i was walking home from a party
i was walking home and a man with a gun came at me
he had a gun
and i said, before i knew he had a gun, i said, i'm sorry: i don't speak swedish.
and he said, oh. (i was crying, because of the reason for which i usually cry when i am drunk, which is, no one will ever love me the way i want to be loved)
and he pointed at the corner of his eye, and he said, i'm sorry.
and he said, i lied to my family.
and then i said, i'm sorry i don't understand.
then i pressed the code on the door. and i said, i'm sorry?
and then i opened the door. and he put his hand on the door. and then i was afraid. i said, no.
he had his fingers on my side of the door. he had his fingers in a place which meant i would not be able to close the door.
i said, no.
then i looked. i had adrenaline in my blood. i looked, and while i was thinking, this is not happening, this is not real, i recognized the gun. the gun was in his other hand. no, no, no, no. i peeled his fngers from the door, i said: no. i saw the gun. i have never seen a real and true gun before. i have never seen a gun that was not in a movie. i said, NO. and while i was saying that, i was peeling his fingers away from the door, and i pulled the door into myself, so that it was closed. i closed it as hard and as fast as i could, because i had seen a gun.
then i ran. as i was screaming NO, i was running, and i pulled all three doors open and then as closed as I could.
and when i was in the apartment I closed the door silently and locked it silently.
i waited a minute.
i listened.
then i took off my jacket.
then i let tears fall on my face.
then i tip toed to my room.
i pulled the blinds closed.
20081231
20081229
well, it was hard for me to formulate a real answer when you asked me why this has been stressful. but here is the answer that comes closest to an approximation of the truth.
-it's complicated, but a lot of it has to do with the relationship i have with my sister. that simplifies things a lot, but for me, that is truly at the heart of it. and a lot of things stem in this complex web of confusion and upset from the fact that she and i do not get along like so well- or, more honestly, that i am still so angry with her.
i have been able to live with all of this in the back of my mind for a long time, and coming together like this, as a family, makes it impossible to ignore it. or, being in such close proximity with everyone makes me feel even more guilty about living without thinking so much about the way she and i treat each other. or, about the way i treat her; about the way i have been treated by her.
and i'm so tired of all of this shit.
and i want to be selfish.
and i'm so over the way my mother handles a lot of this; the way she acts. she becomes a child, and i want to treat her the way i would treat a child who behaves with me the way she does. but i can't, because she is my mother.
this entry sucks a fat dick. this blog is not about this real bullshit and i apologize for posting this; i'll take it down, probably, but, you know, sometimes i want to say these things but i almost never do. allow me this one infraction.
-it's complicated, but a lot of it has to do with the relationship i have with my sister. that simplifies things a lot, but for me, that is truly at the heart of it. and a lot of things stem in this complex web of confusion and upset from the fact that she and i do not get along like so well- or, more honestly, that i am still so angry with her.
i have been able to live with all of this in the back of my mind for a long time, and coming together like this, as a family, makes it impossible to ignore it. or, being in such close proximity with everyone makes me feel even more guilty about living without thinking so much about the way she and i treat each other. or, about the way i treat her; about the way i have been treated by her.
and i'm so tired of all of this shit.
and i want to be selfish.
and i'm so over the way my mother handles a lot of this; the way she acts. she becomes a child, and i want to treat her the way i would treat a child who behaves with me the way she does. but i can't, because she is my mother.
this entry sucks a fat dick. this blog is not about this real bullshit and i apologize for posting this; i'll take it down, probably, but, you know, sometimes i want to say these things but i almost never do. allow me this one infraction.
20081223
the way of all flesh
I saw him as I came down the escalator and noticed that he had become older.
"Abraham," I said and stepped across the arrivals hall. I smiled at him and as I got close to him I exhaled so that I could breathe in his scent. I had been missing that smell for all the time we had been apart, and I was ready for it.
As he put his arms around me, I buried my face in his neck and pulled in his smell. As soon as it hit my nostrils tears sprang to my eyes and that was when I knew that it had been too long. He smelled older. I should not have been surprised. I hadn't seen him in over a decade. We'd been 15 when I had left. He smelled like someone who knew that they were doing, whereas before he had radiated the scent of his adolescent self.
I let my fingers slip into the notches of his spine, which were coated in a new, heftier layer of muscle. He drew breath with the same ferocity that I remembered, and that comforted me.
"Abraham," I said again, pulling away from his body to examine his face. He looked happy. He looked like someone who knew what they were doing. I envied that. He smiled at me and said, "I know what you are thinking." He probably did.
We drove home in silence, the space between us filled with the years behind us.
Finally, when we pulled into his driveway, and he killed the engine of his car, and we sat in silence as the ticktick of the engine cooling resonated around us, I turned to him and opened my mouth to speak. I said, "You need to tell me why you left her."
That was a lie. I knew why he had left her.
He nodded and got out of the car.
___
We lay naked in the bed on our backs. We were careful not to touch one another, as afraid as we had been the first time, half my life ago. I slowly turned my head to look at him, and in the dark his face looked exactly as I remembered it. I inched my hand over to his side of the bed. I placed it on his hip bone. I was sure I'd be able to feel his freckles, but of course I couldn't. In my mind his body was smaller, his skin thin and taught and untouched. Under my hand, though, it was thirty years old; adult. When I realized this, I was washed in chagrin. I was embarrassed to notice that in my mind he was still 15. I was embarrassed to to picture the 15 year-old body he must be expecting from me.
He leaned over me, and kissed me, and looked into my face for the first time since I'd gotten off the plane. He sighed a long sigh and his hands considered carefully the age of my body. He placed his palms everywhere, comparing the feel of my anatomy now with the impression of it stored in his muscle memory. He was thinking exactly what I was; that we had gone, and would continue to go, the way of all flesh.
"Abraham," I said and stepped across the arrivals hall. I smiled at him and as I got close to him I exhaled so that I could breathe in his scent. I had been missing that smell for all the time we had been apart, and I was ready for it.
As he put his arms around me, I buried my face in his neck and pulled in his smell. As soon as it hit my nostrils tears sprang to my eyes and that was when I knew that it had been too long. He smelled older. I should not have been surprised. I hadn't seen him in over a decade. We'd been 15 when I had left. He smelled like someone who knew that they were doing, whereas before he had radiated the scent of his adolescent self.
I let my fingers slip into the notches of his spine, which were coated in a new, heftier layer of muscle. He drew breath with the same ferocity that I remembered, and that comforted me.
"Abraham," I said again, pulling away from his body to examine his face. He looked happy. He looked like someone who knew what they were doing. I envied that. He smiled at me and said, "I know what you are thinking." He probably did.
We drove home in silence, the space between us filled with the years behind us.
Finally, when we pulled into his driveway, and he killed the engine of his car, and we sat in silence as the ticktick of the engine cooling resonated around us, I turned to him and opened my mouth to speak. I said, "You need to tell me why you left her."
That was a lie. I knew why he had left her.
He nodded and got out of the car.
___
We lay naked in the bed on our backs. We were careful not to touch one another, as afraid as we had been the first time, half my life ago. I slowly turned my head to look at him, and in the dark his face looked exactly as I remembered it. I inched my hand over to his side of the bed. I placed it on his hip bone. I was sure I'd be able to feel his freckles, but of course I couldn't. In my mind his body was smaller, his skin thin and taught and untouched. Under my hand, though, it was thirty years old; adult. When I realized this, I was washed in chagrin. I was embarrassed to notice that in my mind he was still 15. I was embarrassed to to picture the 15 year-old body he must be expecting from me.
He leaned over me, and kissed me, and looked into my face for the first time since I'd gotten off the plane. He sighed a long sigh and his hands considered carefully the age of my body. He placed his palms everywhere, comparing the feel of my anatomy now with the impression of it stored in his muscle memory. He was thinking exactly what I was; that we had gone, and would continue to go, the way of all flesh.
20081220
A good friend of mine walked across the united states, from San Francisco to New York. Before setting out, he swam in the Pacific, saying, "It'll be awhile, salt water". His name was David, and he looked like a painting of himself, always, but especially when he swam. He bought me a German dictionary once, after my brother committed suicide. David said, "You're going to need to know how to say 'bridge' in many languages". He believed that it was impossible to truly express grief in just one language. He believed that I'd go everywhere some day and that I'd tell everyone I met about Jonathan and how he jumped. He believed that because he still had hope, then.
It was a grey day, the day he set out. I drove him to the beach, and he got out of the car, wearing only his shorts, and walked straight into the water. I thought he'd never come out. I sat in the bed of my pick-up and smoked cigarettes and watched him splash around. After a few hours, he came up and stood next to the truck. I handed him his backpack and touched his forehead. I said, "Call me, David. Send me pictures." He nodded and then he walked towards the Atlantic.
He did call. He called me from a pay phone in Illinois. He said, "It's me," and I burst into tears. I put my hand over the receiver so he wouldn't hear me. He said, "It's been awhile, huh? How's that salt water doing?" I stopped crying after a few minutes, and I said, "David, it's time to come home." I could hear him nodding. He just nodded and nodded, and then finally he said, "I'm in a little trouble."
When he said that, I knew why he'd called. "In a little trouble" was code for, "I got into a fight and my face is all fucked up, and I had to call, because I did this so that I could call you about it. So picture it, Elizabeth, picture how fucked up my face is. I haven't even washed the blood off yet." I have known David a long time. I said, "David."
He said, "I know."
He said, "You never saw his body, though. You never saw what'd happened to it."
He said, "Listen, Elizabeth, you needed this."
I hung up. A few weeks later, maybe a month, month and a half, I got an envelope in the mail and it was filled with pictures. He'd been right, I had needed that violence. I put those photographs between the pages of the German dictionary and put that under my bed. The picture on the page, Bean to Bright, was of David in the Great Salt Lake.
20081219
ok, see that, there, below this text?
that's the past two months, and it sucks, but i need it to be here.
because i need you to know even though i don't want to tell you.
ps. those which are very sloppy/ in french/ make no sense were written drunk, and are more heavy-handed than they should be.
also, i can't figure out why they're not in the right order, just, whatever. y'know?
that's the past two months, and it sucks, but i need it to be here.
because i need you to know even though i don't want to tell you.
ps. those which are very sloppy/ in french/ make no sense were written drunk, and are more heavy-handed than they should be.
also, i can't figure out why they're not in the right order, just, whatever. y'know?
it's been a while since i've been here
Hi.
This is about last night.
-- I have not been well. The past two months have shattered me, and I am recently feeling like it's okay to start putting myself back together. A lot of things have gone wrong; but also, a lot of things have been going right in the past two weeks. And none of this belongs to you, none of this has anything to do with what you have done. But when I get drunk and I spread it, honey over a coffee table, molasses into you hair, it becomes about you. And I'm sorry, because it's melodramatic and unnecessary. And I'm ashamed, because I talk a lot about how to be direct and honest and good- and, when it comes down to it, I am not that way, myself. But know this: I am trying. I am trying so hard you can't see it.
I need you to know that last night was a mistake. I need you to know that it means that I trust you, finally. But it also means that what I have been saving from you between the black leather walls of my journal is beginning to leak out, from my lips and from my tear ducts. It has been leaking for a long time now- and I have decided to put it up. Finally.
Why now? Because before this, I didn't feel okay with you knowing how much I had begun to hate myself. Because before this, I was worried about losing you before I even had you. But I know now, I have realized by now, that if I let this go on in the squirreled, curled up and secretive way that it has, I will loose you, too. And I'm sorry but I feel more loved by you than by anything I have ever had before- and I need that. Which is selfish, and you have no obligation to any of this- but maybe you have a right to know.
Come back here in a little while, and it'll be up.
Thanks.
Liz
This is about last night.
