.
Would You please...................be
.
The arms now empty
.
Of me?
.
There aren't any others
.
Near by.
.
Would You replace...................my
.
Every vice; be my
.
Addiction?
.
Please, be my
.
Obsession; be the fix
.
For which I sell.......................everything.
.
I'd tell them, you know, if they wanted to know. I'd tell them all sorts of things.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
It had Something to do with the Rain.
I think I am slowly coming back from the horrible limbo that is to be neither living nor dying. The race with no finish line, rest with no relief; a zombie with a soul still awake to mourn the functioning decay of a corpse whose spasmodic rigor mortis just happens to look like walking.
Do you know what it’s like to be resurrected? Do you know what it’s like to feel the way it happens; the way forgotten vitality begins to trickle back into your bones and seep into and out of your pours so you aren’t stagnant anymore?
Maybe it had something to do with the rain, that storm last time I was home.
The trees shook their bowed heads in violent pleas for mercy from the wind that propelled the clashing of titanic clouds above. Fickle gusts caused the clouds to churn like a lumbering vortex, so alien and determined that I felt uneasy in my place on the hammock directly beneath the steely spiral. The clouds around that vortex were constantly moving; every three seconds they became something else. Shape-shifters, fighting a slow-motion battle in the sky, and soon raindrops began to fall; blood dripping from the edges of their gaping wind-wounds.
Thundering repercussions of the evanescent war finally reached the earth and I felt so, so small. The hammock cradled me, rocking in the wind and I knew I wasn't safe from lightning. I was stiff and afraid, but I made myself stay. The crashes were so enraged, it seemed like the storm was threatening me personally; making me feel as if I was damned for some reason I didn’t know, but also somehow understood.
My opportunities for excitement and unnecessary risk are rare, so when I saw the first flash of lightning I couldn’t help but think of it as a challenge. They were taunting me, the flashes and the crashes and the granite cloud-creatures, flaunting the storm’s power to strike me down. So I stood and walked out into the field, exposed to the heavy raindrops and vulnerable to the tempest’s whim. Grass clippings clung to my bare feet and in less than a minute I was thoroughly soaked, forced to remove my glasses. I jumped at a sudden thunderclap and had to keep myself from rushing inside. My fingernails bit into the palms of my hands. I hovered in the garden, feeling safer amongst the foliage.
I think everyone knows that colors are brighter when it rains. There’s less light, and sight is obstructed with the raindrops like static, but somehow the colors are brighter than usual. Pink stands out, I think, the most arresting. In my mother’s garden, I can see every shade and combination of hues in vibrant spatters. They are all rich, like God has spilled His supernatural paint, but it’s the pink ones that really glow--like neon signs in the fog.
They make me miss city rain. Wet streets in the dark, wavering street lamp reflections in gritty gutters and hotels feel like home; neon signs flickering through the slanting drops that soak my hair make me want to be on my own, living in a crappy apartment in Chicago or maybe Portland.
I know I’d be a little afraid of going there, though. Afraid of the thunder, of being alone, of bad people in the dark.
I am a little—or a lot—afraid of everything I want in life. I used to think it was the fear I wanted, before I realized the difference between thrill and fear. Thrill comes when you know the possible consequences, yet you proceed of your own will—not need or coercion, but pure personal choice—because to you the experience is worth the risk. Fear comes when there is no choice—not really.
I count, when I’m afraid. 96, 92, 88, 84, 80; I count backwards from one-hundred by fours. I’ve never been the best at any kind of math, but I tend to be afraid more than I should so I get to know that pattern too well. So sometimes I try it by sixes, and maybe back from some more random number, like 127.
Focusing on the numbers, I can talk myself down so that I don't dwell on the fears so much; spend all my time dreading them. So that I don't let them pool in my hands and stare at them, studying every detail, wondering why, and trying to find ways to avoid more.
But how can you dodge raindrops in a storm? Bad things can’t be avoided, so it’s useless to wallow in their puddles.
