I didn’t even know what was wrong with me anymore. I was well enough to see that this girl was not worth what I was doing to myself, but it seemed like I was just so wrapped in such a small thing that I just couldn’t get over it. Ironic. I think. What is irony? This is irony. If anything was ever ironic, it was this. Ironic.
Ironic. Ironic.
If you say a word enough it loses all meaning.
Meaning.
Meaning.
Meaning.
It’s lost all meaning.
“Jacob!”
Jacob.
Jacob.
Jacob.
I’ve lost all meaning.
“You left your backpack on the bus,” she spoke softly in between light breaths.
“What are you doing here?”
“You left your backpack on the bus.”
“So you came to give it to me?”
“That’s what people do for other people when they don’t hate everything.”
“I don’t hate everything.”
“What don’t you hate?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the girl of your dreams.”
She was the girl of my dreams.
“I brought your backpack.”
“Thanks.”
“What are you doing in the grass?”
“Who are you?”
The girl of my dreams.
“Is this your house?”
“I’ve never seen you before.”
“You sat next to me on the bus.”
“I think you sat next to me on the bus, actually.”
“We have classes together.”
“I’ve never seen you before.”
“I just moved here.”
“You know my name?”
“Or I’m really good at guessing, huh?”
“I guess.”
“I brought your backpack.”
“Oh yeah?”
I opened my eyes. There was no light to fill them with intoxicating rays that would
make her glow and become my angel. I had no angel.
“People normally ask the other person’s name when they meet, you know.”
People.
People.
People.
“What’s your name?”
“Megan, thanks for asking.”
“Yeah.”
She sat down beside me, her knees tucked into her chest and her long brown skirt
flooded up to her shins. She was very pale. She was beautiful.
I closed my eyes.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
I opened my eyes. The lighting was all different. I could see the infectious
spread of color darting from the setting sun across the sky. I must have nodded
off. My arm was heavy. I was comfortable though. I think she was sleeping on me.
I nodded off.
I opened my eyes. The lighting was all different. I could see the violet haze that
wrapped around the otherwise twinkling stars. A light soars through the sky,
further away than I could even grasp. I wondered how far into the past I was
staring. How long ago had that comet or star or extraterrestrial super-being shot
past our dying skies? My arm didn’t feel so heavy anymore. I didn’t feel so
comfortable anymore.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Beggars (Part II)
Soon enough the arguments set in. We failed to enjoy each other’s company, so I told her we were done, finished, no more. She cried, I cried, we cried, they cried, you cried, I cried. I was alone again, this was the way I liked it and there was nothing better. Being with her was better. I knew we wouldn’t work together, but it was just so difficult being apart, even though I couldn’t stand her, I needed her. I allowed myself to be enveloped in so many other things: music, art, poems, short stories, staying up late, and video games - anything I could do to seclude myself from the rest of the world. I was decaying inside my shell though, I couldn’t last. My parents were getting sick of me always being around, I’d lost the majority of my friends by not talking to them, and those who did stick around only agitated me with their constant focus on my isolation.
My eyes flew open, shooting stars and bright, flashing lights ran through, past and in my sight while screams, rumbling, and muffled all clogged my hearing while my head tapped against the window and the seat bounced up and down. The bus ride home.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” she asked, obviously quieting herself, noticing I was uninterested in my surroundings and had dazed off in the brief forty seconds I’d been sitting down.
Flip back to part one, paragraph five.
“Yeah,” I said flatly.
“Yeah, you mind or yeah, sit down?”
“What?”
“Can I sit?”
“Please.”
She sat down, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Are you always so happy?”
“Lately.”
“What happened?”
“She did.”
“Typical.”
“Very.”
I pulled my thick headphones around my ears, making a point to ignore her presence.
She shook her head and let her attention lie elsewhere, making a point to ignore my presence.
I think I nodded off at that point. I nodded off a lot. Nodded off. I was free when I nodded off. I was new when I nodded off. Everything was right. Nodding off. Make everything right. Nod off. Make everything new and cloudy and bring me to the other side where the grass is greener. Nod off. Nod off. Nod off.
Nudge.
Nod off.
Nudge.
Keep nodding off.
Nudge.
Freedom is always out of reach.
Nudge.
“Would you quit it!”
