The Ides of March are back on their walk so silent they wrap me up at night
have their way with my brain
and shake my hand as they pack up their things again
just like last time.
But not like last time.
Boom-Boom-Boom, all in three’s – dates follow themselves
as if to a Sadie Hawkins dance where retards wear mismatched clothes
and I’m not woken up from under the bleachers
when it’s my turn to become a retard.
John M is 43. They would have been married 49 years.
Then a reprieve. Then the double fantasy days, just before Spring.
Each year different.
First: Shock- disastrous, unheard of, sad to say the most abandoned, free sex you had
was around the nights your father died.
In his house, he told me that shooting star was my father.
There was not a drop of guilt on me about what we did after he said that.
Seems like decades ago. The fermented, last remnants of my late
childhood.
The first year after– came the first celebration. New home, new family of people,
I cooked everything I could muster from our family, youth and heritage.
He said my hair smelled like flowers and cooked meat, and how that comforted him
and reminded him of Pittsburgh, of home and his mother.
The things I did while that woman slept in the other room.
The second year after- that was the hardest.
Not quite past that first shock and awe, but far enough away that we were gone from our house.
Where he lived, built, dreamed and died (and where I saw and felt him on those nights after,
when I was there, second floor bedroom which I had badly painted for him,
looking over from bed across the bathroom and stairway of wood, and hallway
to the other bedroom. He was right there with us still)
And waking up at 3am nightly like the plague was on its way from down deep inside me
growing up root into my brain and setting up shop like quicksand.
I was not myself, and yet didn’t know how I had been before. That thing I lost –
it was ok that it was gone, but did something good leave too, or was something deeper
sprouting there, and I could see it yet. Blindfold barefoot sleepwalk through the back-
garden under the moon, little green stems curling around my ankles and toes.
Arms tied tight,
no end in sight of this, as I jumped across self created minefields.
So far away it all was.
A need to run away brought me back to the girl on the west coast who met him, stayed in that house,
loved him, and stood up drinking wine with us til the late hours……
She would always make him smile, and loved his Johnny Cash red and black
cowboy plaid shirt he wore far too often,
(I cried the day I went to the top of my bookshelf to smell it but it didn’t smell like him anymore.
It just smelled like an old, un-worn shirt).
As he regaled her about love, and friends, and being yourself no matter what others said,
and I ran to her to quell my pangs of year 2.
Champagne and wine in her back bedroom near the pool,
bandaged me and saw me through again.
Then year 3 – I had become myself again, not the one that had been a child. More food,
more love, more experience in the only home I ever felt I had in this godforsaken city.
I had wished he could have seen it. And still wish with every new face I recognize,
that he was around for a late night wine-soaked talking fest.
Change, and recumbent, drowning in soil
and fucked by the moon. New is now old, and joints and brain waves squeak.
Upon this comes year 4. Stealthily marching like good, starving men who have won the war,
and are on their way back home to us, their women.
What must it have been like in ancient times to fight for years, and decades some-
then, win or surrender, if alive and breathing still,
perhaps months or more to walk home, after the fact. Probably a pacifist by the time
you reached your door; no more energy for war stories, as you’ve told to each other
and yourself every step of the way back.
This is where we are, today.
The war, the trauma and blood, the brutal meanings, and shocking sites,
the drums of passion, and that which brought us up,
the rhetoric of all that we believed in, which lifted us high and took us to this place,
-him carrying me all day on his shoulders at the thanksgiving parade when I was five,
even though he was nearly 50 and it hurt his back so-
All of that colourful silk of homeland flag waving back to me,
reminds me
when it comes back again, in the quiet of 3am, awoke from dreams,
I might welcome it into my arms and a whisper.
The sort that tells secrets, that we’ve known to ourselves all along.
M. Lucia
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Solitaire
At the bottom of the cylinder lies our way up and over
the over that organizes itself into gas money, tickets torn off new dresses
the zeal of dragons tearing your throat out
but you only notice the last few drops on the floor,
which needs again to be polished
big bright red footprint turning in upon itself
telling you exactly where you are,
because the dim dying flicker of electric light
put you there.
The metallic sun drilling smiles across your faces
convinced that you are important, scrubbing
sponging, re-wiring yourself to accept
again and again the faulty underpinnings-
A house of cards is still just badly drawn figures
a king, a queen on a shiny laminated frame
biding time at the bottom right corner of this pre-packaged
cylinder. How it shines
how it reflects just what you told it to,
with your threats, delusions and insults.
That lacquered floor screaming up at you, begging you
to put it out of its misery:::
the blistering burns, the snake infested pond
waiting in the dullest darkness, its shadow your only hope.
Protecting you and offering up its terror so you stay just where
it wants you to be. You and you and you,
in control of so much. We are in control of nothing
except the way our arrow flies, or drives, or blackmails
or subscribes to words and ways and lives we conjure up.
The expert witches run out of town by the locals;
don't try to formulate their brew. It's not for amateurs,
like you. Polish, grind, chatter away the silence of seconds-
that's all we're good for. Giving up before we start
is the greatest card trick that deck of ugly royals
ever dreamed up. Papercuts down our backs, ruled
over by the absolute longitudes of our fears.
Circle back again, I think you missed a spot.
M. Lucia
the over that organizes itself into gas money, tickets torn off new dresses
the zeal of dragons tearing your throat out
but you only notice the last few drops on the floor,
which needs again to be polished
big bright red footprint turning in upon itself
telling you exactly where you are,
because the dim dying flicker of electric light
put you there.
The metallic sun drilling smiles across your faces
convinced that you are important, scrubbing
sponging, re-wiring yourself to accept
again and again the faulty underpinnings-
A house of cards is still just badly drawn figures
a king, a queen on a shiny laminated frame
biding time at the bottom right corner of this pre-packaged
cylinder. How it shines
how it reflects just what you told it to,
with your threats, delusions and insults.
That lacquered floor screaming up at you, begging you
to put it out of its misery:::
the blistering burns, the snake infested pond
waiting in the dullest darkness, its shadow your only hope.
Protecting you and offering up its terror so you stay just where
it wants you to be. You and you and you,
in control of so much. We are in control of nothing
except the way our arrow flies, or drives, or blackmails
or subscribes to words and ways and lives we conjure up.
The expert witches run out of town by the locals;
don't try to formulate their brew. It's not for amateurs,
like you. Polish, grind, chatter away the silence of seconds-
that's all we're good for. Giving up before we start
is the greatest card trick that deck of ugly royals
ever dreamed up. Papercuts down our backs, ruled
over by the absolute longitudes of our fears.
Circle back again, I think you missed a spot.
M. Lucia
Ohio State Prison - Part 1 - Saint Francesca of Frankincense
Frankincense. Smelled like the inside of a church. She never much cared for the rules of the whole thing. Confessing every little thing that might have been wrong, then hail marying it all back to a clean slate. Like eating your own tail, digging yourself into the hole, kicking yourself out of it again, that sloping bed of dirt always there, waiting for you, warm as a mother but dirty and empty too. Why confess to them anyway. Them and their secret families, gambling addictions and little altar boys, mouths all sewn together into a patchwork vestment. But the vestments got her hot, if on one of the younger priests. Cassocks, some might say was a dress, but when the set of priests not much older than her older brother came walking down the halls, smelling of books and bourbon, she'd watch the black smooth fabric just above sweeping the floor and wonder if they were still men underneath all that. What were they trying to hide out from, still and sound in their long black capes. They looked like aristocrats from those novels they learned about in high school. Their eyes darting from something she could not see, the keen air they kept close behind them as they went.
She wasn't telling them anything, not in school when she was busy tearing up her plaid skirt to let them know just how she worshipped at the altar of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The Holy Three was mainly useful when it was shouted out by an unscrupulous superior, when taking the Lord's name in vain was the only time he served any purpose to her. Now, here, in jail, it wasn't any different. Francesca worked her ass off in here, sewing torn vestments for the chapel services and dusting the minimal of statues that the prison chapel had to offer. There was no incense in here, not sure the reason, perhaps it would incite the women to something. It always turned her on. Just like she said, the rules and regulations were never high up on her list of favourite things, but the rituals were like time slowed down into something. Life outside of the mass was boring, happening in real time, murky colours and dull voices not saying or breathing anything particularly useful or of interest to Francesca. But time stopped when those young priests would speak in Latin, the silky sound of their cassocks drifting past her as they went, swinging smokey smells of Frankincense. The flickering candles, just like those which alighted near her swinging legs just now, made what happened around those moments like being caught inside those statues, with no one looking in on you.
Before her life shred into the many separate and chaotic directions it did, before she fucked up royally as her mother would say, and got herself locked up in here, and certainly before she gave into those experiences which called her name and decided it was her place, that dirt bed practically holding up a sign for her to just lie down, without penance and without any hope of ever digging herself out again, Francesca used to read books about Jesus' crucifixion. She was obsessive about it. She read about all the things they did to him - the thorns, the humiliation, the hot sun bearing down on the cracks in his sweaty skin, burning alive up there by Choice. That part she couldn't bear to think about. It made her cry sometimes, to think of him up there, all alone in the world. Maybe that's why she loved being in churches so much - being in this prison chapel any chance she got, the sense of sanctity caught underneath her fingernails as she dug them harder into the back of his neck. This was all part of the ritual too, wasn't it. On the outside, she ended up fucking her big, fat and ugly landlord to keep her mother in that apartment, and all the schemes and ideas he had, and the others, always making her do all the hard work, and take the fall when it came around checking beds at night. It was fine. It got her in here, and her ability to sew and clean (and probably her Italian name, what did these fucking fools know of anything - they wouldn't know a transubstantiation if the wine/blood and host/flesh came up and bit them in the ass). Just like he bit her back from behind her right now.
