce things like this. My words can't; I've just been writing and writing and still this is just another star-story penned by just another hopeless romantic. But oh, it felt like so much more.
I think that these moments—these sights—are not meant to be held over or saved. Paint a picture of this, try to describe, and it is cheapened some. Like fireflies, put them in a jar and soon they'll dry up.
But as a child, that didn't stop me from catching as many fireflies as I could. And as a young adult, it won't keep me from desperately grasping to capture these things in words. And failing.
Except maybe to say that I thought, I want to be here until I die; until I am dust and no longer have any eyes at all to see these things.
I'd tell them, you know, if they wanted to know. I'd tell them all sorts of things.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
INSIDE VOICES (rough draft)
INSIDE VOICES (rough draft. Feedback would be appreciated; I've never written a script-type-thing before)
Scene opens with Margaret seated on her bed, irritably scribbling in her sketchbook. The Beatles’ “I’m So Tired” plays as camera pans around her room, showing her artwork, her stuffed tiger, her dog.
COLIN: Calling from downstairs Margie? Margie, where are you? Margaret, come on; you know I know you’re in here.
Colin enters Margaret’s room to find her sitting on the bed, facing the door and glaring at him.
MARGARET: Welcome back, jackwad.
COLIN: What’s wrong with you?
MARGARET: Aren’t you going to apologize for the other night?
COLIN: Why? What’d I do?
MARGARET: …You didn’t have to bring her here.
COLIN: You said I could always come here.
MARGARET: I said YOU could always come here, not your friends.
COLIN: She wasn—
MARGARET: Or your girlfriend, or whatever.
COLIN: She wasn’t my friend or my girlfriend. I was really drunk—
MARGARET: You’re drunk right now.
COLIN: I’m not drunk, I’m hung over. There’s a big difference. Anyway, Trent ditched me to chase tail. A barista gave me a lift.
MARGARET: A lift and a—
COLIN: Yeah, she came in. I know. I was drunk. I’m sorry, ok? It’ll never happen again.
MARGARET: No, it won’t. Give me back my apartment key.
COLIN: Margie, come on; you don’t really want it. Besides, you know I really need a place to stay tonight and I shouldn’t be driving. And just because you’re a prude doesn’t mean everyone else should be.
MARGARET: I am not a prude. Having some kind of moral standard doesn’t make me a prude.
COLIN: Of course it’s easy for you. You’re not any better than me; you just don’t have the opportunity to do stuff. No life, no temptation. It’s pretty simple to maintain standards when you’re locked up here alone in your room all day, day after day after day after day—
MARGARET: Stop it, Colin! Agoraphobia is a real and debilitating psychological condition. Which you’d know if you even cracked the cover of that book I gave you.
COLIN: I didn’t have to read it. “Psychological condition”; you know that means it’s all in your head, right?
MARGARET: Yes, but it doesn’t mean I can control it.
COLIN: Maybe you could, if you weren’t too proud for therapy. Or is it just because you’re too scared to leave your house? Sorry, I get confused trying to figure out what’s just a personality flaw and what’s some weird tick in your brain.
MARGARET: I’m too proud to go to therapy? Have you ever been to an AA meeting?
COLIN: Of course not. I’m not an alcoholic.
MARGARET: Pause. You really think you’re not an alcoholic?
COLIN: You really think I am?
MARGARET: What?! I haven’t seen you completely sober almost two years! And for the past six months you’ve been hanging around here all the time. When was the last time you held onto a job for more than three days? You drank yourself broke, got evicted from your apartment, and now I have to tuck you into my guest bed almost every night. Why do you think I stopped keeping booze around? I didn’t want to enable you.
COLIN: “Enable me”? Fine, I’ll stop cleaning your dog’s crap out of the lawn. Maybe once I quit enabling you, you’ll get evicted too.
MARGARET: …You clean up after Casper?
COLIN: Yeah; why do you think you haven’t heard from your landlord?
MARGARET: Why didn’t you tell me before?
COLIN: Cause you never threw a fit about me crashing here before.
MARGARET: Oh. Well. Thanks. Sorry.
COLIN: Whatever. I’m keeping the key.
MARGARET: Yeah, ok.
Silence. Colin sits on the edge of Margaret’s bed.
COLIN: You really should try to get over that agora-thing.
MARGARET: Phobia.
COLIN: Whatever. You should try to get it fixed; you’re missing a lot of life, festering in here 24/7.
MARGARET: I’m not festering.
COLIN: Studies Margaret for a moment, his face grimly contemplative. Ok…I’m going to walk down to Casey’s…do you need anything?
MARGARET: I’m not an invalid.
COLIN: Rolls eyes. I know, that’s not—Sighs Bye, Margie.
MARGARET: Bye. Then, a little too late, Thanks.
*When Colin returns*:
MARGARET: Very distressed. Casper ran away.
COLIN: What? How?
MARGARET: I let him outside just like always but he saw another dog and ran off after it. I tried to go after him but…it smelled like exhaust and I couldn’t make myself go so I just called and called but he didn’t come back…
COLIN: How long ago?
MARGARET: Ah hour and twelve minutes.
COLIN: I’ll go find him.
MARGARET: Are you sure? I could call someone—
COLIN: No, chill. I’ll go and be back asap. He couldn’t have gotten that far.
MARGARET: Thank you.
COLIN: Sure. Don’t worry. I’ll call you later. Bye.
MARGARET: Bye…
Three hours pass, phone rings.
MARGARET: Anything?
COLIN: No. I’m sorry, Margie. I’ve looked everywhere…
MARGARET: It’s not your fault. Go flirt with a waitress; I’ll look into putting an ad in the paper.
COLIN: Dry chuckle You know me well. See ya.
“Something Vague” (Bright Eyes) fades in
MARGARET: Yeah, see ya. And thank you. Very much.
COLIN: Pause Sure.
Colin goes to the liquor store and gets smashed sitting on the floor outside Margaret’s apartment.
*Later that night*:
MARGARET: Humming. Gazing out a window at the city lights, sitting Indian-style by Colin, who is passed out.
COLIN: Groans and shifts.
“Naked as a Window” (Josh Ritter) plays
MARGARET: What if this is it?
COLIN: Hmm? What?
MARGARET: What if this is all there is for us?
COLIN: It might be.
MARGARET: That would suck.
COLIN: It would.
MARGARET: Thanks.
COLIN: Hmm? For what?
MARGARET: For not trying to convince me that things will get better. I hate that; people pretending there are guarantees that don’t exist and making predictions they know nothing about. I mean, no one can make promises like that. Why do they keep saying it?
COLIN: I dunno; I’ve always thought that was just a band-aid myself...Rolls over onto his back, looking up at Margaret. You’re pretty.
MARGARET: What?
COLIN: Reaches up to touch her collarbone. Margaret flinches; Colin doesn’t notice. His fingers wind into the sleeve of her blouse. You heard me. You’re pretty. I like you. You’re a pretty girl. Like…a picture. Haha, pretty as a picture...You know what?
MARGARET:…What…?
COLIN: I want to kiss you, Picture Girl.
MARGARET: Blushing and awkward. …Colin…um, you’re drunk…
COLIN: Ugh! Drops arm. Stop saying that! I’m trying to tell you something here and you won’t shut up about—
MARGARET: No, no; that’s not what I meant. It’s just…you don’t know what you’re saying and if you even remember you’ll wish you hadn’t said it. I’ll pretend you didn’t, but it’ll still be all weird cause we’ll both know that you did…you should just go back to sleep.
COLIN: Grabs Margaret’s wrist. No. No, Margie. You blew me off like that last year, so I waited to see if time would make you think any more, but I’m done waiting for you to take me seriously.
MARGARET: Colin, stop—
COLIN: No, listen. Just cause I’m drunk doesn’t mean it isn’t true, and you know it. You’re always hiding from things. You’re hiding from the entire world outside and you’re hiding from me—
MARGARET: You’re hurting me.
COLIN: No I’m not; I can’t. You won’t let me close enough to hurt—
MARGARET: Tries to pry his hand from her wrist. Ow! No, Colin, you’re hurting me. Colin, let go!
COLIN: Sits up, horrified. Margie! Margie I’m so sorry! Reaches for her arm. I didn’t mean to—
MARGARET: Instinctively pulls her arm away. It’s ok; it’s fine.
COLIN: pulls his hand back and sits in shameful silence for a moment, his hands folded in his lap. Did it—I mean—did I—
MARGARET: Looks at him and softens. No, it’s fine, really. See? Holds her arm out to him.
COLIN: Takes Margaret’s arm extremely gently, traces reddening finger-marks. Shit. Oh, shit…
MARGARET: Colin, it’s ok.
COLIN: I can’t believe I did that—
MARGARET: Leans in so that her face is close to his. Shut up already. I said it’s ok; stop being so dramatic.
Pause
COLIN: I think…
“Of Angels and Angles” (The Decemberists) plays
MARGARET: What?
COLIN: Slowly cradles Margaret’s chin in his hand; kisses her on one cheek, looks into her eyes, then kisses the other.
MARGARET: Whispering, looking down shyly. I think so, too.
Goes dark, fades in again; Margaret is asleep on Colin’s lap. Colin is stroking her hair. She wakes up and smiles groggily at him.
