Bright Eyes's eyes cannot leak,
his ribbon lips cannot curve to the floor;
he has nothing to say (what good is a
mouth that cannot twitch?), yet clutched
to his cotton spinal column is a
string wire that - when tugged - induces
the routine purging of optimism:
"I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy,"
he caws, every syllable withering one
letter after the other:
after the rope is pulled like child's play,
runts that dig their fingers into firecrackers
exploding on fine wire, fit for executions.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
I was in a classroom. It seemed like kindergarten. The class was asked to make cards for somebody. Not sure who, but it didn't matter. I didn't have paper to work with, so I looked around the room. There was a card on the desk -- navy blue with a large red heart lined with lace hot glued on top.
Inside the card, though, led to some disappointment--and intrigue. The card had already been filled with someone else's words. Words of passion, regret, longing. Words not meant to be read by me. And yet, the card's recipient shared my first name.
Was there a mix up? Maybe this card was handed to me because someone thought it was for me:
* * *
I had to leave because things weren't safe. If there had been some sort of infection teeming through my body, you are the last person I would be with: no matter how much I want to stand by you, stroke your cheek, or share a smile with you, I could not bear to see you like me. Sick. Weak. Gross.
I joined the military after we parted, perhaps because I was scared. I wanted an excuse to leave you behind. The time me last met, there was something I never told you. That fountain where I last saw your almond eyes and tan skin bears all my secrets.
You left for a minute or two. Or three. Or four. I had forgotten why. In your absence, I felt a paroxysm finely creep through my stomach. A subtle tremor at first, leading me to ignore it. Then almost instantly my body urged my conscience to kneel at the fountain's side and hang over the edge. My insides reverberated uncontrollably, and I began to spit out worms into the water in a continuous cascade. The worms swam in the water after the dive from my tongue; if you were, I could only imagine the mortification in your eyes. The regret exposed on your forehead. The fright tethered to your lips.
So I left you, never to return until I was better. Until I had some answers.
That is why you never saw me leave. That is why I never saw you return.
* * *
The teacher came in to collect our work. "C---, I need your card." She told me.
"I'm not--"
"Please turn it in. You had plenty of time."
Defeated, I handed it in and walked out of the classroom, brimming with questions and regrets. I found myself walking by the routine forest trail I use to go home. A shortcut.
Suddenly, an impulsiveness to stand still paralyzed my body. Whatever finger I tried to move wouldn't even point. Whatever foot I attempted to kick wouldn't even tiptoe. My stomach then lit with a brewing flame within that could not be seen or extinguished.
I tried to run, and I kneeled.
I tried to holler, and I gagged.
Liquid streamed from my mouth onto the dirt path like a creek. I tried to cry and realized that my tears could not even comfort me with moisture--all my fluids were decanting the floor beneath me.
And inch by inch, I felt it crawl out. It grabbed my aged molars, first, then wriggled its way through my esophagus to have a good look at the outside. It grabbed my front teeth and stuck its nose suspiciously toward the floor, attempting to discern its whereabouts and safety. After deciding that everything was clear, I felt both its elbows touch the corners of my lips and its abdomen sliding down the apex of my tongue. Its legs made one firm kick out of my throat onto my bottom molars. Then it swiftly took a plunge onto the dirt and ran off to the trees--absolutely noiseless.
Inside the card, though, led to some disappointment--and intrigue. The card had already been filled with someone else's words. Words of passion, regret, longing. Words not meant to be read by me. And yet, the card's recipient shared my first name.
Was there a mix up? Maybe this card was handed to me because someone thought it was for me:
C---! C---! How I long to see you again! I'm sorry for what happened. I miss you so much. It was all my fault. We will meet again. But first, I have to let you know what happened.I was invading someone else's world. Perhaps two lovers, who knows? And yet, the card was with me. And I continued reading:
* * *
I had to leave because things weren't safe. If there had been some sort of infection teeming through my body, you are the last person I would be with: no matter how much I want to stand by you, stroke your cheek, or share a smile with you, I could not bear to see you like me. Sick. Weak. Gross.
I joined the military after we parted, perhaps because I was scared. I wanted an excuse to leave you behind. The time me last met, there was something I never told you. That fountain where I last saw your almond eyes and tan skin bears all my secrets.
You left for a minute or two. Or three. Or four. I had forgotten why. In your absence, I felt a paroxysm finely creep through my stomach. A subtle tremor at first, leading me to ignore it. Then almost instantly my body urged my conscience to kneel at the fountain's side and hang over the edge. My insides reverberated uncontrollably, and I began to spit out worms into the water in a continuous cascade. The worms swam in the water after the dive from my tongue; if you were, I could only imagine the mortification in your eyes. The regret exposed on your forehead. The fright tethered to your lips.
So I left you, never to return until I was better. Until I had some answers.
That is why you never saw me leave. That is why I never saw you return.
* * *
The teacher came in to collect our work. "C---, I need your card." She told me.
"I'm not--"
"Please turn it in. You had plenty of time."
Defeated, I handed it in and walked out of the classroom, brimming with questions and regrets. I found myself walking by the routine forest trail I use to go home. A shortcut.