This was the ultimate ritual happening in the dark of the two only cheap candles (electric flicker of course, so people like Francesca couldn't burn it down to the ground and end the blatant miseries of all those other so called lives in there). Frankie might have the warden, but she found herself one prison priest who happened to like girls and not slender little fags like Frankie. Late afternoon, but it was indeed dark in there. Closed so the floors could be polished, and she was being fucked left right and center, just like the good catholic that she was. Reading psalms, placing bets on the number of bite marks and bruises from his priestly hands that she'd be hiding when back in the mix with those other sorrowful bitches, herself shining out among them, a saint among men and women, not like those cold, frigid statues who looked down on us all with half open eyes, needing dusting in their ears, not even bearing of cunts. Her cunt was the saintliest part of her, the one part which didn't make mistakes and give into circumstance and find new ways of losing. She felt particularly like Mary Magdalen, the so called whore, who Jesus loved the most (who stayed there at his feet, he hanging there extended over his bed of dirt, the one they made for him), she felt like double M Mary when the rosary of this visiting priest dangling clean into her mouth, the body of Jesus the Lord drowning in between her pliable lips as she bit down hard on the nails which kept him in his place....his hidden cock dipping into the holy waters between her legs, on the chapel floor, slippery and shiny and freshly buffed, just like every Friday afternoon.
Going to confession was never as transformative as all this. The nearby cheap folding chairs making the slightest knocking noise as he forced himself deeper into her, Jesus in her mouth, his priestly foot soldier's cock making short work of the holiest unspoken words being etched along the walls of her cunt, the sanctimonious halls which shudder and shook, like those evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah must have when the big, mean God of old stamped them out. He'd fuck every sin clean out of her, and she'd be saintly, just like she always wanted to be. Who'd have thought she would have found that in this place. Second hand bibles shifting in their secondhand, movable pews. They weren't allowed frankincense in here, which Francesca had mentioned before. But, as he licked the back slope of her neck and came inside her from behind, his hair tickling her just behind her right ear - Francesca could swear she smelled the smoky, comforting smell of frankincense wafting a halo around her fuck knotted hair with reverence and respect for all of her sacrifices, from the start until now. It felt and smelled like books she couldn't make out the words to and would never read, her scabbed knees left kneeling on the liquid shine of the chapel wood floor. While she moaned her best cry for Jesus and took in a good, long breath of his Kingdom, as it came with all the imperfect glory it could muster. She had exactly 14 minutes to get back to the cell block.
M. Lucia
She wasn't telling them anything, not in school when she was busy tearing up her plaid skirt to let them know just how she worshipped at the altar of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The Holy Three was mainly useful when it was shouted out by an unscrupulous superior, when taking the Lord's name in vain was the only time he served any purpose to her. Now, here, in jail, it wasn't any different. Francesca worked her ass off in here, sewing torn vestments for the chapel services and dusting the minimal of statues that the prison chapel had to offer. There was no incense in here, not sure the reason, perhaps it would incite the women to something. It always turned her on. Just like she said, the rules and regulations were never high up on her list of favourite things, but the rituals were like time slowed down into something. Life outside of the mass was boring, happening in real time, murky colours and dull voices not saying or breathing anything particularly useful or of interest to Francesca. But time stopped when those young priests would speak in Latin, the silky sound of their cassocks drifting past her as they went, swinging smokey smells of Frankincense. The flickering candles, just like those which alighted near her swinging legs just now, made what happened around those moments like being caught inside those statues, with no one looking in on you.
Before her life shred into the many separate and chaotic directions it did, before she fucked up royally as her mother would say, and got herself locked up in here, and certainly before she gave into those experiences which called her name and decided it was her place, that dirt bed practically holding up a sign for her to just lie down, without penance and without any hope of ever digging herself out again, Francesca used to read books about Jesus' crucifixion. She was obsessive about it. She read about all the things they did to him - the thorns, the humiliation, the hot sun bearing down on the cracks in his sweaty skin, burning alive up there by Choice. That part she couldn't bear to think about. It made her cry sometimes, to think of him up there, all alone in the world. Maybe that's why she loved being in churches so much - being in this prison chapel any chance she got, the sense of sanctity caught underneath her fingernails as she dug them harder into the back of his neck. This was all part of the ritual too, wasn't it. On the outside, she ended up fucking her big, fat and ugly landlord to keep her mother in that apartment, and all the schemes and ideas he had, and the others, always making her do all the hard work, and take the fall when it came around checking beds at night. It was fine. It got her in here, and her ability to sew and clean (and probably her Italian name, what did these fucking fools know of anything - they wouldn't know a transubstantiation if the wine/blood and host/flesh came up and bit them in the ass). Just like he bit her back from behind her right now.
This was the ultimate ritual happening in the dark of the two only cheap candles (electric flicker of course, so people like Francesca couldn't burn it down to the ground and end the blatant miseries of all those other so called lives in there). Frankie might have the warden, but she found herself one prison priest who happened to like girls and not slender little fags like Frankie. Late afternoon, but it was indeed dark in there. Closed so the floors could be polished, and she was being fucked left right and center, just like the good catholic that she was. Reading psalms, placing bets on the number of bite marks and bruises from his priestly hands that she'd be hiding when back in the mix with those other sorrowful bitches, herself shining out among them, a saint among men and women, not like those cold, frigid statues who looked down on us all with half open eyes, needing dusting in their ears, not even bearing of cunts. Her cunt was the saintliest part of her, the one part which didn't make mistakes and give into circumstance and find new ways of losing. She felt particularly like Mary Magdalen, the so called whore, who Jesus loved the most (who stayed there at his feet, he hanging there extended over his bed of dirt, the one they made for him), she felt like double M Mary when the rosary of this visiting priest dangling clean into her mouth, the body of Jesus the Lord drowning in between her pliable lips as she bit down hard on the nails which kept him in his place....his hidden cock dipping into the holy waters between her legs, on the chapel floor, slippery and shiny and freshly buffed, just like every Friday afternoon.
Going to confession was never as transformative as all this. The nearby cheap folding chairs making the slightest knocking noise as he forced himself deeper into her, Jesus in her mouth, his priestly foot soldier's cock making short work of the holiest unspoken words being etched along the walls of her cunt, the sanctimonious halls which shudder and shook, like those evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah must have when the big, mean God of old stamped them out. He'd fuck every sin clean out of her, and she'd be saintly, just like she always wanted to be. Who'd have thought she would have found that in this place. Second hand bibles shifting in their secondhand, movable pews. They weren't allowed frankincense in here, which Francesca had mentioned before. But, as he licked the back slope of her neck and came inside her from behind, his hair tickling her just behind her right ear - Francesca could swear she smelled the smoky, comforting smell of frankincense wafting a halo around her fuck knotted hair with reverence and respect for all of her sacrifices, from the start until now. It felt and smelled like books she couldn't make out the words to and would never read, her scabbed knees left kneeling on the liquid shine of the chapel wood floor. While she moaned her best cry for Jesus and took in a good, long breath of his Kingdom, as it came with all the imperfect glory it could muster.
M. Lucia
It's not even midnight yet and
I've just enjoyed a creme brulee.
It's a specialty of the house
don't you know and
I don't mean to pry but
what do you intend to do with that
rapier wit, that yellow heart that quarrel, that quandry?
It remains to be seen.
I've just ordered another creme brulee.
Funny thing that French upon french
all for want of a fine dessert finished fine
in the end by the end of a kitchen torch.
And that in itself, such a thing to be had
in the commonest of public rooms such a weapon
of low regard and high purpose to be the imbiblicled
verse in a high-flame poem.
I've just enjoyed a creme brulee.
Goodnight, oh good night.
I've just enjoyed a creme brulee.
It's a specialty of the house
don't you know and
I don't mean to pry but
what do you intend to do with that
rapier wit, that yellow heart that quarrel, that quandry?
It remains to be seen.
I've just ordered another creme brulee.
Funny thing that French upon french
all for want of a fine dessert finished fine
in the end by the end of a kitchen torch.
And that in itself, such a thing to be had
in the commonest of public rooms such a weapon
of low regard and high purpose to be the imbiblicled
verse in a high-flame poem.
I've just enjoyed a creme brulee.
Goodnight, oh good night.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Guest Speaker
One flaming torch with a purple handle
two happy faces with oranges sandals
three white doves, you are the ones I love...
two happy faces with oranges sandals
three white doves, you are the ones I love...
