You peel back enough layers of a person, I’m talking the fine hairs and the outer skin and then subcutaneous tissue, muscle to bone, you expose enough of that hollow cavity below the sternum to the atmosphere and you find some ugly truth, some thing that has gone unforgiven or that you can’t reconcile. That’s where we were, me standing with my wallet in hand with one shoe untied waiting for her to say don’t go from the couch. What kind of people were we is what I was thinking to myself, what kind of people need these theatrics to get by?
We stayed that way for a long time, long enough that there’s no point advancing the moment, both of us grown stubborn in the face of our own selfishness, which I guess let’s call that self-preservation. I got the feeling that this is the snapping off point, that whenever time started up again I would do something with some resonance.
In my head I ran through the reasons each of us was to blame. It came out about how I expected. Fruit flies traced lazy arcs around the sink. She said don’t you dare think I’ll chase you with a hard edge, the voice she reserved for talking to the manager. I tensed my hand around my car key, ready for nuclear war.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
There's always new art on the overpass
We drove for like ten minutes in silence, both of us expectant for something to happen that would break one or both of our resolves. Our arguments these days were like Morse code with spotlights in a dead dark sea, detached and full of pregnant pauses that did most of the meaning for us. What I’m saying is the words were basically a terse afterthought when neither of us had much desire to mount a rescue.
She said you always go too far with a metaphor, like figures of speech actually are worth saying. I said they’re not, and I said it as a question, and she said good God you really think imagery is the same as honesty don’t you. I told her she could pick up her own dry cleaning in the morning but didn’t much mean it. She looked out her window and I checked my mirrors.
She leaned back and put her feet on the dash, which I know she knew it made me nervous but maybe she just forgot. There’s a part on the freeway where you just suddenly notice you’re downtown, almost like it’s a magic trick of city planning, mirrors everywhere to hide the fifty story buildings until the moment you pass the signs for the zoo and the aquarium and that one lawyer’s billboard, the one who wears the golf cap and hablas espanol. Even though the buildings rose up out of meanness and fulfilled the promise of decades, even though this place once made us feel so small but still alive, even though there were a million things worth noticing in every instant and every foot of pavement, we didn’t.
She said you always go too far with a metaphor, like figures of speech actually are worth saying. I said they’re not, and I said it as a question, and she said good God you really think imagery is the same as honesty don’t you. I told her she could pick up her own dry cleaning in the morning but didn’t much mean it. She looked out her window and I checked my mirrors.
She leaned back and put her feet on the dash, which I know she knew it made me nervous but maybe she just forgot. There’s a part on the freeway where you just suddenly notice you’re downtown, almost like it’s a magic trick of city planning, mirrors everywhere to hide the fifty story buildings until the moment you pass the signs for the zoo and the aquarium and that one lawyer’s billboard, the one who wears the golf cap and hablas espanol. Even though the buildings rose up out of meanness and fulfilled the promise of decades, even though this place once made us feel so small but still alive, even though there were a million things worth noticing in every instant and every foot of pavement, we didn’t.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Take a thing and break it and call it art already
Sometimes you do a thing and later realize just how deadly. Like the old chop-socky kung fu move, I took about a hundred thousand steps after the blow and then my heart exploded, not like into shards like you visualize a heart breaking but expanding outward suddenly and tearing the muscle. Of course it was a metaphor, but it’s also exactly what happened.
So I stood there in the grocery store on that rainy Sunday morning looking at a box of brown sugar instant oatmeal, and it was a full-stop pop that I felt in my whole body like I was nothing but a rubber band and a pair of scissors, which considering how violently I loved and hated the memory of my old life always there just beneath the surface of errand running and paydays it was no surprise that this kind of thing would happen eventually.
I thought how did I get here, one of these shuffling shoppers alone with his list. What was I hoping to accomplish? I’m talking, as always, about her, the one I thought I’d be willing to die for. It turned out, though, as I took my last undignified breaths with a distended heart and dropped that box of oatmeal that what I died for, what I was always going to die for, was my foolish need to be a lonely and unsung tragedy.
