When I was younger, we lived in a modest house--very condensed, ever so cozy as my mother would refer.
One sullen autumn, I heard a noise emanating from beneath my bed. Being between the ages where I would either hide from monsters or nod solemnly at inadequate plumbing, I sat up curiously.
I stood gently, trying very hard as to not breech the floorboards, and careen to my death. I held my head to floor, feeling my ear on the chilled wooden planks. A hazy, frizzy sound not unlike static electricity or a spray of water.
Water.
I thought of all scenarios: the house caving in from the pressure of a burst pipe, drowning all my family and earthbound possessions within a grave marked by undrinkable water, formulating a pool of morbid air bubbles as suffered our final gasps.
Or--well, nothing else was coming to me. So I stood upright and quietly got back into bed, awaiting the inevitable doom that must befall us.
I said nothing.
I shook a little until the waters wrapped me in their embrace, my body numb and nonresistant.
I was asleep.
But the water did continue to rise, not to the depths I dreamt, but to an almost worst midpoint.
My father spent the morning hacking away wood boards; sparks and clangs overshadowed much of the otherwise sunshine-exhumed day.
No one knew how this pipe, running throughout the house could have gone unnoticed by the entire family. We all had slept through it, hadn't we. If only one of us had noticed so much sooner, we could have attacked the problem faster. But alas, none of us did.
I burned my fingers on the iron that day. With no running water to balm, I sat quietly, unable to sob.
My mother thought I was so brave.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Living Together
Briefly in my travels, I was living east of Chicago (or perhaps North New York City) or somewhere altogether else. There were six of us total, although seldom at one time.
JIMMY, if one were to be certain of his real name was a longterm smoker with an ash voice and dark cuticles. He was the primary breadwinner who sold unmarked tablets in discrete paper bags for jittery 2am visitors. His main concerns included avoiding police officers, sexually pleasuring his wife Alma, and taking large doses of cocaine that quite easily prevented him from accomplishing terribly much between the hours of 9am and 5pm.
ALMA herself worked down the road at a florist. She loved cheap jewelry, nail glue, and romance novels she'd buy off the rack six at a time, and resell for dubious profit to the used bookstore on the first floor. She would never make more than 60-65% back on the books, but it was more of an odd satisfaction for her to cheat the system... somewhat.
Alma's brother was a large man named JULIAN and despite the fact that he did not share a race, accent, or last name with Alma, was stalwartly Her Brother. At least between the hours of 9am and 5pm. He eventually stopping coming and going and simply stayed. He became a regular customer to Jimmy and soon after stopped talking about the spiders everywhere that only he could see. He retained his job as mail clerk nearly three weeks then but by the time I left, he was more concerned with painting the window panes very, very slowly. Those windows took about a month to dry.
KENSEY was next: a totally clean, straight, thoughtful guy I suspected was writing his disertation on The Human Condition using us all as fodder for his research. Instead he was simply making his rent, sleeping when he could, and heading out to a nursing homewhere he worked as a cook. I saw him for about seven hours total, so I don't know much about him. He eventually published a bookk, "Lfe in These Drug Addled United States" and wrote me a check for 30 dollars.
Finally, there was MARLA, who claimed she was an actress, had zero tolerance for Jimmy and Alma, but appreciated the dense fog that precluded their awareness towards her nonexistent financial contribution to the household. She successfully bobbed and weaved Jimmy and Alma for weeks at a time, convincing them through silence and lack of eye contact that she wasn't even there.
Marla was the reason I eventually left. She managed to somehow convince Jimmy that she was the one who was living in my space, paying my way, and the owner of my luggage. To be perfectly honest, we did share a similar complexion and were using each other's rouge but it was a nonsense approach all the time. It took all my strength to tip my belongings from her meth-friendly hands.
I ducked into a library for my final week in town and found my next benefactor on a Thursday.
JIMMY, if one were to be certain of his real name was a longterm smoker with an ash voice and dark cuticles. He was the primary breadwinner who sold unmarked tablets in discrete paper bags for jittery 2am visitors. His main concerns included avoiding police officers, sexually pleasuring his wife Alma, and taking large doses of cocaine that quite easily prevented him from accomplishing terribly much between the hours of 9am and 5pm.
ALMA herself worked down the road at a florist. She loved cheap jewelry, nail glue, and romance novels she'd buy off the rack six at a time, and resell for dubious profit to the used bookstore on the first floor. She would never make more than 60-65% back on the books, but it was more of an odd satisfaction for her to cheat the system... somewhat.