Friday, February 25, 2011
CHET, TWIT
So I was brushing the bourbon off my teeth last night, prior to taking my tea and heading to bed. I noticed out the powder room window that my neighbor was still in his garage, despite the hour. What's he doing now? I thought. Then the music started again--I could hear it through the double-pane windows, across the breadth of our two yards and through his metal garage doors. He's always in there with the reggae music and its ugly jungle rhythms! And I never know what they're singing about with those accents (which sound fake by the way) but it sounds vaguely, I don't know, insubordinate? They always seem to want retribution of some sort but you know how those type are, always complaining about what they DON'T have and not focusing on what they do. And I never understood why a white man like him, my neighbor that is, would listen to the reggae and get all mixed up with people who apparently "have shot the sheriff." I was flossing so hard from anger I was making my gums bleed. I could see him through one of his cloudy and greasy garage door windows and I think I saw him 'taking a toke' I think they call it--toking on a marijuana cigarette. I saw once in a movie a man making a marijuana cigarette for himself and at some point it involved him licking the paper with his tongue which just seems unsanitary at a minimum but surely not something done by a polite person, not that any of the dirty people toking the cigarette afterwards seemed either polite nor seemed to care about this other dirty man's saliva. I wondered if he was in there, my neighbor that is, with someone else licking his papers and sharing his drugs with him and listening to his nasty music. While exfoliating I was able to keep one eye out through the venetians and I suddenly saw my neighbor's 13 year old son exit the rear door of their house. I saw him cross the driveway and peek into the window at my neighbor, his father. It was only then that I realized that the boy was completely naked - not even shoes. Naked and fully erect, and I'm not talking about his posture, as far as I could tell through the double-pane windows, and across the breadth of our two yards. He then turned the corner of the garage (13 year old et. al. if you know what I mean) and disappeared into the darker areas of their yard, presumably out by the swing set, the younger of the two neighbor children seemed to spend a lot of time on. What is wrong with these people? I thought. I applied some apple-compote moisturizer and did my gargle with grain alcohol and rainwater. When I turned out the light I noticed orange flames on the walls of the powder room. Looking out the window again there was a light from behind MY garage this time. Cinching the belt of the Spa Comfort bathrobe I swiped from the Four Zebras resort in Djibouti, I exited the back door of my home and immediately came face to face with a massive raccoon ransacking my trash cans. I bared my teeth at him and made a sound that approximated the goggle-gobble of a wild turkey which I had just read is the best method for chasing raccoons without engaging them since they could be dangerous and rabid and who needs rabies when one is holding tickets for a flight next week to Thailand and a weekend of eastern delicacies, if you know what I mean, and I sure hope you do because I'm not going to explain it--no sir, not in a millions years. The raccoon lumbered his big caboose off my trash and shuffled down the driveway towards the woods across the street. He'd be back I thought. I walked across the wet spring grass not caring that my Prada slippers were dampening and craned my neck tentatively around the side of the garage. I immediately felt the heat of what my eyes had not yet had the opportunity to completely focus on nor my brain the chance to process mentally. There seemed to be gigantic circle of flames like at a circus lion show only at least 30 feet in diameter, and as I gazed through the circle of fire there was some optical illusion that made it seem like there was nothingness beyond. Not white or black, just nothingness. Suddenly the 13 year old knocked me to my knees running past and did what looked like one of those flop leaps the Olympiads do when clearing the high jump bar, and as he did so, since he was facing me, he stuck both middle fingers up at me which along with the third finger he was sporting made for quite a humiliating display, especially since the knees of my pajamas were now completely soaked through and would have to be laundered, again. As he leaped through the circle of fire it vanished along with him leaving me on my knees in the dark. I heard the reggae get suddenly louder as my neighbor was yelling though the now open side door of his garage. "Hey Chet, what're you doing back there?"
RANDOM DIARY ENTRIES
--So keep breathing deeply and slowly.
--And you can write about anything--things that may have happened or that may have frightened you or made you uneasy in the past--there's nothing here that can hurt you.
--I was pushing the stroller...it's cloudy. I'm thinking--I remember thinking "the sky is gray and it's colder than I thought it would be."
--It was late February.
--It was such a cold winter. I hate the cold. The weather...the weather makes me sad. Since that day the cold just depresses me. I just want to hide fr---I can see the cold. I can see other people hiding in their coats. I see their breath, clouds around their mouth. I guess I feel it but I'm only thinking about getting Alice bundled in her stroller. I'm trying to get the blankets around her legs. We had this faux bear-skin blanket she loved. She loved...
--I can see her face. Such sweetness, oh...
--She was being a pest. I remember that now. She kicked her legs. I can only see her smiling though. Isn't that funny?
--There was a bird our backyard. She lost her eggs. I could see them there on the ground under the tree. Broken---
--I was wrapping her legs with the blanket. I'm talking to her. Telling her about the park and what we were going to do there. And she's smiling. She's squirming in her seat; under the seatbelt. But I'm talking to her and she's smiling. Now. So sweet. And I see him out of the corner of my eye.
--He's wearing a dark coat. I can't see a face. I can't--
--Can I just say! The bird. The mother bird. She was up there tending the nest. Doesn't she KNOW they're gone?
--I CAN'T SEE THE FACE. I'm talking to him. I'm looking right at him. Right up at him. I'm not looking at her anymore. Only him. I feel my hands still working the blankets around her legs. I feel them under my hands now. The warmth...the bones.
--"..."
--I only looked as the legs slid through my hands. Why...what was he doing? I'm tangled in the stroller and she's smiling at me...she's not crying...not squirming, just smiling as he carried her away.
--Now I'm laying on my back watching the bird; watching her, absurdly moving the sticks around the nest. I'm laying here on the ground beneath her with yoke in my hair...
--love is a river. where does the water come from? where does it go? why won't it stop flowing?
--And you can write about anything--things that may have happened or that may have frightened you or made you uneasy in the past--there's nothing here that can hurt you.
--I was pushing the stroller...it's cloudy. I'm thinking--I remember thinking "the sky is gray and it's colder than I thought it would be."
--It was late February.
--It was such a cold winter. I hate the cold. The weather...the weather makes me sad. Since that day the cold just depresses me. I just want to hide fr---I can see the cold. I can see other people hiding in their coats. I see their breath, clouds around their mouth. I guess I feel it but I'm only thinking about getting Alice bundled in her stroller. I'm trying to get the blankets around her legs. We had this faux bear-skin blanket she loved. She loved...
--I can see her face. Such sweetness, oh...
--She was being a pest. I remember that now. She kicked her legs. I can only see her smiling though. Isn't that funny?
--There was a bird our backyard. She lost her eggs. I could see them there on the ground under the tree. Broken---
--I was wrapping her legs with the blanket. I'm talking to her. Telling her about the park and what we were going to do there. And she's smiling. She's squirming in her seat; under the seatbelt. But I'm talking to her and she's smiling. Now. So sweet. And I see him out of the corner of my eye.
--He's wearing a dark coat. I can't see a face. I can't--
--Can I just say! The bird. The mother bird. She was up there tending the nest. Doesn't she KNOW they're gone?
--I CAN'T SEE THE FACE. I'm talking to him. I'm looking right at him. Right up at him. I'm not looking at her anymore. Only him. I feel my hands still working the blankets around her legs. I feel them under my hands now. The warmth...the bones.
--"..."
--I only looked as the legs slid through my hands. Why...what was he doing? I'm tangled in the stroller and she's smiling at me...she's not crying...not squirming, just smiling as he carried her away.
--Now I'm laying on my back watching the bird; watching her, absurdly moving the sticks around the nest. I'm laying here on the ground beneath her with yoke in my hair...
--love is a river. where does the water come from? where does it go? why won't it stop flowing?
Monday, February 21, 2011
Sleep Tight Wallace, or Here's a Toast--To Men Named 'Dave'
What?
Are you looking at me?
What do you want?
Yeah, I'm drunk, so...what? At least I'm not fucking dead.
Yeah, don't even look at me. I fucking HERE; battling it out. Yeah, I get it. It was fucking hard for you. You think this is a picnic?
I'm just here, taking a piss. There you are, hanging on the wall, because I fucking PUT you there. And now I have to hear you complain? How would you have done anything different? No really, Dave, how??
Easy for you, 'cause you're a fucking genius. I'm left here battling it out, no fucking MCCARTHER GENIUS GRANT for me, as I cross a frozen 5th Avenue listening to the man imploring me to check out the discount breakfast trying (me) to figure out where the smell of fresh cut wood came from...go ahead, hang yourself. I'll be here, fighting the fight you laid out for me.
No one said it would be easy...
Are you looking at me?
What do you want?
Yeah, I'm drunk, so...what? At least I'm not fucking dead.
Yeah, don't even look at me. I fucking HERE; battling it out. Yeah, I get it. It was fucking hard for you. You think this is a picnic?
I'm just here, taking a piss. There you are, hanging on the wall, because I fucking PUT you there. And now I have to hear you complain? How would you have done anything different? No really, Dave, how??
Easy for you, 'cause you're a fucking genius. I'm left here battling it out, no fucking MCCARTHER GENIUS GRANT for me, as I cross a frozen 5th Avenue listening to the man imploring me to check out the discount breakfast trying (me) to figure out where the smell of fresh cut wood came from...go ahead, hang yourself. I'll be here, fighting the fight you laid out for me.
No one said it would be easy...
DFW, goodnight
You reached into the chaos
of the fire; its arrogant laughter
didn't hear you coming.
It eviscerated you, as you took
careful note of its process.
The meanings of its whisper, made
when it was begging you to wipe its slate clean.
of the fire; its arrogant laughter
didn't hear you coming.
It eviscerated you, as you took
careful note of its process.
The meanings of its whisper, made
when it was begging you to wipe its slate clean.
A new start always
possible.
Your courage which told our excuses
Your courage which told our excuses
to fuck off,
in the kindest, most humane way you could.
in the kindest, most humane way you could.
M. Lucia
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Suicide Notes
There is a dull aching pain somewhere in the nether strands
of the pit of his belly
of the nerve endings hiding beneath my full, aching ass.
He is getting rid of all of his books, leaving them on my doorstep; announced after the fact.
There have been bags of books once lent, read,
of the nerve endings hiding beneath my full, aching ass.
He is getting rid of all of his books, leaving them on my doorstep; announced after the fact.
There have been bags of books once lent, read,
accidentally elephant-eared,
combed through, taped up and talk about in the front
combed through, taped up and talk about in the front
corners of bars.
Summers ago, when time opened up rather than closed down.
Metal element chipping away at tiny shards that embed themselves
beneath his lips, and gums- hardness that he cannot swallow,
mingling in the dark with the voices that lie to him daily.
Re-arrange ourselves in the light- occult, magick, history
Sade, Christ, Miller, Crowley and Yeats - all here to be shuffled around from his past to my feet.
Old, hard bindings of filmmaking from a non-digital era. I keep the ones with artful screen captures,
but let the rest of that roadway go.
Now I have my own piles, waiting to move out the door, except
Summers ago, when time opened up rather than closed down.