Those wide eyes glimmered in the clouded light. “This is your stop.”
I looked past her, out the window on the opposite side of the yellow aluminum tube. I said nothing and squeezed between her and the brown covered seat ahead. I continued up the aisle and down the steps. I walked further up the hill and stopped outside the front of the house. It wasn’t home. It was the house. I fell limp into the grass and lie there, staring up at the sky. Not staring, seeing. Not at, through. I fell limp into the grass and lie there, seeing through sky. I saw everything. Not everything, nothing. I saw nothing. Nothing was there. People look to the sky for answers and I saw nothing. There was nothing left for me. Not even a sign in the sky. Past the sky. Not even a sign past the sky. Why was I not worth a sign? I needed a sign. I wanted a sign in the sky. I wanted my sign past the sky.
My eyes flew open, shooting stars and bright, flashing lights ran through, past and in my sight while screams, rumbling, and muffled all clogged my hearing while my head tapped against the window and the seat bounced up and down. The bus ride home.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” she asked, obviously quieting herself, noticing I was uninterested in my surroundings and had dazed off in the brief forty seconds I’d been sitting down.
Flip back to part one, paragraph five.
“Yeah,” I said flatly.
“Yeah, you mind or yeah, sit down?”
“What?”
“Can I sit?”
“Please.”
She sat down, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Are you always so happy?”
“Lately.”
“What happened?”
“She did.”
“Typical.”
“Very.”
I pulled my thick headphones around my ears, making a point to ignore her presence.
She shook her head and let her attention lie elsewhere, making a point to ignore my presence.
I think I nodded off at that point. I nodded off a lot. Nodded off. I was free when I nodded off. I was new when I nodded off. Everything was right. Nodding off. Make everything right. Nod off. Make everything new and cloudy and bring me to the other side where the grass is greener. Nod off. Nod off. Nod off.
Nudge.
Nod off.
Nudge.
Keep nodding off.
Nudge.
Freedom is always out of reach.
Nudge.
“Would you quit it!”
Those wide eyes glimmered in the clouded light. “This is your stop.”
I looked past her, out the window on the opposite side of the yellow aluminum tube. I said nothing and squeezed between her and the brown covered seat ahead. I continued up the aisle and down the steps. I walked further up the hill and stopped outside the front of the house. It wasn’t home. It was the house. I fell limp into the grass and lie there, staring up at the sky. Not staring, seeing. Not at, through. I fell limp into the grass and lie there, seeing through sky. I saw everything. Not everything, nothing. I saw nothing. Nothing was there. People look to the sky for answers and I saw nothing. There was nothing left for me. Not even a sign in the sky. Past the sky. Not even a sign past the sky. Why was I not worth a sign? I needed a sign. I wanted a sign in the sky. I wanted my sign past the sky.
Puh - 5/17/10
Feel me, and my disease
Feel me, touch me please
Feel me, take my disease
Feel me, hold me please
Feel me, this was your disease
Feel me, I need you please
Reach out, and take it back
Reach out, know me please
Reach out, you need it back
Reach out, seek me please
Reach out, I don’t want it back
Reach out, leave me please
Feel me, touch me please
Feel me, take my disease
Feel me, hold me please
Feel me, this was your disease
Feel me, I need you please
Reach out, and take it back
Reach out, know me please
Reach out, you need it back
Reach out, seek me please
Reach out, I don’t want it back
Reach out, leave me please
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Beggars (Part I)
And it was the best I ever had.
I never knew the touch of another. I never knew that butterfly feeling they talk about on the movies. I never knew that one person could ever honestly miss another. I never knew the lasting desire to have and to know and to want and to need. I never understood the trust between two people. Maybe ignorance is bliss.
I don’t think I ever really saw the cup as either half full or empty. I saw it as it was, and as probability would have, the cup is rarely actually half anything. This is my life. I’ve never really thought of my life as overly challenging or easy. I was at a point of decent fluctuation.
I think this all started with her.
Raven mop was pulled into a loose artistic bun, held in place with tiny shoots of pale bamboo. Ocean blue sauce plates were topped with thin dark eyebrows. Tender, porcelain skin spread across pale rosy cheeks and the slightly puckered upper lip stood in contrast to the lower. With lips slightly stretched, and corners raised to the sky, her smile could stop traffic and commerce alike. A fair stature accentuated her attention grabbing physique.