-- I have not been well. The past two months have shattered me, and I am recently feeling like it's okay to start putting myself back together. A lot of things have gone wrong; but also, a lot of things have been going right in the past two weeks. And none of this belongs to you, none of this has anything to do with what you have done. But when I get drunk and I spread it, honey over a coffee table, molasses into you hair, it becomes about you. And I'm sorry, because it's melodramatic and unnecessary. And I'm ashamed, because I talk a lot about how to be direct and honest and good- and, when it comes down to it, I am not that way, myself. But know this: I am trying. I am trying so hard you can't see it.
I need you to know that last night was a mistake. I need you to know that it means that I trust you, finally. But it also means that what I have been saving from you between the black leather walls of my journal is beginning to leak out, from my lips and from my tear ducts. It has been leaking for a long time now- and I have decided to put it up. Finally.
Why now? Because before this, I didn't feel okay with you knowing how much I had begun to hate myself. Because before this, I was worried about losing you before I even had you. But I know now, I have realized by now, that if I let this go on in the squirreled, curled up and secretive way that it has, I will loose you, too. And I'm sorry but I feel more loved by you than by anything I have ever had before- and I need that. Which is selfish, and you have no obligation to any of this- but maybe you have a right to know.
Come back here in a little while, and it'll be up.
Thanks.
Liz
20081022
this is narrative, right?
The truth is, I don’t care anymore, she said, pulling her jeans up over her ass. I closed my eyes and lay back on the bed. I imagined how it would feel to buy a revolver. I pictured myself handing over a stack of bills and taking the gun in my hands for the first time. When I opened my eyes, she was gone.
I got up. I walked around. I looked at my apartment with the eyes of a stranger, and I realized that I hated it. It wasn’t where I had wanted to live. I tried calling her, but she didn’t pick up, which was a relief. I didn’t know what I would say to her, anyway.
My phone rang. I picked it up, thinking it might be her, but it wasn’t. It was Dave, inviting me to a party. I said, Yes, I’ll be there. He said, Good. I haven’t seen you in weeks.
I lay back down on my bed, on top of the comforter, not between the sheets- because, between the sheets it smelled too much like her, and that scent made me embarrassed. I imagined myself shooting the revolver. I imagined the sound, and the heat on my hand. I stared at the ceiling and breathed. For a long time, I took air in to my lungs, and then I let it out, slowly, again and again.
When I got up, I put on my clothes, and jacket, and shoes. I went out, to the store on the corner of my street, and bought a fifth of whiskey. When I got home, I poured myself a tumblerful, and sat on the floor at the foot of my bed, drinking. The phone rang, and I let it go.
When the sun had gone down, I filled an empty water bottle with the whiskey and went outside. I walked to the bus stop and, after a short wait, got on the bus. I sat, I drank, and I waited to arrive.
When I got the party, I felt lonely. Dave started to introduce me to everyone- I knew no one there. It seemed as though Dave had made all these new friends since I had last seen him. I didn’t understand why he had invited me. I said stupid things to these people. I hated them, and I let them know it. I threatened to break bottles over their heads. I took of my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. They laughed and talked among themselves. Dave stopped introducing me to people, and I felt superior.
When I had finished what was in my water bottle, I walked home. It was a long walk, and when I got home my feet hurt. I took off my shoes and lay on the bed. I imagined the feeling of metal against my temple. I stared at the ceiling and remembered what an asshole I had been.
I’d told her I wasn’t feeling so good. I said, I don’t want to talk about it, but I have not been feeling so good. She pressed- she is always pressing- and I barked. She took off her clothes and climbed under the covers with me. She put her hands on me. I didn’t want them near me, I said, Don’t. She said, What am I supposed to do? I told her to fuck off. She said, I miss you, in a quiet voice. I’m right fucking here, I said. How can you miss me?
She got up, deliberately, and put on her shirt and socks and underwear. The truth is, I really don’t care anymore, she said, pulling her jeans up over her ass. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, she was gone.
The truth wasn’t that she didn’t care anymore. The truth was, she was tired of working so hard. I knew that. But the way I saw it, she was the one pressing. I hadn’t incited her exertion. She put herself through it.
I didn’t really believe that, though. I knew I’d been making her work since day one.
I fell asleep thinking about these things. When I woke, I drank water and left the apartment. I looked like shit. I got on a bus going downtown. I wandered there awhile. I found the place I was looking for. I went in. I browsed. When saw it, I knew it was right. Grey barrel, white enamel butt. Embossed on its underside with the American flag.
I put my money on the counter and the shopkeeper put my choice in my hands. I took hold of, and it was heavier than I wanted it to be.
I buried it in the inside pocket of my jacket, and I took it home.
I sat cross-legged on the bed. I put it up to my skull, just to know. I pulled the trigger, and it clicked in my ear, like a cracked knuckle. Then, I put it down on the sheets in front of me. I stared at it.
I got up and retrieved my toolbox from the back of the closet. I brought it back to the bed.
I opened the toolbox and took out everything that looked like it might be useful. I unscrewed screws, chiseled away at welded joints. I deconstructed the gun completely. I laid each piece of it out in front of me on the bed. I stared at it and I breathed.
I got up. I walked around. I looked at my apartment with the eyes of a stranger, and I realized that I hated it. It wasn’t where I had wanted to live. I tried calling her, but she didn’t pick up, which was a relief. I didn’t know what I would say to her, anyway.
My phone rang. I picked it up, thinking it might be her, but it wasn’t. It was Dave, inviting me to a party. I said, Yes, I’ll be there. He said, Good. I haven’t seen you in weeks.
I lay back down on my bed, on top of the comforter, not between the sheets- because, between the sheets it smelled too much like her, and that scent made me embarrassed. I imagined myself shooting the revolver. I imagined the sound, and the heat on my hand. I stared at the ceiling and breathed. For a long time, I took air in to my lungs, and then I let it out, slowly, again and again.
When I got up, I put on my clothes, and jacket, and shoes. I went out, to the store on the corner of my street, and bought a fifth of whiskey. When I got home, I poured myself a tumblerful, and sat on the floor at the foot of my bed, drinking. The phone rang, and I let it go.
When the sun had gone down, I filled an empty water bottle with the whiskey and went outside. I walked to the bus stop and, after a short wait, got on the bus. I sat, I drank, and I waited to arrive.
When I got the party, I felt lonely. Dave started to introduce me to everyone- I knew no one there. It seemed as though Dave had made all these new friends since I had last seen him. I didn’t understand why he had invited me. I said stupid things to these people. I hated them, and I let them know it. I threatened to break bottles over their heads. I took of my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. They laughed and talked among themselves. Dave stopped introducing me to people, and I felt superior.
When I had finished what was in my water bottle, I walked home. It was a long walk, and when I got home my feet hurt. I took off my shoes and lay on the bed. I imagined the feeling of metal against my temple. I stared at the ceiling and remembered what an asshole I had been.
I’d told her I wasn’t feeling so good. I said, I don’t want to talk about it, but I have not been feeling so good. She pressed- she is always pressing- and I barked. She took off her clothes and climbed under the covers with me. She put her hands on me. I didn’t want them near me, I said, Don’t. She said, What am I supposed to do? I told her to fuck off. She said, I miss you, in a quiet voice. I’m right fucking here, I said. How can you miss me?
She got up, deliberately, and put on her shirt and socks and underwear. The truth is, I really don’t care anymore, she said, pulling her jeans up over her ass. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, she was gone.
The truth wasn’t that she didn’t care anymore. The truth was, she was tired of working so hard. I knew that. But the way I saw it, she was the one pressing. I hadn’t incited her exertion. She put herself through it.
I didn’t really believe that, though. I knew I’d been making her work since day one.
I fell asleep thinking about these things. When I woke, I drank water and left the apartment. I looked like shit. I got on a bus going downtown. I wandered there awhile. I found the place I was looking for. I went in. I browsed. When saw it, I knew it was right. Grey barrel, white enamel butt. Embossed on its underside with the American flag.
I put my money on the counter and the shopkeeper put my choice in my hands. I took hold of, and it was heavier than I wanted it to be.
I buried it in the inside pocket of my jacket, and I took it home.
I sat cross-legged on the bed. I put it up to my skull, just to know. I pulled the trigger, and it clicked in my ear, like a cracked knuckle. Then, I put it down on the sheets in front of me. I stared at it.
I got up and retrieved my toolbox from the back of the closet. I brought it back to the bed.
I opened the toolbox and took out everything that looked like it might be useful. I unscrewed screws, chiseled away at welded joints. I deconstructed the gun completely. I laid each piece of it out in front of me on the bed. I stared at it and I breathed.
20081015
These need work. I want Celia to decline, slowly, over the course.
I think my writing teacher will hate it.
But I hate her, so whatever.
Julian,
I waited as long as I could before writing. I don’t know if you remember how to read, but I hope you do, because I recently remembered how to write.
I woke up the morning you left. It was too cold to get out of bed, so I stayed there.
Yours,
Celia
___________________________________________________
Julian,
I have a stomachache and it’s getting me down. When I close my eyes I see bedbugs and dust mites. They live there, under my lids. I think they are slowly slowly traveling closer to my brain, which is full of cotton and dust.
Julian, where did you go? We have many things to teach each other. I can teach you about geometry. I know formulas that would change everything. I will draw you diagrams and label them in the correct order, clockwise from top right.
Julian, we have a lot of books to read. I would like to run into you at the library some day. I will pause and look you in the eye as you speak to me. And then I will pull a book from its place on the shelf and open it. And inside it will be nothing but dust due to the cohabitation of literate bookworms and their beloved letters.
Yours,
Celia
_______________________________________________________
Julian,
I have had an idea. We will go to the edge of the world together. We will walk until we reach the very brink. I think the place I speak of is in the arctic. It is Iceland, and it is tundra. We will set out in winter and when we get there we will wait months for the sun to come up. And in the early morning we will gaze at the clear frozen snow around us.
Julian, I’ve missed you. As the weather gets colder, it become harder and harder to drag myself out from under the warmth of my bed and into the day. But the days, when I get to them, swallow me whole. The sun doesn’t set until 6:54 tonight.
Yours,
Celia
_________________________________________
Julian,
You really do think the brain is not filled with cotton and dust. You said it was neurons and electrical wires. Yours- maybe. Yours is clinical in a way I don’t think mine is.
Clinical. What a stark word, conjuring empty, shiny hallways of tile. Is that what the recesses, the folds and overlaps of the tissues of your brain, is that what they look like? Tile? Tiles crunching against each other, breaking against their own brittle and, yes, clinical bodies. Yes, that is the sound I hear coming from your temples when you think.
Julian, are you coming home soon? I have decided that Iceland is an imperative. I have been thinking about the whales and the wolves. Tomorrow, I think, will be my new year.
Yours,
Celia
________________________________
Julian,
Everyone around me is making decisions. I have decided on some things, too. It’s been a long time, Julian, and I ache for your face.
I remembered what you said about the wolves and the whales, and I think you are right. Whale’s blood is so thick with iron and oxygen it’s almost black.
Yours,
Celia
_________________________________________________
Julian,
I looked in a forgotten cupboard this evening when I got out of bed. There was dust in it and it reminded me of you. I swept all the dust right up and put it in an envelope, which I placed on the windowsill. I like to imagine myself in a long skirt pouring you out, into the ocean from the brink of the earth, the wind whipping around me and carrying you off.
I’m just joking. But today I went to seaside and ate sandy things. I made a list of things that are salty: crackers, French fries, sweat, the base of my spine after a long day, the sea. I asked many people for directions on my way. I do not know my own way to the sea, as they say in folktales. But I have often felt that the sea has visited me at our home.
Julian, I think you should know that I have stopped waiting. Instead, I have begun to live our life together. When will join me? I have many things to whisper in your ear. For example, I might say your name, to remind you of it. But I think mostly it would be to remind myself.
