The snow fell softly over the grey city, dancing from one treetop to the next, like ashes or alien creatures invading the night. In the distance the factory light shone like a frozen bomb halfway to destruction, creating a snow globe of tranquil malice. If you held your breath you could just hear the tiny sound of crystals colliding. If you breathed a heavy heat, you could see the lace melt and drip invisible droplets down from the miniature cloud.
The green radiator had knocked and clanked earlier in the day so that the entire building was full of its presence. Standing outside, I’m sure you could see the building, pale yellow eyes staring straight out at you, burning with a fever in the winter, and just above, a mirage. Horses danced near the edge of the roof with a fury. Inside the beast, we were all squirming, tossing, kicking blankets and propping windows. I was standing on the balcony looking over the calm, climbing the iron railing to cool my feet. You were leaning against a shelf, hand on hip. It was tropical. Sweat glistened on your forehead. Green palms grew out of the walls and quivered from elephant stomps. Somewhere down the hall a thousand ants were building a castle, brushing their feet against one another so fast, we thought we heard a stream. We ran to find hot, humid steam, bursting from the end of the white radiator, fogging the kitchen window.
The snow didn’t look so cold after all, just a million feathers drifting into the cracks of the sidewalk and nudging, sweetly, into the bark of the trees. If just one snowflake would land between an eyelash, behind the ear, on the ridge of the collarbone, and stay a while. Tell us about the cold, now we wanted to know.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
The Railroad
The railroad cut through the city like a rusty razorblade. It sliced at the land mercilessly and hacked at the city's weakest points. Against the steel track and past the initial gravel, uneven patches of weeds grew high next to chainlink fences protecting mowed backyards and barking dogs. Or, there would only be a weed here and there mixed with broken green bottles and the rusty red dirt would spread out like a desert of car-part cacti and end at battered warehouses and shattered, dusty windows of the past.
I never found a love in the railroad track or the train that followed. The sound of the train brought back cold autumn nights and rainy sick days - of poverty and lost dreams. That lonesome howl echoed through the quiet, crickety, streets. I was awake during those times laying in bed while it made it's nightly appearance, and felt a surging pain of desolation. I was trapped in this small town, in youth, and the dreams of the neon glitter and laughing faces of the east were taunting in the notes of the whistle.
Something about the dirt, the grime, the rust, and the rotting wood brought back the tarnished faces of the railroad workers: oil mixed with grease creating large pores on silver skin that dug cracks into the earth, into their wrinkles, under dirty black hats and a scorching white sun sky. No one smiled but they knew how to drink and fight.
Once, I knew some kids that decided to play on the train track and all three of them were sliced to pieces on a hot summer afternoon. Once, my brothers young friend went to play on the railroad bridge over muddy storm waters and drowned.Once, we put pennies on the track and later, after the grumble of the train was far enough away, we found them shiny, flat, and hot.
I never found a love in the railroad track or the train that followed. The sound of the train brought back cold autumn nights and rainy sick days - of poverty and lost dreams. That lonesome howl echoed through the quiet, crickety, streets. I was awake during those times laying in bed while it made it's nightly appearance, and felt a surging pain of desolation. I was trapped in this small town, in youth, and the dreams of the neon glitter and laughing faces of the east were taunting in the notes of the whistle.
Something about the dirt, the grime, the rust, and the rotting wood brought back the tarnished faces of the railroad workers: oil mixed with grease creating large pores on silver skin that dug cracks into the earth, into their wrinkles, under dirty black hats and a scorching white sun sky. No one smiled but they knew how to drink and fight.
Once, I knew some kids that decided to play on the train track and all three of them were sliced to pieces on a hot summer afternoon. Once, my brothers young friend went to play on the railroad bridge over muddy storm waters and drowned.Once, we put pennies on the track and later, after the grumble of the train was far enough away, we found them shiny, flat, and hot.
Monday, August 20, 2007
The Tea Kettle
At first it was just the sound of chirping. I thought: orange beak, flimsy pink, and a skull you could pop like a grape. But, baby birds sleep at night, so it didn't make sense. Eventually it panned out, stretched like taffy, their skulls turned into one long silver line of sound that grew in pitch as it thinned to just a silken spiders thread. This fat bird was speaking to me from the other room. When I came near it slid up next to me and whispered in my ear, breathing hot, humid secrets down my neck. I couldn't help but to close my eyes and let it kiss me, drip down on my shirt, flatten my hair against my skin. And, just like that, it was over. The kitchen light shone a white period on its black surface. The beak had lost all character, all of its seductive flair. I was stunned and slightly embarrassed. A breeze through the window told my skin a cold truth:the affair was over. The bird had flown.
The Blanket
I have this blanket. I’ve had it for a couple years. My boss gave it to me when I first moved to California with my friend. Peggy and I didn’t have any blankets or pillows or beds or dishes – we slept on the floor in the living room of a big house with many rooms for a while. The blanket was so soft and ugly that I immediately adopted it and named it mine. The blanket was a dark night blue with a smiling sun face and stars and planets (Saturn) all over it. I easily overlooked its design. It was just another cover of a Relationship By Stars or Birthday Horoscopes.