Metal element chipping away at tiny shards that embed themselves
beneath his lips, and gums- hardness that he cannot swallow,
mingling in the dark with the voices that lie to him daily.
Re-arrange ourselves in the light- occult, magick, history
Sade, Christ, Miller, Crowley and Yeats - all here to be shuffled around from his past to my feet.
Old, hard bindings of filmmaking from a non-digital era. I keep the ones with artful screen captures,
but let the rest of that roadway go.
Now I have my own piles, waiting to move out the door, except
they won't get picked up on my street
feral cats make playthings of them, and shelters
feral cats make playthings of them, and shelters
constructed out of brutal meanings
and a lack of ambition which flailed against my earlier years...
Wind tosses us about, as I run from his doorsteps down, in the black cold to the car. Before the night is out, and I am drunk
he returns more and more, there again
and a lack of ambition which flailed against my earlier years...
Wind tosses us about, as I run from his doorsteps down, in the black cold to the car. Before the night is out, and I am drunk
he returns more and more, there again
-left outside and bequeathed to me.
He is erasing himself, and I am powerless to stop him.
My words have weight - power, touch, pictures, hope and reach.
But they do not stick with him. His words have no art,
no colour, or humor or perspective.
He never thought himself a writer, but his words leave me speechless
and though response always given, it is too wordy, meaningless
and I fall through the scattered, torn holes in its retort,
and he comes again to chosen silence.
So this exchange moves back and forth, in late winter,
in borrowed bags- our hopes, dreams, lusts now numb
his vitality stuck up its own ass.
He is erasing himself, and I am powerless to stop him.
My words have weight - power, touch, pictures, hope and reach.
But they do not stick with him. His words have no art,
no colour, or humor or perspective.
He never thought himself a writer, but his words leave me speechless
and though response always given, it is too wordy, meaningless
and I fall through the scattered, torn holes in its retort,
and he comes again to chosen silence.
So this exchange moves back and forth, in late winter,
in borrowed bags- our hopes, dreams, lusts now numb
his vitality stuck up its own ass.
He cannot laugh at that juxtaposition.
What will he do next. If he folded himself up
What will he do next. If he folded himself up
into the fetal position,
mailed himself to my door-
I would cut him open, rip out all the blackened, burnt, over ripe
and underused cancers from his center,
mailed himself to my door-
I would cut him open, rip out all the blackened, burnt, over ripe
and underused cancers from his center,
dice him in a fine, equal style
and plant him all around my home. Feed, clothe, love and caress
each part until they grew up strong again, into the light, even if
that light were crooked, diagonal and wayward, like mine.
I would cook his head up in a deep seasoned pan,
until his brains let him loose and seered itself into something new, his flavorings dancing upwards into the clear
heavens above my kitchen,and plant him all around my home. Feed, clothe, love and caress
each part until they grew up strong again, into the light, even if
that light were crooked, diagonal and wayward, like mine.
I would cook his head up in a deep seasoned pan,
until his brains let him loose and seered itself into something new, his flavorings dancing upwards into the clear
my hearth his resting place.
Off of his laurels, his synapses are shutting down-
his self not seeing, his life unmovable from the place in which it
remains as it is. The same as he always is,
muddled and self-suffocated,
with a knife sticking out his side, driven from the inside-out,
silently hugging his knees in my doorway,
waiting for me to come home, as he suffers the wind
and the moon bearing its light down upon his lids
turning counter-clockwise in their sleep.
M. Lucia
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Fifth, Second
Slowly, almost as a secret being whispered in the ear of a lover--a delicate truth spoken in the arms of passion, of desire, and of belief, utterly, in moment over narrative or history, over before or after--only now, and now and now.
Then a suggestion, a promise, a leading line--this to that and in turn to this other thing as well. And you think that the promise is of far-off things, suggesting dues to be paid and the passage of time, duties fulfilled.
But no.
Suddenly it's upon you; well before you thought it would EVER come. There it is, bold and brash, spoken in no uncertain terms and in major themes; it marches, but only so far. Because like the hand burned after the too-soon reach, there is doubt. Always doubt and question. Analysis and unfettered ferreting out of deception's potential for misleads.
Suggestion returns and then with it again that certain knowledge leading only again to question. Why this cycle? One wonders whether this is the human condition, to cast about this way, back and forth from doubt to truth to doubt again. Themes and variations, melodies taken up up by different instruments some more mature some wanting youth and some achieving it. Then one looks around and finds no one else asking similar questions.
Then there is the feeling of true loss. Why only me?
Where did they all go? Mother, father, sister, brother?
Then a suggestion, a promise, a leading line--this to that and in turn to this other thing as well. And you think that the promise is of far-off things, suggesting dues to be paid and the passage of time, duties fulfilled.
But no.
Suddenly it's upon you; well before you thought it would EVER come. There it is, bold and brash, spoken in no uncertain terms and in major themes; it marches, but only so far. Because like the hand burned after the too-soon reach, there is doubt. Always doubt and question. Analysis and unfettered ferreting out of deception's potential for misleads.
Suggestion returns and then with it again that certain knowledge leading only again to question. Why this cycle? One wonders whether this is the human condition, to cast about this way, back and forth from doubt to truth to doubt again. Themes and variations, melodies taken up up by different instruments some more mature some wanting youth and some achieving it. Then one looks around and finds no one else asking similar questions.
Then there is the feeling of true loss. Why only me?
Where did they all go? Mother, father, sister, brother?
Friday, February 18, 2011
App
The powers what bes is upset that that game's being played on multiple platformulae to the detriment, ain't it, of regular-type well-adjusted, sufficiently nourished otherwise non-suicidal citizens.
ERASE YOUR MAP APP
"APP" meaning "application" one assumes, not necessarily being in THAT sort of "know," don't you know.
One assembles ones avatar to resemble something versioned from a darker side, from ones back-catalogue of sins and depravations, one's 'one' but otherwise lacking in moral fibre, certain redeemables voided and purchases reproofed. Maybe you're left with a familiar from the mirror, an homunculur doppelganger with pubic tousles and halitosis and in all your worst wardrobery. You stare into the screen in your hand and sneer the name only you remember from the origin-event playground turn-away from trouble ass-kicking humiliation because you've separated yourself fully now--it didn't happen to you but to HIM, that pathetic fuck.
He's overwhelmed by life, weaned from the sweetness of virtue's breast milk and YOU did that to him which is the ultimate betrayal, the uber-back-turn, and you liked doing it. And now you deny him also all he has left: both his life and the means by which it is ended. You choose-gun, rope, razor, pill. Slip him off, in your heaviest boots, the beautifully iRendered night ship-at-sea, pushing him face first, to map erasure.
They wonder, they speculate, they cast theories and theses, hypo- and otherwise, about/on the relative virtues and those lacking of giving play to dark impulses as they've always done from the beginning of time always thinking this supposed last-straw finally something genuinely bad enough to merit censure. It isn't though. No one decides who ain't decided already. All decisions are egg-bound from the beginning. On the other hand no one who already decided changes his mind given unlimited access to speculate and fantasy-roll-play map erasure.
None of it matters any more or less than it has ever mattered.
ERASE YOUR MAP APP
"APP" meaning "application" one assumes, not necessarily being in THAT sort of "know," don't you know.
One assembles ones avatar to resemble something versioned from a darker side, from ones back-catalogue of sins and depravations, one's 'one' but otherwise lacking in moral fibre, certain redeemables voided and purchases reproofed. Maybe you're left with a familiar from the mirror, an homunculur doppelganger with pubic tousles and halitosis and in all your worst wardrobery. You stare into the screen in your hand and sneer the name only you remember from the origin-event playground turn-away from trouble ass-kicking humiliation because you've separated yourself fully now--it didn't happen to you but to HIM, that pathetic fuck.
He's overwhelmed by life, weaned from the sweetness of virtue's breast milk and YOU did that to him which is the ultimate betrayal, the uber-back-turn, and you liked doing it. And now you deny him also all he has left: both his life and the means by which it is ended. You choose-gun, rope, razor, pill. Slip him off, in your heaviest boots, the beautifully iRendered night ship-at-sea, pushing him face first, to map erasure.
They wonder, they speculate, they cast theories and theses, hypo- and otherwise, about/on the relative virtues and those lacking of giving play to dark impulses as they've always done from the beginning of time always thinking this supposed last-straw finally something genuinely bad enough to merit censure. It isn't though. No one decides who ain't decided already. All decisions are egg-bound from the beginning. On the other hand no one who already decided changes his mind given unlimited access to speculate and fantasy-roll-play map erasure.
None of it matters any more or less than it has ever mattered.
Mr. Sullivan’s Wild Ride
No grain alcohol
burns, with my forward flung lips;
knees knock / tippy-toed
the clock unseen, off-
screen. Scraping scar tissue from
my solar plexus;
droplets seal my smile
bite the bottoms of my soles,
you terrible fiends…
I only scream once,
at the highest pulls you got,
roller coaster ride.
Pitch me down, lifeless
lift me back into the fold-
I am myself, both.
M. Lucia
burns, with my forward flung lips;
knees knock / tippy-toed
the clock unseen, off-
screen. Scraping scar tissue from
my solar plexus;
droplets seal my smile
bite the bottoms of my soles,
you terrible fiends…
I only scream once,
at the highest pulls you got,
roller coaster ride.
Pitch me down, lifeless
lift me back into the fold-
I am myself, both.
M. Lucia
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Ohio State Prison - It's A Boy! (Part 7)
Mary Alice could hardly contain herself. All the little sparrows that sang in her broad shaped heart were a flutter, and not only soaring around her sinewy tree branches and houses of hopes and thoughts, but announcing the coming gala, in her honor as she always knew it would be. Mary Alice herself could barely keep still for the anticipation. The prison would have a moment wherein the breath that it breathed – that it was allowed to breathe – would be relaxed, unfettered by stress, or pain or destitute feeling. Everyone would finally come together as one scattered, but whole happy family.
