home

you think you will remember, you think you could not forget.

Pet

[a short story]

I stand at the window, wringing my hands. Out in the yard the dog is stalking a bird along the fence line. It always fascinated me, the way his body tensed, every muscle poised for the aim of possession. He’s a machine, ready to spring, to strike and yet so patient watching—as if time could lie down and beg at his paws. The power in that stance, it was the way I first saw you. I wanted to be absorbed by a power like that.

Your desire was intoxicating. I tattooed my skin with that want; the strength it feed into my veins was a drug. The way your glance owned me, controlled me, dictated the way I flicked my hair, moved my eyes to meet yours. I wanted that want, which was a weakness you uncovered. And the more I loved, the more it fueled your power over me. I didn’t understand then, couldn’t have—or so I naively attempt to justify my youth, to transmit bravery where there was only ignorance and blindness. I didn’t know, that freedom was not losing myself in you, to you. That freedom was not possession anymore than drowning in a sea is freedom.

The dog lurches into the bush, I see the fluttering wings, the desperate attempts at freedom. And I can imagine the teeth piercing through her breast, the crunching of hollow bones, the popping gush of warm, damp blood. I cannot imagine the rush of that domination, the Godlike power of taking life, of deciding fate. I know why you crave it. I don’t blame you.

I stand at the window and examine the dish in my hands. How many times have my hands cradled this fragile glass and my mind raced to its destruction? The ability to shatter it, to lift it and hurl it across the room builds in me with adrenaline. It’s a hysteric, chaotic force—power. But I reined it in, perhaps that was my weakness. You conjured the colors to the surface of my skin with your hands, called my voice out of my mouth. And instead of hating you I loved you the more for your possession of the courage I lacked. But no, that wasn’t love; it was something else, a blurry line between admiration and horror. Fear. Like my Sunday schoolteacher talked about trusting in God. I swallowed that lesson too easily. Love and fear… she was so wrong.

The plate is cracked anyway. For all the days I stood grasping it so tightly, straining it. It began as a fracture, a tiny crack in the surface. But with each increasing pressure it breaks into little fissures, spreading like spider webs underneath, invisible lines of breaking. I am sure one day I will hold it and it will dissolve in my hands. But that is not the finale I would like, there is less satisfaction in slow decay then the hurling. Is that why you always pushed harder? Where you trying to prove your strength, your superiority, or was it that you too were taught the wrong lessons?

The dog is running to the back door, scratching to be let in. Eyes warm and brown and endless, and there are pale soft feathers curled in his gum, blood crusted on the hairs near his mouth. Why didn’t I see that, the first time I looked at you? I push him away angrily. A few months ago I would not have wept over the death of a bird, but I feel the liquid rolling into my eyes like the flash floods in this valley. He does not understand the disdain towards his accomplishment, his nature. He sulks.

The melody of that bird used to greet me in the strawberry blonde strands of sunrise, snuffed out. It is too much, too close to home. I set the plate down and saunter across the linoleum, my jaw set in determination.

I pull out my suitcase. But those eyes bore into me, pleading, infinitely melancholy and apologetic. It’s only his nature. I sink to the cool tile floor and he muzzles my shoulder, drops his head into my lap, my hand involuntarily moves to stroke him. Forgiveness of the unrepentant, another lesson I swallowed to easily, learned wrongly. Again I find myself waiting for you.

29/24

exhale. inhale. exhale. inhale.

a simple pattern that guarantees living. I'm not sure where I'm at right now, or what this journey is.

they say something, some line, about days like this.

I tip my head down, eyes refusing to meet theres

I stick my hands deep in my pockets as if I could find some reserve of strength there,

some lost memory of myself, like a wrinkled receipt, like a cool copper penny

I wish my eyes had windshield wipers instead of lids to blink, eyelashes to flutter...

I would swoosh these visions off the side, they'd gather crunched into the bottom

and I would swipe them off

I would drive through birds and storms and wires

freedom

I do not want peace.

I want freedom.

libertas.

you said it so elegantly. you said it so plainly.

that I wanted to swallow it.

coughing up my heart as I do, too often.

swallow it, as I wish to swallow the moon.

on a day like this. I'd crunch on the glory of fallen leaves, wet slicked to the ground

and call forth a million ghosts to haunt my head. memory.

i want to belong. i want to belong somewhere else.

is it a hushed voice within me?

the holy dove with a broken wing.

faith.

laughter so loud, it clobbers down my spine making me shiver. I do not want to take part.

I imagine the fire escape, our voices trailing off into night and fog over that cold iron

wringing our hands, tapping our feet, so many noises to fit the space where our words could go

and I couldn't say... why I cried over that movie, over the scene where they smile.

but it seemed they were taking in their hands the freedom I yearn for,

and it broke, like a dam inside me, to envy them so, to reach so... stretching like a yoga pose

years, where will I be, where will you go?

all the old metaphors, they pop and simmer like ashes departing from a fire, floating.

worn edges.

the end of being proud.

stand apart, stand alone, but ask. speak.

resurrection

I've been silent here while life shifted and changed a million directions.

But now, perhaps it is time for words again.

There are things worth remembering. Conversations and seemingly inconsequential moments of revelation that may reshape my self if I pay them due attention.

So, words will begin again.

My time in Africa was like a deep breath in, a cherished silence I held in without the ability to exhale or express... and it still feels like that, a weight inside my chest, a bird perched on a branch with wrestling wings, about to take flight into something.

and now I am back at university, "back" and here for the first time really.