This didn’t start with her.
I was a pretty popular kid at my school. I wasn’t entirely athletic and though I was beyond “academically equipped,” I didn’t care much for my schoolwork or for staying on task. While I had an anchor in a smaller cluster of friends, I very much enjoyed the freedom to drift and see all the people I knew, and laugh and have fun with them. While I didn’t date very many girls, I definitely flirted with and teased many more than my fair share.
I happened upon a girl somehow, one time. I don’t entirely remember how we met, but I’m sure it was unimportant. We hit it off right from the get-go. She was short, a bit tan, died black hair that managed to creep its way down to the base of her neck. She was amazing, I thought, a real looker and I’m sure she’s got a great personality to match. After just a few days of excessive flirting and pinch and tickle, we were technically, officially, a couple.
This was amazing, I thought. I love being with a girl who seems to understand me and care about me and like me and want me. Nothing could be better, she understands that I like to diversify my company and that I want and need to seemingly imitate insomniacs for my love of Xbox and its greasy, sweaty, trash talking online community. Knowing that I’m better than twelve year old kids and forty year old pedophiles who keep Pringles and Mountain Dew and an empty bottle to piss in so they never have to leave their three thousand dollar gaming chairs with the top of the line speakers and subwoofers and Italian leather somehow kept a smile plastered about my face. This only further pressured me to make it well known that I was best in the lobby and that they would be calling their moms and crying by the end of the match.
I woke up and showered and dressed and walked to school every morning. And every morning I would include myself in all the conversations around me, though I wasn’t half-interested in any of it. Eventually the girl that I soon came to claim to love would show her face and brighten my morning and light the torch that would shine greatly and immaculately throughout the rest of my day. We would skip into any of each other’s classes we could, anything we could do to be with one another that much longer. Love or lust or both was working its slippery, slimy way into the mechanical gears that drove us together, making sure that nothing we heard and said and did would affect us too harshly and drive us too close or far from one another, keeping us in just the same, perfect balance and distance apart. At the end of the day, I would lean against the rough brick wall of the school and let the girl fall against me and I would wrap my arms around her and we were safe and we were protected and no one would bother us. I would wait for her bus to arrive and once she was gone, I would walk home, all the while thinking of the girl that just happened to be in my life because I just happened upon her somehow. And this was my life, day by day, night by night — until it changed, because we all know that all good things are either really a curse in disguise or entirely, disappointingly, temporary. And this was my life.
I never knew the touch of another. I never knew that butterfly feeling they talk about on the movies. I never knew that one person could ever honestly miss another. I never knew the lasting desire to have and to know and to want and to need. I never understood the trust between two people. Maybe ignorance is bliss.
I don’t think I ever really saw the cup as either half full or empty. I saw it as it was, and as probability would have, the cup is rarely actually half anything. This is my life. I’ve never really thought of my life as overly challenging or easy. I was at a point of decent fluctuation.
I think this all started with her.
Raven mop was pulled into a loose artistic bun, held in place with tiny shoots of pale bamboo. Ocean blue sauce plates were topped with thin dark eyebrows. Tender, porcelain skin spread across pale rosy cheeks and the slightly puckered upper lip stood in contrast to the lower. With lips slightly stretched, and corners raised to the sky, her smile could stop traffic and commerce alike. A fair stature accentuated her attention grabbing physique.
This didn’t start with her.
I was a pretty popular kid at my school. I wasn’t entirely athletic and though I was beyond “academically equipped,” I didn’t care much for my schoolwork or for staying on task. While I had an anchor in a smaller cluster of friends, I very much enjoyed the freedom to drift and see all the people I knew, and laugh and have fun with them. While I didn’t date very many girls, I definitely flirted with and teased many more than my fair share.
I happened upon a girl somehow, one time. I don’t entirely remember how we met, but I’m sure it was unimportant. We hit it off right from the get-go. She was short, a bit tan, died black hair that managed to creep its way down to the base of her neck. She was amazing, I thought, a real looker and I’m sure she’s got a great personality to match. After just a few days of excessive flirting and pinch and tickle, we were technically, officially, a couple.