COLIN: We’re fragile beings, you and I. Please, let’s try not to break each other.
MARGARET: How can we not? Neither of us can stand the way the other lives.
COLIN: That doesn’t change how much I want to hold you.
MARGARET: Sits up. And if you get to? What then? Feelings come and go, but we both know our vices are home to us.
COLIN: We couldn’t relocate? For this? For…us?
MARGARET: Colin…there is no “us”. You know it doesn’t work that way.
COLIN: Fine, but maybe it doesn’t have to. Our shit controls so much of our lives; does it have to control this, too?
MARGARET: What do you think? What do you think will happen when I never let you see me in the sunlight, or you get drunk and screw some random bar skank? Do you think we’ll be able to look at each other and say it doesn’t matter?
COLIN: I wouldn’t cheat on you—
“Haligh, Haligh, a Lie” (Bright Eyes) fades in
MARGARET: Don’t be naïve, Colin. You get drunk. You do stupid things you regret.
COLIN: Maybe if you’d come with me—
MARGARET: Stands up, exasperated. No! See? That might never happen so it’s stupid to just cross our fingers and hope things will magically work out! Neither of us can conquer our--
COLIN: Margie! Margie, you think this stuff is so big and it’s not. So I drink too much. So you stay inside. Don’t blow it out of proportion. It’s this simple: If you would just come out—no, Margie, listen—Its all in your head. The fear, it’s all in your head. If you would just come out with me—
MARGARET: getting worked up It isn’t that easy.
COLIN: You don’t think it’s that easy, but it is. The only thing keeping you in this apartment is you—
MARGARET: Indignant What? How could you think that? What the hell makes you think that’s all there is to it? If this stuff were that easy to fix, why the hell are we like this? How come—
COLIN: Violent shout Because you won’t let me help you!
Pause
MARGARET: I won’t let you…give me my key.
COLIN: Margie I—
MARGARET: Give me the damn key!
COLIN: Stares at Margaret for a moment, tosses her the key, and leaves the apartment.
Door slams; Margaret sits down on the floor and cries.
Something plays during a montage of Margaret standing at her door clutching a Lost Dog poster, and Colin staying sober on a three-day search for Casper. Song ends and Colin, with Casper on a makeshift leash, walks up to Margaret’s apartment building, which is burning and surrounded by a crowd of people, fire trucks, and ambulances. Colin drops Casper’s leash and runs toward the building. Firemen stop him, insisting that he get back. Someone is sitting on the curb; Colin approaches him.
COLIN: Do you know what happened?
MAN: No.
COLIN: Is everyone alright?
MAN: No.
COLIN: How do you know?
MAN: I’m the landlord. I was running up and down the halls on the last two floors that weren’t already crumbling, banging on doors to make sure people got out. When I got to room number 246b, she followed right behind me. When we got to the building’s exit, she just stood there, like she was scared to leave. Then she said she forgot something and ran back toward her room. I tried to go after her, but the smoke was so thick by then I couldn’t see or breathe so I panicked and ran back outside…the fireman said they’d go in after her…she was already gone by the time they brought her out. I can’t believe I let her go running off like that…I wish I could remember her name…Maybe it was Mary.
COLIN: hoarse whisper Margaret.
MAN: Oh, yeah, I remember now. Margaret. I thought she had a dog, but I didn’t see him anywhere…
Colin has already walked away by the time the man is finished speaking. He walks, sits on a bench and cries some, then walks into a dingy bar.
BARTENDER: No dogs.
COLIN: I’ll just be a minute—
BARTENDER: I said no dogs. Get him out of here.
COLIN: Can—
BARTENDER: Now, damn it!
Colin walks Casper to a clump of trees in the lawn of a business next to the bar. He ties Casper to a tree.
COLIN: Petting Casper Stay here, boy. I’ll be back in a little while.
Casper whimpers as Colin walks away.
THE END
Scene opens with Margaret seated on her bed, irritably scribbling in her sketchbook. The Beatles’ “I’m So Tired” plays as camera pans around her room, showing her artwork, her stuffed tiger, her dog.
COLIN: Calling from downstairs Margie? Margie, where are you? Margaret, come on; you know I know you’re in here.
Colin enters Margaret’s room to find her sitting on the bed, facing the door and glaring at him.
MARGARET: Welcome back, jackwad.
COLIN: What’s wrong with you?
MARGARET: Aren’t you going to apologize for the other night?
COLIN: Why? What’d I do?
MARGARET: …You didn’t have to bring her here.
COLIN: You said I could always come here.
MARGARET: I said YOU could always come here, not your friends.
COLIN: She wasn—
MARGARET: Or your girlfriend, or whatever.
COLIN: She wasn’t my friend or my girlfriend. I was really drunk—
MARGARET: You’re drunk right now.
COLIN: I’m not drunk, I’m hung over. There’s a big difference. Anyway, Trent ditched me to chase tail. A barista gave me a lift.
MARGARET: A lift and a—
COLIN: Yeah, she came in. I know. I was drunk. I’m sorry, ok? It’ll never happen again.
MARGARET: No, it won’t. Give me back my apartment key.
COLIN: Margie, come on; you don’t really want it. Besides, you know I really need a place to stay tonight and I shouldn’t be driving. And just because you’re a prude doesn’t mean everyone else should be.
MARGARET: I am not a prude. Having some kind of moral standard doesn’t make me a prude.
COLIN: Of course it’s easy for you. You’re not any better than me; you just don’t have the opportunity to do stuff. No life, no temptation. It’s pretty simple to maintain standards when you’re locked up here alone in your room all day, day after day after day after day—
MARGARET: Stop it, Colin! Agoraphobia is a real and debilitating psychological condition. Which you’d know if you even cracked the cover of that book I gave you.
COLIN: I didn’t have to read it. “Psychological condition”; you know that means it’s all in your head, right?
MARGARET: Yes, but it doesn’t mean I can control it.
COLIN: Maybe you could, if you weren’t too proud for therapy. Or is it just because you’re too scared to leave your house? Sorry, I get confused trying to figure out what’s just a personality flaw and what’s some weird tick in your brain.
MARGARET: I’m too proud to go to therapy? Have you ever been to an AA meeting?
COLIN: Of course not. I’m not an alcoholic.
MARGARET: Pause. You really think you’re not an alcoholic?
COLIN: You really think I am?
MARGARET: What?! I haven’t seen you completely sober almost two years! And for the past six months you’ve been hanging around here all the time. When was the last time you held onto a job for more than three days? You drank yourself broke, got evicted from your apartment, and now I have to tuck you into my guest bed almost every night. Why do you think I stopped keeping booze around? I didn’t want to enable you.
COLIN: “Enable me”? Fine, I’ll stop cleaning your dog’s crap out of the lawn. Maybe once I quit enabling you, you’ll get evicted too.
MARGARET: …You clean up after Casper?
COLIN: Yeah; why do you think you haven’t heard from your landlord?
MARGARET: Why didn’t you tell me before?
COLIN: Cause you never threw a fit about me crashing here before.
MARGARET: Oh. Well. Thanks. Sorry.
COLIN: Whatever. I’m keeping the key.
MARGARET: Yeah, ok.
Silence. Colin sits on the edge of Margaret’s bed.
COLIN: You really should try to get over that agora-thing.
MARGARET: Phobia.
COLIN: Whatever. You should try to get it fixed; you’re missing a lot of life, festering in here 24/7.
MARGARET: I’m not festering.
COLIN: Studies Margaret for a moment, his face grimly contemplative. Ok…I’m going to walk down to Casey’s…do you need anything?
MARGARET: I’m not an invalid.
COLIN: Rolls eyes. I know, that’s not—Sighs Bye, Margie.
MARGARET: Bye. Then, a little too late, Thanks.
*When Colin returns*:
MARGARET: Very distressed. Casper ran away.
COLIN: What? How?
MARGARET: I let him outside just like always but he saw another dog and ran off after it. I tried to go after him but…it smelled like exhaust and I couldn’t make myself go so I just called and called but he didn’t come back…
COLIN: How long ago?
MARGARET: Ah hour and twelve minutes.
COLIN: I’ll go find him.
MARGARET: Are you sure? I could call someone—
COLIN: No, chill. I’ll go and be back asap. He couldn’t have gotten that far.
MARGARET: Thank you.
COLIN: Sure. Don’t worry. I’ll call you later. Bye.
MARGARET: Bye…
Three hours pass, phone rings.
MARGARET: Anything?
COLIN: No. I’m sorry, Margie. I’ve looked everywhere…
MARGARET: It’s not your fault. Go flirt with a waitress; I’ll look into putting an ad in the paper.
COLIN: Dry chuckle You know me well. See ya.
“Something Vague” (Bright Eyes) fades in
MARGARET: Yeah, see ya. And thank you. Very much.
COLIN: Pause Sure.
Colin goes to the liquor store and gets smashed sitting on the floor outside Margaret’s apartment.
*Later that night*:
MARGARET: Humming. Gazing out a window at the city lights, sitting Indian-style by Colin, who is passed out.
COLIN: Groans and shifts.
“Naked as a Window” (Josh Ritter) plays
MARGARET: What if this is it?