Yours,
Celia
______________________________________________
Julian,
It is time you start telling me the truth.
Yours,
Celia
Julian,
I am, as you know, at my most honest in the early mornings on the tundra of Iceland. And that is, coincidentally, where I find myself now. So here is the fact. I have forgotten what you look like. And this terrifies me.
Continue to write to me. Continue to confuse and beguile me. It keeps me open and awake to the world, to have such pages to struggle for and to be always aching for your words. Do not forget that whatever we may have built, though it may not be what I would like to resemble, is in fact real, and tangible, and that it is an ocean of ink in which we float and execute the butterfly with precision.
Yours,
Celia
_______________________________
Julian,
I understand that you have left me for good. Your friend, in the uniform, told me this morning over the phone.
I would like for these letters to be cremated with you. This correspondence is something strong and formidable. Do not disregard it, do not throw it away or forget its existence- ever. To do so would be to forget possibility and excitement and longing. And poetry; because what we have built in these pages is nothing but poetry- letters on a page deftly arranged to scare and to comfort, to dissolve and inspire.
Please write back quickly, they need to know what to do with your body, and I feel that I might die if I don’t hear from you soon.
Yours,
Celia
I think my writing teacher will hate it.
But I hate her, so whatever.
Julian,
I waited as long as I could before writing. I don’t know if you remember how to read, but I hope you do, because I recently remembered how to write.
I woke up the morning you left. It was too cold to get out of bed, so I stayed there.
Yours,
Celia
___________________________________________________
Julian,
I have a stomachache and it’s getting me down. When I close my eyes I see bedbugs and dust mites. They live there, under my lids. I think they are slowly slowly traveling closer to my brain, which is full of cotton and dust.
Julian, where did you go? We have many things to teach each other. I can teach you about geometry. I know formulas that would change everything. I will draw you diagrams and label them in the correct order, clockwise from top right.
Julian, we have a lot of books to read. I would like to run into you at the library some day. I will pause and look you in the eye as you speak to me. And then I will pull a book from its place on the shelf and open it. And inside it will be nothing but dust due to the cohabitation of literate bookworms and their beloved letters.
Yours,
Celia
_______________________________________________________
Julian,
I have had an idea. We will go to the edge of the world together. We will walk until we reach the very brink. I think the place I speak of is in the arctic. It is Iceland, and it is tundra. We will set out in winter and when we get there we will wait months for the sun to come up. And in the early morning we will gaze at the clear frozen snow around us.
Julian, I’ve missed you. As the weather gets colder, it become harder and harder to drag myself out from under the warmth of my bed and into the day. But the days, when I get to them, swallow me whole. The sun doesn’t set until 6:54 tonight.
Yours,
Celia
_________________________________________
Julian,
You really do think the brain is not filled with cotton and dust. You said it was neurons and electrical wires. Yours- maybe. Yours is clinical in a way I don’t think mine is.
Clinical. What a stark word, conjuring empty, shiny hallways of tile. Is that what the recesses, the folds and overlaps of the tissues of your brain, is that what they look like? Tile? Tiles crunching against each other, breaking against their own brittle and, yes, clinical bodies. Yes, that is the sound I hear coming from your temples when you think.
Julian, are you coming home soon? I have decided that Iceland is an imperative. I have been thinking about the whales and the wolves. Tomorrow, I think, will be my new year.
Yours,
Celia
________________________________
Julian,
Everyone around me is making decisions. I have decided on some things, too. It’s been a long time, Julian, and I ache for your face.
I remembered what you said about the wolves and the whales, and I think you are right. Whale’s blood is so thick with iron and oxygen it’s almost black.
Yours,
Celia
_________________________________________________
Julian,
I looked in a forgotten cupboard this evening when I got out of bed. There was dust in it and it reminded me of you. I swept all the dust right up and put it in an envelope, which I placed on the windowsill. I like to imagine myself in a long skirt pouring you out, into the ocean from the brink of the earth, the wind whipping around me and carrying you off.
I’m just joking. But today I went to seaside and ate sandy things. I made a list of things that are salty: crackers, French fries, sweat, the base of my spine after a long day, the sea. I asked many people for directions on my way. I do not know my own way to the sea, as they say in folktales. But I have often felt that the sea has visited me at our home.
Julian, I think you should know that I have stopped waiting. Instead, I have begun to live our life together. When will join me? I have many things to whisper in your ear. For example, I might say your name, to remind you of it. But I think mostly it would be to remind myself.
Yours,
Celia
______________________________________________
Julian,
It is time you start telling me the truth.
Yours,
Celia
Julian,
I am, as you know, at my most honest in the early mornings on the tundra of Iceland. And that is, coincidentally, where I find myself now. So here is the fact. I have forgotten what you look like. And this terrifies me.
Continue to write to me. Continue to confuse and beguile me. It keeps me open and awake to the world, to have such pages to struggle for and to be always aching for your words. Do not forget that whatever we may have built, though it may not be what I would like to resemble, is in fact real, and tangible, and that it is an ocean of ink in which we float and execute the butterfly with precision.
Yours,
Celia
_______________________________
Julian,
I understand that you have left me for good. Your friend, in the uniform, told me this morning over the phone.
I would like for these letters to be cremated with you. This correspondence is something strong and formidable. Do not disregard it, do not throw it away or forget its existence- ever. To do so would be to forget possibility and excitement and longing. And poetry; because what we have built in these pages is nothing but poetry- letters on a page deftly arranged to scare and to comfort, to dissolve and inspire.
Please write back quickly, they need to know what to do with your body, and I feel that I might die if I don’t hear from you soon.
Yours,
Celia
20080703
all that muscle flying through space
That was the night she got her first black eye from his throwing arm, pulling his fist into her skull as it traveled through the bedroom. He throws 98 mile fast balls, and the crack was substantial as skin cleft from bone. Tears welling, she put her hands on his face, leaning into him as he made his way towards her, kissing his mouth the way she’d seen it done in movies. He wiped blood from her puckered skin and kissed her back. The turnaround was so quick; blink, and you’d’ve missed it.
20080624
I’ve got twenty-eight bones in each of my hands. I felt absolutely sure there was something wrong with my hands; they never worked the way I thought they should. All my life I had dreamed of hands I could use. I wanted to hold people. I wanted to build fires. I wanted to go swimming. But with my big, clunky hands, I couldn’t do any of those things. I sat at home. I sat on my hands. I waited for the extra bone to fuse with its neighbor. It was, of course, wasted time.
So I fixed the problem myself. I opened up my hands. I split skin from muscle from fascia. I peeled each hand, like slaughtered bananas, and once the bone was out in the open- and let me tell you, bone is not quite as pearly, smooth and glimmering as you would imagine, in fact it is grey and spongy. And there, right below the metacarpals, was a large flat oval, gleaming in its superfluousness. So I pulled it out. Like cracking my knuckles, I pulled each finger’s support from its socket, and lifted the extra, nameless chunk of calcium out of its pocket. Then I pulled the muscle and skin back up over my fist, trimmed the extra skin and sewed it all back up.
So I fixed the problem myself. I opened up my hands. I split skin from muscle from fascia. I peeled each hand, like slaughtered bananas, and once the bone was out in the open- and let me tell you, bone is not quite as pearly, smooth and glimmering as you would imagine, in fact it is grey and spongy. And there, right below the metacarpals, was a large flat oval, gleaming in its superfluousness. So I pulled it out. Like cracking my knuckles, I pulled each finger’s support from its socket, and lifted the extra, nameless chunk of calcium out of its pocket. Then I pulled the muscle and skin back up over my fist, trimmed the extra skin and sewed it all back up.
Slowly, over the past few years, she has completely lost the ability to walk. Since that first slip and roll on the ankle, the cartilage, ligaments and bone down there in her foot have been crumbling, slow and steady, until finally they were absent from her gait. Admittedly, she could easily have replaced them with marvels of modern medicine, and in fact she walked for a few weeks on that empty bag of muscle (those bones literally just melted away, leaving the remaining structures of the foot relatively intact), but when she finally opened her eyes and let herself limp- it didn’t stop at limping. She fell. And in falling, she realized it was over and that never again would she walk. She stayed stock still.
20080623
root canal
I performed a root canal and blind-sided you with it,
and still you loved me. As you writhed and as I held you down next to me despite your enamel’s sound of deference as it cracked between the metal prongs of my pliers, I could see it in your eyes, the amber freckles of remaining love that let me know you would still love me even after I had ripped this tooth from your skull and replaced it with lead. The thought made me detest you, made me want to rip not only enamel from you, but then to scoop with my bare fingernails the pulp from the cavity- I will not stop there! I will heave each and every vertebrae from your spine, one by one, until your body matches your mind.
and still you loved me. As you writhed and as I held you down next to me despite your enamel’s sound of deference as it cracked between the metal prongs of my pliers, I could see it in your eyes, the amber freckles of remaining love that let me know you would still love me even after I had ripped this tooth from your skull and replaced it with lead. The thought made me detest you, made me want to rip not only enamel from you, but then to scoop with my bare fingernails the pulp from the cavity- I will not stop there! I will heave each and every vertebrae from your spine, one by one, until your body matches your mind.
big hearted
I’m going to find someone with a big heart. 500g or more, at least. And when I find him-
Did you know that I have inhabited each of those four chambers? I have made my home within the red cushion of cardiac pressure. I built a bed on valves, on which it was impossible to sleep, next to the mush and rush of the constant bleeding. I traveled freely, opening doors to atria and ventricles, burrowing deep into those muscular walls, pulsating with them as they force ichor to where it is required. But I have never traveled with that gore. I have remained, like a stagnant drip of rot, violently affixed to the myocardium, a parasite you are too star-crossed to notice.
Did you know that I have inhabited each of those four chambers? I have made my home within the red cushion of cardiac pressure. I built a bed on valves, on which it was impossible to sleep, next to the mush and rush of the constant bleeding. I traveled freely, opening doors to atria and ventricles, burrowing deep into those muscular walls, pulsating with them as they force ichor to where it is required. But I have never traveled with that gore. I have remained, like a stagnant drip of rot, violently affixed to the myocardium, a parasite you are too star-crossed to notice.
have you any idea?
This is the fluid mosaic model of the inner ear canal filled with the leaden heavy breathing of a familiar musculature. Watch the tiny bones within me quiver under your voice, watch them waver and final break, like a bough in a hurricane, leaving me deaf and dumb. And when you finally reach your loudest, I will revel in the following silence and the fact that soon your heft will be lifted from me and I will once again breathe for myself.
You are not allowed to touch me like that, with your hairy appendages brushing away my self security. You are not allowed to let me touch you, because we do not fit together, and as soon as you are on top of me I will want you off, and not only off, but as far away as possible. As soon as you are off me, I will run for my life into the shower to soak away, and dissolve like soap in the hot, sterile, tiled, solitary flow. I will run down the drains, staining the sewer with my shame at letting myself be touched by cave men from all ages.
My throat aches from the heat of your thoughtless spewing. No matter how much boiling water I pour down my gullet, those proteins will not denature, and I am left with the growing, squirming sensation of being your verb- an unwilling participant in the heat of alcoholic nights. I see the way you look at me in the dark, and I know that because I am talking to you this way, because I am putting my hand on your there, you are thinking that I agree with this and with you. Have you been so blinded by the preceding months? Have you really been able to convince yourself that this is possible? That it is possible for me to actually want your skin against mine? You are kidding yourself, you lunk. You ape.
You are not allowed to touch me like that, with your hairy appendages brushing away my self security. You are not allowed to let me touch you, because we do not fit together, and as soon as you are on top of me I will want you off, and not only off, but as far away as possible. As soon as you are off me, I will run for my life into the shower to soak away, and dissolve like soap in the hot, sterile, tiled, solitary flow. I will run down the drains, staining the sewer with my shame at letting myself be touched by cave men from all ages.
