the backyard
You move around wide space
like a caged animal,
smoke licking out of your
mouth to kiss the heavens,
six foot planks enclosing
this patch of grass. You walk
in circles and smile at
air,mumbling, reminded
of decades old ironies.
Which is the real life?
final drafty.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
I feel like most people in this world are worried about number one. One being themselves. Is there any TRUE regard for the other, or is life simply a barter system where people have value only inasmuch as they can provide one what he/she wants or values? The more I begin to look at the actions of most it seems that there is nothing worse than self importance, and yet it is required to survive. I don't know what I believe. Ugh. One of those days.
Just want to know where the respect is. Respect for another's reality and importance...respect for one's individual mind. Always I see judgment and disdain and disregard, and lack of any restraint in terms of one one wants for himself. Take take take. Who cares? He'll do it too.
Just want to know where the respect is. Respect for another's reality and importance...respect for one's individual mind. Always I see judgment and disdain and disregard, and lack of any restraint in terms of one one wants for himself. Take take take. Who cares? He'll do it too.
Pills
Five pills. Five pills and I'm what's left. Paint left from a brush in water. Floating for an instant. Shadows on the surface, then spinning and sinking, vibrant before gone.Gray grit mass on the bottom of the glass.
I briefly wonder if my life is vomit, a mess you can't hold back. I want it clean and gone. It's offensive even at the feet.
But that's over and my body is melting and I want to live here but I need more pills because it's already gone.
I briefly wonder if my life is vomit, a mess you can't hold back. I want it clean and gone. It's offensive even at the feet.
But that's over and my body is melting and I want to live here but I need more pills because it's already gone.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Lost
As a kid in the grocery store with my mother, I would wait until she turned and run off. I have always found freedom in being lost. My deepest instinct is to wander, and to cut loose of all ties but ones to the earth. Even ties to people mean you can never be lost, and therefore never truely be free. Someone will always be looking, just like mom did in the white aisles when I was young. When someone is looking for you, your instinct is muddied by their own desires to have you return to them and fall back in step with the day to day. Maybe we are all trapped here somewhere between lost and found. Somewhere between the world created and the world still ours to create. And maybe this is why so many of us are broken, injured trying to break free, no longer able to hear what's inside, having to buy glimpses of it in a bottle or pill. We don't want to be found, but we've forgotten how to get lost, how to fall out.
I've never understood the way people say, "she's a lost soul" as if it's a bad thing. Lost is better than found, it is undefinable, it is natural. Souls should be lost. That's how they're meant to be. Souls should not be boxed and labelled and found neatly in the corner. Souls should be messy like life. They should be scattered. They should follow the beat of the individual heart, and the sway of the wind. If someone were to tell me I was a lost soul, I'd likely take it as a compliment.
I've never understood the way people say, "she's a lost soul" as if it's a bad thing. Lost is better than found, it is undefinable, it is natural. Souls should be lost. That's how they're meant to be. Souls should not be boxed and labelled and found neatly in the corner. Souls should be messy like life. They should be scattered. They should follow the beat of the individual heart, and the sway of the wind. If someone were to tell me I was a lost soul, I'd likely take it as a compliment.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Dreams
Eternal sadness courses muddy through my veins like an ancient African flood raging, yet soundless, for there is no one there to hear. In this skin it lives and rushes and churns and aches. Even fantasy is infected. I imagine her coming to me, showering me in warm sugar kisses, my cold skin heated only by her touch. But I am dead and soulless and filled only with the flood.I have nothing to offer back, for what she gives lasts only as long as she gives it. There is no room to resonate, and I won't be filled.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Pity for the Virgin Mary (unedited)
Outside in the cold stone schoolyard we were to stand facing the flag for the morning pledge. Warm spring mornings I would stand obediently in my jumper, one more speck in a sea of green, grey and yellow checkered print dress. A forest of stockinged legs, shiny black shoes holding ruffly socked feet, all stood at attention. Hand firmly placed on the chest, I pledged my beating heart to a piece of land and an abstract concept just as easily as I’d brush my teeth or tie my shoes. On cold days, jumper stiff and cold against my skin, legs wind whipped pink and raw, my black shoes danced impatiently and my pledge was stolen from me in distracted mumblings.