Alma's brother was a large man named JULIAN and despite the fact that he did not share a race, accent, or last name with Alma, was stalwartly Her Brother. At least between the hours of 9am and 5pm. He eventually stopping coming and going and simply stayed. He became a regular customer to Jimmy and soon after stopped talking about the spiders everywhere that only he could see. He retained his job as mail clerk nearly three weeks then but by the time I left, he was more concerned with painting the window panes very, very slowly. Those windows took about a month to dry.
KENSEY was next: a totally clean, straight, thoughtful guy I suspected was writing his disertation on The Human Condition using us all as fodder for his research. Instead he was simply making his rent, sleeping when he could, and heading out to a nursing homewhere he worked as a cook. I saw him for about seven hours total, so I don't know much about him. He eventually published a bookk, "Lfe in These Drug Addled United States" and wrote me a check for 30 dollars.
Finally, there was MARLA, who claimed she was an actress, had zero tolerance for Jimmy and Alma, but appreciated the dense fog that precluded their awareness towards her nonexistent financial contribution to the household. She successfully bobbed and weaved Jimmy and Alma for weeks at a time, convincing them through silence and lack of eye contact that she wasn't even there.
Marla was the reason I eventually left. She managed to somehow convince Jimmy that she was the one who was living in my space, paying my way, and the owner of my luggage. To be perfectly honest, we did share a similar complexion and were using each other's rouge but it was a nonsense approach all the time. It took all my strength to tip my belongings from her meth-friendly hands.
I ducked into a library for my final week in town and found my next benefactor on a Thursday.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Comforting
I find myself sleeping covered in blankets these days. As one with a severe affection for the chilled, I dislike this sudden want of flannel and fleece to keep my naked body warm during the night. I pile it upon me, layer after layer as if I expect a princess to sit upon me and discover her royal line. Laying unblinkingly in the mid-night, I thought to myself "Perhaps I throw so much down upon me as to not just float away."
Indeed, I have been feeling somewhat untethered to the ground, unfixed my to keepings. I do not enjoy it. As one may surmise, I have a certain taste for adventure, but tedium has its delights as well. Certainly, wandering from place to place leaves you uncertain whether you will be eating that evening or if your rest will involve unforgiving haystacks or a calming yet unmoving rock of some sort.
Sticking to one post is actually quite like me. My father did not travel. Vivienne did, of course, in her "career on the stage and back allies," as she called it, but my father would stay within the same local towns and my mother stayed at home. I know now she resented it, but at the time, I thought it rather pleasant. She would allow me to act out a one man show as I played the Hatter, Hare, and Dormouse all the while in the back of her head she must have been saying, "God damn, Finland is probably beautiful at this time of year."
The traveling began when I left home to find my fortune as it were. Circuses, theatre performance groups, whores, and thieves led me to where I am now: a short walk from somewhere else. Our group is tired these days; half asleep after eighteen hours of pulling ourselves through hog-covered pastures in Scotland or perhaps bustling through the fancy horse-driven cabs in the City. I'm sure I've forgotten.
But the cold that once refreshed me now merely... makes me feel cold. Certainly this winter has only just begun and I know I just haven't the socks to make it through.
Indeed, I have been feeling somewhat untethered to the ground, unfixed my to keepings. I do not enjoy it. As one may surmise, I have a certain taste for adventure, but tedium has its delights as well. Certainly, wandering from place to place leaves you uncertain whether you will be eating that evening or if your rest will involve unforgiving haystacks or a calming yet unmoving rock of some sort.
Sticking to one post is actually quite like me. My father did not travel. Vivienne did, of course, in her "career on the stage and back allies," as she called it, but my father would stay within the same local towns and my mother stayed at home. I know now she resented it, but at the time, I thought it rather pleasant. She would allow me to act out a one man show as I played the Hatter, Hare, and Dormouse all the while in the back of her head she must have been saying, "God damn, Finland is probably beautiful at this time of year."
The traveling began when I left home to find my fortune as it were. Circuses, theatre performance groups, whores, and thieves led me to where I am now: a short walk from somewhere else. Our group is tired these days; half asleep after eighteen hours of pulling ourselves through hog-covered pastures in Scotland or perhaps bustling through the fancy horse-driven cabs in the City. I'm sure I've forgotten.
But the cold that once refreshed me now merely... makes me feel cold. Certainly this winter has only just begun and I know I just haven't the socks to make it through.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Love Letters
At first it was all I could do not to read them. I had found them stashed in a trunk that by appearances had every intention of being presumed forgotten. However the dusty atmosphere in the southwest attic corridor coated nearly everything in at least a thin filament, so it bared to reason that at least someone was sneaking regular peeks at this collection during indeterminate intervals.