Maybe preoccupation is like thick socks to me, so that lately I don't know I'm wet at all until I'm drenched and waterlogged. Because of that, I'm not sure if I'm getting better from heartsickness, or if I'm just learning to ignore it. Most of the time I am alright, but sometimes I still feel like a hunted thing. I'm not even always sure why. I know everyone feels it. Empty, as if there’s nothing else to say; nothing left to do but feel the heaviness and sigh, pondering in post-tears peace all these pieces of yourself as you lay them to rest and mourn.
There's a name for it, the psychological attachment to something that has to be severed.
God knows we all have this horrible disease, the one that causes us to need these kinds of amputations. We contracted it ourselves, by eating after a snake. Apparently no one told Eve that they carry diseases and now we have a horrible, hereditary epidemic that rots us from the inside out, making the whole earth this vast leper colony. This place where we all walk hunched over, trying to turn inside-out so we can lick the festering wounds on our souls.
I know you have them, too; I see how they make you limp. I know I'm not the only one who has been slowed down.
I'm not the only one who misses highway speeds.
I’m moving again though, at least, and that feels good. I’m nervous, because I can’t see very far ahead and there’s an awful lot of traffic. It's going both ways and it’s disorienting. But far better than staying still. Headlights, taillights, whatever; I can’t really tell where I’m going, but I’m going to make damn sure it’s different from where I’ve been.
And so far, I think I like the horizon line.
Do you know what it’s like to be resurrected? Do you know what it’s like to feel the way it happens; the way forgotten vitality begins to trickle back into your bones and seep into and out of your pours so you aren’t stagnant anymore?
Maybe it had something to do with the rain, that storm last time I was home.
The trees shook their bowed heads in violent pleas for mercy from the wind that propelled the clashing of titanic clouds above. Fickle gusts caused the clouds to churn like a lumbering vortex, so alien and determined that I felt uneasy in my place on the hammock directly beneath the steely spiral. The clouds around that vortex were constantly moving; every three seconds they became something else. Shape-shifters, fighting a slow-motion battle in the sky, and soon raindrops began to fall; blood dripping from the edges of their gaping wind-wounds.
Thundering repercussions of the evanescent war finally reached the earth and I felt so, so small. The hammock cradled me, rocking in the wind and I knew I wasn't safe from lightning. I was stiff and afraid, but I made myself stay. The crashes were so enraged, it seemed like the storm was threatening me personally; making me feel as if I was damned for some reason I didn’t know, but also somehow understood.
My opportunities for excitement and unnecessary risk are rare, so when I saw the first flash of lightning I couldn’t help but think of it as a challenge. They were taunting me, the flashes and the crashes and the granite cloud-creatures, flaunting the storm’s power to strike me down. So I stood and walked out into the field, exposed to the heavy raindrops and vulnerable to the tempest’s whim. Grass clippings clung to my bare feet and in less than a minute I was thoroughly soaked, forced to remove my glasses. I jumped at a sudden thunderclap and had to keep myself from rushing inside. My fingernails bit into the palms of my hands. I hovered in the garden, feeling safer amongst the foliage.
I think everyone knows that colors are brighter when it rains. There’s less light, and sight is obstructed with the raindrops like static, but somehow the colors are brighter than usual. Pink stands out, I think, the most arresting. In my mother’s garden, I can see every shade and combination of hues in vibrant spatters. They are all rich, like God has spilled His supernatural paint, but it’s the pink ones that really glow--like neon signs in the fog.
They make me miss city rain. Wet streets in the dark, wavering street lamp reflections in gritty gutters and hotels feel like home; neon signs flickering through the slanting drops that soak my hair make me want to be on my own, living in a crappy apartment in Chicago or maybe Portland.
I know I’d be a little afraid of going there, though. Afraid of the thunder, of being alone, of bad people in the dark.
I am a little—or a lot—afraid of everything I want in life. I used to think it was the fear I wanted, before I realized the difference between thrill and fear. Thrill comes when you know the possible consequences, yet you proceed of your own will—not need or coercion, but pure personal choice—because to you the experience is worth the risk. Fear comes when there is no choice—not really.