Inside the wide arches and dark corridors of St. Catherine’s, the truth was asserted, released from dry white chalk and ancient primers. A before B before C. 1 before 2 before 3. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. When teacher coughed it was time, we walked single file over dreary grey tile. In the gym we ran circles. Thursdays it was silent couplings, partners in prayer. In the church we learned quiet reverence,stained glass light extending from an angel’s wing, or the robe of a saint and hanging in the dust and air above us like a blessing. This was life. Pews, dress shoes, and sacred readings.
To my infant eye, all that was was small and tame, neat and ordered and to be expected. Things simply moved and turned like the gears of a clock. Life, I, everything moved along accordingly. Everything had a place. Everything had a function, and purpose was something never sought for it seemed always to be mysterious, and more times than not beside the point. Things simply were, the reasons held in one mind, the mind of God- the Man in the sky.
After the day’s lined paper had been soiled, pencils worked to a nub, and chalk from crumbling erasers beaten into the air in thick clouds, the bell would sound. I would return to the schoolyard and continue my education in the order of things. Leaning against the wall under the exposed steel stairway, I watched. First to leave where the kids who walked, migrating from the school in a mob of pressed ivory shirts and lunch time stains. Next were kids running to the lot behind the school to meet parents and babysitters for the drive home. Then came unfortunate ones kept behind for detention or tutoring, trickling out into the late afternoon sun. I stood in my spot under the stairs, waited and watched as shadows grew longer and cast themselves like long fingers across the side of the building, the children held for detention long gone. And finally there it would come, the busted old buick, whining in anguish as it pulled up in the lot.
I would pass in front of the car, run my hand over the dry bubble of paint where the sun baked the hood, and hop in. Some days I was invited to recount the day’s events, and things learned. Other days the car was stuffy, tight and tense. These days I kept to myself and stared out the window, waiting, letting my hand ride waves of wind. Sometimes it was better to watch things slide by. This I learned early on. It seemed to me that lots of days were like this.
At home I did a lot of watching, but never in silence. There was always the clanging of pots and pans, the rushing of water, the wailing of my baby brother, the roar of the television, outdoor sounds, neighbors fighting or laughing, and mother singing or scolding from the kitchen. At home Mom broke her nails scraping food from plates. She twisted her spine with a baby on her hip. At work she made enough for us to live and we took it, every paycheck. She weaved a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, clothes on our backs, and candy for children’s weekend tongues. Bending, scrubbing, singing, dancing, and praying, she held things up while the rest of us watched. After dinner, the family full from taking all they could, Mama would find an empty corner, sit down and sigh when she thought nobody looked Sometimes it seemed as though life had consumed her. Some days, early in the morning, before the rest of us woke ready with our many needs and demands, she would pick up a pen and notebook and steal time for her hidden worlds. She was worn down, giving herself down to the essence, only half waiting for the life she earned, as if even the waiting was a luxury.
And so pain and sacrifice became woman. Women were alive not to live, but to create the possibility of it for others. Women were tools, facilitators, vessels. This was the order of things. As a child who knew her fate, I began to mourn a life yet lived, a life that would never be mine, for I was, am, always woman. I knew where my place lay. I felt it in my very bones.
In the church basement, standing in the bathroom with the other girls after Thursday mass, secrets and truths were whispered like sins. Older girls spoke of older boys, schoolyard crushes. Youger girls foraged for scraps of information that fell from the tongues of those older, things they could bring back to the others in exchange for wide eyed awe or glee. One particular Thursday, a few of us gathered around an older girl as she shared the story of her pregnant sister who found out, she said, when she went to the bathroom one day and her pee turned blue. And that was it.Her sister was now a mother. The simplicity of it didn’t make it less horrific.