And, truly, a collection it truly was. Stashed within pockets of the inside cover, taped fondly under aged photographs, and sealed and opened and resealed, was a box. The box was marked with a black lace rose pattern, peeling at the edges but otherwise in tact (although whether it had been lovingly reglued over the years was unknown). The hinges on the box, wooden and stained before its decoration, were not nearly new and the clasp was more of a suggestion than anything else.
Inside, were stacks of papers, folded repeatedly, and the last two the most weathered of all.
"My darling. He will never leave you, for he loves you as much as I do. I do not envy his sincere disappointment when I've stolen you away and our lives become one."
"My darling. The war rages on in my soul during this time of confusion. I know now that you must stay with him, despite the hopes of our own future. Never forget me. Someday perhaps the complications that deal ourselves in our own wretched lives will dissipate and and we will have the opportunity to be one, without prying eyes or half-hearted commitment. With sincere affection and regret."
Naturally, I was stunned. I stayed silent, very still for a long time as I tried to process all of this. A woman that I thought I had known all this time who kept a secret correspondence. A lover from somewhere indistinct yet with a readily available postal service. My world was not shattered, no, but rocked in increasingly ungentle waves.
I quietly, with moisture in my eyes, folded the papers and restacked them to their places. I closed the box with the letters inside. I reclasped the vaguely fictitious latch on the front of the box. I placed it back in an everyday, unsuspecting, nonthreatening location, nearly just at the edge of window, signifying no true value of it's contents for what was it but a box of random jumblings, perhaps pins or thimbles or disinteresting, outdated wires for appliances a neighbor couldn't bring themself to toss out so you took, knowing you would never utilize any of it.
I walked silently to the stairs, my only betrayl a hushed creak under my footsteps.
As of today, having read these letters, and while I would continue to love regardless of whatever the past held, I was never exactly going to think of my mother the same way again.
And, truly, a collection it truly was. Stashed within pockets of the inside cover, taped fondly under aged photographs, and sealed and opened and resealed, was a box. The box was marked with a black lace rose pattern, peeling at the edges but otherwise in tact (although whether it had been lovingly reglued over the years was unknown). The hinges on the box, wooden and stained before its decoration, were not nearly new and the clasp was more of a suggestion than anything else.
Inside, were stacks of papers, folded repeatedly, and the last two the most weathered of all.
"My darling. He will never leave you, for he loves you as much as I do. I do not envy his sincere disappointment when I've stolen you away and our lives become one."
"My darling. The war rages on in my soul during this time of confusion. I know now that you must stay with him, despite the hopes of our own future. Never forget me. Someday perhaps the complications that deal ourselves in our own wretched lives will dissipate and and we will have the opportunity to be one, without prying eyes or half-hearted commitment. With sincere affection and regret."
Naturally, I was stunned. I stayed silent, very still for a long time as I tried to process all of this. A woman that I thought I had known all this time who kept a secret correspondence. A lover from somewhere indistinct yet with a readily available postal service. My world was not shattered, no, but rocked in increasingly ungentle waves.
I quietly, with moisture in my eyes, folded the papers and restacked them to their places. I closed the box with the letters inside. I reclasped the vaguely fictitious latch on the front of the box. I placed it back in an everyday, unsuspecting, nonthreatening location, nearly just at the edge of window, signifying no true value of it's contents for what was it but a box of random jumblings, perhaps pins or thimbles or disinteresting, outdated wires for appliances a neighbor couldn't bring themself to toss out so you took, knowing you would never utilize any of it.
I walked silently to the stairs, my only betrayl a hushed creak under my footsteps.
As of today, having read these letters, and while I would continue to love regardless of whatever the past held, I was never exactly going to think of my mother the same way again.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Gossip
I contemplated writing some great essay on the morality of gossip--its complex aromas situating between malice, good fun, bald lies, and particularly the thrill that you are sharing tales that may return to their illustrious moron of a target. But that seemed more pretentious and heady than even me.
It all comes down, I suppose to Fucking Other People. Either the salacious rot is literally about some floozy shag and a half or it's about ruining someone, taking pleasure in another's unaware misery--or having a laugh at Thank The Christ we aren't as damned fools as the one we dare speak of.
I suppose I have failed at catching myself before the essay began. But I'll attempt--no demand--to be brief.
Nobody Gets Theirs. No--no one will get what's coming to them for their fabrications or (worse) blatant honesty. In fact we just go on, and if we learn of the stories our beloveds have said, we make a fuss and gossip on back to The One we think hasn't told the same story we've just heard. Because if we didn't, we would be too afraid to again connect with anyone--be it parchment or flesh. When wronged by the gossip we've heard about ourselves, we go on and spread it to someone else because Damn The Mouth that started it, but Bless The Ear who will hear our side. Oh, and what a bitch she was, you know; did you hear what she wore to the festival? Total tramp.