I count, when I’m afraid. 96, 92, 88, 84, 80; I count backwards from one-hundred by fours. I’ve never been the best at any kind of math, but I tend to be afraid more than I should so I get to know that pattern too well. So sometimes I try it by sixes, and maybe back from some more random number, like 127.
Focusing on the numbers, I can talk myself down so that I don't dwell on the fears so much; spend all my time dreading them. So that I don't let them pool in my hands and stare at them, studying every detail, wondering why, and trying to find ways to avoid more.
But how can you dodge raindrops in a storm? Bad things can’t be avoided, so it’s useless to wallow in their puddles.
Maybe preoccupation is like thick socks to me, so that lately I don't know I'm wet at all until I'm drenched and waterlogged. Because of that, I'm not sure if I'm getting better from heartsickness, or if I'm just learning to ignore it. Most of the time I am alright, but sometimes I still feel like a hunted thing. I'm not even always sure why. I know everyone feels it. Empty, as if there’s nothing else to say; nothing left to do but feel the heaviness and sigh, pondering in post-tears peace all these pieces of yourself as you lay them to rest and mourn.
There's a name for it, the psychological attachment to something that has to be severed.
God knows we all have this horrible disease, the one that causes us to need these kinds of amputations. We contracted it ourselves, by eating after a snake. Apparently no one told Eve that they carry diseases and now we have a horrible, hereditary epidemic that rots us from the inside out, making the whole earth this vast leper colony. This place where we all walk hunched over, trying to turn inside-out so we can lick the festering wounds on our souls.
I know you have them, too; I see how they make you limp. I know I'm not the only one who has been slowed down.
I'm not the only one who misses highway speeds.
I’m moving again though, at least, and that feels good. I’m nervous, because I can’t see very far ahead and there’s an awful lot of traffic. It's going both ways and it’s disorienting. But far better than staying still. Headlights, taillights, whatever; I can’t really tell where I’m going, but I’m going to make damn sure it’s different from where I’ve been.
And so far, I think I like the horizon line.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Hurry Up and Fulfill My Unrealistic Expectations, Please.
(This isn't directed at anyone in particular; just some things my inner brat has been wanting to pout about lately).
I’m so tired of giving answers;
Why can’t you just read my mind?
Or watch these last five years in pictures
Rolling there behind my eyes?
Maybe you could read a stanza
Or two to learn how I got by,
Instead of asking all these questions
That take up so much precious time.
Maybe you don’t like that picture,
Or this new corner that I’ve turned.
And you’ve probably decided
That I’m more trouble than I’m worth.
Maybe you forget I’m right here;
Forget that I am close at hand.
You’re so easily distracted.
Whatever; I don’t understand.
I’m so tired of giving answers;
Why can’t you just read my mind?
Or watch these last five years in pictures
Rolling there behind my eyes?
Maybe you could read a stanza
Or two to learn how I got by,
Instead of asking all these questions
That take up so much precious time.
Maybe you don’t like that picture,
Or this new corner that I’ve turned.
And you’ve probably decided
That I’m more trouble than I’m worth.
Maybe you forget I’m right here;
Forget that I am close at hand.
You’re so easily distracted.
Whatever; I don’t understand.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Blistering of Sunburns
I am glad summer is over; it was long and the heat did nothing but burn the edges of my mind's open wounds. Autumn so far has been like a salve for them--cool on those spots rubbed raw from many things--after their midsummer rupture in June when my dog Chance died.
Maybe it wouldn’t have been quite so searing if summer had been kinder in general; I don’t know.