I had overheard the women in my family at dinners or cousins birthdays, gathered on porches or in kitchen, discussing the trials of childbirth. They told matter of fact accounts of excruciating pain, the greatest pain imaginable or endured by any of the women in the family. They told of flesh literally being torn apart to make way for another. They told of streched skin, earlobes torn open by the curious hands of a baby going after a dangling earring, scars that would never fade, skin that would never quite regain it’s shape.
I would have asked why it had to be that way, but I knew the answer. That was woman. Woman. Pain and sacrifice. Still, I spent time wondering, yearning for a purpose for the pain, a reason for all of it. Purpose remained mysterious and beside the point. Whether or not there was reason for it made no difference. Everything is everything. Things simply were and you went along with them. It was here that I learned dread and resentment, thin and dark, on the edges of my existence. If I could I would have rejected my intended role. I wanted nothing of it. I dreaded living to find my end as woman- collector of agonies, vessel of life, living not herself. Woman- the walking dead. I hated my femininity. I cursed it for cursing me.
In the days and months to come, I gathered more and more about the order of things. In school we read of the Virgin Mary. I remembered her from the church. To the left of the pulpit, hands softly touching, fingers pointed toward the heavens. Her head was bowed gracefully , her blue robes flowing yet reserved. She who we prayed to with wooden bead rosaries in hand, she who we prayed to for forgiveness after confession. She who still answered to motherly duties in death. She was the figure of beauty and grace, the model for all worshipping women;someone to be revered.
Chosen by God to fulfill His almighty purpose, Mary was impregnated with His seed. Her body was taken from above, used to create man, our savior. She lived meagerly and rough, a baby she had not made with any will or purpose growing inside of her, nourishing itself from her body. She traveled to Bethlehem and gave birth like an animal on the scratchy earth and hay of a manger. She raised Him, cared for Him, and had Him stripped from her in his death, something for which He was always intended. She- put on this earth to feel loss.
What I felt for the Virgin Mary was not reverence. Not purely. For while I had respect for a person so strong in the face of the life she had lived, I could not help but pity her for a life made, taken, used, and intended for one other than herself. I had pity for a life unowned, pity for the horror of what that meant. Pity and fear. Fear that I was as she was. Fear that I would be taken and used just the same, and not only be taken and used, but be meant for it and made for it in my entire essence. Fear that it could strike at any moment.
Sometime during that second grade year in school, all of the kids were gathered on the carpet of the classroom to watch a certain film. It was common for us to watch cartoons approved by some distant Catholic society designed to make God and religion more palatable to us. This day it was to be the story of Adam and Eve. It began with Adam, naked, all of humanity in one man. He had all of earth for himself, to share only with the beasts which he was to rule over. And yet Adam was not satisfied. He grew loney. God then created Eve, an afterthought, a tool to satiate man.
When Adam cried to the heavens from the screen in front of us, we all watched in awe as a voice boomed in answer, and Eve was wrought from his flesh. The wonder, however, lasted only moments before giving way to giggles, points and whispers at the screen in front of us for Eve was naked. Naked, and while nothing but a bellybutton could actually be seen past Eve’s flowing brown hair, and well placed leaves and flora, just as nothing of consequence had been seen on Adam’s naked body, Adam’s nakedness had been ignored while Eve’s had been acutely noticed and ridiculed, answered with childish indications of disgust, even shock.
I began to avoid restrooms and locker rooms, anywhere I had to be alone with my femininity, anything that made me recall what I was. I hated my body, watching it grow into something I knew was the cause for disgust. I imagined leaving class to use the restroom only to find I had grown big with child and would have to give birth in the hallway before lunch. I was still unsure of exactly how babies were made, but had the understanding that God gave them to us when He deemed us ready. I didn’t think I was ready, but then I couldn’t imagine ever being ready. I wondered if Mary of Nazareth ever considered her future as a woman. I wondered if anyone did. I wondered, but didn’t dare discuss it, for I knew I was somehow guilty, secretly detesting God’s will. Always questioning, always wanting answers. I knew that was sinful. I had heard the scolds of my parents, and I had heard the story of Eve.