This was amazing, I thought. I love being with a girl who seems to understand me and care about me and like me and want me. Nothing could be better, she understands that I like to diversify my company and that I want and need to seemingly imitate insomniacs for my love of Xbox and its greasy, sweaty, trash talking online community. Knowing that I’m better than twelve year old kids and forty year old pedophiles who keep Pringles and Mountain Dew and an empty bottle to piss in so they never have to leave their three thousand dollar gaming chairs with the top of the line speakers and subwoofers and Italian leather somehow kept a smile plastered about my face. This only further pressured me to make it well known that I was best in the lobby and that they would be calling their moms and crying by the end of the match.
I woke up and showered and dressed and walked to school every morning. And every morning I would include myself in all the conversations around me, though I wasn’t half-interested in any of it. Eventually the girl that I soon came to claim to love would show her face and brighten my morning and light the torch that would shine greatly and immaculately throughout the rest of my day. We would skip into any of each other’s classes we could, anything we could do to be with one another that much longer. Love or lust or both was working its slippery, slimy way into the mechanical gears that drove us together, making sure that nothing we heard and said and did would affect us too harshly and drive us too close or far from one another, keeping us in just the same, perfect balance and distance apart. At the end of the day, I would lean against the rough brick wall of the school and let the girl fall against me and I would wrap my arms around her and we were safe and we were protected and no one would bother us. I would wait for her bus to arrive and once she was gone, I would walk home, all the while thinking of the girl that just happened to be in my life because I just happened upon her somehow. And this was my life, day by day, night by night — until it changed, because we all know that all good things are either really a curse in disguise or entirely, disappointingly, temporary. And this was my life.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Conversation with the End - 5/11/10
I heard her call to me
She said:
A brand new skyline
will renew you
I told her I could not.
These buildings
must fall
Then she called to me
and said:
You will fail in all you do
You will never succeed
No one is ever truly free
Tell me
I said
What is it you think of me?
When she called to me
she said:
Your life is a labyrinth
with a key at the end
That key will release you
but then you’ll be dead
I told her
that’s dreary and dry
She came to me
and said:
watch for the birds, son
they’ll shit on your head.
She said:
A brand new skyline
will renew you
I told her I could not.
These buildings
must fall
Then she called to me
and said:
You will fail in all you do
You will never succeed
No one is ever truly free
Tell me
I said
What is it you think of me?
When she called to me
she said:
Your life is a labyrinth
with a key at the end
That key will release you
but then you’ll be dead
I told her
that’s dreary and dry
She came to me
and said:
watch for the birds, son
they’ll shit on your head.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Almost - 2/27/09
“I intend to bury it”
“I intend to bury it in the earth”
“I intend to bury my hope in the earth”
“I intend to bury me”
he said.
“I intend to restore it”
“I intend to restore it in the depths of you”
“I intend to restore your hope in the depths of you”
“I intend to restore you”
she said.
“I will lose it”
“I will lose it in the city”
“I will lose my faith in the city”
“I will lose me”
he said.
“I will renew it”
“I will renew it in the depths of you”
“I will renew your faith in the depths of you”
“I will renew you”
she said.
“I intend to bury it in the earth”
“I intend to bury my hope in the earth”
“I intend to bury me”
he said.
“I intend to restore it”
“I intend to restore it in the depths of you”
“I intend to restore your hope in the depths of you”
“I intend to restore you”
she said.
“I will lose it”
“I will lose it in the city”
“I will lose my faith in the city”
“I will lose me”
he said.
“I will renew it”
“I will renew it in the depths of you”
“I will renew your faith in the depths of you”
“I will renew you”
she said.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
(Highest) Bidder - 1/10/09
The people were hidden six feet down
The streets were packed with cars and trucks
The buildings cracked and crumbled in atonement
“What hath we wrought”
“Does anything remain”
The sky was bleak and the earth was scorched
The sun had turned its back upon them
Not even the cosmos would accept this civilization
“Never has the weight of the world seemed so light”
“Does anything remain”
The clouds fled in fear of end
And the sun was still not there
The air was still and moved not a hair of the bodies
“How can I believe”
“Nothing remains”
We are still here
Nothing more remains
We will be swept aside
“Dear god, what hath we wrought”
“We will always take more”
The streets were packed with cars and trucks
The buildings cracked and crumbled in atonement
“What hath we wrought”
“Does anything remain”
The sky was bleak and the earth was scorched
The sun had turned its back upon them
Not even the cosmos would accept this civilization
“Never has the weight of the world seemed so light”
“Does anything remain”
The clouds fled in fear of end
And the sun was still not there
The air was still and moved not a hair of the bodies
“How can I believe”
“Nothing remains”
We are still here
Nothing more remains
We will be swept aside
“Dear god, what hath we wrought”
“We will always take more”
Friday, May 7, 2010
Chin Up! - 1/9/09
Left for drugs
and less than dreams
He sits alone and wonders
why he’s not enough to stay.