COLIN: Hmm? What?
MARGARET: What if this is all there is for us?
COLIN: It might be.
MARGARET: That would suck.
COLIN: It would.
MARGARET: Thanks.
COLIN: Hmm? For what?
MARGARET: For not trying to convince me that things will get better. I hate that; people pretending there are guarantees that don’t exist and making predictions they know nothing about. I mean, no one can make promises like that. Why do they keep saying it?
COLIN: I dunno; I’ve always thought that was just a band-aid myself...Rolls over onto his back, looking up at Margaret. You’re pretty.
MARGARET: What?
COLIN: Reaches up to touch her collarbone. Margaret flinches; Colin doesn’t notice. His fingers wind into the sleeve of her blouse. You heard me. You’re pretty. I like you. You’re a pretty girl. Like…a picture. Haha, pretty as a picture...You know what?
MARGARET:…What…?
COLIN: I want to kiss you, Picture Girl.
MARGARET: Blushing and awkward. …Colin…um, you’re drunk…
COLIN: Ugh! Drops arm. Stop saying that! I’m trying to tell you something here and you won’t shut up about—
MARGARET: No, no; that’s not what I meant. It’s just…you don’t know what you’re saying and if you even remember you’ll wish you hadn’t said it. I’ll pretend you didn’t, but it’ll still be all weird cause we’ll both know that you did…you should just go back to sleep.
COLIN: Grabs Margaret’s wrist. No. No, Margie. You blew me off like that last year, so I waited to see if time would make you think any more, but I’m done waiting for you to take me seriously.
MARGARET: Colin, stop—
COLIN: No, listen. Just cause I’m drunk doesn’t mean it isn’t true, and you know it. You’re always hiding from things. You’re hiding from the entire world outside and you’re hiding from me—
MARGARET: You’re hurting me.
COLIN: No I’m not; I can’t. You won’t let me close enough to hurt—
MARGARET: Tries to pry his hand from her wrist. Ow! No, Colin, you’re hurting me. Colin, let go!
COLIN: Sits up, horrified. Margie! Margie I’m so sorry! Reaches for her arm. I didn’t mean to—
MARGARET: Instinctively pulls her arm away. It’s ok; it’s fine.
COLIN: pulls his hand back and sits in shameful silence for a moment, his hands folded in his lap. Did it—I mean—did I—
MARGARET: Looks at him and softens. No, it’s fine, really. See? Holds her arm out to him.
COLIN: Takes Margaret’s arm extremely gently, traces reddening finger-marks. Shit. Oh, shit…
MARGARET: Colin, it’s ok.
COLIN: I can’t believe I did that—
MARGARET: Leans in so that her face is close to his. Shut up already. I said it’s ok; stop being so dramatic.
Pause
COLIN: I think…
“Of Angels and Angles” (The Decemberists) plays
MARGARET: What?
COLIN: Slowly cradles Margaret’s chin in his hand; kisses her on one cheek, looks into her eyes, then kisses the other.
MARGARET: Whispering, looking down shyly. I think so, too.
Goes dark, fades in again; Margaret is asleep on Colin’s lap. Colin is stroking her hair. She wakes up and smiles groggily at him.
COLIN: We’re fragile beings, you and I. Please, let’s try not to break each other.
MARGARET: How can we not? Neither of us can stand the way the other lives.
COLIN: That doesn’t change how much I want to hold you.
MARGARET: Sits up. And if you get to? What then? Feelings come and go, but we both know our vices are home to us.
COLIN: We couldn’t relocate? For this? For…us?
MARGARET: Colin…there is no “us”. You know it doesn’t work that way.
COLIN: Fine, but maybe it doesn’t have to. Our shit controls so much of our lives; does it have to control this, too?
MARGARET: What do you think? What do you think will happen when I never let you see me in the sunlight, or you get drunk and screw some random bar skank? Do you think we’ll be able to look at each other and say it doesn’t matter?
COLIN: I wouldn’t cheat on you—
“Haligh, Haligh, a Lie” (Bright Eyes) fades in
MARGARET: Don’t be naïve, Colin. You get drunk. You do stupid things you regret.
COLIN: Maybe if you’d come with me—
MARGARET: Stands up, exasperated. No! See? That might never happen so it’s stupid to just cross our fingers and hope things will magically work out! Neither of us can conquer our--
COLIN: Margie! Margie, you think this stuff is so big and it’s not. So I drink too much. So you stay inside. Don’t blow it out of proportion. It’s this simple: If you would just come out—no, Margie, listen—Its all in your head. The fear, it’s all in your head. If you would just come out with me—
MARGARET: getting worked up It isn’t that easy.
COLIN: You don’t think it’s that easy, but it is. The only thing keeping you in this apartment is you—
MARGARET: Indignant What? How could you think that? What the hell makes you think that’s all there is to it? If this stuff were that easy to fix, why the hell are we like this? How come—
COLIN: Violent shout Because you won’t let me help you!
Pause
MARGARET: I won’t let you…give me my key.
COLIN: Margie I—
MARGARET: Give me the damn key!
COLIN: Stares at Margaret for a moment, tosses her the key, and leaves the apartment.
Door slams; Margaret sits down on the floor and cries.
Something plays during a montage of Margaret standing at her door clutching a Lost Dog poster, and Colin staying sober on a three-day search for Casper. Song ends and Colin, with Casper on a makeshift leash, walks up to Margaret’s apartment building, which is burning and surrounded by a crowd of people, fire trucks, and ambulances. Colin drops Casper’s leash and runs toward the building. Firemen stop him, insisting that he get back. Someone is sitting on the curb; Colin approaches him.
COLIN: Do you know what happened?
MAN: No.
COLIN: Is everyone alright?
MAN: No.
COLIN: How do you know?
MAN: I’m the landlord. I was running up and down the halls on the last two floors that weren’t already crumbling, banging on doors to make sure people got out. When I got to room number 246b, she followed right behind me. When we got to the building’s exit, she just stood there, like she was scared to leave. Then she said she forgot something and ran back toward her room. I tried to go after her, but the smoke was so thick by then I couldn’t see or breathe so I panicked and ran back outside…the fireman said they’d go in after her…she was already gone by the time they brought her out. I can’t believe I let her go running off like that…I wish I could remember her name…Maybe it was Mary.
COLIN: hoarse whisper Margaret.
MAN: Oh, yeah, I remember now. Margaret. I thought she had a dog, but I didn’t see him anywhere…
Colin has already walked away by the time the man is finished speaking. He walks, sits on a bench and cries some, then walks into a dingy bar.
BARTENDER: No dogs.
COLIN: I’ll just be a minute—
BARTENDER: I said no dogs. Get him out of here.
COLIN: Can—
BARTENDER: Now, damn it!
Colin walks Casper to a clump of trees in the lawn of a business next to the bar. He ties Casper to a tree.
COLIN: Petting Casper Stay here, boy. I’ll be back in a little while.
Casper whimpers as Colin walks away.
THE END
Friday, August 13, 2010
It's all for You anyway...
Maybe I’m not praying right,
Cause I can’t feel You here.
How can I keep from fear
And doubt
When You’re letting me drown?
I have no new words for You;
Just a hypocrite’s plea.
Did you forget about me?
Or find
That You just don’t have the time?
If it’s true that I’m blind to You,
Why won’t You help me see?
Can’t You reach down for me,
This low,
Or do I climb on my own?
To tell You the shameful truth,
I’m not sure You’ll come through.
But I guess I’ll still choose
To say
It’s all for You anyway.
Cause I can’t feel You here.
How can I keep from fear
And doubt
When You’re letting me drown?
I have no new words for You;
Just a hypocrite’s plea.
Did you forget about me?
Or find
That You just don’t have the time?
If it’s true that I’m blind to You,
Why won’t You help me see?
Can’t You reach down for me,
This low,
Or do I climb on my own?
To tell You the shameful truth,
I’m not sure You’ll come through.
But I guess I’ll still choose
To say
It’s all for You anyway.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Chronic...
It's the same every...............day,
All the hours
And all the seconds................in
All the minutes that
Feel the same every...............day
Of the week.
I am running.....................out--
Out of patience,
Out of hope, and...................I
Am so bitter now.
At moments, I find I...............am
Laughing, mirthlessly
And at horrible things..............so
I think I am numb
Or crazy; maybe.....................sick
In more ways than
One. The simple fact..................of
Existence, with this
Diseased blood, is a hell.............all
My own; it infects a
Sickness in my mind—.................this
Anger, desperation and
Fear turn my soul into................shit.
All the hours
And all the seconds................in
All the minutes that
Feel the same every...............day
Of the week.
I am running.....................out--
Out of patience,
Out of hope, and...................I
Am so bitter now.
At moments, I find I...............am
Laughing, mirthlessly
And at horrible things..............so
I think I am numb
Or crazy; maybe.....................sick
In more ways than
One. The simple fact..................of
Existence, with this
Diseased blood, is a hell.............all
My own; it infects a
Sickness in my mind—.................this
Anger, desperation and
Fear turn my soul into................shit.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Bright Enough to Burn Me
How many times can I say things before the words run out? I wish they would. I’m tired of thinking them; it hurts my head. Makes it sore, the chaffing thoughts that scrape the same spots raw over and over and over and no sign of it ever stopping.