Weekends were my salvation. Saturdays meant freedom from bunchy jumpers and tight shoes, freedom from headbands that poked and pinched. Freedom from frilly socks and biblical tales. I threw on overalls and a hat and ran outside to forget all about my future. I was a child. Saturdays meant days at Junior’s place two doors down, making club houses from boxes and paint or riding bikes 'til our calves hurt. Together we wandered the neighborhood, ran to the bodega with our beggar’s change for pieces of candy or small toys and balloons. There was no girl or boy. Kids were kids.
Until they weren’t anymore. It was the next year and I was watching Saturday morning cartoons when my mother came in from the laundry room, with a pair of my panties in hand, the one’s I had shoved to the bottom of the hamper, embarrassed of the blood stains, wanting to forget they existed. She held that dirty, disgusting piece of cloth and demanded to know who had touched me. Nobody. Was it Junior? His brother? Who had touched me? Nobody. She didn’t believe me. She looked like she wanted to cry. I wasn’t allowed to Junior’s for months. This was my introduction to womanhood, the violation.
Inside the wide arches and dark corridors of St. Catherine’s, the truth was asserted, released from dry white chalk and ancient primers. A before B before C. 1 before 2 before 3. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. When teacher coughed it was time, we walked single file over dreary grey tile. In the gym we ran circles. Thursdays it was silent couplings, partners in prayer. In the church we learned quiet reverence,stained glass light extending from an angel’s wing, or the robe of a saint and hanging in the dust and air above us like a blessing. This was life. Pews, dress shoes, and sacred readings.
To my infant eye, all that was was small and tame, neat and ordered and to be expected. Things simply moved and turned like the gears of a clock. Life, I, everything moved along accordingly. Everything had a place. Everything had a function, and purpose was something never sought for it seemed always to be mysterious, and more times than not beside the point. Things simply were, the reasons held in one mind, the mind of God- the Man in the sky.
After the day’s lined paper had been soiled, pencils worked to a nub, and chalk from crumbling erasers beaten into the air in thick clouds, the bell would sound. I would return to the schoolyard and continue my education in the order of things. Leaning against the wall under the exposed steel stairway, I watched. First to leave where the kids who walked, migrating from the school in a mob of pressed ivory shirts and lunch time stains. Next were kids running to the lot behind the school to meet parents and babysitters for the drive home. Then came unfortunate ones kept behind for detention or tutoring, trickling out into the late afternoon sun. I stood in my spot under the stairs, waited and watched as shadows grew longer and cast themselves like long fingers across the side of the building, the children held for detention long gone. And finally there it would come, the busted old buick, whining in anguish as it pulled up in the lot.
I would pass in front of the car, run my hand over the dry bubble of paint where the sun baked the hood, and hop in. Some days I was invited to recount the day’s events, and things learned. Other days the car was stuffy, tight and tense. These days I kept to myself and stared out the window, waiting, letting my hand ride waves of wind. Sometimes it was better to watch things slide by. This I learned early on. It seemed to me that lots of days were like this.
At home I did a lot of watching, but never in silence. There was always the clanging of pots and pans, the rushing of water, the wailing of my baby brother, the roar of the television, outdoor sounds, neighbors fighting or laughing, and mother singing or scolding from the kitchen. At home Mom broke her nails scraping food from plates. She twisted her spine with a baby on her hip. At work she made enough for us to live and we took it, every paycheck. She weaved a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, clothes on our backs, and candy for children’s weekend tongues. Bending, scrubbing, singing, dancing, and praying, she held things up while the rest of us watched. After dinner, the family full from taking all they could, Mama would find an empty corner, sit down and sigh when she thought nobody looked Sometimes it seemed as though life had consumed her. Some days, early in the morning, before the rest of us woke ready with our many needs and demands, she would pick up a pen and notebook and steal time for her hidden worlds. She was worn down, giving herself down to the essence, only half waiting for the life she earned, as if even the waiting was a luxury.