So I stood there in the grocery store on that rainy Sunday morning looking at a box of brown sugar instant oatmeal, and it was a full-stop pop that I felt in my whole body like I was nothing but a rubber band and a pair of scissors, which considering how violently I loved and hated the memory of my old life always there just beneath the surface of errand running and paydays it was no surprise that this kind of thing would happen eventually.
I thought how did I get here, one of these shuffling shoppers alone with his list. What was I hoping to accomplish? I’m talking, as always, about her, the one I thought I’d be willing to die for. It turned out, though, as I took my last undignified breaths with a distended heart and dropped that box of oatmeal that what I died for, what I was always going to die for, was my foolish need to be a lonely and unsung tragedy.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
After that it rained for years
It was a year of conversation, a year of dragged-out lousy days, afternoon suns and bad coffee. I felt bad all the time, I felt bad about feeling so bad around her, I felt bad like it was the answer to something. I guess it was.
We talked about things that didn’t matter, just to talk I guess, like at what point do you call a thing a tragedy. She wanted the word to have a concrete scope that suggested profound human loss. She said losing a thumb doesn’t count as tragic, for instance, and I said she only thought that because girls didn’t really need thumbs to explore their bodies. She worried the word would lose meaning, and I reminded her that insurance companies had itemized the term awhile ago already. We were complicit in all things, a crime spree of language left in our wake.
Every once in awhile some staggering truth would come out, like what happened to her in that bathroom or the circumstances of why I stopped sleeping at night. We said these things casually, just dropped in real quick when no one was looking. We had grown up great victims, and we found small pleasure in shocking each other here and there, which these things were multi-purposed and nuanced hand grenades of love and trust.
The thing about a conversation that lasts all year is that it’s dangerous, like how sometimes you start thinking about your breathing and then you have to keep thinking about your breathing until you become sufficiently distracted by a television set or another semi-autonomous process. What I’m saying is it becomes the focus of your existence, and then one day it’s gone, leaving you oxygen-deprived and wondering. The whole thing is a tragedy.
We talked about things that didn’t matter, just to talk I guess, like at what point do you call a thing a tragedy. She wanted the word to have a concrete scope that suggested profound human loss. She said losing a thumb doesn’t count as tragic, for instance, and I said she only thought that because girls didn’t really need thumbs to explore their bodies. She worried the word would lose meaning, and I reminded her that insurance companies had itemized the term awhile ago already. We were complicit in all things, a crime spree of language left in our wake.
Every once in awhile some staggering truth would come out, like what happened to her in that bathroom or the circumstances of why I stopped sleeping at night. We said these things casually, just dropped in real quick when no one was looking. We had grown up great victims, and we found small pleasure in shocking each other here and there, which these things were multi-purposed and nuanced hand grenades of love and trust.
The thing about a conversation that lasts all year is that it’s dangerous, like how sometimes you start thinking about your breathing and then you have to keep thinking about your breathing until you become sufficiently distracted by a television set or another semi-autonomous process. What I’m saying is it becomes the focus of your existence, and then one day it’s gone, leaving you oxygen-deprived and wondering. The whole thing is a tragedy.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Mise en place
What I did was I chopped up an onion, some garlic, tomatoes. I went out to the porch and grabbed some fresh basil, tore it into little pieces while I chewed on the inside of my cheek and thought about what it would mean if heaven was just a synapse in your brain that fired off when you died. I guessed no one would really care either way before long. It would just be another test of faith or whatever.
The best part was the smells but I didn’t take notice. I said a little incantation over the pot, the kind of thing a body does that’s made for being alone. I cracked a knuckle against the side of my face, which I guess that’s an odd way to do it but it was my way and my other hand had a spoon in it.
Doing a thing yourself is better than doing it fast or particularly well, or at least that was my new thing since I’d tossed out all the jars in the cupboard and replaced them with a seminal kitchen full of vital raw materials. I got a beer from the fridge and opened it with my shirt while the water made headway on a boil.
What if eternity was just the last second of your life? I thought this was a good question for asking, and when she got home I would, no matter that it was one of those questions that might spotlight how unlike each other we were and make my homemade pasta bitter in our mouths. You have to do a thing if it’s worth doing.
The best part was the smells but I didn’t take notice. I said a little incantation over the pot, the kind of thing a body does that’s made for being alone. I cracked a knuckle against the side of my face, which I guess that’s an odd way to do it but it was my way and my other hand had a spoon in it.