Because of course, none of it is my fault. Of course nothing is because I lack discipline or self-control or perspective. Because I forget so many things.
I saw some Blame lying around somewhere. There it is; I keep tripping over it. It’s always under my feet but there’s no way it belongs to me…
I need to get away for a long time; away from the glaring sun streaming through passenger-side windows and this valley that once felt safe but now it just hems me in; the overdue library books and clothes that don’t fit anymore and plastic over the windows and promises cracked down the middle and just all these things that feel so much like trash.
But I’m finding that location, location, location doesn’t change anything, anything, anything. The sky is still blue thirty miles from here. The sky is still blue, the earth is still round, the sun still sets in the west and I’m still tired.
I still feel dirty, too; just unclean everywhere and I’ve been more phobic of infection, exfoliating any cuts or scrapes. I shower every day and scrub I scrub I scrub till I bleed but it doesn’t help. It’s my blood that is dirty. I know I am contaminated from the inside and it makes me feel so strange, like I want to claw at whatever it is that’s under my skin, ruining me. Rip it out, throw it on the ground and run away. Just leave it there, genetically mutated litter.
It’s systematic, the wrinkles in my sheets, the way things pile—plates and laundry, and people; appointments. Lists of things: to do, to say, to pray, to hate. It’s inevitable, the way it all becomes about nothing else. Maintenance, sleep, sustenance, pursuit of fleeting distractions. It’s necessary, to think only of practicalities. What is “want”? There is only “can” or “cannot”. There is no room for plans or for specifications; for promises. There is no relativity. There is only this, that, and the difference.
Just give me a bit to close my eyes; a few minutes to rest on the floor in the dark, there between the bed and the wall where it feels safe and contained. Like I won’t drain out of myself, or if I do I’ll be able to draw myself back up again. Not that there aren’t times when it feels nice to let myself leak out forever; liquefy and spread, pretend I could evaporate and just cease to be--at least for a little while. But I have to go back downstairs soon, so I must be able to gather myself up again quickly. I am able, and I do, and hard decisions are made but I know it can't be any other way.
I suppose that means some of my future is open again--clear--so I can gaze up at my high-rise dreams and preserve the perfect image I’ve created in my mind; what the view might be if I ever really ascended to such great heights.
I’ve been having real dreams lately too, such vivid experiences of such mundane events that when I wake I have to check my memory of the day before; I don’t know if it might’ve actually happened. There’s so much light in them—in the dreams, that is. The people and places are all different but the light is the same every time:
Florescent lights in the office building where you work, all white and bouncing off of the plastic table where we make small talk during your lunch break. You fiddle with your blackberry and talk about important things, grown-up things that make me feel thirteen again. I glance at the snack machine off to the right; I want Doritos but I don’t want you to watch me eat them.
A Target parking lot on a hot day. The air is strange between us, and so thick we can’t stand the car anymore so we walk. I can feel the burning asphalt, and stray pieces of gravel stabbing through my thin-soled shoes. You run on ahead of me, calling something over your shoulder but the city-sounds are too loud; I can’t hear you. The sun is bright bright bright like glass in my eyes and my head hurts from it still.
My room, I’m on my computer and I’m looking for something, the answer to a question that feels urgent. The screen is mostly white, and the light gets more and more and more intense until I can’t read the text. I squint, try harder, because I need this information. It is for someone else, not for me, but I need it now and I can’t I just can’t look at the light anymore so I close my eyes and it’s too late and I fail.
Now my eyes have been hurting, when I’m awake. I think maybe I'm rubbing them in my sleep, trying to rub out the light. I can’t though, not when it’s stuck there behind my eyelids where I can’t reach to block it. So I try to keep them closed; try not to see brightness. It's a little sad; I do so love sparkly things. It hurts to look at them now.
Because of course, none of it is my fault. Of course nothing is because I lack discipline or self-control or perspective. Because I forget so many things.
I saw some Blame lying around somewhere. There it is; I keep tripping over it. It’s always under my feet but there’s no way it belongs to me…
I need to get away for a long time; away from the glaring sun streaming through passenger-side windows and this valley that once felt safe but now it just hems me in; the overdue library books and clothes that don’t fit anymore and plastic over the windows and promises cracked down the middle and just all these things that feel so much like trash.
But I’m finding that location, location, location doesn’t change anything, anything, anything. The sky is still blue thirty miles from here. The sky is still blue, the earth is still round, the sun still sets in the west and I’m still tired.
I still feel dirty, too; just unclean everywhere and I’ve been more phobic of infection, exfoliating any cuts or scrapes. I shower every day and scrub I scrub I scrub till I bleed but it doesn’t help. It’s my blood that is dirty. I know I am contaminated from the inside and it makes me feel so strange, like I want to claw at whatever it is that’s under my skin, ruining me. Rip it out, throw it on the ground and run away. Just leave it there, genetically mutated litter.
It’s systematic, the wrinkles in my sheets, the way things pile—plates and laundry, and people; appointments. Lists of things: to do, to say, to pray, to hate. It’s inevitable, the way it all becomes about nothing else. Maintenance, sleep, sustenance, pursuit of fleeting distractions. It’s necessary, to think only of practicalities. What is “want”? There is only “can” or “cannot”. There is no room for plans or for specifications; for promises. There is no relativity. There is only this, that, and the difference.
Just give me a bit to close my eyes; a few minutes to rest on the floor in the dark, there between the bed and the wall where it feels safe and contained. Like I won’t drain out of myself, or if I do I’ll be able to draw myself back up again. Not that there aren’t times when it feels nice to let myself leak out forever; liquefy and spread, pretend I could evaporate and just cease to be--at least for a little while. But I have to go back downstairs soon, so I must be able to gather myself up again quickly. I am able, and I do, and hard decisions are made but I know it can't be any other way.
I suppose that means some of my future is open again--clear--so I can gaze up at my high-rise dreams and preserve the perfect image I’ve created in my mind; what the view might be if I ever really ascended to such great heights.
I’ve been having real dreams lately too, such vivid experiences of such mundane events that when I wake I have to check my memory of the day before; I don’t know if it might’ve actually happened. There’s so much light in them—in the dreams, that is. The people and places are all different but the light is the same every time:
Florescent lights in the office building where you work, all white and bouncing off of the plastic table where we make small talk during your lunch break. You fiddle with your blackberry and talk about important things, grown-up things that make me feel thirteen again. I glance at the snack machine off to the right; I want Doritos but I don’t want you to watch me eat them.
A Target parking lot on a hot day. The air is strange between us, and so thick we can’t stand the car anymore so we walk. I can feel the burning asphalt, and stray pieces of gravel stabbing through my thin-soled shoes. You run on ahead of me, calling something over your shoulder but the city-sounds are too loud; I can’t hear you. The sun is bright bright bright like glass in my eyes and my head hurts from it still.
My room, I’m on my computer and I’m looking for something, the answer to a question that feels urgent. The screen is mostly white, and the light gets more and more and more intense until I can’t read the text. I squint, try harder, because I need this information. It is for someone else, not for me, but I need it now and I can’t I just can’t look at the light anymore so I close my eyes and it’s too late and I fail.
Now my eyes have been hurting, when I’m awake. I think maybe I'm rubbing them in my sleep, trying to rub out the light. I can’t though, not when it’s stuck there behind my eyelids where I can’t reach to block it. So I try to keep them closed; try not to see brightness. It's a little sad; I do so love sparkly things. It hurts to look at them now.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Oh My God, It's All Around
It’s getting late, and tonight I don’t have many happy things with which to occupy my mind while I wait for sleep. I take an ambien, knowing I will still have to endure a few more hours of wakeful thoughts before it finally makes me tired enough for my mind to shut up. Oh, I don’t want to wait those dark, quiet, lonely hours after everyone else has gone to sleep...
I’ve always been slightly wary of sleeping pills, like taking them is flirting with suicide. But I know it isn’t. I also know that one pill hasn’t been working lately, and tonight I really, really want to fall asleep quickly. Hesitantly, I slip another pill from the bottle. I break it in half, pretend the halves are even. But I know I swallowed the bigger one.
I’ve been waking up with these weird bruises the last few days. Some of them are small—maybe the size of quarters—but some of them are a bigger—about half the size of my palm. They are deep blotches of sullen blue and green, accented by angry red scrapes in the middle. In the morning I see them and I can’t remember getting them, which throws me off a little. Surely I’d remember how I got those three large ones; they look like they’d have hurt. But I don’t remember.
I know sometimes I do or say strange things under the influence of ambien if I don’t go right to sleep. Often times, a vague feeling of remembrance catches up with me and, though it feels more like a fleeting dream than a memory, I can at least be fairly certain that whatever I did was not too crazy.
But I am also certain that I have done and said things on ambien that I have absolutely no memory of, even when seeing the evidence of the event the next day. Usually, I journal between taking the pill and falling asleep, and I’ve grown accustomed to reaching for my journal first thing in the morning to see what odd things I wrote the night before. Some are amusing, like “and—wow, for just a second there I totally thought I was a goat”.