And so pain and sacrifice became woman. Women were alive not to live, but to create the possibility of it for others. Women were tools, facilitators, vessels. This was the order of things. As a child who knew her fate, I began to mourn a life yet lived, a life that would never be mine, for I was, am, always woman. I knew where my place lay. I felt it in my very bones.
In the church basement, standing in the bathroom with the other girls after Thursday mass, secrets and truths were whispered like sins. Older girls spoke of older boys, schoolyard crushes. Youger girls foraged for scraps of information that fell from the tongues of those older, things they could bring back to the others in exchange for wide eyed awe or glee. One particular Thursday, a few of us gathered around an older girl as she shared the story of her pregnant sister who found out, she said, when she went to the bathroom one day and her pee turned blue. And that was it.Her sister was now a mother. The simplicity of it didn’t make it less horrific.
I had overheard the women in my family at dinners or cousins birthdays, gathered on porches or in kitchen, discussing the trials of childbirth. They told matter of fact accounts of excruciating pain, the greatest pain imaginable or endured by any of the women in the family. They told of flesh literally being torn apart to make way for another. They told of streched skin, earlobes torn open by the curious hands of a baby going after a dangling earring, scars that would never fade, skin that would never quite regain it’s shape.
I would have asked why it had to be that way, but I knew the answer. That was woman. Woman. Pain and sacrifice. Still, I spent time wondering, yearning for a purpose for the pain, a reason for all of it. Purpose remained mysterious and beside the point. Whether or not there was reason for it made no difference. Everything is everything. Things simply were and you went along with them. It was here that I learned dread and resentment, thin and dark, on the edges of my existence. If I could I would have rejected my intended role. I wanted nothing of it. I dreaded living to find my end as woman- collector of agonies, vessel of life, living not herself. Woman- the walking dead. I hated my femininity. I cursed it for cursing me.
In the days and months to come, I gathered more and more about the order of things. In school we read of the Virgin Mary. I remembered her from the church. To the left of the pulpit, hands softly touching, fingers pointed toward the heavens. Her head was bowed gracefully , her blue robes flowing yet reserved. She who we prayed to with wooden bead rosaries in hand, she who we prayed to for forgiveness after confession. She who still answered to motherly duties in death. She was the figure of beauty and grace, the model for all worshipping women;someone to be revered.
Chosen by God to fulfill His almighty purpose, Mary was impregnated with His seed. Her body was taken from above, used to create man, our savior. She lived meagerly and rough, a baby she had not made with any will or purpose growing inside of her, nourishing itself from her body. She traveled to Bethlehem and gave birth like an animal on the scratchy earth and hay of a manger. She raised Him, cared for Him, and had Him stripped from her in his death, something for which He was always intended. She- put on this earth to feel loss.
What I felt for the Virgin Mary was not reverence. Not purely. For while I had respect for a person so strong in the face of the life she had lived, I could not help but pity her for a life made, taken, used, and intended for one other than herself. I had pity for a life unowned, pity for the horror of what that meant. Pity and fear. Fear that I was as she was. Fear that I would be taken and used just the same, and not only be taken and used, but be meant for it and made for it in my entire essence. Fear that it could strike at any moment.
Sometime during that second grade year in school, all of the kids were gathered on the carpet of the classroom to watch a certain film. It was common for us to watch cartoons approved by some distant Catholic society designed to make God and religion more palatable to us. This day it was to be the story of Adam and Eve. It began with Adam, naked, all of humanity in one man. He had all of earth for himself, to share only with the beasts which he was to rule over. And yet Adam was not satisfied. He grew loney. God then created Eve, an afterthought, a tool to satiate man.