Life is grand
O!
Life is great.
He never finds his own
new father.
It’s happened thrice and
he’s back again.
Forgive and live because
Life is grand
O!
Life is great.
Left again for drugs
and less than dreams
Not alone this time
He’ll take solace in
being better than his dad.
and less than dreams
He sits alone and wonders
why he’s not enough to stay.
Life is grand
O!
Life is great.
He never finds his own
new father.
It’s happened thrice and
he’s back again.
Forgive and live because
Life is grand
O!
Life is great.
Left again for drugs
and less than dreams
Not alone this time
He’ll take solace in
being better than his dad.
Foe Bee Aw - 5/6/09
“I have a lack of interest, you see.”
“Care to divulge?”
“Well I don’t worry about a world that never once worried about me. I’m not out
there and out there am not I, you follow?”
“Hardly.”
“Anything I need…needs me.”
“That’s not true, John.”
“It is true!”
“Air doesn’t need you, John. The plants don’t need you.”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong! Air does need me, it needs all of us, or there’d be too much, it’d be over-populated. The air would grow violent; begin attacking the defenseless, what then?”
“What about the ice age? There was air and close to no life.”
“Something was supposed to happen but didn’t.”
“When are you going to come to terms with this?”
“Come to terms with what?”
“Why can’t you go outside? Why won’t you leave your house? What’s stopping you?”
“You know what’s stopping me. I don’t pay you to not know what’s stopping me.”
“John, there isn’t anything stopping you. Why don’t you come with me to my office,
I’ve got a real comfy chair.”
“You know I won’t do that.”
“But do you know why?”
“What if something happens? I won’t know where to go, or how to leave or how to go! You don’t understand, I can’t leave, nothing makes sense out there - you don’t understand!”
I wrenched at a fistful of my hair, jerking my head down. My eyes were sealed so tightly I could see little flickering, dancing lights moving and forming patterns, forming memories. Memories of silence and solitude and behind silence and solitude I lie. A flicker of hope, a flicker of light, an overwhelming sense of imprisonment: I’m running through the dark, trying to find the light and it’s not there; it was never there. Something was always missing.
“Calm down, John.”
“I won’t go out there.”
“I don’t expect you to. Not yet.”
“Not ever.”
“Then what am I here for?”
“To help me.”
“To help you what?”
“To help me leave.”
“You said you don’t want to leave.”
“You know I want to leave.”
“Looks like we’re about out of time.”
“Okay. I’ll see you next week.”
“Look forward to it, John.”
The heavier black man gathered his things and proceeded out the front door. This was my first meeting with the therapist. It obviously didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, it doesn’t seem like we really got anywhere.
The days passed and I coddled my own insecurity, as if to make it a part of myself. I never thought of this…problem as a part of me but I guess it is. It’s shown me a whole new world I would have otherwise overlooked. I’ve become an author because of it – a professional writer. It’s almost ridiculous the lengths I’ve gone in order to avoid facing myself (and it is myself I’m facing). Was it that lack of a barrel forced into my mouth? People seem to function much quicker on such occasions.
A few more days and a resounding knock at my door. Like a greyhound from the gate I raced to the door, unlocking the door and letting the therapist inside.
“Hello, John. How are you doing today?”
“Good as it gets.”
“That’s good. Come with me.”
The smile that plastered my face now shattered and drooped. My eyes widened and sunk into my skull. I quivered “Out there?”
“Yes, sir, John. There’s no time like the present and if you want to get over this little deal you have, you need to take the step.
“That looks more like a leap to me.” My eyes darted all around the outside scenery. Everything was covered in a layer of thick, puffy snow. My breathing got heavier, more stifled. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see. I was falling to the floor and I couldn’t feel anything. I wasn’t ready for this. I was ready for this. I couldn’t do this, not now. Yes, now. Why not? I was falling. Everything was black. Where had all my sensation gone? Black, falling, numb, suffocating.
