If we have to talk about it, I found myself years later on a bar balcony overlooking a college campus, radio rap in the air from some car and used bookstore poetry spread out in front of me like a map of living places, which probably it was. If I had thought about it, I would be sad that I never much thought about it, but then that’s a paradox worth ignoring. I took a sip of my beer.
The traffic sounds, the chipped paint tables, the stale smell of smoke in my clothes, they felt good. The same with it being about to rain, being boxed in by dark dragging clouds coming from the north and west. It had been months since I’d seen a building taller than the corn factory with the raised letters in what I guess was the bad part of town, and that was another thing to feel good about.
The rain began, smudging the words I’d written about Elizabeth Bishop, who was as lovable as anybody I’d met. Life is like that sometimes. Life is a gentle lie replacing the ungentle ones. But that’s just sometimes.
Where was she? I didn’t know. Wasn’t my right to know. It didn’t much bother me. I gathered up my poetry and went inside. It was early afternoon, so the place was emptied out save for a guy and a girl playing foosball in the corner, concentrating on the game with cigarettes hanging from their mouths, laughing. They were vital and young. Her feet slid along the scuffed floor as she moved between the handles. He could reach them all without moving. They moved together, and the small wooden men moved with them, and the ball made sharp noises against the sides of the table. I guess I thought it was pretty beautiful.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Irresponsible with a heart is all
The worst part was there not being a worst part. Like how did we get here? I thought maybe if we got that dog then there would have been something to feel lousy about at least.
Look at it this way. I still couldn’t sleep at night, yeah, but I actually felt like getting out of bed sometimes. Looking at her across the table at that same damn coffee house as always she looked more beautiful, more alive, like I had taken something great and scuffed it like a sneaker. The question then is one of living with how the mistakes maybe weren’t mistakes, at least on a subconscious.
She asked if I had all the papers. We talked like old friends with a bitter lack of a future, ready to blame each other for things as a scholarly exercise. Every once in awhile she got those saran-wrapped eyes and didn’t talk for a second, looked out the window or picked at her fingernails painted blueberry dark and chipping. We both knew, though, that it was all reflex.
She said she had to go to the bathroom and could I get her a refill. I watched her go, looking for something new in her step or the way her body navigated chairs, and it wasn’t until she turned the corner that I realized I didn’t know her drink.
Look at it this way. I still couldn’t sleep at night, yeah, but I actually felt like getting out of bed sometimes. Looking at her across the table at that same damn coffee house as always she looked more beautiful, more alive, like I had taken something great and scuffed it like a sneaker. The question then is one of living with how the mistakes maybe weren’t mistakes, at least on a subconscious.
She asked if I had all the papers. We talked like old friends with a bitter lack of a future, ready to blame each other for things as a scholarly exercise. Every once in awhile she got those saran-wrapped eyes and didn’t talk for a second, looked out the window or picked at her fingernails painted blueberry dark and chipping. We both knew, though, that it was all reflex.
She said she had to go to the bathroom and could I get her a refill. I watched her go, looking for something new in her step or the way her body navigated chairs, and it wasn’t until she turned the corner that I realized I didn’t know her drink.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
After all day at the beach
The room smelled of sea salt and so did we. It was patterned in blues and seashells, just that generic ephemera nautica. None of this is what I would have done, but that’s a time share.
Somewhere over the weekend we had been drunk and something happened, I don’t know, to make us more than just two friends getting away from the concrete and steel. If that had been the plan or what, again, I didn’t know, either for my account or hers. Maybe it was just remembering what skin smelled like on a day like this, the kind of thing I’d forgotten about somewhere and needed to be told again.
She was back in her bathing suit that set off her skin so she was all pink and brown, sucking on a hard candy from the restaurant that she had slipped into her jeans pocket without giving to the charity. She always did that small time larceny on the leukemia patient at the cash register because she said it was probably a hoax and someone else would cover her Jolly Rancher eventually out of guilt.
She rolled over and pressed up against me, her skin hot and I knew she was about to realize she was burnt, maybe send me off to find aloe now that things were different, but for now she kissed me with her green apple lips and we didn’t talk at all.
Somewhere over the weekend we had been drunk and something happened, I don’t know, to make us more than just two friends getting away from the concrete and steel. If that had been the plan or what, again, I didn’t know, either for my account or hers. Maybe it was just remembering what skin smelled like on a day like this, the kind of thing I’d forgotten about somewhere and needed to be told again.
She was back in her bathing suit that set off her skin so she was all pink and brown, sucking on a hard candy from the restaurant that she had slipped into her jeans pocket without giving to the charity. She always did that small time larceny on the leukemia patient at the cash register because she said it was probably a hoax and someone else would cover her Jolly Rancher eventually out of guilt.
