my knees are bruised from falling - i’m running away from you, from your need to be indifferent. there are glimpses, thoughts that perhaps i am endearing, etching myself a little bit into you. but then i think, would you help me if i couldn’t get up?
i don’t know the answer, and it makes me feel sick.
the corners of the ceiling are cloudy, smoky candles choking the air out under the door. the lightbulb blew, leaving me in yellowed darkness, sitting in an old woollen jumper. this is the part where i am stuck, i’m thinking of you, thinking if you were here right now…
you know what we are? we are a bunch of maybes, of flowers never picked. maybe it wouldn’t work, me and you, that treasured term “us”. but you never know until you try. of course, you would be the one to say you can’t miss what you never had.
i cover my face with my hands, look at you through my fingers. i can see your eyes smiling. but this is as far as we get, all we ever seem to do.
it’s been a year now, did you know? you probably don’t. you remember me but you don’t like to remember how you felt.
for you i am masks, mostly. but then there is that smile, it’s bare and it’s yours because i can’t help it. i have never been very good at acting, there is that slip and you see me, the bruises that you leave. i think that’s what makes you wary.
i have tried to write you out of my skin, out of my eyes and the spaces between my bones. but it hasn’t worked, you’ve taken up residence somewhere that i can’t find. and now there is that feeling - a deep, endless ocean feeling - that you might never get out.
6/25/10
a message from me to you.
dear little horse-face,
i have known you since i was nine years old. you have been with me for over half my life, and we’ve had some disagreements but you have always, always been there for me. and i know, you don’t fit the definition - you have four legs and can’t speak english - but shit, no one else comes close.
i remember getting to know you; i didn’t even own a saddle, we borrowed one from claire five afternoons a week. there is one moment i remember so clearly - it was after 5pm, and marked the start of my habit of talking to you even though you couldn’t respond. we just walked around, not really doing anything, sand arena under your feet until my mother came over and said i had to get off because someone else needed to use the saddle. you felt so new, i felt like i finally had what i needed, and you haven’t left me since.
and that’s why this hurts. you are moving on, slowly but surely, and i have to move without you. someone else needs you now, another nine-year-old me, and while you aren’t hers yet i feel you slipping. i want to thank you a thousand times, anchor myself to you somehow.
i am terrified of the day you might forget me.
know this, though: i will always have a place for you.
love, me.
i have known you since i was nine years old. you have been with me for over half my life, and we’ve had some disagreements but you have always, always been there for me. and i know, you don’t fit the definition - you have four legs and can’t speak english - but shit, no one else comes close.
i remember getting to know you; i didn’t even own a saddle, we borrowed one from claire five afternoons a week. there is one moment i remember so clearly - it was after 5pm, and marked the start of my habit of talking to you even though you couldn’t respond. we just walked around, not really doing anything, sand arena under your feet until my mother came over and said i had to get off because someone else needed to use the saddle. you felt so new, i felt like i finally had what i needed, and you haven’t left me since.
and that’s why this hurts. you are moving on, slowly but surely, and i have to move without you. someone else needs you now, another nine-year-old me, and while you aren’t hers yet i feel you slipping. i want to thank you a thousand times, anchor myself to you somehow.
i am terrified of the day you might forget me.
know this, though: i will always have a place for you.
love, me.
11/30/09
9/10/09
5/4/09
hymnals from lakefront houses; early winter.
four am holds a chill that creeps under skin, across the skinny planks of the deck, a chill to frighten the wood into a kind of cold that feels damp. three candles ooze wax into the grooves (a slow drip through the gaps) as a group of people sit under the weight of blankets and jackets in weather that feels almost like yuletide in london. how are the stars so bright?
a fog is edging towards the house, a slow crawl of wetness threading through browning weeds and the leaves of low-hanging trees, and soon the thin curls of cigarette smoke from those on the deck will spread, mingling into fog-smoke and enveloping the darkness of night into the grey feeling of another winter morning.
feels strange, doesn't it?
they breathe smoke like dragons at the same time, long exhales ending in sighs across the air. it's an agreement, kind of. the burning smell starts to linger in the creases of the blankets and the linings of their jackets while they sit, a reminder for later.
cheap thrills thinks a wisened house. an owl with talons that leave marks in the thick bark of trees as old as hills hoots, and agrees. the darkness is something they will grow tired of.
a fog is edging towards the house, a slow crawl of wetness threading through browning weeds and the leaves of low-hanging trees, and soon the thin curls of cigarette smoke from those on the deck will spread, mingling into fog-smoke and enveloping the darkness of night into the grey feeling of another winter morning.
feels strange, doesn't it?
they breathe smoke like dragons at the same time, long exhales ending in sighs across the air. it's an agreement, kind of. the burning smell starts to linger in the creases of the blankets and the linings of their jackets while they sit, a reminder for later.
cheap thrills thinks a wisened house. an owl with talons that leave marks in the thick bark of trees as old as hills hoots, and agrees. the darkness is something they will grow tired of.
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