Doing a thing yourself is better than doing it fast or particularly well, or at least that was my new thing since I’d tossed out all the jars in the cupboard and replaced them with a seminal kitchen full of vital raw materials. I got a beer from the fridge and opened it with my shirt while the water made headway on a boil.
What if eternity was just the last second of your life? I thought this was a good question for asking, and when she got home I would, no matter that it was one of those questions that might spotlight how unlike each other we were and make my homemade pasta bitter in our mouths. You have to do a thing if it’s worth doing.
An announcement made during a brief lull in the waves
Hey everyone. Allow me to drop the blog posture for a second and make an announcement: I will be going on a west coast book tour for Apathy and Paying Rent from Oct 13th to Oct 20th with the always fantastic Joey Comeau and the always terrifyingly blackout drunk Mike Lecky of Loose Teeth Press. We'll be stopping in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco (where we will be attending the Alternative Press Expo, probably sitting with the Topatoco people), and Los Angeles. We will read from our respective books and then we will hang out with you and have awkward conversations. Tell everyone you know.
www.looseteeth.ca/seattle
www.looseteeth.ca/portland
www.looseteeth.ca/sanfrancisco
www.looseteeth.ca/losangeles
Thursday, September 10, 2009
This one takes some years off
I saw her again today. I was sitting in that same coffee shop, just kind of hung over and jobless making love to the free refill policy. This one barista thought I was shit, but most of them were friendly and I had headphones anyway for when he came around sweeping under my feet, which really who’s shit in this equation when I just want to be left alone with my bad day.
There was a guy outside smoking, one of those guys who wears glasses on purpose, you know? A turtleneck wearer. Anyway, he’s outside smoking like he’s waiting on someone, and then she’s there, just kind of appeared between sips or when I was staring at the oily surface of my coffee.
She smiled for him and they talked for a minute. The sun came in through the window like it might get violent, you know how it’s blinding at this time of the afternoon. It felt like a camera trick, one of those shots film students go on about.
They made to go inside and when he reached for the door, getting it open an inch or two, she pushed it shut in his face and tiptoed herself a kiss, which knocked his glasses off. She smiled up at him and he got all flustered and the sun came in all over the room and that asshole barista came by with a wet rag to wipe down the table I was still using, and that was that for whatever I felt about sunlight.
There was a guy outside smoking, one of those guys who wears glasses on purpose, you know? A turtleneck wearer. Anyway, he’s outside smoking like he’s waiting on someone, and then she’s there, just kind of appeared between sips or when I was staring at the oily surface of my coffee.
She smiled for him and they talked for a minute. The sun came in through the window like it might get violent, you know how it’s blinding at this time of the afternoon. It felt like a camera trick, one of those shots film students go on about.
They made to go inside and when he reached for the door, getting it open an inch or two, she pushed it shut in his face and tiptoed herself a kiss, which knocked his glasses off. She smiled up at him and he got all flustered and the sun came in all over the room and that asshole barista came by with a wet rag to wipe down the table I was still using, and that was that for whatever I felt about sunlight.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The astronaut's angry smile
Some things you’ve got to get some distance on, which I guess that’s what I told myself as I put books on shelves, filling holes, squeezing together the spaces where her art books would go or how there used to be two copies of Franny and Zooey, both worn out like old sweaters but one treated like a thing to hold on to.
I made coffee with the kitchen light off, which it was late already. I just stood there in the dark watching the orange light under the switch, gurgling sounds and me fighting this nervous feeling of now what. It was a stupid thing to do, now done, a hard-fought right to be left alone, and look at me so damn smart in the dark.
I’m sure someone once said that things that aren’t permanent are still worth doing, or that without change we wouldn’t be able to whatever, but that guy is probably full of shit. I stood in front of my books holding a dollar-store coffee mug in my hands saying out loud I’m gonna be an alphabetizer now, make some sense out of all this fiction. My hammer, my nails, my shelf. Everything in its proper place but me.
I made coffee with the kitchen light off, which it was late already. I just stood there in the dark watching the orange light under the switch, gurgling sounds and me fighting this nervous feeling of now what. It was a stupid thing to do, now done, a hard-fought right to be left alone, and look at me so damn smart in the dark.