When Adam cried to the heavens from the screen in front of us, we all watched in awe as a voice boomed in answer, and Eve was wrought from his flesh. The wonder, however, lasted only moments before giving way to giggles, points and whispers at the screen in front of us for Eve was naked. Naked, and while nothing but a bellybutton could actually be seen past Eve’s flowing brown hair, and well placed leaves and flora, just as nothing of consequence had been seen on Adam’s naked body, Adam’s nakedness had been ignored while Eve’s had been acutely noticed and ridiculed, answered with childish indications of disgust, even shock.
I began to avoid restrooms and locker rooms, anywhere I had to be alone with my femininity, anything that made me recall what I was. I hated my body, watching it grow into something I knew was the cause for disgust. I imagined leaving class to use the restroom only to find I had grown big with child and would have to give birth in the hallway before lunch. I was still unsure of exactly how babies were made, but had the understanding that God gave them to us when He deemed us ready. I didn’t think I was ready, but then I couldn’t imagine ever being ready. I wondered if Mary of Nazareth ever considered her future as a woman. I wondered if anyone did. I wondered, but didn’t dare discuss it, for I knew I was somehow guilty, secretly detesting God’s will. Always questioning, always wanting answers. I knew that was sinful. I had heard the scolds of my parents, and I had heard the story of Eve.
Weekends were my salvation. Saturdays meant freedom from bunchy jumpers and tight shoes, freedom from headbands that poked and pinched. Freedom from frilly socks and biblical tales. I threw on overalls and a hat and ran outside to forget all about my future. I was a child. Saturdays meant days at Junior’s place two doors down, making club houses from boxes and paint or riding bikes 'til our calves hurt. Together we wandered the neighborhood, ran to the bodega with our beggar’s change for pieces of candy or small toys and balloons. There was no girl or boy. Kids were kids.
Until they weren’t anymore. It was the next year and I was watching Saturday morning cartoons when my mother came in from the laundry room, with a pair of my panties in hand, the one’s I had shoved to the bottom of the hamper, embarrassed of the blood stains, wanting to forget they existed. She held that dirty, disgusting piece of cloth and demanded to know who had touched me. Nobody. Was it Junior? His brother? Who had touched me? Nobody. She didn’t believe me. She looked like she wanted to cry. I wasn’t allowed to Junior’s for months. This was my introduction to womanhood, the violation.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Freedom
Sometimes it reaches me in flashes. I'll take a breath or jump a stair and there it is like a coldness in my stomach. It's freedom. It's daring. Sometimes I smile and feel like I'm six again waking up to go play in the neighborhood, building worlds from stray boxes and spray paint. I remember waking up with this passion and apprehension for living. That was freedom. I've got to find a way to bring it to the present, catch it and contain it, make it mine. But then it wouldn't be freedom anymore would it? Ha.
Life's funny.
Life's funny.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The Empowered Don't Whisper II
The empowered do not fucking whisper. Whispers are for secrets and sins. And, anyway, the empowered are not afraid to exclaim either. So what was that I witnessed yesterday? I would call it walking on eggsells. Somehow it doesn’t fit.
I have always hated silence. Silence in schools, and in church, silence in tense and troubled conversations, silence in early day when even the sun screams mute it's ice blue tones, silence in regret. I always hated silence, but I hate whispers more.
Yesterday I sat with you on the stoop at midnight. The words were mostly the same, they’ve been the same all my life, but misery loves company and I’m vacant enough to be it’s vessel. We sat in that same old dead conversation, but this time something changed.
This time, you said, it was real. This time the words weren’t empty. This time you felt it and meant it, you said, because this time you had finally spoken it aloud, finally told him what you thought; that you couldn’t grow old like that. You couldn’t live to die.