My throat aches from the heat of your thoughtless spewing. No matter how much boiling water I pour down my gullet, those proteins will not denature, and I am left with the growing, squirming sensation of being your verb- an unwilling participant in the heat of alcoholic nights. I see the way you look at me in the dark, and I know that because I am talking to you this way, because I am putting my hand on your there, you are thinking that I agree with this and with you. Have you been so blinded by the preceding months? Have you really been able to convince yourself that this is possible? That it is possible for me to actually want your skin against mine? You are kidding yourself, you lunk. You ape.
20080514
YOU'REBROKEN?I'MBREAKING!
My muscles ache from the effort of lifting my heart from the ground. It fell right out of me when I realized that I no longer exist. So I stooped down, back bent to the shape of supplication, knees crooked and crackling, and I curled my fingers around the pound of flesh lying seeping my sour liquid into the grass, feeding the earth nutrients I can’t seem to make use of.
When I tired to life the slab of muscle, the gristle, it appeared, had rooted itself deep into the earth. The tendrils of tendon and sinew had felt their way deep into the ground, mingling with the roots of the plants. The grass around me began to wither- the roots of my heart were suffocating the green.
Try as I might, the heart was stuck, and I couldn’t life it. My spine began to snap, vertebrae popping out of their alignment. My muscles tore, myomeres rending from their neighbours, pulling away from the bone. That’s when I fell. You can’t stand without a heart. You can’t stand if you don’t exist.
When I tired to life the slab of muscle, the gristle, it appeared, had rooted itself deep into the earth. The tendrils of tendon and sinew had felt their way deep into the ground, mingling with the roots of the plants. The grass around me began to wither- the roots of my heart were suffocating the green.
Try as I might, the heart was stuck, and I couldn’t life it. My spine began to snap, vertebrae popping out of their alignment. My muscles tore, myomeres rending from their neighbours, pulling away from the bone. That’s when I fell. You can’t stand without a heart. You can’t stand if you don’t exist.
May 13th 2008
Last night I disappeared. With a click and a wave of my hand I was gone. It felt like falling into the cold atlantic from the deck of some ship that didn’t want me. It was as though some shipmate had found me hiding in a barell- a stow away finally discovered and cast out. What could I do but walk the plank and dive right into that cold salt water?
So yes, I dove, and in diving I discovered a thousand things I wanted to do. I wanted to use my lungs in harmony with my vocal chords to produce the sounds reseverved for dark bedrooms. I wanted to touch my skin to yours again. I wanted to write on your walls. I found myself swimming instead, in water too clod for even the whales.
I disappeared last night. That must be why you can’t see me; I’m underwater.
So yes, I dove, and in diving I discovered a thousand things I wanted to do. I wanted to use my lungs in harmony with my vocal chords to produce the sounds reseverved for dark bedrooms. I wanted to touch my skin to yours again. I wanted to write on your walls. I found myself swimming instead, in water too clod for even the whales.
I disappeared last night. That must be why you can’t see me; I’m underwater.
20080512
I like to think of you as ancient.
I like to think of you as being ancient.
For that brief second during which I was encased in the rock and weather-worn stability of your body, the world disappeared and what became truth was the concept of time. For that moment I was ageless, and you were more and stronger than anything I have ever seen or heard of before.
No.
I like to think of you as being ancient. For me, you have no name, no age, no limitations. You are a monument, an idol, a celebration of the human body and its glories. You were constructed from flesh countless years ago, and the pace of your mechanisms will never slow to that halt we all fear. You will never die as long as you are running, your muscles and sinews pushing and pulling the way they were built to.
No.
I built you. I created the way you move and I forged you from the fire burning in my lungs.
No.
This is the only thing I want from you: your empty mind and your perfect body.
That is a lie! I want your heaving and crushing and words. I want to spill out of you like waves onto a beach or into a cave. I want your hands. I want your hands and your eyes, and I want them to push me and pull me. I want everything from you. I want the way you pulled me into you, I want the way you told me to stop and then start and then stop again. I want your hands. I want your hands and you eyes and your voice, and I want them not because they feel good, though they do, and you know they do, but because they belong with me. Did you know that I have been carrying you around in my ribcage for years? I made you a home there, and you have been crouched, stuck and waiting, in the shelter I built for you out of bone, blood and muscle. I have been feeding you, waiting for your arrival on the scene. I built you out of my own sinew and tendon and I kept you quiet, but since then I have grown a set of lungs. And they are begging to be put to use, and now I am using them to call out your name the way you never once called out mine. I am using those lungs to draw breath, and to scream, and I will never stop screaming at you. So emerge! Emerge from the dark of the depths of my body. Emerge from the beat of my heart and the drowning gushing of my capillaries. Come out of there, finally, and, for once!, carry me somewhere the way I have been carrying you all these years.
For that brief second during which I was encased in the rock and weather-worn stability of your body, the world disappeared and what became truth was the concept of time. For that moment I was ageless, and you were more and stronger than anything I have ever seen or heard of before.
No.
I like to think of you as being ancient. For me, you have no name, no age, no limitations. You are a monument, an idol, a celebration of the human body and its glories. You were constructed from flesh countless years ago, and the pace of your mechanisms will never slow to that halt we all fear. You will never die as long as you are running, your muscles and sinews pushing and pulling the way they were built to.
No.
I built you. I created the way you move and I forged you from the fire burning in my lungs.
No.
This is the only thing I want from you: your empty mind and your perfect body.
That is a lie! I want your heaving and crushing and words. I want to spill out of you like waves onto a beach or into a cave. I want your hands. I want your hands and your eyes, and I want them to push me and pull me. I want everything from you. I want the way you pulled me into you, I want the way you told me to stop and then start and then stop again. I want your hands. I want your hands and you eyes and your voice, and I want them not because they feel good, though they do, and you know they do, but because they belong with me. Did you know that I have been carrying you around in my ribcage for years? I made you a home there, and you have been crouched, stuck and waiting, in the shelter I built for you out of bone, blood and muscle. I have been feeding you, waiting for your arrival on the scene. I built you out of my own sinew and tendon and I kept you quiet, but since then I have grown a set of lungs. And they are begging to be put to use, and now I am using them to call out your name the way you never once called out mine. I am using those lungs to draw breath, and to scream, and I will never stop screaming at you. So emerge! Emerge from the dark of the depths of my body. Emerge from the beat of my heart and the drowning gushing of my capillaries. Come out of there, finally, and, for once!, carry me somewhere the way I have been carrying you all these years.
20080417
20080416
you are here
Every morning she looks at her bellybutton over the arch of abdomen. It has been slowly disappearing over the past few months, flattening out to match the curvature of her stomach. It’s almost a perfect arc now. Where there used to be an indentation, her connection to her own mother, there is a shiny smear of scar tissue. Every morning she runs her fingers over the spot and thinks, you are here.
She remembers the first fish tail turn it made inside her, startling her. She had drawn a sharp breath and sat down in her chair in front of the blackboard. She’s not sure how long ago that was. Long enough that she has bought new jeans, longer shirts and dressed with several seams in the interim. She knows enough now to be able to locate the barb of its feet, the slight protrusion of its head. She monitors where it sits inside her as she sits at her desk correcting essays and exams. At night she feels it move, turning so its back is to the bed as she lies on her side. She thinks, you are here.
She dreams about being in labor. Sometimes she dreams that it just walks out of her and crawls into her arms. Sometimes she dreams she has lost it, and that her breasts are leaking from lack of use. Sometimes she dreams that its father is holding it. From those dreams she is invariably woken by an unusually violent kick. She opens her eyes and thinks, you are here.
She remembers the first fish tail turn it made inside her, startling her. She had drawn a sharp breath and sat down in her chair in front of the blackboard. She’s not sure how long ago that was. Long enough that she has bought new jeans, longer shirts and dressed with several seams in the interim. She knows enough now to be able to locate the barb of its feet, the slight protrusion of its head. She monitors where it sits inside her as she sits at her desk correcting essays and exams. At night she feels it move, turning so its back is to the bed as she lies on her side. She thinks, you are here.
She dreams about being in labor. Sometimes she dreams that it just walks out of her and crawls into her arms. Sometimes she dreams she has lost it, and that her breasts are leaking from lack of use. Sometimes she dreams that its father is holding it. From those dreams she is invariably woken by an unusually violent kick. She opens her eyes and thinks, you are here.
20080415
Clout
He was at least a foot taller than her. That was what had drawn her to him, his height. His body was bigger than any other boy in her life. He filled up spaces, and she assumed that that meant she wouldn’t have to. She could sit in the corner at parties, where she felt comfortable, while he took up enough space for the both of them. And then they could go home together, and he could take up all the space in the bed, and she could be as small as she wanted. Perfect.
Getting his attention was the hard part. Getting him to look down a couple of degrees and notice her. Luckily, despite their huge difference in height and build, they shared a lot of things. They had grown up in the same city, both love bicycles, and both would rather have eaten cereal than any other food.
She followed him around, learning things about him from other people, collecting all their shared traits into a pile in her ribcage before she sprung them on him, almost all at once. She sat next to him at dinner, and though she could tell that they had grown up differently, had different values, and were headed for different things in their lives, she knew she needed him. Needed his bulk next to her, jeopardizing while it protected her safety. She needed the uncertainty: the danger that came with his size as well as the protection that came with belonging to it.
She succeeded, of course. People always succeed in getting what they need. Or, at least, she did. Next to him she felt tiny and girly and pure. At parties, she would sit back, with a drink in one hand, and watch him. He would get riled up, too drunk and angry to control his heft. That was part of the charm- at any moment he could easily pick her up, pick any body up and just carry them away.
The first time they made love it felt as though a hole was being torn in her middle. Not in that way (don’t get the wrong idea; they were not, in that sense, too mismatched in size) but in some unwholesome, spiritual way. In the middle of the act, she realized: I am disappearing under this boy. The thought of it drove her wild with pride: she was accomplishing this small, unvocalised goal of receding from view behind the bulk of him, but at the same time it made her feel insignificant and insubstantial. No one would be able to appreciate her feat if no one could see her. And underneath the bulk of this boy’s flesh, no one could see her. It was beautiful and tragic, to disappear from the world during an act of love.
The feeling of tragedy slowly dissolved as she rested her head on his enormous expanse of chest and slept, dreaming of the ocean. He had his arms around her and he understood both his ability and responsibility to protect her. But underneath that, because he wasn’t as thick as his frame implied, he also knew that she was protecting herself from people like him. He closed his eyes and tried to dream of little things, but instead lay awake breathing in the smell of her hair.
Getting his attention was the hard part. Getting him to look down a couple of degrees and notice her. Luckily, despite their huge difference in height and build, they shared a lot of things. They had grown up in the same city, both love bicycles, and both would rather have eaten cereal than any other food.
She followed him around, learning things about him from other people, collecting all their shared traits into a pile in her ribcage before she sprung them on him, almost all at once. She sat next to him at dinner, and though she could tell that they had grown up differently, had different values, and were headed for different things in their lives, she knew she needed him. Needed his bulk next to her, jeopardizing while it protected her safety. She needed the uncertainty: the danger that came with his size as well as the protection that came with belonging to it.
She succeeded, of course. People always succeed in getting what they need. Or, at least, she did. Next to him she felt tiny and girly and pure. At parties, she would sit back, with a drink in one hand, and watch him. He would get riled up, too drunk and angry to control his heft. That was part of the charm- at any moment he could easily pick her up, pick any body up and just carry them away.