Eventually we--or perhaps just I--will forgive or forget (Never Both) the wronging party and move on with lives, perhaps with them again.
Because without the gossip, you'd never know anyone gave a damn about you.
and that almost is worth finding out for.
It all comes down, I suppose to Fucking Other People. Either the salacious rot is literally about some floozy shag and a half or it's about ruining someone, taking pleasure in another's unaware misery--or having a laugh at Thank The Christ we aren't as damned fools as the one we dare speak of.
I suppose I have failed at catching myself before the essay began. But I'll attempt--no demand--to be brief.
Nobody Gets Theirs. No--no one will get what's coming to them for their fabrications or (worse) blatant honesty. In fact we just go on, and if we learn of the stories our beloveds have said, we make a fuss and gossip on back to The One we think hasn't told the same story we've just heard. Because if we didn't, we would be too afraid to again connect with anyone--be it parchment or flesh. When wronged by the gossip we've heard about ourselves, we go on and spread it to someone else because Damn The Mouth that started it, but Bless The Ear who will hear our side. Oh, and what a bitch she was, you know; did you hear what she wore to the festival? Total tramp.
Eventually we--or perhaps just I--will forgive or forget (Never Both) the wronging party and move on with lives, perhaps with them again.
Because without the gossip, you'd never know anyone gave a damn about you.
and that almost is worth finding out for.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Monsters
I was mad with Theresia's lover--and I can't promise I won't be again--but I go through moments of empathy. He is in love, going through his life. He does not owe me or anyone anything. He is doing the best thing for him, which is something I cannot deny. I've done everything in my power to do so as well.
Sometimes it works out. Others, rather not.
A vicious world greets us when we wake up every morning and when we go to our beds, the thoughts run through our brains, desperately trying to find a way to make it better. Some smoke, or drink, fuck like gods or schoolchildren, bury themselves in work, learn from professors... still more are privileged to find someone who is willing to wake up with them, to face that vicious world with sword in hand--side by side--to fight the real life nightmares.
When you wake up without for the first, second, thirty-eighth time, you feel abandoned. How dare they go off to fight someone else's monsters.
To risk the fortune cookie parallel--I suppose we're meant to fight our own demons. But to be fair, I was there with her monster for monster. Demon-fighting is not just left up to one party. I can't argue that perhaps I failed... perhaps the monsters were too strong.
Or too weak. Yes, maybe, I fought the wrinkled rat beasts away too fast. She had no reason to stay. Or this new guy has no monsters to speak of, knows when he should shut up, and fucks like a knight off to war.
Tonight--only tonight--I hold a truce, my successor. May you experience love, joy, and undignified pleasure at my expense. For it has nothing, truly, to do with me.
But someday, when you tire, when you burn, or take your leave to the battlefield you have long neglected, I ask this:
Break her heart.
Make her grieve.
Bring her new monsters.
Monsters I can deal with.
And do not love her as much as I do. When you leave, and you will leave, you will have saved yourself some demons as well.
Sometimes it works out. Others, rather not.
A vicious world greets us when we wake up every morning and when we go to our beds, the thoughts run through our brains, desperately trying to find a way to make it better. Some smoke, or drink, fuck like gods or schoolchildren, bury themselves in work, learn from professors... still more are privileged to find someone who is willing to wake up with them, to face that vicious world with sword in hand--side by side--to fight the real life nightmares.
When you wake up without for the first, second, thirty-eighth time, you feel abandoned. How dare they go off to fight someone else's monsters.
To risk the fortune cookie parallel--I suppose we're meant to fight our own demons. But to be fair, I was there with her monster for monster. Demon-fighting is not just left up to one party. I can't argue that perhaps I failed... perhaps the monsters were too strong.
Or too weak. Yes, maybe, I fought the wrinkled rat beasts away too fast. She had no reason to stay. Or this new guy has no monsters to speak of, knows when he should shut up, and fucks like a knight off to war.
Tonight--only tonight--I hold a truce, my successor. May you experience love, joy, and undignified pleasure at my expense. For it has nothing, truly, to do with me.
But someday, when you tire, when you burn, or take your leave to the battlefield you have long neglected, I ask this:
Break her heart.
Make her grieve.
Bring her new monsters.
Monsters I can deal with.
And do not love her as much as I do. When you leave, and you will leave, you will have saved yourself some demons as well.
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