But some are eerie, like one of the first entries I found. It was before I knew ambien’s effects, so it frightened me a little. “God, help me not be afraid of the dark; the doors are locked the doors are locked”. I write strange things, sometimes I go on and on, and I don't remember writing them at all. Dig in my brain, searching for that vague feeling of familiarity, but it just isn't there.
So the bruises could be explained by nightly escapades I am taking, but promptly forget. But if that were the case, wouldn’t I at least have a vague memory of one of the nights? I don’t know; maybe not. Maybe I am sleepwalking.
I’ve never been a sleepwalker. When I was a child, I would wander wide-awake around the house while everyone else was asleep. I liked to sneak into my brother’s room and take his Game Boy. I'd get chocolates out of my mother’s hiding place, the sewing box in her closet, then slip down to the basement to sit with our Doberman puppies, Rocky and Sarah. I’d sit between their kennels, playing Super Mario World2 and singing to them, letting them lick the insides of the chocolate wrappers.
But when a spider scurried into a corner, or Rocky barked at some distant sound, I’d gather up my chocolate and Game Boy and run upstairs.
And I did have to run. I had to race the darkness, and the ghouls that inhabited each shadow. I would steel myself, hand poised above the light switch, and count down: Five, four, three, two, two and a half...run. Flip the switch off and sprint up the stairs—fourteen of them—throwing wild glances over my shoulder though I knew that monsters are invisible until they grab you. Sometimes I would trip on the thick carpet, and my heart would hammer in my ears and shh shh don’t scream or you’ll wake Mom and she’ll hide the chocolates somewhere else.
Once, I stepped on a rouge carpet staple. It was crooked and caught in my skin, tearing a long, rough cut. It was superficial, but enough of a wound that I tracked blood all the way back to my room so I had to explain my puppy-visit to my parents the next morning.
I left out the part about the chocolates.
This is still my time, the night; the hours of insomniacs and of people on the other side of the world. They’re mine and theirs and I want to embrace them, the hours, and I would but for what lurks beyond my threshold.
Because I am still a little girl, racing the monsters. I am still the child so afraid of the dark I will let blood dry on white carpet, so desperate am I to flee to the ghost-repellent safety of bedclothes.
Because I have these thoughts that surface sometimes, these images in my head from childhood nightmares or from terrifying lessons learned from a brush with the supernatural. I don’t mind them, when the sun’s out. In fact, sometimes I feel I need to process them—bring them out into the light where I can see and maybe strip away some of their mystery. But they’re like gremlins, these thoughts are; I can’t feed them after midnight. If I do, they’ll grow and mutate, and then in the early a.m. hours they come for me.
(12am) Skeletal, undead forms take shape in my mind; flesh ripped back to expose tendons and bone and they skitter about, decay allowing them to contort into positions so unnatural; up the stairs, in my doorway, on the ceiling.
(1am) A man, all black: black shirt, black pants, black boots, black mask—a substantial shadow. He holds a knife with a serrated blade in one hand, a roll of duct tape around his wrist. A book of matches is in his pocket, and a bottle of super-glue, the kind that dries almost instantly. He fingers the bottle, unseen while he watches me through the window. I want curtains.
(2am) My imagination plays cruel tricks on me. If I believe they’re there, they might as well be; I don’t know if I’m awake or dreaming. So I laugh ha ha ha because what else is left to do, when you are powerless to stop your worst fear approaching? Approaching quickly. Cold, paranormal. Of all, these 2am demons frighten me the most so I won’t speak of them. I can’t think about them, not anymore or The Terror will wedge itself deep in my brain and it won’t come out and dear God help me not be afraid of the dark the doors are locked the doors are locked...
It isn’t fair, how the fall of man perverts the night. Makes this beautiful, mysterious darkness into a cover for sin and evil; a breeding ground for legitimate reasons to be afraid. There is something so thaumaturgic and beautiful about the night; the way the air feels and the darkness, and if it wasn’t for the danger it brings it would be heaven to me.
And even so, sometimes it is. Because these dog-days of the summer are long; all-too lazy, hazy and blurred. The weeks have all blended in my mind, becoming one long smear of sluggish sunshine and sleepy eyes. Of tired, a little groggy play and hard decisions and loss, and tired again. It feels yellow to me, the smear. Dull yellow and some gray.
It is punctuated, though, with a thin black ribbon that is the summer nights. The ones when I have a little energy left over from the day, enough to be outside and absorb and think. They’re different this year somehow, maybe because my perspective has wandered so far from what it’s ever been before. Some good, maybe all bad? I can’t even tell—that’s how far off it is.
Either way, I spend too much time in my head so one night I grab Edgar (my iPod) and an old blanket to sit out by the pond for awhile. My senses seem sharper as I walk under this cool dusky veil. I vaguely dislike the way the grass prickles my socks, but more distinctly I feel the consistency of the air: moist, and so thick I almost believe I could see it if the sun was out.
I find a place on the bank and spread my blanket, just close enough to the water’s edge that my feet won’t get wet if I stretch them out.
The moon is full. Small and far-off, but bright and white like a florescent bulb. It leaves its print on the backs of my eyelids. The clouds around it still hold sunset hues, red and orange like war billows blazing in scarlet battalions, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. They stand out against the blue-black sky, making me think of painting with warm and cool colors; reminding me that anything any person ever knew about art, they learned first from these, God’s original pieces—the sky and all its jewels and gowns, all of nature, rustic things; things formed without the touch of man.
The warm colors fade quickly though, and the clouds blow past, leaving the moon and stars to their vivid lonesome. I watch their reflections on the water. The light trips constantly on the ripples and it looks like a slice of the sky has just fallen at my feet.
Trickles, drip-drop and water noises are made by creatures just below the surface of the pond, coming up to devour unsuspecting insects. The smooth head of a large catfish rises from the water, glistening in the moonlight for a moment before submerging once more. Fog crawls across, curls up from the water in elegant flourishes and the air it lends is so mysterious that I shudder slightly. It is surreal.
The fireflies are dream-like, too; so many…I have never seen so many fireflies. They are everywhere and all around me, sparkling in the darkness against the tree line like diamonds on black lace. It seems to me as if they all should have names, these little pixies; these living points of light, hovering above the tall grass’s misty tips that sway gently in the barely-breeze.
The water glittering below, the fireflies all around, the stars above; they blend together to surround me to form some terrestrial galaxy and the fog is swirling and oh, I feel like I’m in some awesome esoteric fairytale. Some strange fantasy land and I can’t believe it; I feel like I am seated in the eye of a miracle and it is so, so hard to believe that this is no phenomenon. This is every summer night; routine marvel. The most utterly orphic thing I have ever seen, and yet it is so common.
Words won’t come to me yet. I am in shock from the wonder. Everything is darkness and sparkling lights and silvery mist, and this feeling that I am in the very sky itself is so vivid I am dizzy for a moment, seizing fistfuls of grass to steady myself.
But as soon as I am reoriented, there are praises sparking on my every nerve ending, leaping from every wrinkle in my brain and all I can think is “Oh my God...oh my God...”. This magnificence, this beauty is so intense I think I might cry—my heart swells with it and is bursting because it is just too much. Too much numinous splendor. I can’t comprehend it; my eyes and mind are too small for something this ethereal, this mystically radiant.
And even so, God wastes it on me. It is just Him and I here; this is all—all—for me alone. No one else in the world is seeing exactly what I am seeing now. There may be many people admiring many different wonders, but this one, this exact picture I am in, was painted just for me. Little me, who can’t understand it at all.
And of course, my constantly-over-analyzing mind translates this into a metaphor. For His glory, grace and love. So arcane, so intimate, and yet so huge and illustrious; far too deep and far too wide for my comprehension and yet it is expressly for me.
And I want to cry again, this time with a longing to really know it. With a longing to understand and to truly experience Him.
Then this thought floats into my head, as if He whispered to me: “But you already are. In these sights and sounds, and in the air...you are in Me now, you are breathing Me. I am in your nostrils and in your lungs and in your soul; I am in the stars and the fireflies and in your dog at the foot of your bed. Every time you experience the good and beautiful things in My creations, you experience Me.”
I was a girl once, before I realized I’d been a machine all along. Before I knew how I worked, how everything that makes me can be reduced to chemicals in my brain and manipulated by instinct. Nature/nurture, compatible codes, triggers, colors and words.
But sometimes, for a moment, it’s different. On nights like this when I glimpse the dimension of the sky, or when I use a swing set, or feel the wind outside an airport in a strange place I remember what I am supposed to be: just this creation; this something-child swelling with wonder explicable only by the life-breath of God that’s in everything and it’s enough—more than enough—to live. To fly with forever.
And I am so thankful that, for all I’ve lost, I still have this.
I’ve always been slightly wary of sleeping pills, like taking them is flirting with suicide. But I know it isn’t. I also know that one pill hasn’t been working lately, and tonight I really, really want to fall asleep quickly. Hesitantly, I slip another pill from the bottle. I break it in half, pretend the halves are even. But I know I swallowed the bigger one.
I’ve been waking up with these weird bruises the last few days. Some of them are small—maybe the size of quarters—but some of them are a bigger—about half the size of my palm. They are deep blotches of sullen blue and green, accented by angry red scrapes in the middle. In the morning I see them and I can’t remember getting them, which throws me off a little. Surely I’d remember how I got those three large ones; they look like they’d have hurt. But I don’t remember.