I’m sure someone once said that things that aren’t permanent are still worth doing, or that without change we wouldn’t be able to whatever, but that guy is probably full of shit. I stood in front of my books holding a dollar-store coffee mug in my hands saying out loud I’m gonna be an alphabetizer now, make some sense out of all this fiction. My hammer, my nails, my shelf. Everything in its proper place but me.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Wayfaring is just kidding ourselves
We took roads west like it was a thing, like there was some solution in the sore backs and truck stop coffee. We bought maps when we got there, slipping into those states that were cut into squares like brownies. New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, whichever ones came our way. If we liked the name of the town we went. That’s how we saw Ruidoso and Tuba City and Shipwreck and Zuzax, which some weren’t worth the trouble.
We ran up the mountains to be close to the sky. We ran down them again, rushing into valleys and canyons. We ran from the city, and the further from it we were the more lost and alone we felt. We didn’t say it to each other. I didn’t even know what she thought, really, I just liked thinking that I could speak for us this way, like we had some shared poetry in our hearts.
We drove through new suburbs raised out of the scrub, houses like the ones back east, unacceptable to nature for not being worn out and beaten by the wind. We drove through the self-imposed mockery of Native America. We drove through national parks. We drove through all these places while the shadows played like children on the hills.
We ran up the mountains to be close to the sky. We ran down them again, rushing into valleys and canyons. We ran from the city, and the further from it we were the more lost and alone we felt. We didn’t say it to each other. I didn’t even know what she thought, really, I just liked thinking that I could speak for us this way, like we had some shared poetry in our hearts.
We drove through new suburbs raised out of the scrub, houses like the ones back east, unacceptable to nature for not being worn out and beaten by the wind. We drove through the self-imposed mockery of Native America. We drove through national parks. We drove through all these places while the shadows played like children on the hills.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
What does your breakfast cereal say about you?
The coffee tasted like garbage here, but the room was mostly blank space, a disaffected gray tone of light jazz and chairs selected from a corporate catalog. And that's what I wanted anyway. It's part of the allure of a place like this, just how nothing can you be.
I wanted to be part of the problem now, which maybe that wasn't true but I'm saying it is. I wanted to be all the things she couldn't stand. Self portraits in the bathroom mirror, holding the camera off to the side like this. Lying to the customer service rep to get a well-deserved late fee waived. Black and Mild cigarettes. Mousy french girls playing ukelele on the internet and the people who love them. Corporate coffee. These were my new religion.
Because who knows better than the zeitgeist how I need to be loved? What were we doing anyway hiding out from the things like that, the ones we liked or the ones we were told to like so we liked. I could listen to vinyl if I wanted, buy a fixed gear bike. I could buy my vintage clothes new. That wouldn't be any more false than eating strawberries in the park while the wind blew leaves to the ground.
You strip away enough layers and all you've got left is peer pressure and cross-referenced marketing graphs, but still there's a security in making sure we're all paying attention to each other up and down the line. I couldn't say the same about the way my hand felt on the small of her back, since what's the value in a thing that's gone. I looked down at the table where somebody had scratched the words comforts are just denial, which I don't remember writing that but it was probably me.
I wanted to be part of the problem now, which maybe that wasn't true but I'm saying it is. I wanted to be all the things she couldn't stand. Self portraits in the bathroom mirror, holding the camera off to the side like this. Lying to the customer service rep to get a well-deserved late fee waived. Black and Mild cigarettes. Mousy french girls playing ukelele on the internet and the people who love them. Corporate coffee. These were my new religion.
Because who knows better than the zeitgeist how I need to be loved? What were we doing anyway hiding out from the things like that, the ones we liked or the ones we were told to like so we liked. I could listen to vinyl if I wanted, buy a fixed gear bike. I could buy my vintage clothes new. That wouldn't be any more false than eating strawberries in the park while the wind blew leaves to the ground.
You strip away enough layers and all you've got left is peer pressure and cross-referenced marketing graphs, but still there's a security in making sure we're all paying attention to each other up and down the line. I couldn't say the same about the way my hand felt on the small of her back, since what's the value in a thing that's gone. I looked down at the table where somebody had scratched the words comforts are just denial, which I don't remember writing that but it was probably me.
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