The first time they made love it felt as though a hole was being torn in her middle. Not in that way (don’t get the wrong idea; they were not, in that sense, too mismatched in size) but in some unwholesome, spiritual way. In the middle of the act, she realized: I am disappearing under this boy. The thought of it drove her wild with pride: she was accomplishing this small, unvocalised goal of receding from view behind the bulk of him, but at the same time it made her feel insignificant and insubstantial. No one would be able to appreciate her feat if no one could see her. And underneath the bulk of this boy’s flesh, no one could see her. It was beautiful and tragic, to disappear from the world during an act of love.
The feeling of tragedy slowly dissolved as she rested her head on his enormous expanse of chest and slept, dreaming of the ocean. He had his arms around her and he understood both his ability and responsibility to protect her. But underneath that, because he wasn’t as thick as his frame implied, he also knew that she was protecting herself from people like him. He closed his eyes and tried to dream of little things, but instead lay awake breathing in the smell of her hair.
20080414
this is what she wants to tell him
(i started this a long long time ago, finally put it into perspective. it's not finished; probably several versions will go up here over the next few days. anyway.)
A
On the plane she sat next to the editor of a prestigious literary magazine. After dinner (she chose the chicken, the magazine editor had the fish), they talked about writing, and then about men, and then about Paris and its pull. She had never been quite so honest during a conversation with a stranger before. She spoke about her current writers’ block, describing in detail the anxious wrenching it created in her stomach. She mentioned him, the man she was traveling to see, by name. Speaking it aloud in the closed and stagnant air of the plane seemed to at once tarnish its perfect ovular sound; the way it usually heaved from her mouth was stunted and compressed.
Paris, their destination, was, for both of these women, a mysterious and elegant entity. Though neither of them voiced it, however, both could tell that the other had read Tropic of Cancer, and had let its nihilistic view of the city romanticize it somehow. Both associated it with sex and lice- both loved it all the more for that.
Stepping out of the airport, into the cold and wet, she eased into her French through that menial task of buying a train ticket. She found her vocabulary came easily back to her, the words seeping from her mouth as if she had been born with them. She felt confidence in her ability to direct the cab from the station to the hotel. She hadn’t felt this at home with discourse since the speech and debate classes she had taken in high school.
Checking in, embarrassedly indicating her understanding to the manager when he insulted her to his friend, she realized she was exhausted. In the room, she turned on the television and ran a hot bath. It was already late; midnight, almost on the dot. Though she was only in the Marais, close to the centre of town, and though it would have been easy to go out, buy a bottle of wine and guarantee herself a good night of sleep, she decided not to leave the room. She instead marinated in the tub, feeling the tension and dust soak out of her body.
B
They had met the summer before, in august. Her birthday that year was sticky hot. Her sister had held a party in her honor, inviting enough people to fill her tiny apartment three times over. She had picked him out of the crowd. His voice caught her ear in the same slow and violent manner in which she imagined venus fly traps might catch bugs. She had asked him where he was from (the answer, London) and they had reminisced over the city they hadn’t known they shared. At the end of the night, she was left with nothing of him but an empty pack of Gauloises with a phone number written inside. According to a mechanical woman whose voice she had become familiar with throughout September, the number had been disconnected.
A
The next morning, at around eleven, she woke up confused. She had dreamed that her iris had gotten stuck to her glasses. She had been unable to put it back into her eye, so she had thrown it into a gutter on the street before going up to her apartment. Up in her kitchen, she had turned on the tap to wash her hands, and the iris dropped right into her cupped palms. Then she woke up, confused. She put in her contact lenses, washed her face and, for the first time since her arrival, turned on her phone.
She resolved not to call the number he had given her until the third day. He knew when she was arriving, but he had to feel as though she had tricked him- at least for a few hours. She had, nonetheless, a burning desire to know if the number was real or not. If it wasn’t, it didn’t matter- she was busy, and important; had places to be, things to do, all that. But there was no denying the fact that she had come here for him. She went to a payphone and dialed.
It rang, and rang, and rang. When he finally answered his voice was exactly as she had remembered it, despite its being used for the slippery, glossy vowels and startling consonants of the French language. She could hear his face in his words, could smell his scent of cigarettes and unwashed hair. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and her skin goose-pimpled despite the heat of the day. She hung up.
B
Embarrassed to ask her sister about him, she had let her curiosity and attraction to him go for a few months. She felt this unrequited, unexplored possibility was feeding her in some way. It was the summer just after her last year of college, and she was hungry for a lot of things: hungry for food, that is to say, money; hungry for inspiration; hungry for love affairs; hungry for attention. She had miraculously gotten a job as assistant to the editor of the fiction section of a new magazine in New York, and that was how she spent her time: assisting. She longed to be assisted. She had recognized that in herself, wrote about it in her diary, and the next day, he called.
A
She passed the time attending various luncheons and suppers with important people. She didn’t pay attention, didn’t care that she wasn’t doing what she was expected to. Her fingers itched with a keenness she hadn’t felt before- they had memorized the number of their own accord; several times she had to stop them from dialing it without her consent.
Finally, after brunch on the third day, as soon as she had waved good-bye to the only woman wearing furs on that sweltering July day, she allowed them to dial. They did so with a feverishness, and one again her skin prickled and thirsted as he greeted the call. She drew a breath. He laughed down the line, and told her to come over.
B
“So I walked up to him, and he was wearing these big black leather gloves. And I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He didn’t answer, and it was clear to me that he had no answer to give. He put his big, gloved hands on my face and looked me in the eyes and suddenly I felt terrified.
“So I ran. It was the running of horses, and it was going to fast and with such rhythm, you know?”
“I’m allergic to horses.”
“Well it was like I was a hundred horses running, and then I fell and as I was falling I knew that I would never be able to get back up. And I couldn’t. I was stuck there, encased is some kind of invisible honey. I had fallen in a kind of curled sleeping posture. And he came up, kneeled over me, put his hands on my shoulders and told me, in a big round voice, that I was alright.”
“And?”
“And I knew I was. I knew I was alright. There on the sidewalk, curled and stuck, I knew I was ok because his hands where on my shoulders and his voice was perfectly capacious and pear-shaped. But I still felt terrified.”
“Why?”
“Who knows. Then he left and I was alone and the fear bloomed and threatened to break the stillness on my body. But he came back, just at the brink, and told me to close my eyes and remember that I was sticky and that I was stuck. He told me to remember that I was still. As soon as he said that the fear blossomed into a buzzing terror in my bones. I told him to stop it, to make it go away but he just stayed kneeling with his hands on my shoulders, telling me that I was going to be fine, and I knew that I was.
“And I laid there like a fallen animal until finally he just picked me up. He just plucked me right off the ground and I stood on the sidewalk. He took my face into those big hands again, and looked me in the eye and said ‘Everything is going to be alright. See? You’re fine’.”
“And then?”
“And then I woke up. I opened my eyes to see the imperfect white of my wall, and found that I couldn’t move. My body was encased in some sort of honey. My bones were buzzing with some kind of floaty, unreal sensation. So I closed my eyes again and told myself I was fine, and then I opened my eyes and everything was back to normal.
“Every time I think about it I get this uneasiness. Like I feel totally safe and yet so immensely at risk.”
“Come to Paris.”
A
It being too early for drinks, they chain smoked and make nervous conversation instead. This was their second encounter in person, and though they knew each other, or thought they did, everything was laced with a sense of urgency, a need for substance and weight. As soon as it turned five, a somewhat reasonable hour for dinner, they left his apartment and dined in a run-down, cheap restaurant, Persian. Why Persian? she wanted to ask him, what are you doing? But she said nothing of it, decided to trust him and his choice of wine.
In the restaurant and on the streets together, they spoke French. It felt as though their Englishness detracted from their right to be together here and should be kept hidden from the public. She thought his accent imperfect, his vocabulary limited, but didn’t tease him as she might have someone else. Every time he stumbled over that re, forced the sound out of his teeth instead of his throat, she caught a shortsighted glimpse into a future between them.
After dinner, they went to a bar and had beers like old friends might. Conversation was coming easily by this time. Not only were they talking about flying, and the price of hotels, but they were comparing their emotional responses to various artists, making plans to go to museums together over the next two weeks. They were discussing film and art, how each of them had always secretly wanted to make documentaries but had never been able to afford camera equipment as students. For the first time, they were able to use hand gestures to elaborate on their points. They were beginning to get used to being able to speak freely, to look into each others’ eyes.
Soon they had each had one too many, but he hailed her a cab and told her he would call.
B
That wasn’t the only time they had spoken of dreams. He had told her of a similar one to hers, in which he was the young antelope chosen and run down by the wolf on the plains. “Have you seen how they do it when they finally catch them?” he had asked her. “They just bring the antelope right down and the wolves get up on top of them, almost in an embrace, and a quickly as they can they kill them. It’s almost like an act of love. That’s just what it was like in the dream. The most profoundly tragic and terrifying thing was happening to me, but all the while the wolf was whispering ‘shhh.’”
After he said this, they were both silent a while, each of them taking in that profound tribulation, made to resemble ardent devotion by that single sound: ‘shhh’.
A
Of course she called. She waited as long as she could, until the end of the week, and then she called. They had dinner together again, and she drank maybe a little more than her share of the bottle of wine. They followed dinner with a stupid, cheesy walk along the Seine, each of them faltering. They had had time to remember their previous conversations in the interim between this night and the last; suddenly the necessity of weight and significance became clear.
They needed something tragic to happen in order to snap them back into reality; a jolt from somewhere to remind them that they were inherently vulnerable and did not need the other to create that feeling.
A
She wants to tell him that his face is what she sees underneath the blackness of her eyelids when she closes her eyes. She wants to tell him to wake up. She wants to tell him to wake up, and reach out an ashy-skinned, dry-palmed hand so that she can hold it, and through that convergence of skin remind both of them that shared desire for vulnerability and reassurance. She wants to tell him to wake up, and to stop dreaming and to open his eyes to what is looking him in the face.
She had been sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of water and writing. She had been seated there for a long time, maybe two hours, just writing. He had walked in, sat down next to her and asked her. And she had told him. She was writing. She couldn’t look him in the face so she took a drink of water and then she could look him in the eyes so she did. She put her face up close, really close, to his face and looked at him and as soon as she did that he had closed his eyes.
This is what she wants to tell him.
I am here, next to you, sitting in your kitchen three thousand miles away from my kitchen, which is nicer, and has more food in it. I am here and I put my face close to yours and you closed you eyes. Your eyes are not open. Your eyes are closed, you closed them when I put my face next to yours. I am not asking anything, I am only telling you that I am here and that is all and now what will you do with it? Because I could sit here writing these words forever. I could sit here forever and now this moment is yours, it is your turn now, and so what are you going to do? I am here and I am sitting in your kitchen and there is a bed made up on the couch. There is a bed made up on the couch for me, I know. This is what she wants to tell him: I am so angry with you for closing your eyes.
She says nothing, and slowly pulls her face away from his. She says nothing and takes another drink of water and somewhere not too far away a police car’s siren goes off, startling her a little. His eyes are still closed. She picks up her pen and starts to write a little bit more. He opens his eyes and looks at her words there on the page.
A
On the plane she sat next to the editor of a prestigious literary magazine. After dinner (she chose the chicken, the magazine editor had the fish), they talked about writing, and then about men, and then about Paris and its pull. She had never been quite so honest during a conversation with a stranger before. She spoke about her current writers’ block, describing in detail the anxious wrenching it created in her stomach. She mentioned him, the man she was traveling to see, by name. Speaking it aloud in the closed and stagnant air of the plane seemed to at once tarnish its perfect ovular sound; the way it usually heaved from her mouth was stunted and compressed.
Paris, their destination, was, for both of these women, a mysterious and elegant entity. Though neither of them voiced it, however, both could tell that the other had read Tropic of Cancer, and had let its nihilistic view of the city romanticize it somehow. Both associated it with sex and lice- both loved it all the more for that.