…Clarity. It was white and I could breathe. I was standing. I was dizzy but I was standing. I was breathing, I was alive. I was walking toward the white, gathering it in my hands and showering myself in it. Everything made sense. Fear was not a factor. I could breathe. I was smiling. I was cold, it was so cold. Open throat, full lungs – I could breathe. My eyes shut tightly I felt the world. I couldn’t believe I’d lost touch with this.
Walking and breathing and smiling and people and snow and rain and sun and air!
“John!”
I was being shaken violently. My eyes flashed wide open, I didn’t remember them
being shut. I was on the carpeted floor of my warm home but I was cold. I could breathe, my heart was racing but I could still breathe. I was dizzy, it didn’t make sense. I was outside, I was showering myself in snow and walking and breathing, really breathing. No, I was inside; I started to panic and fell and hit my head.
It felt so real.
The man gave me his hand and I grasped at it, pulling myself up. “Are you alright, John?”
One foot ahead of the other, keep it slow, keep it natural. Don’t lose your balance, open the door, breathe in the cold, fresh air. One more step, you’re out the door. A few more steps, you’re freezing, you’re breathing. Open throat, full lungs. Heart starts to race but it’s okay. This is new, this is you. Reattach yourself to society, link yourself to the world.
I heard laughing and I look to my left, a young girl playing in the snow, doing what she can to make an igloo. Her mother watched her from the stoop; a hand tucked into her pit, the other holding a canteen of steaming warm something.
“How is it, John?” the man had the biggest smile on his face as he watched me from the stoop, his hands tucked into his pits.
“It’s fucking cold,” I told him, but I was smiling.
He came to me and we shook hands. “Do you fix all your clients this quick?” I asked.
He let out a bellow of laughter. “No no. Most of them take months. I don’t think they all wanted to be out here as much as you did.”
“I can’t imagine why I gave this up.”
“Just make sure you never give it up again. Also, make sure you take it easy when you come to more crowded places, like the mall. Take everything in stride, think it through, breathe.”
“Breathing is important. Breathing is good.”
“Make sure you put on some warmer clothes the next time you’re out here, alright?”
I looked down: flannel pajamas and a white t-shirt. “That explains the cold.”
I shook his hand again, “Thank you.”
He smiled, “You’re welcome, John.” He walked to his car and drove off, becoming nothing more than a memory to me.
I stood there, transfixed on the peaks and valleys of white that surrounded me. I was thirty-two and this was the beginning of my story. Thirty-two and I was starting all over. Thirty-two years of separation, isolation, repression,
desperation.
And I lived happily ever after.
“Care to divulge?”
“Well I don’t worry about a world that never once worried about me. I’m not out
there and out there am not I, you follow?”
“Hardly.”
“Anything I need…needs me.”
“That’s not true, John.”
“It is true!”
“Air doesn’t need you, John. The plants don’t need you.”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong! Air does need me, it needs all of us, or there’d be too much, it’d be over-populated. The air would grow violent; begin attacking the defenseless, what then?”
“What about the ice age? There was air and close to no life.”
“Something was supposed to happen but didn’t.”
“When are you going to come to terms with this?”
“Come to terms with what?”
“Why can’t you go outside? Why won’t you leave your house? What’s stopping you?”
“You know what’s stopping me. I don’t pay you to not know what’s stopping me.”
“John, there isn’t anything stopping you. Why don’t you come with me to my office,
I’ve got a real comfy chair.”
“You know I won’t do that.”
“But do you know why?”
“What if something happens? I won’t know where to go, or how to leave or how to go! You don’t understand, I can’t leave, nothing makes sense out there - you don’t understand!”
I wrenched at a fistful of my hair, jerking my head down. My eyes were sealed so tightly I could see little flickering, dancing lights moving and forming patterns, forming memories. Memories of silence and solitude and behind silence and solitude I lie. A flicker of hope, a flicker of light, an overwhelming sense of imprisonment: I’m running through the dark, trying to find the light and it’s not there; it was never there. Something was always missing.
“Calm down, John.”
“I won’t go out there.”
“I don’t expect you to. Not yet.”