There they all were, come to celebrate the birth of her baby. She had thought it would take place in the sunny summer months, like the perfect wedding that she still had to plan. She hadn’t been eating as much as the other women at dinner time – she knew the stories her mother used to tell her about fitting into your wedding dress. She used to try on her mother’s when she would be cleaning downstairs, but even as a growing ten year old, it just wouldn’t fit. Her mother had pretty much consigned herself to purposefully eating “like a bird” and would glow from pale cheeked ear to ear every time a guest in the house would tell her mother this, and/or compliment her tiny waistline. The thing was, birds looked plumper than her mother did. She used to bleach the already very light brown hair on her cheeks, which seemed to grow in volume over the years. She never explained why, but made sure to drill it into Mary Alice that a lady doesn’t eat too much, and only loose women had wide hips. It puts notions in men’s heads that proper ladies and respectful wives didn’t abide by. Mary Alice had done her best to fulfill this prophecy and even now, as she was about to give birth, she tried her absolute best to keep her weight down, but she happened to be beset (her mother’s idea of the “opposite of blessed”) with her father’s mother’s wide hips. “Child bearing?”, her mother would say. “You want to give birth, not suffocate the poor thing”. So it hadn’t worked as well as she would have liked, but there was a “big” woman or two in the prison that thought she was a little darling. They acted really strange towards her, licking their lips and grabbing crudely at their own oversized, pillow like chests. They scared her a little bit, but a compliment, after all, is a compliment. They loomed over her when they said anything to her, reiterating the monikers they created for her, there stuck in the laundry, their “little knocked up darling” or “darling miss firestarter”. They didn’t understand. The thoughts of anyone understanding floated far from her mind as she passed the cells, the work rooms, the kitchen, its dirty smell of old sponges and rancid garbage that should have been thrown away days ago. He would be sorry, and so would her parents.
They led her into the recreation room, and it was decorated from head to toe in little blue paper mache rattles and words “It’s A Boy” etc. There was food, which for once looked somewhat decent, though her stomach hadn’t been right and she couldn’t bring herself to eat much. There were the big women, leering and overstuffing their plates with spaghetti from a can (though one of the better varieties). The guards actually looked pleasant, and calmer, yet stumbling in their relaxed eyesight over their weighted down shoulders and grey, heavy feet. Making sure the behaviour wasn’t too raucous or out of control. They knew how this set of women could get. It wasn’t just the women – the younger and less dangerous of the male prisoners were all allowed in. It was like some kind of dream – not the dream Mary Alice had hoped for – there was no church, no betrothed to see her through, but she already had taken steps to changing all that. She had been preparing for this party ever since she found out about the baby, shortly after she got to prison. The food was scattered, but plentiful. The bright, peppermint-orange winter sun shone in through the barred windows, casting down onto everyone’s faces with warmth and its markings. She wanted to tell the young boys who were sipping some kind of hustled, stolen liquor in their cups to quit it. They were laughing too loud and saying mean things, which her ears didn’t want to hear. There was the big fellow, who minded his own business, when the men’s version of the big chested ladies would bother him. He looked forlorn, but seemed to stuff his face wildly, as if his life depended on it. One of the older male guards who was sent in to watch the men’s side of things huffed and stood at the back, looking as if he was simultaneously keeping an eye out on everyone and taking a nap on the inside of his saggy pupils. Little Frederick stood near the snack foods, delicately taking one at a time and smiling at some of the other guys. He was so slender, and popular – she wished she knew his secret. He would have probably made a good husband, but she had to take care of This thing, and Then That thing. Her mother would have been proud. She had not been in her right mind when she had hung up on Mary Alice on that blistery day from jail, when she had called her mother, pleading for her to pay the bail and let her come home. “There Is no home for you. You destroyed it forever!” “And, you are the reason your father left”. That one hurt her the most. There was some kind of numb, dull aching rage in her bones on the day she piled up all the dresses and lit them bright as the orange light now, which shone into her. She felt blessed, finally. There was, however, still some agitation. Some of the lewder ones were high fiving across the other side of her party and laughing. She always thought anyone laughing around her, meant it was About her. She felt the same feeling, as the pain came up and down her thighs. No, she would see this party out. It was in her honor!
Down near the old, empty plastic filing cabinets which were left in the rec room for nowhere else to go, sat Francesca, haggard from the drugs she didn’t know anyone knew about (but Mary Alice had seen her sneaking them around, and knew of her affinity for some, well, most of the guards who procured them for her), eyeballing the crowd and staring daggers at little Frankie. You would think she was in love with him. Frankie just smiled back with a very lovely wave, one which seemed kind of lady like to Mary Alice. Her mother would have loved Frankie- all cordialities, soft voice and proper airs. Then there was a row of women sitting – the Talkers, they were called. They didn’t do much, were all known for their often dull conversations about their men, their kids from different men, their only topics of said conversation…they knitted whole scarves, gloves and socks with those mostly off, knotted and endlessly frustrated but seemingly acceptable onslaughts of words. She wished those words turned into actual knitting, as Mary Alice was sure to need some baby boots and blankets (there were no gifts piled up, as she had hoped, but she knew some things were an impossibility even in prison). Annemarie had huge hips – Mary Alice didn’t like her much, she had bad skin and looked like a waitress in a truck stop or something like that. One was super skinny, with red stringy hair, and looked like a ten year old boy. She would always say the same phrase no matter what was spoken to her: “you’re too funny”. Mary Alice heard her say it about a hundred times in the months she had been here. There was never a change in tone, or inflection or volume. Did she mean it every single time or was she thinking something awful in her pale little head? She probably thought Mary Alice shouldn’t have gained so much weight when pregnant. Mary Alice’s heart beat faster at this, and she was less able to contain the pain that was swirling inside her belly, it was beginning to gain ground, so she had to make this fast. Then there was Manuela, who had long, bright nails and tried to eat a sandwich while staring off at the blank, opposite wall. She loved to say the words “dime a dozen” while snapping her fingers, so much so that Mary Alice thought she might as well have gotten the words written on her forehead. She sounded like a a waitress in a bad Mexican restaurant and looked like the sandwich she was eating made her as happy as just about anything else would. Then, the guards snickered, and the walls shook.
Mary Alice was taken aback, and then fell back- almost fainting, as the blood trees inside her shot up to the sky which pounded at her weak heart. There was blood all over her hands, and between her legs. The metal on the ground made a shrieking noise as it cornered into the infirmary. Mary Alice opened her eyes just fast enough to see the swish of the empty rec room as they swept past. It didn’t have a table set up with food, or any people, and the sun wasn’t even shining today. Not even the sun came to the party, it seemed. It didn’t matter. The drugs had made their way in and she could see them all standing around her – shouting and chaos and low lids, and her mother, standing there holding up the tiny, narrow wedding dress that Mary Alice would now fit into! She felt a sharp tug at her insides, and tasted pennies in her mouth. She used to lick her wounds as a child, when the neighborhood kids would hit her with sticks in the forest. She liked the taste, and it felt warming, like a cup of soup coating her throat. All the sharpness turned sour, and then like a waterfall’s gush lifted her up with a thud – she couldn’t understand why the thud noise when it was up, up, up she was going. Away from this place, and those tacky, big hipped, knitting, sandwich eating women and those rough and girl like men, away from the jeers and stares and whispers about her. Her parents, even him, the one who made all this happen to her, they maybe had come to get her at the party and bring her safely home – the home was fine now, not lit up, not destroyed. Her father had returned, and the boy wanted to marry her, just like he once promised her. Her lips were the colour of the red lipstick that her mother had warned her about. It was ok, though. It didn’t matter anymore. When they wheeled Mary Alice and her sterile sheet (she had probably washed, dried and folded herself, with all the care she could muster) back downstairs to the morgue, a tiny pouch at her side, both silent, both bloodless, all she could hear in the shadows that followed was the hum of the dryers again (someone else was in charge of them now), the humming of Frankie mid-step in heading once again to see the warden as he did every Friday evening, and the cackle of one or two nameless, faceless women – happy as sows chewing on freshly painted grass, echoing in the near distance of the tall, reflecting halls. Like mirrors, they shone back into Mary Alice and soaked heavy into her clean white sheet, as the double doors made a small, fractured thud behind her.
M. Lucia
There they all were, come to celebrate the birth of her baby. She had thought it would take place in the sunny summer months, like the perfect wedding that she still had to plan. She hadn’t been eating as much as the other women at dinner time – she knew the stories her mother used to tell her about fitting into your wedding dress. She used to try on her mother’s when she would be cleaning downstairs, but even as a growing ten year old, it just wouldn’t fit. Her mother had pretty much consigned herself to purposefully eating “like a bird” and would glow from pale cheeked ear to ear every time a guest in the house would tell her mother this, and/or compliment her tiny waistline. The thing was, birds looked plumper than her mother did. She used to bleach the already very light brown hair on her cheeks, which seemed to grow in volume over the years. She never explained why, but made sure to drill it into Mary Alice that a lady doesn’t eat too much, and only loose women had wide hips. It puts notions in men’s heads that proper ladies and respectful wives didn’t abide by. Mary Alice had done her best to fulfill this prophecy and even now, as she was about to give birth, she tried her absolute best to keep her weight down, but she happened to be beset (her mother’s idea of the “opposite of blessed”) with her father’s mother’s wide hips. “Child bearing?”, her mother would say. “You want to give birth, not suffocate the poor thing”. So it hadn’t worked as well as she would have liked, but there was a “big” woman or two in the prison that thought she was a little darling. They acted really strange towards her, licking their lips and grabbing crudely at their own oversized, pillow like chests. They scared her a little bit, but a compliment, after all, is a compliment. They loomed over her when they said anything to her, reiterating the monikers they created for her, there stuck in the laundry, their “little knocked up darling” or “darling miss firestarter”. They didn’t understand. The thoughts of anyone understanding floated far from her mind as she passed the cells, the work rooms, the kitchen, its dirty smell of old sponges and rancid garbage that should have been thrown away days ago. He would be sorry, and so would her parents.