Stepping out of the airport, into the cold and wet, she eased into her French through that menial task of buying a train ticket. She found her vocabulary came easily back to her, the words seeping from her mouth as if she had been born with them. She felt confidence in her ability to direct the cab from the station to the hotel. She hadn’t felt this at home with discourse since the speech and debate classes she had taken in high school.
Checking in, embarrassedly indicating her understanding to the manager when he insulted her to his friend, she realized she was exhausted. In the room, she turned on the television and ran a hot bath. It was already late; midnight, almost on the dot. Though she was only in the Marais, close to the centre of town, and though it would have been easy to go out, buy a bottle of wine and guarantee herself a good night of sleep, she decided not to leave the room. She instead marinated in the tub, feeling the tension and dust soak out of her body.
B
They had met the summer before, in august. Her birthday that year was sticky hot. Her sister had held a party in her honor, inviting enough people to fill her tiny apartment three times over. She had picked him out of the crowd. His voice caught her ear in the same slow and violent manner in which she imagined venus fly traps might catch bugs. She had asked him where he was from (the answer, London) and they had reminisced over the city they hadn’t known they shared. At the end of the night, she was left with nothing of him but an empty pack of Gauloises with a phone number written inside. According to a mechanical woman whose voice she had become familiar with throughout September, the number had been disconnected.
A
The next morning, at around eleven, she woke up confused. She had dreamed that her iris had gotten stuck to her glasses. She had been unable to put it back into her eye, so she had thrown it into a gutter on the street before going up to her apartment. Up in her kitchen, she had turned on the tap to wash her hands, and the iris dropped right into her cupped palms. Then she woke up, confused. She put in her contact lenses, washed her face and, for the first time since her arrival, turned on her phone.
She resolved not to call the number he had given her until the third day. He knew when she was arriving, but he had to feel as though she had tricked him- at least for a few hours. She had, nonetheless, a burning desire to know if the number was real or not. If it wasn’t, it didn’t matter- she was busy, and important; had places to be, things to do, all that. But there was no denying the fact that she had come here for him. She went to a payphone and dialed.
It rang, and rang, and rang. When he finally answered his voice was exactly as she had remembered it, despite its being used for the slippery, glossy vowels and startling consonants of the French language. She could hear his face in his words, could smell his scent of cigarettes and unwashed hair. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and her skin goose-pimpled despite the heat of the day. She hung up.
B
Embarrassed to ask her sister about him, she had let her curiosity and attraction to him go for a few months. She felt this unrequited, unexplored possibility was feeding her in some way. It was the summer just after her last year of college, and she was hungry for a lot of things: hungry for food, that is to say, money; hungry for inspiration; hungry for love affairs; hungry for attention. She had miraculously gotten a job as assistant to the editor of the fiction section of a new magazine in New York, and that was how she spent her time: assisting. She longed to be assisted. She had recognized that in herself, wrote about it in her diary, and the next day, he called.
A
She passed the time attending various luncheons and suppers with important people. She didn’t pay attention, didn’t care that she wasn’t doing what she was expected to. Her fingers itched with a keenness she hadn’t felt before- they had memorized the number of their own accord; several times she had to stop them from dialing it without her consent.
Finally, after brunch on the third day, as soon as she had waved good-bye to the only woman wearing furs on that sweltering July day, she allowed them to dial. They did so with a feverishness, and one again her skin prickled and thirsted as he greeted the call. She drew a breath. He laughed down the line, and told her to come over.
B
“So I walked up to him, and he was wearing these big black leather gloves. And I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He didn’t answer, and it was clear to me that he had no answer to give. He put his big, gloved hands on my face and looked me in the eyes and suddenly I felt terrified.
“So I ran. It was the running of horses, and it was going to fast and with such rhythm, you know?”
“I’m allergic to horses.”
“Well it was like I was a hundred horses running, and then I fell and as I was falling I knew that I would never be able to get back up. And I couldn’t. I was stuck there, encased is some kind of invisible honey. I had fallen in a kind of curled sleeping posture. And he came up, kneeled over me, put his hands on my shoulders and told me, in a big round voice, that I was alright.”
“And?”
“And I knew I was. I knew I was alright. There on the sidewalk, curled and stuck, I knew I was ok because his hands where on my shoulders and his voice was perfectly capacious and pear-shaped. But I still felt terrified.”
“Why?”
“Who knows. Then he left and I was alone and the fear bloomed and threatened to break the stillness on my body. But he came back, just at the brink, and told me to close my eyes and remember that I was sticky and that I was stuck. He told me to remember that I was still. As soon as he said that the fear blossomed into a buzzing terror in my bones. I told him to stop it, to make it go away but he just stayed kneeling with his hands on my shoulders, telling me that I was going to be fine, and I knew that I was.
“And I laid there like a fallen animal until finally he just picked me up. He just plucked me right off the ground and I stood on the sidewalk. He took my face into those big hands again, and looked me in the eye and said ‘Everything is going to be alright. See? You’re fine’.”
“And then?”
“And then I woke up. I opened my eyes to see the imperfect white of my wall, and found that I couldn’t move. My body was encased in some sort of honey. My bones were buzzing with some kind of floaty, unreal sensation. So I closed my eyes again and told myself I was fine, and then I opened my eyes and everything was back to normal.
“Every time I think about it I get this uneasiness. Like I feel totally safe and yet so immensely at risk.”
“Come to Paris.”
A
It being too early for drinks, they chain smoked and make nervous conversation instead. This was their second encounter in person, and though they knew each other, or thought they did, everything was laced with a sense of urgency, a need for substance and weight. As soon as it turned five, a somewhat reasonable hour for dinner, they left his apartment and dined in a run-down, cheap restaurant, Persian. Why Persian? she wanted to ask him, what are you doing? But she said nothing of it, decided to trust him and his choice of wine.
In the restaurant and on the streets together, they spoke French. It felt as though their Englishness detracted from their right to be together here and should be kept hidden from the public. She thought his accent imperfect, his vocabulary limited, but didn’t tease him as she might have someone else. Every time he stumbled over that re, forced the sound out of his teeth instead of his throat, she caught a shortsighted glimpse into a future between them.
After dinner, they went to a bar and had beers like old friends might. Conversation was coming easily by this time. Not only were they talking about flying, and the price of hotels, but they were comparing their emotional responses to various artists, making plans to go to museums together over the next two weeks. They were discussing film and art, how each of them had always secretly wanted to make documentaries but had never been able to afford camera equipment as students. For the first time, they were able to use hand gestures to elaborate on their points. They were beginning to get used to being able to speak freely, to look into each others’ eyes.
Soon they had each had one too many, but he hailed her a cab and told her he would call.
B
That wasn’t the only time they had spoken of dreams. He had told her of a similar one to hers, in which he was the young antelope chosen and run down by the wolf on the plains. “Have you seen how they do it when they finally catch them?” he had asked her. “They just bring the antelope right down and the wolves get up on top of them, almost in an embrace, and a quickly as they can they kill them. It’s almost like an act of love. That’s just what it was like in the dream. The most profoundly tragic and terrifying thing was happening to me, but all the while the wolf was whispering ‘shhh.’”
After he said this, they were both silent a while, each of them taking in that profound tribulation, made to resemble ardent devotion by that single sound: ‘shhh’.
A
Of course she called. She waited as long as she could, until the end of the week, and then she called. They had dinner together again, and she drank maybe a little more than her share of the bottle of wine. They followed dinner with a stupid, cheesy walk along the Seine, each of them faltering. They had had time to remember their previous conversations in the interim between this night and the last; suddenly the necessity of weight and significance became clear.
They needed something tragic to happen in order to snap them back into reality; a jolt from somewhere to remind them that they were inherently vulnerable and did not need the other to create that feeling.
A
She wants to tell him that his face is what she sees underneath the blackness of her eyelids when she closes her eyes. She wants to tell him to wake up. She wants to tell him to wake up, and reach out an ashy-skinned, dry-palmed hand so that she can hold it, and through that convergence of skin remind both of them that shared desire for vulnerability and reassurance. She wants to tell him to wake up, and to stop dreaming and to open his eyes to what is looking him in the face.
She had been sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a glass of water and writing. She had been seated there for a long time, maybe two hours, just writing. He had walked in, sat down next to her and asked her. And she had told him. She was writing. She couldn’t look him in the face so she took a drink of water and then she could look him in the eyes so she did. She put her face up close, really close, to his face and looked at him and as soon as she did that he had closed his eyes.
This is what she wants to tell him.
I am here, next to you, sitting in your kitchen three thousand miles away from my kitchen, which is nicer, and has more food in it. I am here and I put my face close to yours and you closed you eyes. Your eyes are not open. Your eyes are closed, you closed them when I put my face next to yours. I am not asking anything, I am only telling you that I am here and that is all and now what will you do with it? Because I could sit here writing these words forever. I could sit here forever and now this moment is yours, it is your turn now, and so what are you going to do? I am here and I am sitting in your kitchen and there is a bed made up on the couch. There is a bed made up on the couch for me, I know. This is what she wants to tell him: I am so angry with you for closing your eyes.
She says nothing, and slowly pulls her face away from his. She says nothing and takes another drink of water and somewhere not too far away a police car’s siren goes off, startling her a little. His eyes are still closed. She picks up her pen and starts to write a little bit more. He opens his eyes and looks at her words there on the page.
20080410
20080405
20080315
20080304
INK
1.You are a bottle of ink and you are whole and intact when I look at you. You are a bottle of the blackest India ink and when I look closely at you I see myself in the shiny reflection on your glassy walls. And in my reflection, or behind it, I see the ink that you are made of, wanting to be spilled like an ocean of images onto the unmade bed. And soon I will spill you and you will seep into the confusion of quilts and you will stain even my pillow. And after that, I will lie down and soak in your drippy mess, and possibly I will fall asleep and my head will act like a sponge to the soaked pillow and as I sleep your spilled black ink will become words written on the eyelids of a sleeping dream. Oh, bu the broken glass will awaken me and I will be cut on the roof of my mouth, and then as I bleed from the holes in my head, all the ink will leak out from where I had it sequestered away and the beautiful stringing together of words will escape me, will leak out and collect into the new glassy receptacle which you so cunningly hold beneath my open orifices. And then I will be all drained of inky substance and you will sit again on the table and I will again think of spilling you onto the unmade bed.
2. In the middle of the night, I awoke to find that I had sprung a leak.
I had flooded the entire room with ink. It was feet deep on the carpet, it reached my knees and had soaked my sheets.
I stood, waded to the door and let loose the deluge into the rest of the apartment. I made my way to the tile of the bathroom and proceeded to search my body for the source of the spill. I found not a scrape on the elbow nor a tear in the skin of my thigh. My ears, though now stained black, remained intact. Finally, my close and careful eye discovered a pinprick on my right index finger, through which the torrent of greasy ink had been flowing for an indeterminable number of hours.
I put the tip of that finger in my mouth. I sucked and swallowed at the spring of ink until it had coagulated and ceased to rush out of me.
By now it was deep enough to swim in the pigment, so I did, floating on my back. As I lay, head partially submerged, the level of liquid lowered until finally I had taken all my precious ink back through my pores and I lay in the empty bathtub and slept again.
3.inkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinknkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkin
It is with ink that we follow the progression of days. It is with ink that I calculate and annotate. It is with ink that I push you away, even while I wish I were pulling you into me. Ink is what I demonstrate with, the medium through which I manifest. Ink is the emptiness you create to represent fullness. In ink I wrote those letters to you, and it was with the absence of ink that I addressed the envelopes. It is ink that flows from me during full moons. It is ink I drink when I am tired and must not sleep. It is ink I trail in footprints through your rooms, and ink that stains your kitchen appliances even after I have left. Mostly, given everything I have done to you, it it with ink that I drown myself out.