I sat with you on the cold concrete and your hands were nervous and you filled your beer again, and whispered to me in a heavy lipped mess that you were finally happy. But people do not whisper when they are free, and tomorrow you will lay with him again.
I’m sorry I grew angry with you. I shouldn’t have yelled. You’re not ready for loudness. Maybe some day you’ll realize you’ve built your own cage. Maybe some day I’ll be able to forgive you, and realize I’ve built mine.
I have always hated silence. Silence in schools, and in church, silence in tense and troubled conversations, silence in early day when even the sun screams mute it's ice blue tones, silence in regret. I always hated silence, but I hate whispers more.
Yesterday I sat with you on the stoop at midnight. The words were mostly the same, they’ve been the same all my life, but misery loves company and I’m vacant enough to be it’s vessel. We sat in that same old dead conversation, but this time something changed.
This time, you said, it was real. This time the words weren’t empty. This time you felt it and meant it, you said, because this time you had finally spoken it aloud, finally told him what you thought; that you couldn’t grow old like that. You couldn’t live to die.
I sat with you on the cold concrete and your hands were nervous and you filled your beer again, and whispered to me in a heavy lipped mess that you were finally happy. But people do not whisper when they are free, and tomorrow you will lay with him again.
I’m sorry I grew angry with you. I shouldn’t have yelled. You’re not ready for loudness. Maybe some day you’ll realize you’ve built your own cage. Maybe some day I’ll be able to forgive you, and realize I’ve built mine.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Learning to Walk
When Daddy slammed the door, the floor and windows shaked, so I ran into the bathroom. I didn’t want to roof to fall down on me. In school, Ms. Armstrong said that during a tornado you are to run into the bathroom in case the roof falls in or the windows break. That’s the safest place, she said, so that’s where I was, waiting for the roof to cave in. I waited, but it was stuck real high and tight. Not even a piece came down.
I was glad. If the roof fell down I didn’t know what me and Momma would do. I didn’t want to go back to Grandma Clara’s. She smelled funny and her rice always burned to the pot. Her bathroom was too small for us to hide in if the roof came in. Momma told me to hush up and get out of the bathroom and into bed.
I hated my room. There were faces in the walls and they looked at me. They stared while I was trying to sleep, with big, scary eyes. They pretended they were part of the wood, but I could always see them, ugly,twisting mouths and mean eyes. I wished I couldn’t. I stared straight at the ceiling and thought of angels, like Momma said. Nothing can get you if you pray good enough, but sometimes I would think of a fairy godmother on her way to me, flying under the moon; flying in her sparkling dress. When she came I would get three wishes. I would wish for no more stupid faces on my wall. That, and no more rumbling roof or windows.
When Momma was done wiping the wetness from her eyes, she came to my door and looked in. She whispered goodnight and she closed my door just the way I liked it, with a little crack for the light from the kitchen. I pulled the blanket over my head, and heard the scrape of Momma sliding the chain on the door. I peeked my head out to see if the faces moved. They were smart and always knew when I would look. I pulled the covers back over my head and listened real hard. Momma was watching TV and I could hear all those big laughs coming from the set. Maybe Momma was laughing too. Maybe those small quiet laughs where you barely even have to smile, ‘cause I didn’t hear anything. I fell asleep.
I went to sleep until Daddy came back with his heavy hands and feet making noise on the door, making the windows shake again. This time I just layed still and silent, like at nap time in school. Daddy screamed and kicked and stomped and pushed at the chain and slid his fingers inside the door and then his screams were nothing and he stopped pushing the door and everything was very quiet. It still felt like the windows would crack.I pushed off my covers and got out of bed. I went to the slit in my door and squinted in the light. Momma was still standing at the door, still and small, naked feet on the linoleum. This time Momma didn’t slide the chain back.The door didn’t open and let the cold air in. She walked away.