“Not ever.”
“Then what am I here for?”
“To help me.”
“To help you what?”
“To help me leave.”
“You said you don’t want to leave.”
“You know I want to leave.”
“Looks like we’re about out of time.”
“Okay. I’ll see you next week.”
“Look forward to it, John.”
The heavier black man gathered his things and proceeded out the front door. This was my first meeting with the therapist. It obviously didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, it doesn’t seem like we really got anywhere.
The days passed and I coddled my own insecurity, as if to make it a part of myself. I never thought of this…problem as a part of me but I guess it is. It’s shown me a whole new world I would have otherwise overlooked. I’ve become an author because of it – a professional writer. It’s almost ridiculous the lengths I’ve gone in order to avoid facing myself (and it is myself I’m facing). Was it that lack of a barrel forced into my mouth? People seem to function much quicker on such occasions.
A few more days and a resounding knock at my door. Like a greyhound from the gate I raced to the door, unlocking the door and letting the therapist inside.
“Hello, John. How are you doing today?”
“Good as it gets.”
“That’s good. Come with me.”
The smile that plastered my face now shattered and drooped. My eyes widened and sunk into my skull. I quivered “Out there?”
“Yes, sir, John. There’s no time like the present and if you want to get over this little deal you have, you need to take the step.
“That looks more like a leap to me.” My eyes darted all around the outside scenery. Everything was covered in a layer of thick, puffy snow. My breathing got heavier, more stifled. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see. I was falling to the floor and I couldn’t feel anything. I wasn’t ready for this. I was ready for this. I couldn’t do this, not now. Yes, now. Why not? I was falling. Everything was black. Where had all my sensation gone? Black, falling, numb, suffocating.
…Clarity. It was white and I could breathe. I was standing. I was dizzy but I was standing. I was breathing, I was alive. I was walking toward the white, gathering it in my hands and showering myself in it. Everything made sense. Fear was not a factor. I could breathe. I was smiling. I was cold, it was so cold. Open throat, full lungs – I could breathe. My eyes shut tightly I felt the world. I couldn’t believe I’d lost touch with this.
Walking and breathing and smiling and people and snow and rain and sun and air!
“John!”
I was being shaken violently. My eyes flashed wide open, I didn’t remember them
being shut. I was on the carpeted floor of my warm home but I was cold. I could breathe, my heart was racing but I could still breathe. I was dizzy, it didn’t make sense. I was outside, I was showering myself in snow and walking and breathing, really breathing. No, I was inside; I started to panic and fell and hit my head.
It felt so real.
The man gave me his hand and I grasped at it, pulling myself up. “Are you alright, John?”
One foot ahead of the other, keep it slow, keep it natural. Don’t lose your balance, open the door, breathe in the cold, fresh air. One more step, you’re out the door. A few more steps, you’re freezing, you’re breathing. Open throat, full lungs. Heart starts to race but it’s okay. This is new, this is you. Reattach yourself to society, link yourself to the world.
I heard laughing and I look to my left, a young girl playing in the snow, doing what she can to make an igloo. Her mother watched her from the stoop; a hand tucked into her pit, the other holding a canteen of steaming warm something.
“How is it, John?” the man had the biggest smile on his face as he watched me from the stoop, his hands tucked into his pits.
“It’s fucking cold,” I told him, but I was smiling.
He came to me and we shook hands. “Do you fix all your clients this quick?” I asked.
He let out a bellow of laughter. “No no. Most of them take months. I don’t think they all wanted to be out here as much as you did.”
“I can’t imagine why I gave this up.”
“Just make sure you never give it up again. Also, make sure you take it easy when you come to more crowded places, like the mall. Take everything in stride, think it through, breathe.”
“Breathing is important. Breathing is good.”
“Make sure you put on some warmer clothes the next time you’re out here, alright?”
I looked down: flannel pajamas and a white t-shirt. “That explains the cold.”
I shook his hand again, “Thank you.”
He smiled, “You’re welcome, John.” He walked to his car and drove off, becoming nothing more than a memory to me.
I stood there, transfixed on the peaks and valleys of white that surrounded me. I was thirty-two and this was the beginning of my story. Thirty-two and I was starting all over. Thirty-two years of separation, isolation, repression,
desperation.
And I lived happily ever after.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)