I know sometimes I do or say strange things under the influence of ambien if I don’t go right to sleep. Often times, a vague feeling of remembrance catches up with me and, though it feels more like a fleeting dream than a memory, I can at least be fairly certain that whatever I did was not too crazy.
But I am also certain that I have done and said things on ambien that I have absolutely no memory of, even when seeing the evidence of the event the next day. Usually, I journal between taking the pill and falling asleep, and I’ve grown accustomed to reaching for my journal first thing in the morning to see what odd things I wrote the night before. Some are amusing, like “and—wow, for just a second there I totally thought I was a goat”.
But some are eerie, like one of the first entries I found. It was before I knew ambien’s effects, so it frightened me a little. “God, help me not be afraid of the dark; the doors are locked the doors are locked”. I write strange things, sometimes I go on and on, and I don't remember writing them at all. Dig in my brain, searching for that vague feeling of familiarity, but it just isn't there.
So the bruises could be explained by nightly escapades I am taking, but promptly forget. But if that were the case, wouldn’t I at least have a vague memory of one of the nights? I don’t know; maybe not. Maybe I am sleepwalking.
I’ve never been a sleepwalker. When I was a child, I would wander wide-awake around the house while everyone else was asleep. I liked to sneak into my brother’s room and take his Game Boy. I'd get chocolates out of my mother’s hiding place, the sewing box in her closet, then slip down to the basement to sit with our Doberman puppies, Rocky and Sarah. I’d sit between their kennels, playing Super Mario World2 and singing to them, letting them lick the insides of the chocolate wrappers.
But when a spider scurried into a corner, or Rocky barked at some distant sound, I’d gather up my chocolate and Game Boy and run upstairs.
And I did have to run. I had to race the darkness, and the ghouls that inhabited each shadow. I would steel myself, hand poised above the light switch, and count down: Five, four, three, two, two and a half...run. Flip the switch off and sprint up the stairs—fourteen of them—throwing wild glances over my shoulder though I knew that monsters are invisible until they grab you. Sometimes I would trip on the thick carpet, and my heart would hammer in my ears and shh shh don’t scream or you’ll wake Mom and she’ll hide the chocolates somewhere else.
Once, I stepped on a rouge carpet staple. It was crooked and caught in my skin, tearing a long, rough cut. It was superficial, but enough of a wound that I tracked blood all the way back to my room so I had to explain my puppy-visit to my parents the next morning.
I left out the part about the chocolates.
This is still my time, the night; the hours of insomniacs and of people on the other side of the world. They’re mine and theirs and I want to embrace them, the hours, and I would but for what lurks beyond my threshold.
Because I am still a little girl, racing the monsters. I am still the child so afraid of the dark I will let blood dry on white carpet, so desperate am I to flee to the ghost-repellent safety of bedclothes.
Because I have these thoughts that surface sometimes, these images in my head from childhood nightmares or from terrifying lessons learned from a brush with the supernatural. I don’t mind them, when the sun’s out. In fact, sometimes I feel I need to process them—bring them out into the light where I can see and maybe strip away some of their mystery. But they’re like gremlins, these thoughts are; I can’t feed them after midnight. If I do, they’ll grow and mutate, and then in the early a.m. hours they come for me.
(12am) Skeletal, undead forms take shape in my mind; flesh ripped back to expose tendons and bone and they skitter about, decay allowing them to contort into positions so unnatural; up the stairs, in my doorway, on the ceiling.
(1am) A man, all black: black shirt, black pants, black boots, black mask—a substantial shadow. He holds a knife with a serrated blade in one hand, a roll of duct tape around his wrist. A book of matches is in his pocket, and a bottle of super-glue, the kind that dries almost instantly. He fingers the bottle, unseen while he watches me through the window. I want curtains.
(2am) My imagination plays cruel tricks on me. If I believe they’re there, they might as well be; I don’t know if I’m awake or dreaming. So I laugh ha ha ha because what else is left to do, when you are powerless to stop your worst fear approaching? Approaching quickly. Cold, paranormal. Of all, these 2am demons frighten me the most so I won’t speak of them. I can’t think about them, not anymore or The Terror will wedge itself deep in my brain and it won’t come out and dear God help me not be afraid of the dark the doors are locked the doors are locked...
It isn’t fair, how the fall of man perverts the night. Makes this beautiful, mysterious darkness into a cover for sin and evil; a breeding ground for legitimate reasons to be afraid. There is something so thaumaturgic and beautiful about the night; the way the air feels and the darkness, and if it wasn’t for the danger it brings it would be heaven to me.
And even so, sometimes it is. Because these dog-days of the summer are long; all-too lazy, hazy and blurred. The weeks have all blended in my mind, becoming one long smear of sluggish sunshine and sleepy eyes. Of tired, a little groggy play and hard decisions and loss, and tired again. It feels yellow to me, the smear. Dull yellow and some gray.
It is punctuated, though, with a thin black ribbon that is the summer nights. The ones when I have a little energy left over from the day, enough to be outside and absorb and think. They’re different this year somehow, maybe because my perspective has wandered so far from what it’s ever been before. Some good, maybe all bad? I can’t even tell—that’s how far off it is.
Either way, I spend too much time in my head so one night I grab Edgar (my iPod) and an old blanket to sit out by the pond for awhile. My senses seem sharper as I walk under this cool dusky veil. I vaguely dislike the way the grass prickles my socks, but more distinctly I feel the consistency of the air: moist, and so thick I almost believe I could see it if the sun was out.
I find a place on the bank and spread my blanket, just close enough to the water’s edge that my feet won’t get wet if I stretch them out.
The moon is full. Small and far-off, but bright and white like a florescent bulb. It leaves its print on the backs of my eyelids. The clouds around it still hold sunset hues, red and orange like war billows blazing in scarlet battalions, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. They stand out against the blue-black sky, making me think of painting with warm and cool colors; reminding me that anything any person ever knew about art, they learned first from these, God’s original pieces—the sky and all its jewels and gowns, all of nature, rustic things; things formed without the touch of man.
The warm colors fade quickly though, and the clouds blow past, leaving the moon and stars to their vivid lonesome. I watch their reflections on the water. The light trips constantly on the ripples and it looks like a slice of the sky has just fallen at my feet.
Trickles, drip-drop and water noises are made by creatures just below the surface of the pond, coming up to devour unsuspecting insects. The smooth head of a large catfish rises from the water, glistening in the moonlight for a moment before submerging once more. Fog crawls across, curls up from the water in elegant flourishes and the air it lends is so mysterious that I shudder slightly. It is surreal.
The fireflies are dream-like, too; so many…I have never seen so many fireflies. They are everywhere and all around me, sparkling in the darkness against the tree line like diamonds on black lace. It seems to me as if they all should have names, these little pixies; these living points of light, hovering above the tall grass’s misty tips that sway gently in the barely-breeze.
The water glittering below, the fireflies all around, the stars above; they blend together to surround me to form some terrestrial galaxy and the fog is swirling and oh, I feel like I’m in some awesome esoteric fairytale. Some strange fantasy land and I can’t believe it; I feel like I am seated in the eye of a miracle and it is so, so hard to believe that this is no phenomenon. This is every summer night; routine marvel. The most utterly orphic thing I have ever seen, and yet it is so common.
Words won’t come to me yet. I am in shock from the wonder. Everything is darkness and sparkling lights and silvery mist, and this feeling that I am in the very sky itself is so vivid I am dizzy for a moment, seizing fistfuls of grass to steady myself.
But as soon as I am reoriented, there are praises sparking on my every nerve ending, leaping from every wrinkle in my brain and all I can think is “Oh my God...oh my God...”. This magnificence, this beauty is so intense I think I might cry—my heart swells with it and is bursting because it is just too much. Too much numinous splendor. I can’t comprehend it; my eyes and mind are too small for something this ethereal, this mystically radiant.
And even so, God wastes it on me. It is just Him and I here; this is all—all—for me alone. No one else in the world is seeing exactly what I am seeing now. There may be many people admiring many different wonders, but this one, this exact picture I am in, was painted just for me. Little me, who can’t understand it at all.
And of course, my constantly-over-analyzing mind translates this into a metaphor. For His glory, grace and love. So arcane, so intimate, and yet so huge and illustrious; far too deep and far too wide for my comprehension and yet it is expressly for me.
And I want to cry again, this time with a longing to really know it. With a longing to understand and to truly experience Him.
Then this thought floats into my head, as if He whispered to me: “But you already are. In these sights and sounds, and in the air...you are in Me now, you are breathing Me. I am in your nostrils and in your lungs and in your soul; I am in the stars and the fireflies and in your dog at the foot of your bed. Every time you experience the good and beautiful things in My creations, you experience Me.”
I was a girl once, before I realized I’d been a machine all along. Before I knew how I worked, how everything that makes me can be reduced to chemicals in my brain and manipulated by instinct. Nature/nurture, compatible codes, triggers, colors and words.
But sometimes, for a moment, it’s different. On nights like this when I glimpse the dimension of the sky, or when I use a swing set, or feel the wind outside an airport in a strange place I remember what I am supposed to be: just this creation; this something-child swelling with wonder explicable only by the life-breath of God that’s in everything and it’s enough—more than enough—to live. To fly with forever.