When she saw me she picked up my doll by its little foot and the eyes looked at me sideways. Its hair hung down to the floor. She gave it to me and said to hush and get back to bed. I hugged her to my chest. It was my doll, my baby, my turn to say no to mean faces. I didn’t have to look straight at the ceiling, or pull the covers over my head. The chain was locked and I was big for my dolly just like Momma was for me.
I was glad. If the roof fell down I didn’t know what me and Momma would do. I didn’t want to go back to Grandma Clara’s. She smelled funny and her rice always burned to the pot. Her bathroom was too small for us to hide in if the roof came in. Momma told me to hush up and get out of the bathroom and into bed.
I hated my room. There were faces in the walls and they looked at me. They stared while I was trying to sleep, with big, scary eyes. They pretended they were part of the wood, but I could always see them, ugly,twisting mouths and mean eyes. I wished I couldn’t. I stared straight at the ceiling and thought of angels, like Momma said. Nothing can get you if you pray good enough, but sometimes I would think of a fairy godmother on her way to me, flying under the moon; flying in her sparkling dress. When she came I would get three wishes. I would wish for no more stupid faces on my wall. That, and no more rumbling roof or windows.
When Momma was done wiping the wetness from her eyes, she came to my door and looked in. She whispered goodnight and she closed my door just the way I liked it, with a little crack for the light from the kitchen. I pulled the blanket over my head, and heard the scrape of Momma sliding the chain on the door. I peeked my head out to see if the faces moved. They were smart and always knew when I would look. I pulled the covers back over my head and listened real hard. Momma was watching TV and I could hear all those big laughs coming from the set. Maybe Momma was laughing too. Maybe those small quiet laughs where you barely even have to smile, ‘cause I didn’t hear anything. I fell asleep.
I went to sleep until Daddy came back with his heavy hands and feet making noise on the door, making the windows shake again. This time I just layed still and silent, like at nap time in school. Daddy screamed and kicked and stomped and pushed at the chain and slid his fingers inside the door and then his screams were nothing and he stopped pushing the door and everything was very quiet. It still felt like the windows would crack.I pushed off my covers and got out of bed. I went to the slit in my door and squinted in the light. Momma was still standing at the door, still and small, naked feet on the linoleum. This time Momma didn’t slide the chain back.The door didn’t open and let the cold air in. She walked away.
When she saw me she picked up my doll by its little foot and the eyes looked at me sideways. Its hair hung down to the floor. She gave it to me and said to hush and get back to bed. I hugged her to my chest. It was my doll, my baby, my turn to say no to mean faces. I didn’t have to look straight at the ceiling, or pull the covers over my head. The chain was locked and I was big for my dolly just like Momma was for me.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
The Path the Mind Takes at 2:19am
Thirteen and sitting on the couch eating chinese food from the carton she looked at me with the eyes of a priestess or prophet and told me that one day I'd be beautiful. I believed her desperately. I've waited for that day. I've waited, but believe it now only out of habit. I am ashamed of the child I am, the child I remain. An atrocity, refusing to take life and make something of it. I wake up in the middle of the night hoping I am a nightmare I dreamed up.
It will pass. Yes it will pass. Everything does. The question is will it pass and take my life with it? Will I wake up one day at seventy- three and still be waiting? Does life happen to you or do you happen to life? Who can I blame for my own unhappiness in the end but myself?
Maybe it doesn't matter. Not everyone has the courage to be. Maybe that is the simple nature of things. Tomorrow I will wake up and meet the morning, and I will go out in it and maybe this is all the life I have to look forward to, and maybe it is not so bad.
It will pass. Yes it will pass. Everything does. The question is will it pass and take my life with it? Will I wake up one day at seventy- three and still be waiting? Does life happen to you or do you happen to life? Who can I blame for my own unhappiness in the end but myself?
Maybe it doesn't matter. Not everyone has the courage to be. Maybe that is the simple nature of things. Tomorrow I will wake up and meet the morning, and I will go out in it and maybe this is all the life I have to look forward to, and maybe it is not so bad.
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