His heart was swollen, the vet said. It was crowding his lungs and stomach. He could barely breathe, he couldn't eat. We had to put him down. He was in a horse stall, something we insisted on because we knew how he hated small spaces, like the tiny metal kennels they used there. Mom, Dad and I entered the stall and he ran to greet us, enthusiastic even in his sickly state. I'd already been crying for a while when I sat down on the dirty floor .He crammed himself onto my lap, his tail wagging and my arms were tight around him. I sniffed loudly and he turned to look at me, as if wondering what the matter was. He licked my cheek, then went back to wagging his tail and looking from face to face, so happy to get so much attention all at once. I rested my head on his silky black fur. He leaped off my lap when the doctor entered, excited to see a new person. He was still cheerful, unsure yet trusting, when the vet began injecting his leg. I held his face in my hands as he lay down.
And suddenly I wished he would bite me, so that it wasn’t just this loving, happy, trusting dog being poisoned before my eyes. My Chance. My sweet puppy for eleven years and I am holding him in my arms as he dies. My head is bowed, resting on his, and I whisper to him though sobs that I love him; that I’m sorry for ever yelling at him; that he was a good dog and I love him and I don’t want him to leave me and I love him. I am on the floor with him, my face buried by his ear and I haven’t cried so hard since I was a child. I feel his fur, wet and spiky from my tears, as my face presses into the warmth and I sob. His head is growing limp and heavy on my arm and I’ve lost circulation in it but I don’t care I don’t care I just want to hold him and I don’t want him to go. Please don’t go. At some point, his heart stops beating and he is dead, but I am not quite sure when that point is and I keep holding my Chance and crying long after it is past.
Three days later. It was a white paper bag, the kind usually containing Blue Chip cookies when Dad brings them home, left over from his accounts at the hospitals. I wanted a cookie. The bag crinkled stiffly as I pulled it open, revealing an envelope and a large, rectangular white box. The box was heavy. I removed the envelope, hoping it contained a clue regarding why the cookies were in a box, and whether I could eat one. There was something written on it. I turned it right-side up.
CHANCE JOHNSON.
I didn’t freeze or anything as the realization hit me; I just slipped the envelope back into the bag with the box containing Chance’s ashes. I sat back down on the sofa and pretended the burned remains of my sweet puppy weren’t sitting on the counter top in my kitchen. I knew Dad would be bringing them eventually. It was me who told the vet that, yes, we would like to have the ashes. And I did want them. I wanted to scatter them in the shade by the chimney where he liked to sleep, by the tree where I carved his name, in the tall grass he loved to run in.
I had been reading, but I couldn’t any more. I didn't want to leave the box there, on the cold counter top, left like any random mail.
The weight of his ashes as I climbed the stairs... I didn’t know where to put him. I didn’t want to leave him all alone, up on the dresser, but bringing him over to my nightstand seemed too close for me...I looked at his pictures strewn across my room. I got up. I pulled the box of ashes from the paper sack. I sat on my bed, read the tag attached: “Our deepest sympathies for the loss of your beloved pet. Pet Cremation Services.” I looked at my pictures again, then back at the box. At Chance. I curled up around him and cry and cry and cry, falling asleep with his ashes in my arms.
The next day, I couldn’t just sit and go through pictures like I had been the past few afternoons. This death of my one and only Chance was the awful last straw in a collection of trials that had been piling, piling, piling, and I was just too tired so finally I began to buckle under the weight of it all.
For weeks I’d been writhing inside; needing to run or scream or both or crack or shave my head. I had long dreadlocks at that time, and they seemed to mock me as I looked in the mirror--a physical representation of my heart’s knotted state. Other things were in them too; bad things, caught up in the tangles: memories, feelings, conversations, regrets. They whispered in my ear when I turned my head, reminding me; they were heavy and everywhere.
I found a pair of scissors, started some music. At first I was careful, making sure to cut only what I needed to. But soon my cuts grew faster, choppy and approximate. Seven Swans, snip snip, Come on, Feel the Illinoise, snip, Castaways and Cutouts, snip snip snip; then working ripping teasing out the tangles singing Oh, the Hazards of Love.