And I am so thankful that, for all I’ve lost, I still have this.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
A Narrative as Pointless as the Day it Depicts.
I am sitting in the waiting room of a new doctor; Dr. Jones. It is very blue here; blue paintings on blue walls, blue cushions on the chairs, cheap, blue-flecked carpet. Even the young man next to me is wearing a blue t-shirt. He is fat and his hair is oily. He looks at me too long; I want to change seats. I chew my lip distractedly, pausing when the metallic taste of blood washes over my tongue. For maybe ten minutes I try to make myself stop, but before I realize it I am biting again, about to make the other side bleed, too.
I don’t want to see another doctor, to explain and answer questions all over again. It is a tedious process to begin with, and I don’t have the patience for it today. I am preoccupied.
“Elsie?” The nurse mispronounces my name, like they all do. I barely notice; just stand and follow her. Following nurses is second nature to me now. Anyone wearing scrubs could questioningly call out any name beginning with “El”, and I would probably follow them right into a big white van before I realized what’s happening.
The doctor meets us in his office. My headache sprouts fifteen minutes into the appointment. I need to pee. The leather sofa is sticky, and I want to go home.
I tune in and out of the conversation about my many medications, happening mostly between my mother and Dr. Jones, but I am less absent-minded than the doctor himself.
“Have you read that book?” His question penetrates my anxious thoughts.
“Oh, um, what was the title again?” I pretend I had at least been paying some kind of attention.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. You’re interested in criminal psychology?” Apparently this had been discussed. I nod. “You might like that book, then. It’s all the rage now.”
“Oh, I haven’t heard of it.” I say. “I’ll look it up.”
“It’s Swedish.”
“Ah.”
Silence.
“But I don’t remember the author’s name.” Dr. Jones considers this with a deep frown.
“Oh. Well. I bet I can find it if I Google the title.” I assure him, because he seems concerned that this lack of information may devastate me.
“I’ll write it down.” My mother says, and does so.
More silence.
“Yes, you should look it up.” The doctor nods, as if deciding for sure that this would be a good and proper course of action.
“I will.” I lie.
Silence again, brief but long enough to make me feel awkward. Which, I suppose, isn’t that hard to do.
“Hmm, it seems like we were talking about something important before...” Dr. Jones says mildly, his eyes floating somewhere between the wall and the ceiling.
I pull my mouth into a half-smile, but I can feel my forehead frowning. Mom and I exchange a puzzled glance. Is he kidding? We had been discussing the adverse effects of the stimulant medication he was considering prescribing me. To me, this seems an important enough topic to remember, especially considering that he is a doctor and I am a chronically ill patient, and we are sitting in his office. He is holding a clipboard with a paper full of notes he had been taking throughout the appointment. Surely he is joking?
“Ah!” He gestures sharply with his hands, like a conductor. “Right! Which prescription. Well, really there are several options...” Oh, yes; I think to myself. This is a doctors’ appointment, not a Book of the Month club meeting.
I leave the office with a refill script, some samples, and a follow-up appointment. No revelations, no progress; just like it’s been for years. I feel blank; a heavy, sort of gray indifference that leaves my mind clear. Not ‘clear’ as in ‘clean’, or as if it has been de-cluttered. More like a wide space from which everything has been emptied out, leaving me only with a vague sense of awareness that anything was ever there at all; like the faint cutouts left behind by boxes on a dusty floor. I think one of them contained hope once, but I don't remember what it looked like.
I’ve been told I should write a memoir about living with lupus, but I’ve never really considered it. Leave the memoirs to the people whose stories have some resolution; who have overcome, who have learned peace and acceptance or experienced miracles.
Mine would just be several chapters like this, pointless narratives about equally pointless days. A mass of anticlimactic words strung together in story form; a cluster of random details that, ultimately, mean nothing.
Sometimes even I don't care anymore.
I don’t want to see another doctor, to explain and answer questions all over again. It is a tedious process to begin with, and I don’t have the patience for it today. I am preoccupied.
“Elsie?” The nurse mispronounces my name, like they all do. I barely notice; just stand and follow her. Following nurses is second nature to me now. Anyone wearing scrubs could questioningly call out any name beginning with “El”, and I would probably follow them right into a big white van before I realized what’s happening.
The doctor meets us in his office. My headache sprouts fifteen minutes into the appointment. I need to pee. The leather sofa is sticky, and I want to go home.
I tune in and out of the conversation about my many medications, happening mostly between my mother and Dr. Jones, but I am less absent-minded than the doctor himself.
“Have you read that book?” His question penetrates my anxious thoughts.
“Oh, um, what was the title again?” I pretend I had at least been paying some kind of attention.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. You’re interested in criminal psychology?” Apparently this had been discussed. I nod. “You might like that book, then. It’s all the rage now.”
“Oh, I haven’t heard of it.” I say. “I’ll look it up.”
“It’s Swedish.”
“Ah.”
Silence.
“But I don’t remember the author’s name.” Dr. Jones considers this with a deep frown.
“Oh. Well. I bet I can find it if I Google the title.” I assure him, because he seems concerned that this lack of information may devastate me.
“I’ll write it down.” My mother says, and does so.
More silence.
“Yes, you should look it up.” The doctor nods, as if deciding for sure that this would be a good and proper course of action.
“I will.” I lie.
Silence again, brief but long enough to make me feel awkward. Which, I suppose, isn’t that hard to do.
“Hmm, it seems like we were talking about something important before...” Dr. Jones says mildly, his eyes floating somewhere between the wall and the ceiling.
I pull my mouth into a half-smile, but I can feel my forehead frowning. Mom and I exchange a puzzled glance. Is he kidding? We had been discussing the adverse effects of the stimulant medication he was considering prescribing me. To me, this seems an important enough topic to remember, especially considering that he is a doctor and I am a chronically ill patient, and we are sitting in his office. He is holding a clipboard with a paper full of notes he had been taking throughout the appointment. Surely he is joking?
“Ah!” He gestures sharply with his hands, like a conductor. “Right! Which prescription. Well, really there are several options...” Oh, yes; I think to myself. This is a doctors’ appointment, not a Book of the Month club meeting.
I leave the office with a refill script, some samples, and a follow-up appointment. No revelations, no progress; just like it’s been for years. I feel blank; a heavy, sort of gray indifference that leaves my mind clear. Not ‘clear’ as in ‘clean’, or as if it has been de-cluttered. More like a wide space from which everything has been emptied out, leaving me only with a vague sense of awareness that anything was ever there at all; like the faint cutouts left behind by boxes on a dusty floor. I think one of them contained hope once, but I don't remember what it looked like.
I’ve been told I should write a memoir about living with lupus, but I’ve never really considered it. Leave the memoirs to the people whose stories have some resolution; who have overcome, who have learned peace and acceptance or experienced miracles.
Mine would just be several chapters like this, pointless narratives about equally pointless days. A mass of anticlimactic words strung together in story form; a cluster of random details that, ultimately, mean nothing.
Sometimes even I don't care anymore.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Fever Dream
Somehow I know it’s a dream. I know it is too good to be true—too satisfying; too perfect. I don’t know the context or the reasons; I lack even the influence of any real life experiences that might be similar. But it feels real anyway.
I am curled on a soft bed, a mattress on the ground and all white white white. I am white too, wearing a white sundress of soft cotton.
It’s warm where I am; so warm I’ve kicked away the sheets and they are crumpled around me, seeming to glow in the bright but gentle light of the room.
I seem to glow too. My skin is soft and golden and my hair is long, tumbling strands of sparkle on my shoulders. I feel its soft brush behind me as well, tickling below my bare shoulder blades, just above the low back of my dress. It is a deep, rich brunette--my hair is--amber liquidity, gleaming like the hardwood floor.
I twist some of the silken strands around my finger as I assess my body, my golden form, lying relaxed and half uncurled amongst the swaths of pale fabric. I am comfortable with the shape of myself; for once there does not seem to be too much of me. I can see slight shadows indicating the angle of my hip bone, and the way its line leads into my thigh lets me see a bit of muscle tone there, as though I’ve been feeling well enough to take walks. My scars are gone, as if they’d never been. I feel completely beautiful, like I could let someone really see me—let myself be studied; analyzed—and not fold in on myself to hide some flaw.
It matters little how I feel about myself, though, because at this moment the door to the right of the mattress opens. Laughter from the next room bounces through the door, the gleeful voices of children and some relaxed, over-loud tones of adults who have for once let go of cares.
And then he enters, muting the laughter by closing the heavy door. He stops, looks at me. The admiring, hungry look he flashes leaves little doubt that I purely and totally captivate him as his eyes flicker to my face, then briefly away and back—unable to resist but still attempting respect.
In life, I’ve never seen him before. But in this dream-world I know him well; better than I can remember knowing anyone. His smile is tight and detailed, accenting sharp features beneath shadows cast by his rough-cut hair. It is woven through with yellow and brown hues, and the way the light slides down careless locks makes me think of two-toned silk—golden-amber; an eagle’s eye.
He wears white also. The fabric of his loose, draw-string pants is cotton like my dress, but of a denser weave.