They led her into the recreation room, and it was decorated from head to toe in little blue paper mache rattles and words “It’s A Boy” etc. There was food, which for once looked somewhat decent, though her stomach hadn’t been right and she couldn’t bring herself to eat much. There were the big women, leering and overstuffing their plates with spaghetti from a can (though one of the better varieties). The guards actually looked pleasant, and calmer, yet stumbling in their relaxed eyesight over their weighted down shoulders and grey, heavy feet. Making sure the behaviour wasn’t too raucous or out of control. They knew how this set of women could get. It wasn’t just the women – the younger and less dangerous of the male prisoners were all allowed in. It was like some kind of dream – not the dream Mary Alice had hoped for – there was no church, no betrothed to see her through, but she already had taken steps to changing all that. She had been preparing for this party ever since she found out about the baby, shortly after she got to prison. The food was scattered, but plentiful. The bright, peppermint-orange winter sun shone in through the barred windows, casting down onto everyone’s faces with warmth and its markings. She wanted to tell the young boys who were sipping some kind of hustled, stolen liquor in their cups to quit it. They were laughing too loud and saying mean things, which her ears didn’t want to hear. There was the big fellow, who minded his own business, when the men’s version of the big chested ladies would bother him. He looked forlorn, but seemed to stuff his face wildly, as if his life depended on it. One of the older male guards who was sent in to watch the men’s side of things huffed and stood at the back, looking as if he was simultaneously keeping an eye out on everyone and taking a nap on the inside of his saggy pupils. Little Frederick stood near the snack foods, delicately taking one at a time and smiling at some of the other guys. He was so slender, and popular – she wished she knew his secret. He would have probably made a good husband, but she had to take care of This thing, and Then That thing. Her mother would have been proud. She had not been in her right mind when she had hung up on Mary Alice on that blistery day from jail, when she had called her mother, pleading for her to pay the bail and let her come home. “There Is no home for you. You destroyed it forever!” “And, you are the reason your father left”. That one hurt her the most. There was some kind of numb, dull aching rage in her bones on the day she piled up all the dresses and lit them bright as the orange light now, which shone into her. She felt blessed, finally. There was, however, still some agitation. Some of the lewder ones were high fiving across the other side of her party and laughing. She always thought anyone laughing around her, meant it was About her. She felt the same feeling, as the pain came up and down her thighs. No, she would see this party out. It was in her honor!
Down near the old, empty plastic filing cabinets which were left in the rec room for nowhere else to go, sat Francesca, haggard from the drugs she didn’t know anyone knew about (but Mary Alice had seen her sneaking them around, and knew of her affinity for some, well, most of the guards who procured them for her), eyeballing the crowd and staring daggers at little Frankie. You would think she was in love with him. Frankie just smiled back with a very lovely wave, one which seemed kind of lady like to Mary Alice. Her mother would have loved Frankie- all cordialities, soft voice and proper airs. Then there was a row of women sitting – the Talkers, they were called. They didn’t do much, were all known for their often dull conversations about their men, their kids from different men, their only topics of said conversation…they knitted whole scarves, gloves and socks with those mostly off, knotted and endlessly frustrated but seemingly acceptable onslaughts of words. She wished those words turned into actual knitting, as Mary Alice was sure to need some baby boots and blankets (there were no gifts piled up, as she had hoped, but she knew some things were an impossibility even in prison). Annemarie had huge hips – Mary Alice didn’t like her much, she had bad skin and looked like a waitress in a truck stop or something like that. One was super skinny, with red stringy hair, and looked like a ten year old boy. She would always say the same phrase no matter what was spoken to her: “you’re too funny”. Mary Alice heard her say it about a hundred times in the months she had been here. There was never a change in tone, or inflection or volume. Did she mean it every single time or was she thinking something awful in her pale little head? She probably thought Mary Alice shouldn’t have gained so much weight when pregnant. Mary Alice’s heart beat faster at this, and she was less able to contain the pain that was swirling inside her belly, it was beginning to gain ground, so she had to make this fast. Then there was Manuela, who had long, bright nails and tried to eat a sandwich while staring off at the blank, opposite wall. She loved to say the words “dime a dozen” while snapping her fingers, so much so that Mary Alice thought she might as well have gotten the words written on her forehead. She sounded like a a waitress in a bad Mexican restaurant and looked like the sandwich she was eating made her as happy as just about anything else would. Then, the guards snickered, and the walls shook.
Mary Alice was taken aback, and then fell back- almost fainting, as the blood trees inside her shot up to the sky which pounded at her weak heart. There was blood all over her hands, and between her legs. The metal on the ground made a shrieking noise as it cornered into the infirmary. Mary Alice opened her eyes just fast enough to see the swish of the empty rec room as they swept past. It didn’t have a table set up with food, or any people, and the sun wasn’t even shining today. Not even the sun came to the party, it seemed. It didn’t matter. The drugs had made their way in and she could see them all standing around her – shouting and chaos and low lids, and her mother, standing there holding up the tiny, narrow wedding dress that Mary Alice would now fit into! She felt a sharp tug at her insides, and tasted pennies in her mouth. She used to lick her wounds as a child, when the neighborhood kids would hit her with sticks in the forest. She liked the taste, and it felt warming, like a cup of soup coating her throat. All the sharpness turned sour, and then like a waterfall’s gush lifted her up with a thud – she couldn’t understand why the thud noise when it was up, up, up she was going. Away from this place, and those tacky, big hipped, knitting, sandwich eating women and those rough and girl like men, away from the jeers and stares and whispers about her. Her parents, even him, the one who made all this happen to her, they maybe had come to get her at the party and bring her safely home – the home was fine now, not lit up, not destroyed. Her father had returned, and the boy wanted to marry her, just like he once promised her. Her lips were the colour of the red lipstick that her mother had warned her about. It was ok, though. It didn’t matter anymore. When they wheeled Mary Alice and her sterile sheet (she had probably washed, dried and folded herself, with all the care she could muster) back downstairs to the morgue, a tiny pouch at her side, both silent, both bloodless, all she could hear in the shadows that followed was the hum of the dryers again (someone else was in charge of them now), the humming of Frankie mid-step in heading once again to see the warden as he did every Friday evening, and the cackle of one or two nameless, faceless women – happy as sows chewing on freshly painted grass, echoing in the near distance of the tall, reflecting halls. Like mirrors, they shone back into Mary Alice and soaked heavy into her clean white sheet, as the double doors made a small, fractured thud behind her.
M. Lucia
Thursday, February 10, 2011
PART ONE
Then there was the summer that I worked the coat check in a place called The Secret Society of the Brown Monkey.
I got the job from my friend Mickey Mascotti.
Mickey wasn't a member of the society but he was on the waiting list, and the waiting list entitled you to use the facilities on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, before 9pm.
Mickey said he couldn't really say too much about what went on inside, partially because there was the whole question of secrecy but also because he wasn't sure Tuesday and Wednesday nights before 9 was prime time in Brown Monkey circles and that he didn't really get the sense that non-prime time Brown Monkey activity was so much less of something wonderful as more like something different designed to both haze Brown Monkey acolytes and, by jacking up drink prices during these off hours, fund raise essentially.
Mickey noticed certain curtained and sheeted apparatuses that portended mysterious yet titillating promise of debaucheries to come which Mickey took to be of a sexual nature, of course.
Mickey was once, and only briefly, suspended from the fifth grade for flashing his fully-erect penis, and a waggling tongue, out the leg of his powder blue terry-cloth shorts, and mouth, respectively, at Mary Alice Freund during a gym-class square-dance and was only eventually allowed to return to school after his mother had produced a letter from Mickey's 'analyst,' a Dr. Quaff, which alluded to certain deficiencies in Mickey's home life in the father-figure department, which led (the deficiencies) in many cases, not unlike this one, to desperate incidents, on the part of the "unfortunate youngster," of assumed intimacy and sometimes even attacks of what are typically perceived as being of a lewd and sexual nature by unthinking and knee-jerking school administrators (the doctor was careful to point out that, in his experience, the 'unthinking' type of school administrators were those who had matriculated at what could only be thought of as 'lower-echelon' institutions of higher learning as opposed to, say, our principal's alma mater, for example, which was deftly referenced in a previous paragraph as that of Quaff himself) and that if the girl in question could be persuaded to accept a carefully and completely passed-around-and-approved letter of apology, the incident could be put to rest in a way that would do the least damage to all concerned, from a, strictly-speaking, long-term mental health perspective.
Dr. Quaff was in fact a well-known chiropractor--well-known, that is, in the neighborhood across the tracks, as they say, from that of "all concerned," save Mickey and his mother who was one of Quaff's "most loyal patients and indeed a close personal friend."
Mickey had a different elaborate prediction about each apparatus' use and origin every time he checked his coat, proffering each sotto voce and side-mouthed and only when we were completely alone.
Part of the coat check job was sweeping the wood floors in the lobby and stacking cases of Pellegrino-brand sparkling mineral water in the rear of the coat check closet.
I never saw the cases of Pellegrino leave the closet but on the day they were delivered there was always space to add more.
There was no sign or anything indicating that the building or the establishment had anything to do with something called the Secret Society of the Brown Monkey or anything that could be even a euphemistic reference to such a club, building or establishment.
Monkeys, brown or otherwise, never entered into it as far as I could see.