I lost myself in the music, keeping time with that sssclk sound that the scissors make, slicing through my hair. Ssssclk, sssclk, ssssssssclk....it was soothing; it was hypnotizing. I thought of nothing. There was only ssssssssclk and the music, and then the fft fft fft of the comb and the occasional snap of a hair breaking as I worked the remainder of the dreads apart.
I don’t know how many numb, methodic hours passed. Enough to play through eight full albums: two Sufjan Stevens, four Decemberists, two Iron and Wine. I think the sun set about halfway through Castaways and Cutouts. But finally, my hair was short again, the dreadlocks combed out. My head throbbed, balanced on neck muscles so tired they could barely hold it up anymore. The muscles in my back were burning, too, and my hands twitched, cramping painfully. Three fingernails were broken. My thumb bleed from a scissor-wound. The dark circles under my red-rimmed eyes were deep. My hair stuck out unevenly in all directions, its texture a strange combination of smooth and frizzy.
I looked how I felt: tired, wrung-out, bitter, and slightly manic.
I looked like Raggedy Ann with a harrowing meth addiction--complete with flat, plastic eyes.
I stared at my reflection, indifferent, then curled up on the floor and fell asleep.
Maybe it wouldn’t have been quite so searing if summer had been kinder in general; I don’t know.
His heart was swollen, the vet said. It was crowding his lungs and stomach. He could barely breathe, he couldn't eat. We had to put him down. He was in a horse stall, something we insisted on because we knew how he hated small spaces, like the tiny metal kennels they used there. Mom, Dad and I entered the stall and he ran to greet us, enthusiastic even in his sickly state. I'd already been crying for a while when I sat down on the dirty floor .He crammed himself onto my lap, his tail wagging and my arms were tight around him. I sniffed loudly and he turned to look at me, as if wondering what the matter was. He licked my cheek, then went back to wagging his tail and looking from face to face, so happy to get so much attention all at once. I rested my head on his silky black fur. He leaped off my lap when the doctor entered, excited to see a new person. He was still cheerful, unsure yet trusting, when the vet began injecting his leg. I held his face in my hands as he lay down.
And suddenly I wished he would bite me, so that it wasn’t just this loving, happy, trusting dog being poisoned before my eyes. My Chance. My sweet puppy for eleven years and I am holding him in my arms as he dies. My head is bowed, resting on his, and I whisper to him though sobs that I love him; that I’m sorry for ever yelling at him; that he was a good dog and I love him and I don’t want him to leave me and I love him. I am on the floor with him, my face buried by his ear and I haven’t cried so hard since I was a child. I feel his fur, wet and spiky from my tears, as my face presses into the warmth and I sob. His head is growing limp and heavy on my arm and I’ve lost circulation in it but I don’t care I don’t care I just want to hold him and I don’t want him to go. Please don’t go. At some point, his heart stops beating and he is dead, but I am not quite sure when that point is and I keep holding my Chance and crying long after it is past.
Three days later. It was a white paper bag, the kind usually containing Blue Chip cookies when Dad brings them home, left over from his accounts at the hospitals. I wanted a cookie. The bag crinkled stiffly as I pulled it open, revealing an envelope and a large, rectangular white box. The box was heavy. I removed the envelope, hoping it contained a clue regarding why the cookies were in a box, and whether I could eat one. There was something written on it. I turned it right-side up.
CHANCE JOHNSON.
I didn’t freeze or anything as the realization hit me; I just slipped the envelope back into the bag with the box containing Chance’s ashes. I sat back down on the sofa and pretended the burned remains of my sweet puppy weren’t sitting on the counter top in my kitchen. I knew Dad would be bringing them eventually. It was me who told the vet that, yes, we would like to have the ashes. And I did want them. I wanted to scatter them in the shade by the chimney where he liked to sleep, by the tree where I carved his name, in the tall grass he loved to run in.
I had been reading, but I couldn’t any more. I didn't want to leave the box there, on the cold counter top, left like any random mail.