Suddenly, an impulsiveness to stand still paralyzed my body. Whatever finger I tried to move wouldn't even point. Whatever foot I attempted to kick wouldn't even tiptoe. My stomach then lit with a brewing flame within that could not be seen or extinguished.
I tried to run, and I kneeled.
I tried to holler, and I gagged.
Liquid streamed from my mouth onto the dirt path like a creek. I tried to cry and realized that my tears could not even comfort me with moisture--all my fluids were decanting the floor beneath me.
And inch by inch, I felt it crawl out. It grabbed my aged molars, first, then wriggled its way through my esophagus to have a good look at the outside. It grabbed my front teeth and stuck its nose suspiciously toward the floor, attempting to discern its whereabouts and safety. After deciding that everything was clear, I felt both its elbows touch the corners of my lips and its abdomen sliding down the apex of my tongue. Its legs made one firm kick out of my throat onto my bottom molars. Then it swiftly took a plunge onto the dirt and ran off to the trees--absolutely noiseless.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Wrote this on December 27, 2009. Recently unearthed.
1
What is the use of the day and the night? I’ve often wondered about why a sun should need to perturb the sleeper’s eyelids. Perhaps it is among the most despised disturbances in life, waking from a much preferred—or much needed—slumber. Yet waking up also assumes that there is a life you belong to; chores that need to be fulfilled, jobs that need to be worked, people that need to be loved. The same cycle is the concept of life simply going because that is just how it is. I concur with Robert Frost’s draconian opinion about life: “It goes on.”
Conversely, sleep is as much a foe as it is a friend. But who can hate sleep? A patient, perhaps, etherized on a lonely hospital bed with an absent mind and soul; a widowed grandmother alone at home, hiding from old age; or even a youthful boy clinging onto his blanket-shield to evade his fears of a dark bedroom.
I’ve never been a spiritual person. Sometimes, when my story leaks to unctuous others, they talk of incubus and spiritual attacks with perverse conviction. That Satan had been summoning demons to intrude my nightly relapses. I know, in all earnest, that the events that took place were far from the norm. But I can never judge if someone was trying to “tell” me something; a human, a demon, an angel… maybe even my own conscience had something to say.
Yes, who am I to know? A first year college student, at the time, and I had yet to explore the strange world around me. It’s fascinating how after meeting only one person, all the difference had been made in my narrow world. Yet, I was still nauseated from the high school bubble—the social awkwardness and the criticisms for just being. I wanted to be alone, forever. I wanted to believe that life held more meaning—that I had more purpose to breathe the intoxicating fumes of Southern California than to die and have my ashes inhaled by some other living creature.
If anything, the experience only kindles my spirit.
What is the use of the day and the night? I’ve often wondered about why a sun should need to perturb the sleeper’s eyelids. Perhaps it is among the most despised disturbances in life, waking from a much preferred—or much needed—slumber. Yet waking up also assumes that there is a life you belong to; chores that need to be fulfilled, jobs that need to be worked, people that need to be loved. The same cycle is the concept of life simply going because that is just how it is. I concur with Robert Frost’s draconian opinion about life: “It goes on.”
Conversely, sleep is as much a foe as it is a friend. But who can hate sleep? A patient, perhaps, etherized on a lonely hospital bed with an absent mind and soul; a widowed grandmother alone at home, hiding from old age; or even a youthful boy clinging onto his blanket-shield to evade his fears of a dark bedroom.
I’ve never been a spiritual person. Sometimes, when my story leaks to unctuous others, they talk of incubus and spiritual attacks with perverse conviction. That Satan had been summoning demons to intrude my nightly relapses. I know, in all earnest, that the events that took place were far from the norm. But I can never judge if someone was trying to “tell” me something; a human, a demon, an angel… maybe even my own conscience had something to say.
Yes, who am I to know? A first year college student, at the time, and I had yet to explore the strange world around me. It’s fascinating how after meeting only one person, all the difference had been made in my narrow world. Yet, I was still nauseated from the high school bubble—the social awkwardness and the criticisms for just being. I wanted to be alone, forever. I wanted to believe that life held more meaning—that I had more purpose to breathe the intoxicating fumes of Southern California than to die and have my ashes inhaled by some other living creature.
If anything, the experience only kindles my spirit.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Timekeeper
By ten o'clock, I said
to watch the time;
I heard the muffled sigh of evening
rub the grass fields that had been
licked by the sprinklers.
I heard your eye
insisting that it was only eight.
Tickled by my voice, it laughed at the sound
and fanned itself with two billowy folds of silk.
A white ribbon landed in my hand
after it rolled off your cheek
when you turned your face from the window.
I tied it back onto your neck
and wrapped the same cord onto my arm.
It felt like eight o'clock.
to watch the time;
I heard the muffled sigh of evening
rub the grass fields that had been
licked by the sprinklers.
I heard your eye
insisting that it was only eight.
Tickled by my voice, it laughed at the sound
and fanned itself with two billowy folds of silk.
A white ribbon landed in my hand
after it rolled off your cheek
when you turned your face from the window.
I tied it back onto your neck
and wrapped the same cord onto my arm.
It felt like eight o'clock.
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