Occasionally a giraffe necked man with painfully white skin and blue-black shiny hair would arrive in the driveway in a golf cart wearing pointy-toed brown boots and green suit with velvet lapels.
I got the job from my friend Mickey Mascotti.
Mickey wasn't a member of the society but he was on the waiting list, and the waiting list entitled you to use the facilities on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, before 9pm.
Mickey said he couldn't really say too much about what went on inside, partially because there was the whole question of secrecy but also because he wasn't sure Tuesday and Wednesday nights before 9 was prime time in Brown Monkey circles and that he didn't really get the sense that non-prime time Brown Monkey activity was so much less of something wonderful as more like something different designed to both haze Brown Monkey acolytes and, by jacking up drink prices during these off hours, fund raise essentially.
Mickey noticed certain curtained and sheeted apparatuses that portended mysterious yet titillating promise of debaucheries to come which Mickey took to be of a sexual nature, of course.
Mickey was once, and only briefly, suspended from the fifth grade for flashing his fully-erect penis, and a waggling tongue, out the leg of his powder blue terry-cloth shorts, and mouth, respectively, at Mary Alice Freund during a gym-class square-dance and was only eventually allowed to return to school after his mother had produced a letter from Mickey's 'analyst,' a Dr. Quaff, which alluded to certain deficiencies in Mickey's home life in the father-figure department, which led (the deficiencies) in many cases, not unlike this one, to desperate incidents, on the part of the "unfortunate youngster," of assumed intimacy and sometimes even attacks of what are typically perceived as being of a lewd and sexual nature by unthinking and knee-jerking school administrators (the doctor was careful to point out that, in his experience, the 'unthinking' type of school administrators were those who had matriculated at what could only be thought of as 'lower-echelon' institutions of higher learning as opposed to, say, our principal's alma mater, for example, which was deftly referenced in a previous paragraph as that of Quaff himself) and that if the girl in question could be persuaded to accept a carefully and completely passed-around-and-approved letter of apology, the incident could be put to rest in a way that would do the least damage to all concerned, from a, strictly-speaking, long-term mental health perspective.
Dr. Quaff was in fact a well-known chiropractor--well-known, that is, in the neighborhood across the tracks, as they say, from that of "all concerned," save Mickey and his mother who was one of Quaff's "most loyal patients and indeed a close personal friend."
Mickey had a different elaborate prediction about each apparatus' use and origin every time he checked his coat, proffering each sotto voce and side-mouthed and only when we were completely alone.
Part of the coat check job was sweeping the wood floors in the lobby and stacking cases of Pellegrino-brand sparkling mineral water in the rear of the coat check closet.
I never saw the cases of Pellegrino leave the closet but on the day they were delivered there was always space to add more.
There was no sign or anything indicating that the building or the establishment had anything to do with something called the Secret Society of the Brown Monkey or anything that could be even a euphemistic reference to such a club, building or establishment.
Monkeys, brown or otherwise, never entered into it as far as I could see.
Occasionally a giraffe necked man with painfully white skin and blue-black shiny hair would arrive in the driveway in a golf cart wearing pointy-toed brown boots and green suit with velvet lapels.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
The Pike is Two Faced
The Pike will turn on her,
and drown her in her own juices,
and slide what's left of her out to the river;
you know, the one that washes away all the sins,
but the baptists and bluesmen who hold court by that river will shoo her
sorry ass far from their happy shores.....
and on she will float,
bloated, short, useless-
to some untold and mundane oblivion.
~ M. Lucia
and drown her in her own juices,
and slide what's left of her out to the river;
you know, the one that washes away all the sins,
but the baptists and bluesmen who hold court by that river will shoo her
sorry ass far from their happy shores.....
and on she will float,
bloated, short, useless-
to some untold and mundane oblivion.
~ M. Lucia
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Waste Land
On the other hand, swarms of excitement brew in my belly, where the city has made me soft, and alone, aching to see the places in which we have not stamped our ridiculous seal onto things. The old adage is true about goth teenagers slinking into graveyards, making wet, mushy and barely audible crunches with their over sized boots and praying to the moon that their little enclave stays safe, the one in advanced art class, that they were purposefully attending a second time, so that they may find a space away from the vacuous, the big haired losers, the jocks who were about to springboard themselves into the sorry little lives they led today, the overtly petite cheerleaders whose cunts must have over expanded and dried up years ago, the average ones who occupied space and nothing more, waiting for their average parents to show them just how incredibly and wonderfully average they could be in their lives – there, in that class, those kids listened to what was then called “alternative” music and dressed however they liked, and made art that gave them some kind of inward voice, to revel and rage up at all the others, surrounding the little art school room, on the lower levels of the school, like ants marching towards winter. Surrounded – always. Those kids, yes, they enjoyed roaming the woods and the cemeteries which were supplanted (from “colonial times”) everywhere in that town, and its outskirts. There were tiny smatterings of cemeteries (really, just 5 -10 or so headstones, surrounded usually but not always by an old, rickety and crooked, short wooden fence, to keep God knows what out – dogs, raccoons, us- the child of a dwarf could climb these “fences” without barely lifting his leg off of the ground. There was one at the end of your long and winding dirt road, one at the end of many, one outside the town hall, and one smack in the middle of the back end of the high school, up the hill where the buses lined up, towards the top of that hill was the smaller stone structure where the slow ones learned – the pothead, heavy metal shirt clad ones, murky like a cloud of exhaust in dirty snow, making their way up and down the perimeters of the halls of the high school. Well, those mini-cemeteries being spread and dotted around the towns and rural outlying areas, like anything seen and gotten used to every day, made the sight of death (granted death far removed from our place and time) and the resting place of such death common somehow. You didn’t need to dye your hair black and listen to Cure to know that fact. There was always a kind of comfort from those places – like those first citizens of our village were protecting our corners, watching them at night and in the days when we were away from home, they were there, just as much a part of our community as we were.
So back to the trails that led us here. One of those kids from that classroom, utterly alienated and unhappy per the usual teenage memo most receive by about fifteen years of age, used to climb the big hill in the back of the house which led up to an unused chicken coop. It wasn’t used when they lived there either, but it was always there. It was like a microcosm, ground packed tight in snow, or grass or moss, under the world, wherein you could see whole dynasties and civilizations rise, conquer and fall just as softly back into the ground, from whence they thought they could blast off from. In that tiny, cold wooden chicken coop you can sit, in the absolute quiet and tender winter air, while the world churns, and makes, and wastes, and buys and throws away, and feels badly about it, and then does it again and again, exploiting every patch of “new” they could get their grubby, ineffectual hands on. Away from that, this hill remains. The sun shines perfectly onto it, into the latticework that the thin, northern branches allow to pass safely through. The stealthy grey cat, otherwise known as the abortionist, used to knock baby bird eggs one by one out of the nearby branches and onto the hard ground. There is nothing like taking a fat, lazy indoor cat and letting him loose outside. Even if it’s been years since he’s been out there, he’ll remain scared for a moment, and then – something will cross his eyes and he will be aligned with his surroundings in a shot. One good sniff, and the eyes perk – it’s up the trees, onto the hunt, and wayward zig zags across the gardens and the lands. This same cat could be seen marching down that same hill, from the chicken coop, dead mouse in its mouth and dropping it in front of its fat, orange mother, like a sacrificial prize. The fat one begins to eat the mouse – head, ears, brain, tongue, everything. She leaves nothing but the tail and then non chalantly meanders off. Good family relations. Another cat, in a more southern hemisphere did the same to a baby rabbit, leaving a perfectly halved carcass in a patch of sand. One you might have non chalantly picked up by its untouched (and only) back feet and flung further off into the pine trees. Dogs are no better – bounding unfettered from the woods behind the first house with bloody deer legs in their mouths – proud as children, pleased as punch. Upsetting when you see the garden snake perched on the shore of the pond, innocent frog in his mouth, slowly being digested down his ever fattening snake throat. Yeah, you might have run inside, afraid of that turning of the wheel, afraid that you had no control over it. But rest assured, that set of creatures do as they know to. Nothing more, nothing less.
And what of us? We are not so logical, so instant and forgiving with our outdoor adventures. They told you to keep any cats indoors on Halloween, especially black ones – because some “satanic” (i.e. those that went to the tiny version of the high school behind the gravestones) kids were sacrificing (i.e. killing as a remedy to familial resentment, general disgust and mistrust of themselves and the world) cats for Halloween. And other times too. Remember when they found that decapitated man in the park, the one which wasn’t a park at all – but a collection of medium sized fields, an enormous pond for ice hockey and ice skating (where that kid Tommy threw a snowball at you, giving you a bloody nose, because he liked you and wanted you to be his girlfriend), along with various swing sets, tee pees, and those apparatuses which just twirled you around. There, in that haven of childhood, this guy got his head chopped off. It was a serial killer, they thought. Not sure if they found any more, but always in your mind you think of Chicatilow in Russia – he killed something like hundreds of men, women, hookers, boys – buried them in the woods outside of Moscow and farther than that. It’s not the same thing, obviously as the cycle of life repeating itself. But it’s necessary, else it wouldn’t happen. Sadly, some people just create that little spot for themselves in the woods by their very processes, or lack thereof. There are girls hiding in the guise of women who have admitted that they are on a destructive track, one which might get them killed one day. You know those – the ones who, when you find the body, ravaged and cut up and dumped in the same woods you played as a child, emanate such Relief across their faces. For some, assisted suicide, for others the bad luck star shone heavily onto them, for still others – it was just the way they headed. Deserving something or not doesn’t change the fact that the world allowed it to happen. That’s where all the arguments of the right vs. wrong types lose weight.