The weight of his ashes as I climbed the stairs... I didn’t know where to put him. I didn’t want to leave him all alone, up on the dresser, but bringing him over to my nightstand seemed too close for me...I looked at his pictures strewn across my room. I got up. I pulled the box of ashes from the paper sack. I sat on my bed, read the tag attached: “Our deepest sympathies for the loss of your beloved pet. Pet Cremation Services.” I looked at my pictures again, then back at the box. At Chance. I curled up around him and cry and cry and cry, falling asleep with his ashes in my arms.
The next day, I couldn’t just sit and go through pictures like I had been the past few afternoons. This death of my one and only Chance was the awful last straw in a collection of trials that had been piling, piling, piling, and I was just too tired so finally I began to buckle under the weight of it all.
For weeks I’d been writhing inside; needing to run or scream or both or crack or shave my head. I had long dreadlocks at that time, and they seemed to mock me as I looked in the mirror--a physical representation of my heart’s knotted state. Other things were in them too; bad things, caught up in the tangles: memories, feelings, conversations, regrets. They whispered in my ear when I turned my head, reminding me; they were heavy and everywhere.
I found a pair of scissors, started some music. At first I was careful, making sure to cut only what I needed to. But soon my cuts grew faster, choppy and approximate. Seven Swans, snip snip, Come on, Feel the Illinoise, snip, Castaways and Cutouts, snip snip snip; then working ripping teasing out the tangles singing Oh, the Hazards of Love.
I lost myself in the music, keeping time with that sssclk sound that the scissors make, slicing through my hair. Ssssclk, sssclk, ssssssssclk....it was soothing; it was hypnotizing. I thought of nothing. There was only ssssssssclk and the music, and then the fft fft fft of the comb and the occasional snap of a hair breaking as I worked the remainder of the dreads apart.
I don’t know how many numb, methodic hours passed. Enough to play through eight full albums: two Sufjan Stevens, four Decemberists, two Iron and Wine. I think the sun set about halfway through Castaways and Cutouts. But finally, my hair was short again, the dreadlocks combed out. My head throbbed, balanced on neck muscles so tired they could barely hold it up anymore. The muscles in my back were burning, too, and my hands twitched, cramping painfully. Three fingernails were broken. My thumb bleed from a scissor-wound. The dark circles under my red-rimmed eyes were deep. My hair stuck out unevenly in all directions, its texture a strange combination of smooth and frizzy.
I looked how I felt: tired, wrung-out, bitter, and slightly manic.
I looked like Raggedy Ann with a harrowing meth addiction--complete with flat, plastic eyes.
I stared at my reflection, indifferent, then curled up on the floor and fell asleep.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
A Note from Mind to Body
Look at what you've done;
Just watch our hands shake--
I think you revel in the way
This weakness shames me.
Our clumsy feet trip because
You shuffle like a corpse;
Dead weight, nothing more.
You hold hostage
My thoughts from our tongue;
You just love to taunt me,
Don't you?
Everything I try to do,
You drag me down;
Why won't you cooperate?
You parasite--
You crippled foreigner--
I can hear you laughing.
I hate the way
You tell me "sit" and "stay",
Knowing I have no choice
But to consent,
And be disgusted
By my own submission.
I wish I could punish you--
Oh, to exact revenge--
But, as everything I do to you
I also do to me,
I'm expected to treat you well;
Because apparently I am God's
And not my own.
I guess He likes to collect
Broken things.
Just watch our hands shake--
I think you revel in the way
This weakness shames me.
Our clumsy feet trip because
You shuffle like a corpse;
Dead weight, nothing more.
You hold hostage
My thoughts from our tongue;
You just love to taunt me,
Don't you?
Everything I try to do,
You drag me down;
Why won't you cooperate?
You parasite--
You crippled foreigner--
I can hear you laughing.
I hate the way
You tell me "sit" and "stay",
Knowing I have no choice
But to consent,
And be disgusted
By my own submission.
I wish I could punish you--
Oh, to exact revenge--
But, as everything I do to you
I also do to me,
I'm expected to treat you well;
Because apparently I am God's
And not my own.
I guess He likes to collect
Broken things.
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