Tendons are defined on the tops of his bare feet as he steps quickly around to my side of the mattress. He kneels down beside me and I don’t realize how wide I’ve been smiling until I have to rearrange my mouth to receive his kiss. It is enthusiastic, like he’s truly missed me in spite of only having been apart for the night and first half of the morning. His sun-warm skin carries scents of saltwater; of hot sand and curry. He’s been out exploring while I overslept.
Our laughter mingles as he tumbles into the ample folds of my sheets, dragging me with him while I play at protest.
Then his eyes catch mine, locking them fast. I don’t remember their color—brown, hazel maybe. No, green. Or blue? They could have been gray. Maybe they were something like the color of the slightly-tinted glass of a van’s back passenger window, like the one I used to stare out of as a child on the long drive to Tennessee: stable and constant, yet changing in hue and dimension depending on what lay beyond them.
They are bright; sharp and penetrating. For a moment we are frozen while the intensity of his gaze burns away my layer of humor and I try not to let him see the hint of reality that now colors my resistance to his hold; try to pretend that the pure, violent severity of his love hasn’t shaken me a bit.
In the morning when I woke from that dream, over a year ago, I couldn’t remember what it was actually like to be in it. I remembered the facts of the feelings; I know I felt this way or that. But I couldn’t remember what those feelings felt like. They didn’t stay with me, even in those few minutes of hazy blue between dream and reality. The second the dream was over, a new feeling came over me and has stayed with me ever since. It was vague and unnamed for a long time, just an uncharted valley, but recently I think I’ve been able to put words to it. It has mostly to do with the first part of the dream, the intense contentment in the simplicity of being.
It was the absence of that feeling, upon waking, that brought to the surface a truth that has now grown enough to be realized:
I’m tired of being real; tired of being human. I don’t like it. I want to be a book character, or a painting, or a sculpture-girl made of copper all shimmering and bronzed. I want to be something that is abstract and distant. Something that is so beautifully false it lacks any of my imperfect characteristics: the tangles in my hair, the dark circles under my eyes, the flaws in my skin, the imperfections in my form, stretch marks, scars.
I want to be something unchanging, frozen just how I was in the Before Times—the times before lupus. I was so much more vibrant—full of life and laugh—and I was prettier then.
But Before was so long ago, I suppose I really don’t remember what it was like. Trying to remember fails, just like striving for the soul-memory of that sunwashed dream, and so much has happened since then.
Every now and then, I try to remove myself from my context. I try to look at the way I am and the way I live, day to day by each moment, as if it weren’t already defined or as if I was watching someone else. As if I was thirteen again, with this blank-slate future and normal, ultimately inconsequential expectations of what life might throw at me. Like, ‘someday I might break a bone’, or ‘someday I’ll be independent and complain about taxes while drinking overpriced cocktails with all the other independent people’.
I’ve been trying to get that feeling back, especially lately with this wall in front of me. There are other things in front of me, too, but my eyes hurt too much to look at them. And I’m seeing double a little, so without really being able to read or make art or watch TV for very long, I’ve been spending a lot of my time getting to know this wall.
It’s smooth—cool and soothing for my sore eyes, but it is textured too; something for my gaze to catch on once in a while, allowing me to avoid the extra strain that comes from trying so hard to see something in nothing.
I try to find a comfortable position to settle them, comfortable enough to relax, but I can’t find it, not even when they are closed. I feel claustrophobic, and empty from the large percentage of activities my eyes forbid me to engage in at the moment.
I try, I do; all the time I’m trying and I’m trying now to try, to try not to panic as I wait for hours, longing to fall asleep.
Because I still hold out some hope for a good dream once in a while, even though for the past few months all I’ve had are nightmares.
I am curled on a soft bed, a mattress on the ground and all white white white. I am white too, wearing a white sundress of soft cotton.
It’s warm where I am; so warm I’ve kicked away the sheets and they are crumpled around me, seeming to glow in the bright but gentle light of the room.
I seem to glow too. My skin is soft and golden and my hair is long, tumbling strands of sparkle on my shoulders. I feel its soft brush behind me as well, tickling below my bare shoulder blades, just above the low back of my dress. It is a deep, rich brunette--my hair is--amber liquidity, gleaming like the hardwood floor.
I twist some of the silken strands around my finger as I assess my body, my golden form, lying relaxed and half uncurled amongst the swaths of pale fabric. I am comfortable with the shape of myself; for once there does not seem to be too much of me. I can see slight shadows indicating the angle of my hip bone, and the way its line leads into my thigh lets me see a bit of muscle tone there, as though I’ve been feeling well enough to take walks. My scars are gone, as if they’d never been. I feel completely beautiful, like I could let someone really see me—let myself be studied; analyzed—and not fold in on myself to hide some flaw.
It matters little how I feel about myself, though, because at this moment the door to the right of the mattress opens. Laughter from the next room bounces through the door, the gleeful voices of children and some relaxed, over-loud tones of adults who have for once let go of cares.
And then he enters, muting the laughter by closing the heavy door. He stops, looks at me. The admiring, hungry look he flashes leaves little doubt that I purely and totally captivate him as his eyes flicker to my face, then briefly away and back—unable to resist but still attempting respect.
In life, I’ve never seen him before. But in this dream-world I know him well; better than I can remember knowing anyone. His smile is tight and detailed, accenting sharp features beneath shadows cast by his rough-cut hair. It is woven through with yellow and brown hues, and the way the light slides down careless locks makes me think of two-toned silk—golden-amber; an eagle’s eye.
He wears white also. The fabric of his loose, draw-string pants is cotton like my dress, but of a denser weave.
Tendons are defined on the tops of his bare feet as he steps quickly around to my side of the mattress. He kneels down beside me and I don’t realize how wide I’ve been smiling until I have to rearrange my mouth to receive his kiss. It is enthusiastic, like he’s truly missed me in spite of only having been apart for the night and first half of the morning. His sun-warm skin carries scents of saltwater; of hot sand and curry. He’s been out exploring while I overslept.
Our laughter mingles as he tumbles into the ample folds of my sheets, dragging me with him while I play at protest.
Then his eyes catch mine, locking them fast. I don’t remember their color—brown, hazel maybe. No, green. Or blue? They could have been gray. Maybe they were something like the color of the slightly-tinted glass of a van’s back passenger window, like the one I used to stare out of as a child on the long drive to Tennessee: stable and constant, yet changing in hue and dimension depending on what lay beyond them.
They are bright; sharp and penetrating. For a moment we are frozen while the intensity of his gaze burns away my layer of humor and I try not to let him see the hint of reality that now colors my resistance to his hold; try to pretend that the pure, violent severity of his love hasn’t shaken me a bit.
In the morning when I woke from that dream, over a year ago, I couldn’t remember what it was actually like to be in it. I remembered the facts of the feelings; I know I felt this way or that. But I couldn’t remember what those feelings felt like. They didn’t stay with me, even in those few minutes of hazy blue between dream and reality. The second the dream was over, a new feeling came over me and has stayed with me ever since. It was vague and unnamed for a long time, just an uncharted valley, but recently I think I’ve been able to put words to it. It has mostly to do with the first part of the dream, the intense contentment in the simplicity of being.
It was the absence of that feeling, upon waking, that brought to the surface a truth that has now grown enough to be realized:
I’m tired of being real; tired of being human. I don’t like it. I want to be a book character, or a painting, or a sculpture-girl made of copper all shimmering and bronzed. I want to be something that is abstract and distant. Something that is so beautifully false it lacks any of my imperfect characteristics: the tangles in my hair, the dark circles under my eyes, the flaws in my skin, the imperfections in my form, stretch marks, scars.
I want to be something unchanging, frozen just how I was in the Before Times—the times before lupus. I was so much more vibrant—full of life and laugh—and I was prettier then.
But Before was so long ago, I suppose I really don’t remember what it was like. Trying to remember fails, just like striving for the soul-memory of that sunwashed dream, and so much has happened since then.
Every now and then, I try to remove myself from my context. I try to look at the way I am and the way I live, day to day by each moment, as if it weren’t already defined or as if I was watching someone else. As if I was thirteen again, with this blank-slate future and normal, ultimately inconsequential expectations of what life might throw at me. Like, ‘someday I might break a bone’, or ‘someday I’ll be independent and complain about taxes while drinking overpriced cocktails with all the other independent people’.
I’ve been trying to get that feeling back, especially lately with this wall in front of me. There are other things in front of me, too, but my eyes hurt too much to look at them. And I’m seeing double a little, so without really being able to read or make art or watch TV for very long, I’ve been spending a lot of my time getting to know this wall.
It’s smooth—cool and soothing for my sore eyes, but it is textured too; something for my gaze to catch on once in a while, allowing me to avoid the extra strain that comes from trying so hard to see something in nothing.
I try to find a comfortable position to settle them, comfortable enough to relax, but I can’t find it, not even when they are closed. I feel claustrophobic, and empty from the large percentage of activities my eyes forbid me to engage in at the moment.
I try, I do; all the time I’m trying and I’m trying now to try, to try not to panic as I wait for hours, longing to fall asleep.
Because I still hold out some hope for a good dream once in a while, even though for the past few months all I’ve had are nightmares.
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