4. You came out of the tendons in my wrist tightening and relaxing. You came out of the blood feeding my muscles, you came out of my bones moving the way my nerves directed the muscles to move them. You arose by a mechanical biological phenomenon over which I have both no and all control. You came from my body doing what its electricity tells it to do. You derive from a spark in my ganglia. You travel through my body as a wave of light too small to see, fed by a voice too distant to matter much and yet it matters everything.
I can feel you moving in there, aching a little, pulsating as you slide from axon to axon along dendrites between synapses. I can feel my muscle cells passing you out into ink.
Are you decaying? Decay! Decay and therefore become something new and yet more perfect and still worse than what you started as. But don’t forget how it felt to be in this ink, lodged here, stuck and corroded. Remember how you flowed from me solid and slippery? Look at these configurations of letters: do you understand them at all?
5. I wish your emptiness would overcome your latent and inherent label-making abilities. I wish you would open up for corneas for me, just do it, yes it is a painful procedure but once I have written on the lens, everything will at once become clear to the brain’s interpretation.
Why did you spend so much of your time as a young man collecting words if you were never going to use them? And tell me, we are rotting, aren’t we, in the glowing Julys we have created for ourselves, aren’t we decomposing?
But to be honest, if it came to that, I would much enjoy the chance to introduce the fungal and bacterial cultures to my empty head with you next to me. Think of the roses and honeysuckle pricklevines we would inspire with the long-forgotten pathways of ink held in place by organic material. How can the abstract be so well imprisoned in the physical? I wonder about that often when I am not looking forwardly nut sideways with my peripheral vision at the unknown. But your beeping bothers me, in that is makes clear the fact that you ache for sleep in the autumn months. And as much as I hate to point it out, I would like to remind you that you fit perfectly in the square nook of the joining of the flesh between my fleshy thighs. So next time, don’t forget that I want it more than anything, that tessellation. It is exactly what we were built for. So tell me, why are we not tessellating right now?
Who told you those secrets, anyway? Did my body give them away? Was it the words I left on your retina? Was it the empty writings? I want to write on you, who cares. I will write on you without cease until the very end. I will keep you up at night with it, whether or not you ask that of me. I have all the time in the world and I would like to spend it on your retinas as an inked-in shadow of doubt.
Did you know what I was doing? Did you have any idea? This is why you seem to interpret things with such ease these days: it’s my ink on your jelly. I held your eyelids open and with permanent India ink I carefully interpreted the world and left the stain of that interpretation forever black on the surface of your most relied-on sense. In this way I combined two essentials: the sensory intake and the elucidation. I had made sure that you would be able to look around the ink; soon you realized you didn’t need to.
This deprivation of words is difficult. I want you to read and read and read and never cease your reading, but you will not even commence it. So I ask you: why do you not respond to the ink? Is it not what you asked for? Are the ratios of ink to page wrong, in your opinion?
2. In the middle of the night, I awoke to find that I had sprung a leak.
I had flooded the entire room with ink. It was feet deep on the carpet, it reached my knees and had soaked my sheets.
I stood, waded to the door and let loose the deluge into the rest of the apartment. I made my way to the tile of the bathroom and proceeded to search my body for the source of the spill. I found not a scrape on the elbow nor a tear in the skin of my thigh. My ears, though now stained black, remained intact. Finally, my close and careful eye discovered a pinprick on my right index finger, through which the torrent of greasy ink had been flowing for an indeterminable number of hours.
I put the tip of that finger in my mouth. I sucked and swallowed at the spring of ink until it had coagulated and ceased to rush out of me.
By now it was deep enough to swim in the pigment, so I did, floating on my back. As I lay, head partially submerged, the level of liquid lowered until finally I had taken all my precious ink back through my pores and I lay in the empty bathtub and slept again.
3.inkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinknkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkinkin
It is with ink that we follow the progression of days. It is with ink that I calculate and annotate. It is with ink that I push you away, even while I wish I were pulling you into me. Ink is what I demonstrate with, the medium through which I manifest. Ink is the emptiness you create to represent fullness. In ink I wrote those letters to you, and it was with the absence of ink that I addressed the envelopes. It is ink that flows from me during full moons. It is ink I drink when I am tired and must not sleep. It is ink I trail in footprints through your rooms, and ink that stains your kitchen appliances even after I have left. Mostly, given everything I have done to you, it it with ink that I drown myself out.
4. You came out of the tendons in my wrist tightening and relaxing. You came out of the blood feeding my muscles, you came out of my bones moving the way my nerves directed the muscles to move them. You arose by a mechanical biological phenomenon over which I have both no and all control. You came from my body doing what its electricity tells it to do. You derive from a spark in my ganglia. You travel through my body as a wave of light too small to see, fed by a voice too distant to matter much and yet it matters everything.
I can feel you moving in there, aching a little, pulsating as you slide from axon to axon along dendrites between synapses. I can feel my muscle cells passing you out into ink.
Are you decaying? Decay! Decay and therefore become something new and yet more perfect and still worse than what you started as. But don’t forget how it felt to be in this ink, lodged here, stuck and corroded. Remember how you flowed from me solid and slippery? Look at these configurations of letters: do you understand them at all?
5. I wish your emptiness would overcome your latent and inherent label-making abilities. I wish you would open up for corneas for me, just do it, yes it is a painful procedure but once I have written on the lens, everything will at once become clear to the brain’s interpretation.
Why did you spend so much of your time as a young man collecting words if you were never going to use them? And tell me, we are rotting, aren’t we, in the glowing Julys we have created for ourselves, aren’t we decomposing?
But to be honest, if it came to that, I would much enjoy the chance to introduce the fungal and bacterial cultures to my empty head with you next to me. Think of the roses and honeysuckle pricklevines we would inspire with the long-forgotten pathways of ink held in place by organic material. How can the abstract be so well imprisoned in the physical? I wonder about that often when I am not looking forwardly nut sideways with my peripheral vision at the unknown. But your beeping bothers me, in that is makes clear the fact that you ache for sleep in the autumn months. And as much as I hate to point it out, I would like to remind you that you fit perfectly in the square nook of the joining of the flesh between my fleshy thighs. So next time, don’t forget that I want it more than anything, that tessellation. It is exactly what we were built for. So tell me, why are we not tessellating right now?
Who told you those secrets, anyway? Did my body give them away? Was it the words I left on your retina? Was it the empty writings? I want to write on you, who cares. I will write on you without cease until the very end. I will keep you up at night with it, whether or not you ask that of me. I have all the time in the world and I would like to spend it on your retinas as an inked-in shadow of doubt.
Did you know what I was doing? Did you have any idea? This is why you seem to interpret things with such ease these days: it’s my ink on your jelly. I held your eyelids open and with permanent India ink I carefully interpreted the world and left the stain of that interpretation forever black on the surface of your most relied-on sense. In this way I combined two essentials: the sensory intake and the elucidation. I had made sure that you would be able to look around the ink; soon you realized you didn’t need to.
This deprivation of words is difficult. I want you to read and read and read and never cease your reading, but you will not even commence it. So I ask you: why do you not respond to the ink? Is it not what you asked for? Are the ratios of ink to page wrong, in your opinion?
20080301
20080229
impossible dialogue from the conversations of people who don't know each other anymore
1.
“I miss you.”
“I know.”
2.
“So I walked up to him, and he was wearing these big black leather gloves. And I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He didn’t answer, and it was clear to me that he had no answer to give. He put his big, gloved hands on my face and looked me in the eyes and suddenly I felt terrified.
“So I ran. It was the running of horses, and it was going to fast and with such rhythm, you know?”
“I’m allergic to horses.”
“Well it was like I was a hundred horses running, and then I fell and as I was falling I knew that I would never be able to get back up. And I couldn’t. I was stuck there, encased is some kind of invisible honey. I had fallen in a kind of curled sleeping posture. And he came up, kneeled over me, put his hands on my shoulders and told me, in a big round voice, that I was alright.”
“And?”
“And I knew I was. I knew I was alright. There on the sidewalk, curled and stuck, I knew I was ok because his hands where on my shoulders and his voice was perfectly capacious and pear-shaped. But I still felt terrified.”
“Why?”
“Who knows. Then he left and I was alone and the fear bloomed and threatened to break the stillness on my body. But he came back, just at the brink, and told me to close my eyes and remember that I was sticky and that I was stuck. He told me to remember that I was still. As soon as he said that the fear blossomed into a buzzing terror in my bones. I told him to stop it, to make it go away but he just stayed kneeling with his hands on my shoulders, telling me that I was going to be fine, and I knew that I was.
“And I laid there like a fallen animal until finally he just picked me up. He just plucked me right off the ground and I stood on the sidewalk. He took my face into those big hands again, and looked me in the eye and said ‘Everything is going to be alright. See? You’re fine’.”
“And then?”
“And then I woke up. I opened my eyes to see the imperfect white of my wall, and found that I couldn’t move. My body was encased in some sort of honey. My bones were buzzing with some kind of floaty, unreal sensation. So I closed my eyes again and told myself I was fine, and then I opened my eyes and everything was back to normal.
“Every time I think about it I get this uneasiness. Like I feel totally safe and yet to immensely unprepared.”
“That’s exactly how I thought it would feel when I lost my virginity.”
3.
“And then?”
“I picked her up. There was nothing else I could do. I just grabbed her up off the ground. She was so heavy, so sloppy feeling in my arms. I whispered some things in her ear, the way I thought our mother would.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, you know. Shh. You’re going to be fine. That kind of thing.”
“Okay.”
“And I took her upstairs, put her in bed, made sure she was on her side and everything. Then I went into the bathroom, vomited, climbed into the bathtub and fell asleep.”
“That’s all?”
“What else could I do for her?”
“No, I mean, you puked and went to sleep?”
“What else could I do for her?”
4.
Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp.
“I miss you.”
“I know.”
2.
“So I walked up to him, and he was wearing these big black leather gloves. And I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He didn’t answer, and it was clear to me that he had no answer to give. He put his big, gloved hands on my face and looked me in the eyes and suddenly I felt terrified.
“So I ran. It was the running of horses, and it was going to fast and with such rhythm, you know?”
“I’m allergic to horses.”
“Well it was like I was a hundred horses running, and then I fell and as I was falling I knew that I would never be able to get back up. And I couldn’t. I was stuck there, encased is some kind of invisible honey. I had fallen in a kind of curled sleeping posture. And he came up, kneeled over me, put his hands on my shoulders and told me, in a big round voice, that I was alright.”
“And?”
“And I knew I was. I knew I was alright. There on the sidewalk, curled and stuck, I knew I was ok because his hands where on my shoulders and his voice was perfectly capacious and pear-shaped. But I still felt terrified.”
“Why?”
“Who knows. Then he left and I was alone and the fear bloomed and threatened to break the stillness on my body. But he came back, just at the brink, and told me to close my eyes and remember that I was sticky and that I was stuck. He told me to remember that I was still. As soon as he said that the fear blossomed into a buzzing terror in my bones. I told him to stop it, to make it go away but he just stayed kneeling with his hands on my shoulders, telling me that I was going to be fine, and I knew that I was.
“And I laid there like a fallen animal until finally he just picked me up. He just plucked me right off the ground and I stood on the sidewalk. He took my face into those big hands again, and looked me in the eye and said ‘Everything is going to be alright. See? You’re fine’.”
“And then?”
“And then I woke up. I opened my eyes to see the imperfect white of my wall, and found that I couldn’t move. My body was encased in some sort of honey. My bones were buzzing with some kind of floaty, unreal sensation. So I closed my eyes again and told myself I was fine, and then I opened my eyes and everything was back to normal.