She rolled over and pressed up against me, her skin hot and I knew she was about to realize she was burnt, maybe send me off to find aloe now that things were different, but for now she kissed me with her green apple lips and we didn’t talk at all.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
I wondered where I was worse off
I thought some things were easy that weren’t. I don’t mean like nuclear physics or putting together an entertainment center. I’m talking about how my perspective was you could slide out from under the emotional weight of a lie whenever you wanted and create another, lighter one. This is called callousness, I guess, or it isn’t. I don’t even know anymore.
It goes like this. I woke up next to her with one of those thoughts you can’t figure, like maybe I thought that the clock always goes still for a second or two before I opened my eyes to look at it, like maybe it waited on me to start up again. The kind of thing that seems true even when it isn’t, you know? I used to think I had control over just everything, like the only reason we didn’t have good weather most days was because it suited me. I thought I was goddamned Zeus or something. I was full of illogical thoughts and the illusion of control is all.
I was there in bed listening to her deep breathing and looking at that clock when I realized that the whole of my existence was a path I could not see. Every time I made a choice—the choice to get up, the choice to roll over and wrap her up in me between the sheets, the choice to keep still right there and let the whole bleak truth of life wash over me some more, well, they were all made blind. Even if I could be childish enough to believe that I had a thing like free will, it didn’t much matter overall.
But my problem with the lies and the emotional weight. I didn’t ever lie on purpose. It was only that words were never enough for the truth. Actions either. There’s too much truth to tell to even try to tell it. This is what I was thinking when the clock stopped ticking for four or five seconds. I counted in my head. I never felt more alone.
________________________
No update on Thursday. Sorry. I'm on a book tour.
It goes like this. I woke up next to her with one of those thoughts you can’t figure, like maybe I thought that the clock always goes still for a second or two before I opened my eyes to look at it, like maybe it waited on me to start up again. The kind of thing that seems true even when it isn’t, you know? I used to think I had control over just everything, like the only reason we didn’t have good weather most days was because it suited me. I thought I was goddamned Zeus or something. I was full of illogical thoughts and the illusion of control is all.
I was there in bed listening to her deep breathing and looking at that clock when I realized that the whole of my existence was a path I could not see. Every time I made a choice—the choice to get up, the choice to roll over and wrap her up in me between the sheets, the choice to keep still right there and let the whole bleak truth of life wash over me some more, well, they were all made blind. Even if I could be childish enough to believe that I had a thing like free will, it didn’t much matter overall.
But my problem with the lies and the emotional weight. I didn’t ever lie on purpose. It was only that words were never enough for the truth. Actions either. There’s too much truth to tell to even try to tell it. This is what I was thinking when the clock stopped ticking for four or five seconds. I counted in my head. I never felt more alone.
________________________
No update on Thursday. Sorry. I'm on a book tour.
BOOK TOUR
SEATTLE, WA STOP
Tuesday, Oct 13th, 3:00pm
Pilot Books
219 Broaway E
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138688946286&index=1
PORTLAND, OR STOP
Thursday, Oct 15th, 7:00pm
Reading Frenzy
921 SW Oak St
(I have heard a rumor about free beer at this reading)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=112788939398&index=1
ALTERNATIVE PRESS EXPO
Oct 17th and 18th
San Francisco, CA
(we'll be hanging out mostly with the Topatoco people)
SAN FRANCISCO, CA STOP:
Sunday, Oct 18th, 4:30pm
Booksmith
1644 Haight St
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=271357790552&index=1
After that, I'll be heading back to my real life at doctoral school, but Mike and Joey will continue on to Los Angeles (and probably Tijuana if we're being honest). They don't have a venue for their LA reading yet, so if you have a place it would be cool if you emailed us.
I hope to see you guys there! Joey's going to read from Overqualified or from Lockpick Pornography or from It's Too Late to Say I'm Sorry, and I'll be reading from my novel Apathy and Paying Rent and a few vignettes here and there. It will be pretty great, probably.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Flip a switch and wait
We bonded most easily over hatred. We hated Becky, we hated anything to do with the word fusion, we hated the government, we hated ourselves. It was like junior high all over again, just the music was a little better and we drank coffee instead of Mountain Dew.
We would walk through parking lots with retro sunglasses on and just bitch and bitch until we got to the car. We weren’t fit for the world, it hated us as a matter of course, and we were going to kick with earnest futility at all the spiderwebs. This is how we justified making the faces our boss might make during sex. How we had a whole routine of noises to go along. Meanness suits the misfits.