Those goth kids will still be depressed even now, and years from now, stumbling over the bodies of the dead, through the moss of the microcosm, the chicken coop holding in its walls another lonely teen. Whoever’s running down that hill now is running over the bones of two very loved german shepherds – wrapped, and buried at least 6 feet under, in homemade wooden coffins by a man whose greatest advice to you was “If you have any problems in your life – just sit in nature for awhile. Watch it, really watch it. The animals, the sky, the ground, the trees, all of it. Whatever your problem, you can find an answer to it if you just look at nature”. The same man cut the tail off of their childhood dog who they lovingly referred to as “Bitch” in another language. Fear not, the world is no safer or more beautiful behind the parallel of the trees at the sides of the highway. They are not a cloak, but a marker, into that restless primitive inside our soft and medicated selves, running from snakes, delighting in the gruesome view of mice being devoured whole by their killers, looking into the eyes of our own killers and deciding what steps to take, curling up in the corner of the whistling wind beating the sides of the abandoned little coop, and letting go of our destinies, only to see what actually lay before us, and we, free to actually greet its darkness and shadow, its wet earth which may open up and swallow us whole into its dreaded afterlife. No matter how deep in the forest you are, there can and always will be that moment when you take one more step, left right or center, and a vista bursts into view of sky, open light and egress which you didn’t know was there just one single step previous.
Reams and reams of years in between – and still, quashed and released by cities, held in and bullied by countryside, I still can remember it. Each and every time wherein arrives this feeling, the one wherein my stomach gives way, my head shakes loose itself from its foundations, and my eyes just Go – taking along that thing I may refer to as my heart, but really it can’t have a name – else if it did, it’d be on display in each and every strip mall from here to Moscow; purging from my pores, between my legs, out my ears and whistling into the space outside of myself, when my feet aren’t on the ground anymore no matter their location, I think of it. I am ten years old, and at my friend’s house, set in the middle of the woods, with those skunk cabbages and weeds, and slim, snaky gorges forming a little fence around the land on either side, and I am on her tire swing, tied tightly (hopefully) to the widest tree trunk which is set at the edge of a cliff. Even now, it couldn’t be seen as being small to my adult eyes….it is a huge drop, onto fields of corn and wheat below. The pale sky and the warmth of its sunset shining at me in the distance. I swing more and more, the feeling of swinging off of that great hill enthralls me like nothing else. I could drop at any moment- there are no parents, no adults, no rules keeping me behind. I know I shouldn’t. I could fall, the knot on the tire swing could come loose (if it so chose), my feet could slip, but no – I wrap my legs around the vehicle and I rock more and more, backing up further and further into the shadows and letting myself release out into the warm late afternoon breeze. The colours of the sun are lessening, and there is nothing but Light at which I'm becoming, and transcending from each time. My heart is pumping, and then calmed. My stomach churning, and then at peace. You are in control of nothing, and safe in the knowledge that nothing is in control of you. The light catches me every time, and, to this very day and place no matter what moment I have found myself aroused to my core because of, I am back there, soaring, and scared, and unsure, and never-ending.
~ M. Lucia
So back to the trails that led us here. One of those kids from that classroom, utterly alienated and unhappy per the usual teenage memo most receive by about fifteen years of age, used to climb the big hill in the back of the house which led up to an unused chicken coop. It wasn’t used when they lived there either, but it was always there. It was like a microcosm, ground packed tight in snow, or grass or moss, under the world, wherein you could see whole dynasties and civilizations rise, conquer and fall just as softly back into the ground, from whence they thought they could blast off from. In that tiny, cold wooden chicken coop you can sit, in the absolute quiet and tender winter air, while the world churns, and makes, and wastes, and buys and throws away, and feels badly about it, and then does it again and again, exploiting every patch of “new” they could get their grubby, ineffectual hands on. Away from that, this hill remains. The sun shines perfectly onto it, into the latticework that the thin, northern branches allow to pass safely through. The stealthy grey cat, otherwise known as the abortionist, used to knock baby bird eggs one by one out of the nearby branches and onto the hard ground. There is nothing like taking a fat, lazy indoor cat and letting him loose outside. Even if it’s been years since he’s been out there, he’ll remain scared for a moment, and then – something will cross his eyes and he will be aligned with his surroundings in a shot. One good sniff, and the eyes perk – it’s up the trees, onto the hunt, and wayward zig zags across the gardens and the lands. This same cat could be seen marching down that same hill, from the chicken coop, dead mouse in its mouth and dropping it in front of its fat, orange mother, like a sacrificial prize. The fat one begins to eat the mouse – head, ears, brain, tongue, everything. She leaves nothing but the tail and then non chalantly meanders off. Good family relations. Another cat, in a more southern hemisphere did the same to a baby rabbit, leaving a perfectly halved carcass in a patch of sand. One you might have non chalantly picked up by its untouched (and only) back feet and flung further off into the pine trees. Dogs are no better – bounding unfettered from the woods behind the first house with bloody deer legs in their mouths – proud as children, pleased as punch. Upsetting when you see the garden snake perched on the shore of the pond, innocent frog in his mouth, slowly being digested down his ever fattening snake throat. Yeah, you might have run inside, afraid of that turning of the wheel, afraid that you had no control over it. But rest assured, that set of creatures do as they know to. Nothing more, nothing less.
And what of us? We are not so logical, so instant and forgiving with our outdoor adventures. They told you to keep any cats indoors on Halloween, especially black ones – because some “satanic” (i.e. those that went to the tiny version of the high school behind the gravestones) kids were sacrificing (i.e. killing as a remedy to familial resentment, general disgust and mistrust of themselves and the world) cats for Halloween. And other times too. Remember when they found that decapitated man in the park, the one which wasn’t a park at all – but a collection of medium sized fields, an enormous pond for ice hockey and ice skating (where that kid Tommy threw a snowball at you, giving you a bloody nose, because he liked you and wanted you to be his girlfriend), along with various swing sets, tee pees, and those apparatuses which just twirled you around. There, in that haven of childhood, this guy got his head chopped off. It was a serial killer, they thought. Not sure if they found any more, but always in your mind you think of Chicatilow in Russia – he killed something like hundreds of men, women, hookers, boys – buried them in the woods outside of Moscow and farther than that. It’s not the same thing, obviously as the cycle of life repeating itself. But it’s necessary, else it wouldn’t happen. Sadly, some people just create that little spot for themselves in the woods by their very processes, or lack thereof. There are girls hiding in the guise of women who have admitted that they are on a destructive track, one which might get them killed one day. You know those – the ones who, when you find the body, ravaged and cut up and dumped in the same woods you played as a child, emanate such Relief across their faces. For some, assisted suicide, for others the bad luck star shone heavily onto them, for still others – it was just the way they headed. Deserving something or not doesn’t change the fact that the world allowed it to happen. That’s where all the arguments of the right vs. wrong types lose weight.
Those goth kids will still be depressed even now, and years from now, stumbling over the bodies of the dead, through the moss of the microcosm, the chicken coop holding in its walls another lonely teen. Whoever’s running down that hill now is running over the bones of two very loved german shepherds – wrapped, and buried at least 6 feet under, in homemade wooden coffins by a man whose greatest advice to you was “If you have any problems in your life – just sit in nature for awhile. Watch it, really watch it. The animals, the sky, the ground, the trees, all of it. Whatever your problem, you can find an answer to it if you just look at nature”. The same man cut the tail off of their childhood dog who they lovingly referred to as “Bitch” in another language. Fear not, the world is no safer or more beautiful behind the parallel of the trees at the sides of the highway. They are not a cloak, but a marker, into that restless primitive inside our soft and medicated selves, running from snakes, delighting in the gruesome view of mice being devoured whole by their killers, looking into the eyes of our own killers and deciding what steps to take, curling up in the corner of the whistling wind beating the sides of the abandoned little coop, and letting go of our destinies, only to see what actually lay before us, and we, free to actually greet its darkness and shadow, its wet earth which may open up and swallow us whole into its dreaded afterlife. No matter how deep in the forest you are, there can and always will be that moment when you take one more step, left right or center, and a vista bursts into view of sky, open light and egress which you didn’t know was there just one single step previous.
Reams and reams of years in between – and still, quashed and released by cities, held in and bullied by countryside, I still can remember it. Each and every time wherein arrives this feeling, the one wherein my stomach gives way, my head shakes loose itself from its foundations, and my eyes just Go – taking along that thing I may refer to as my heart, but really it can’t have a name – else if it did, it’d be on display in each and every strip mall from here to Moscow; purging from my pores, between my legs, out my ears and whistling into the space outside of myself, when my feet aren’t on the ground anymore no matter their location, I think of it. I am ten years old, and at my friend’s house, set in the middle of the woods, with those skunk cabbages and weeds, and slim, snaky gorges forming a little fence around the land on either side, and I am on her tire swing, tied tightly (hopefully) to the widest tree trunk which is set at the edge of a cliff. Even now, it couldn’t be seen as being small to my adult eyes….it is a huge drop, onto fields of corn and wheat below. The pale sky and the warmth of its sunset shining at me in the distance. I swing more and more, the feeling of swinging off of that great hill enthralls me like nothing else. I could drop at any moment- there are no parents, no adults, no rules keeping me behind. I know I shouldn’t. I could fall, the knot on the tire swing could come loose (if it so chose), my feet could slip, but no – I wrap my legs around the vehicle and I rock more and more, backing up further and further into the shadows and letting myself release out into the warm late afternoon breeze. The colours of the sun are lessening, and there is nothing but Light at which I'm becoming, and transcending from each time. My heart is pumping, and then calmed. My stomach churning, and then at peace. You are in control of nothing, and safe in the knowledge that nothing is in control of you. The light catches me every time, and, to this very day and place no matter what moment I have found myself aroused to my core because of, I am back there, soaring, and scared, and unsure, and never-ending.
~ M. Lucia
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