“Every time I think about it I get this uneasiness. Like I feel totally safe and yet to immensely unprepared.”
“That’s exactly how I thought it would feel when I lost my virginity.”
3.
“And then?”
“I picked her up. There was nothing else I could do. I just grabbed her up off the ground. She was so heavy, so sloppy feeling in my arms. I whispered some things in her ear, the way I thought our mother would.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, you know. Shh. You’re going to be fine. That kind of thing.”
“Okay.”
“And I took her upstairs, put her in bed, made sure she was on her side and everything. Then I went into the bathroom, vomited, climbed into the bathtub and fell asleep.”
“That’s all?”
“What else could I do for her?”
“No, I mean, you puked and went to sleep?”
“What else could I do for her?”
4.
Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp. Lubb-dupp.
20080219
20080218
more of this to come later
Impossible Dialogue from The Conversations Of People Who Don’t Know Each Other Anymore.
1.
“I miss you.”
“I know.”
2.
“So I walked up to him, and he was wearing these big black leather gloves. And I said, ‘What are you doing?’. He didn’t answer, and it was clear to me that he had no answer to give. He put his big, gloved hands on my face and looked me in the eyes and suddenly I felt terrified.
“So I ran. It was the running of horses, and it was going to fast and with such rhythm, you know?”
“I’m allergic to horses.”
“Well it was like I was a hundred horses running, and then I fell and as I was falling I knew that I would never be able to get back up. And I couldn’t. I was stick there, encased is some kind of invisible honey. I had fallen in a kind of curled sleeping posture. And he came up, kneeled over me, put his hands on my shoulders and told me, in a big round voice, that I was alright.”
“And?”
“And I knew I was. I knew I was alright. There on the sidewalk, curled and stuck, I knew I was ok because his hands where on my shoulders and his voice was perfectly capacious ad pear-shaped. But I still felt terrified.”
“Why?”
“Who knows. Then he left and I was alone and the fear bloomed and threatened to break the stillness on my body. But he came back, just at the brink, and told me to close my eyes and remember that I was sticky and that I was stuck. He told me to remember that I was still. As soon as he said that the fear blossomed into a buzzing terror in my bones. I told him to stop it, to make it go away but he just stayed kneeling with his hands on my shoulders, telling me that I was going to be fine, and I knew that I was.
“And I laid there like a fallen animal until finally he just picked me up. He just plucked me right off the ground and I stood on the sidewalk. He took my face into those big hands again, and looked me in the eye and said ‘Everything is going to be alright. See? You’re fine’.”
“And then?”
“And then I woke up. I opened my eyes to see the imperfect white of my wall, and found that I couldn’t move. My body was encased in some sort of honey. My bones were buzzing with some kind of floaty, unreal sensation. So I closed my eyes again and told myself I was fine, and then I opened my eyes and everything was back to normal.
“Every time I think about it I get this uneasiness. Like I feel totally safe and yet to immensely unprepared.”
“That’s exactly how I thought it would feel when I lost my virginity.”
3.
1.
“I miss you.”
“I know.”
2.
“So I walked up to him, and he was wearing these big black leather gloves. And I said, ‘What are you doing?’. He didn’t answer, and it was clear to me that he had no answer to give. He put his big, gloved hands on my face and looked me in the eyes and suddenly I felt terrified.
“So I ran. It was the running of horses, and it was going to fast and with such rhythm, you know?”
“I’m allergic to horses.”
“Well it was like I was a hundred horses running, and then I fell and as I was falling I knew that I would never be able to get back up. And I couldn’t. I was stick there, encased is some kind of invisible honey. I had fallen in a kind of curled sleeping posture. And he came up, kneeled over me, put his hands on my shoulders and told me, in a big round voice, that I was alright.”
“And?”
“And I knew I was. I knew I was alright. There on the sidewalk, curled and stuck, I knew I was ok because his hands where on my shoulders and his voice was perfectly capacious ad pear-shaped. But I still felt terrified.”
“Why?”
“Who knows. Then he left and I was alone and the fear bloomed and threatened to break the stillness on my body. But he came back, just at the brink, and told me to close my eyes and remember that I was sticky and that I was stuck. He told me to remember that I was still. As soon as he said that the fear blossomed into a buzzing terror in my bones. I told him to stop it, to make it go away but he just stayed kneeling with his hands on my shoulders, telling me that I was going to be fine, and I knew that I was.
“And I laid there like a fallen animal until finally he just picked me up. He just plucked me right off the ground and I stood on the sidewalk. He took my face into those big hands again, and looked me in the eye and said ‘Everything is going to be alright. See? You’re fine’.”
“And then?”
“And then I woke up. I opened my eyes to see the imperfect white of my wall, and found that I couldn’t move. My body was encased in some sort of honey. My bones were buzzing with some kind of floaty, unreal sensation. So I closed my eyes again and told myself I was fine, and then I opened my eyes and everything was back to normal.
“Every time I think about it I get this uneasiness. Like I feel totally safe and yet to immensely unprepared.”
“That’s exactly how I thought it would feel when I lost my virginity.”
3.
20080205
untitled.
It was meant to be nothing. Initially, it was a bottle of wine and a knife and fork. It was dinner and dancing, and then I went home and slept in my own bed, and though the image of his hands burned in my head for the next week, it was meant to be nothing.
But we began to write.
Each written word went farther into the fauna and flora of our lives, until the forests he wrote of became what I wanted to live in, and somehow, seamlessly, we moved from writing of our own separate lives into writing one shared new woodland into being. It is possible neither to quantify nor qualify the life we wrote for ourselves.
I knew for sure that we both had a firm clasp on the typewriter when we melted. Like wax we became warm and thick. Almost visceral was our melting. We succumbed to the heat, and we began to drip into down into each other’s crevasses. In the process we regressed from form into mere substance, layers of hot proteins and pectin intermingled with the sticky warm honey of our beehive cores. In this state of deliquescence we began our ascent of mountains while around us the horsemen and their 7 heralding angels raged and roared. We climbed until, suddenly, we were pushed closer into each other by our arrival at the mountain’s crown.We were hands clasped tight and sweat-drenched. We looked out at the view from this mountainous peak and watched at the sun set carefully into its nook in the east. At the realization of the wrongness of this act on that star’s part, suddenly I found myself soaked in sugar-water and lemonade and with a gasp I began to draw air again.
After months of melting and writing, my belly began to bloom. We imagined the cluster of cells within me as the pit within the plum. We spoke of my plum-fleshed womb and its contents (what we had begun to think of as the corporal avatar of our collaborative flora and fauna), more often than we spoke of ourselves. It is possible neither to quantify nor qualify the life we began to write for ourselves.
And then, the afternoon of a honey-hot, sauna-sticky day in July: we were picking berries. We plucked them from the stalks where they grew and as I held them in my hand I felt a strain and bubble next to the delicate flesh on my palm. The searing skin of my thumb and forefinger blistered next to the screaming fruit. And then, like a revelation, the plum burst, splitting itself asunder at the seams, revealing a parcel of flesh so red that at first I wanted to mistake it for a scoop of muscle stolen from the ribcage of some dying horse or human. It burned my retinas to look at. I felt its juices dripping down my limbs, burying and burrowing into the flesh of the inside of my knees. But where the juice of this plum should have been bloody, should have been redder than a sea of broken bodies, it was clear and sweet and I felt it had come from the hollow recesses of a body, or the pit of an eye. Where it should have stained my skin it simply lay sweet and unassuming, and understanding how the nothing juice could have come from such a something fruit was impossible. So we licked impossible nectar from the hidden corners of each other's bodies, and ate soothingly bright berry flesh out of each other's palms, before going home and realizing that we had broken our tongues on the little pit (which was now embedded in the pink flesh of our gums), and on the thousand things we knew we had just eaten a metaphor for.
It is possible neither to quantify nor qualify the life I had written for us.
I ached to write. I ached to write that baby into existence and to hear its heartbeat on the speakers. In my imagination, we would record that perfect thumping and play it during dinner to remind us of its presence; as I bloomed we would metamorphose all together and emerge at the end of those long growing months as a family.
I passed the days after that honey sauna day in my own arms. I noticed our bodies to exist no longer on the apex of geology; I noticed that suddenly we were entrenched in ice. And we began to freeze. In freezing, our heat was lost, our molecules began to move with less urgency, and we began to solidify. With this solidity our oneness was undermined, and slowly, slowly, we peeled apart like clasped and sweaty hands gradually separating.
ten points to anyone who can summarize the plot for me.
(actually please do that, i need to know if it's interpretable)
But we began to write.
Each written word went farther into the fauna and flora of our lives, until the forests he wrote of became what I wanted to live in, and somehow, seamlessly, we moved from writing of our own separate lives into writing one shared new woodland into being. It is possible neither to quantify nor qualify the life we wrote for ourselves.
I knew for sure that we both had a firm clasp on the typewriter when we melted. Like wax we became warm and thick. Almost visceral was our melting. We succumbed to the heat, and we began to drip into down into each other’s crevasses. In the process we regressed from form into mere substance, layers of hot proteins and pectin intermingled with the sticky warm honey of our beehive cores. In this state of deliquescence we began our ascent of mountains while around us the horsemen and their 7 heralding angels raged and roared. We climbed until, suddenly, we were pushed closer into each other by our arrival at the mountain’s crown.We were hands clasped tight and sweat-drenched. We looked out at the view from this mountainous peak and watched at the sun set carefully into its nook in the east. At the realization of the wrongness of this act on that star’s part, suddenly I found myself soaked in sugar-water and lemonade and with a gasp I began to draw air again.
After months of melting and writing, my belly began to bloom. We imagined the cluster of cells within me as the pit within the plum. We spoke of my plum-fleshed womb and its contents (what we had begun to think of as the corporal avatar of our collaborative flora and fauna), more often than we spoke of ourselves. It is possible neither to quantify nor qualify the life we began to write for ourselves.
And then, the afternoon of a honey-hot, sauna-sticky day in July: we were picking berries. We plucked them from the stalks where they grew and as I held them in my hand I felt a strain and bubble next to the delicate flesh on my palm. The searing skin of my thumb and forefinger blistered next to the screaming fruit. And then, like a revelation, the plum burst, splitting itself asunder at the seams, revealing a parcel of flesh so red that at first I wanted to mistake it for a scoop of muscle stolen from the ribcage of some dying horse or human. It burned my retinas to look at. I felt its juices dripping down my limbs, burying and burrowing into the flesh of the inside of my knees. But where the juice of this plum should have been bloody, should have been redder than a sea of broken bodies, it was clear and sweet and I felt it had come from the hollow recesses of a body, or the pit of an eye. Where it should have stained my skin it simply lay sweet and unassuming, and understanding how the nothing juice could have come from such a something fruit was impossible. So we licked impossible nectar from the hidden corners of each other's bodies, and ate soothingly bright berry flesh out of each other's palms, before going home and realizing that we had broken our tongues on the little pit (which was now embedded in the pink flesh of our gums), and on the thousand things we knew we had just eaten a metaphor for.
It is possible neither to quantify nor qualify the life I had written for us.
I ached to write. I ached to write that baby into existence and to hear its heartbeat on the speakers. In my imagination, we would record that perfect thumping and play it during dinner to remind us of its presence; as I bloomed we would metamorphose all together and emerge at the end of those long growing months as a family.
I passed the days after that honey sauna day in my own arms. I noticed our bodies to exist no longer on the apex of geology; I noticed that suddenly we were entrenched in ice. And we began to freeze. In freezing, our heat was lost, our molecules began to move with less urgency, and we began to solidify. With this solidity our oneness was undermined, and slowly, slowly, we peeled apart like clasped and sweaty hands gradually separating.
ten points to anyone who can summarize the plot for me.
(actually please do that, i need to know if it's interpretable)
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