One day while we were sitting on a coffee shop patio talking about reality television, which we only watched it so we could expend most of our mental capacity in complaining about it, I saw two birds hopping around a scrap of bagel, taking turns picking at the thing, you know how finches or whatever do with the bright and curious tweaks of the head. Something about those two dumb birds got right in under my skin and lived for a little bit. I told her I thought it was a pretty good scene, and she looked over her shoulder to see. She agreed, but she didn’t feel it violently like I did, and that got me full of wondering about what her love was like, if it was tender or subdued or an ocean or firecrackers or dying. I painfully wanted to know.
We would walk through parking lots with retro sunglasses on and just bitch and bitch until we got to the car. We weren’t fit for the world, it hated us as a matter of course, and we were going to kick with earnest futility at all the spiderwebs. This is how we justified making the faces our boss might make during sex. How we had a whole routine of noises to go along. Meanness suits the misfits.
One day while we were sitting on a coffee shop patio talking about reality television, which we only watched it so we could expend most of our mental capacity in complaining about it, I saw two birds hopping around a scrap of bagel, taking turns picking at the thing, you know how finches or whatever do with the bright and curious tweaks of the head. Something about those two dumb birds got right in under my skin and lived for a little bit. I told her I thought it was a pretty good scene, and she looked over her shoulder to see. She agreed, but she didn’t feel it violently like I did, and that got me full of wondering about what her love was like, if it was tender or subdued or an ocean or firecrackers or dying. I painfully wanted to know.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
She had these great and happy eyes
What I did first was I took a scalpel and made a y-incision that ran along her collarbone and then down her chest to the groin, all of which had lost the pull of sexuality they'd had in life. You have to yank harder than is polite, cutting in under the skin as you go.
Her face under those bright lights was unfair, which I meant without justice. Her skin had lost its color and was fair, like it's startling how blood is subject to the laws of gravity even before it's spilled. She looked like an old computer on the inside, full of vacuum tubes and thick wires. I said this is who you were to no one in particular as I revealed the contents of her that she never shared in life.
I use garden tools, sometimes, like on the ribs. Power tools for the skull. I slice the organs down finger-thick, place it all in trays of offering. I find out why. I find the tiny surprises, sometimes. I say I'm just doing a job. It's such a selfish thing to do, though, taking people apart. Enjoying it. If I weren't such a coward I would cut myself open too.
Her face under those bright lights was unfair, which I meant without justice. Her skin had lost its color and was fair, like it's startling how blood is subject to the laws of gravity even before it's spilled. She looked like an old computer on the inside, full of vacuum tubes and thick wires. I said this is who you were to no one in particular as I revealed the contents of her that she never shared in life.
I use garden tools, sometimes, like on the ribs. Power tools for the skull. I slice the organs down finger-thick, place it all in trays of offering. I find out why. I find the tiny surprises, sometimes. I say I'm just doing a job. It's such a selfish thing to do, though, taking people apart. Enjoying it. If I weren't such a coward I would cut myself open too.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Like a love letter left in a tip jar
She said tell me how we met. She was always asking me questions like this, the ones she knew the answer to, probing my recollection. I wondered if she was hoping to find some seam to pull away, exposing baseboards or rotting out foundation or what. I said you tell me.
And the story she told while we drove in the midnight rain weary from all day in the car and neither of us bothering to change the music when it ended, well, that story was one worth telling, it had a beginning and a middle and no end. It was about youth and love and tripping over honesty unexpectedly. All these little details. She had liked my shirt. She had thought it was funny when I had dropped my keys while trying to put them in my pocket, but she hadn’t said it. She had thought I seemed warm when I laughed but that it was somehow hard for me to do.
Lightning spread out from the clouds, leaving us both momentarily lost in the pattern fading out into that closed-in darkness. She stopped talking long enough for me to consider what I would have said. It was lousy. That much I knew. It would be blunt and factual without any truth. She hummed a few notes from the song that had ended half an hour before. Then she started in again, and in between her sleepy words there were seams, and if I pulled at the seams, I would see what it was to be good and human and happy.
And the story she told while we drove in the midnight rain weary from all day in the car and neither of us bothering to change the music when it ended, well, that story was one worth telling, it had a beginning and a middle and no end. It was about youth and love and tripping over honesty unexpectedly. All these little details. She had liked my shirt. She had thought it was funny when I had dropped my keys while trying to put them in my pocket, but she hadn’t said it. She had thought I seemed warm when I laughed but that it was somehow hard for me to do.
Lightning spread out from the clouds, leaving us both momentarily lost in the pattern fading out into that closed-in darkness. She stopped talking long enough for me to consider what I would have said. It was lousy. That much I knew. It would be blunt and factual without any truth. She hummed a few notes from the song that had ended half an hour before. Then she started in again, and in between her sleepy words there were seams, and if I pulled at the seams, I would see what it was to be good and human and happy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