The other morning, laying in my white apartment surrounded by white blankets and the morning light, I pulled this out of the ordinary ( my ordinary) blanket over my head. I had been sleeping a lot that week. I had been sleeping in since I moved in two months before, but it was one of those weeks that turned into just another one of those weeks where I would pull the blankets over my head and sleep the day away and try to find solace in dreams. This day, I created a romance. With the blanket over my head, the sun shone through the stars and planets and glowed on my hands. The night sky was just above me, and it was more beautiful in the daytime. The blue sky dropped with sadness.
A discovery:
This was something I wanted to share with someone that slept next to me. This was something I wish I didn’t discover so soon, so we could discover it together and then, when we woke up in the morning and complained, we would pull this blanket over our head and put our hands up to a blue star and smile and it would start to get hot under that blanket with our heavy, stinky morning breath, but we would pretend to not smell it and close our noses on the inside.
I felt cheated, like I had cheated on myself with more of those moments I was creating to share with someone else. The tears were lost in that blue blanket sky and I had no choice but to wipe them away and try to breathe even as I was pounding pounding pounding on the inside and the stars were falling and crashing into salty waves, sizzling up and fogging my windows.
The other morning, laying in my white apartment surrounded by white blankets and the morning light, I pulled this out of the ordinary ( my ordinary) blanket over my head. I had been sleeping a lot that week. I had been sleeping in since I moved in two months before, but it was one of those weeks that turned into just another one of those weeks where I would pull the blankets over my head and sleep the day away and try to find solace in dreams. This day, I created a romance. With the blanket over my head, the sun shone through the stars and planets and glowed on my hands. The night sky was just above me, and it was more beautiful in the daytime. The blue sky dropped with sadness.
A discovery:
This was something I wanted to share with someone that slept next to me. This was something I wish I didn’t discover so soon, so we could discover it together and then, when we woke up in the morning and complained, we would pull this blanket over our head and put our hands up to a blue star and smile and it would start to get hot under that blanket with our heavy, stinky morning breath, but we would pretend to not smell it and close our noses on the inside.
I felt cheated, like I had cheated on myself with more of those moments I was creating to share with someone else. The tears were lost in that blue blanket sky and I had no choice but to wipe them away and try to breathe even as I was pounding pounding pounding on the inside and the stars were falling and crashing into salty waves, sizzling up and fogging my windows.
The Librarian
The librarian was a yard sale. She smelled like old dried up perfume, the yellow kind that stuck to the openings of glass bottles with metallic labels peeling off. The kind of empty perfume bottle you would find at a thrift store for 25 cents and wonder who donated it and why would anyone want to buy it.
She had a long river of silver hair halfway pulled up, much like a librarian should, and an old purple shirt tucked in so high on her waist, just below her saggy breasts. Her skirt was flowery and swooshed when she walked. Her glasses were large and brown, almost fashionable again, except, they had layers of green grime in the corners. She had turquoise rings on her fingers and different stones on her pinky. Her fingers were rough and ink stained, one of person who has many books in their house with cats, and sits with her legs wide open reading and scribbling notes under a yellow old lamp while a cat meows at her window. She would say something like: “ Oh don’t make such a fuss Gogol, you’ll only make Shosta (short for Shostakovich) annoyed,” and look over the tops of her glasses at a lazy fat tabby lounging on some old magazines licking his thigh. Her hands looked like my hands: a little dirty.
I looked at her, at her crooked teeth while she spoke to me, and imagined her young again. She would be wearing the same exact outfit and it would be 1982. Her firm breasts would be bra-less and her legs would be freshly shaven with toes exposed and one silver toe ring. She would be sitting in the grass with her friends, the same men that are fat and wearing pink polo shirts now, and laughing. Just laughing and laughing and laughing.
As she kept talking to me, I listened with a friendly face, but her hair was swirling up above her head and mixing with the palm trees and her wrinkles smoothed out with every word. But, she found the urge to open up in the quiet library and break the silence rule by talking to me about a pianist and violinist that was half-Japanese. I told her that I also played the piano and violin and was half-Japanese, and she told me that she had ESP sometimes. This exchange was necessary.
Later, I tried to say goodbye to her, but every time I turned down an aisle, she would turn to someone or shelf a book down the next. For some reason I felt embarrassed to go up to her and say goodbye, as if she had just given me a stone confessing her love for me, so I wanted to make it as casual and friendly as possible. I didn’t want to imagine her hands caressing my face. After the third try, I had to give up. She had turned away from me and her bracelets were bangling like crisp words, and, I think, in the back of her mind, under that silver waterfall, she was laying in the grass laughing.
She had a long river of silver hair halfway pulled up, much like a librarian should, and an old purple shirt tucked in so high on her waist, just below her saggy breasts. Her skirt was flowery and swooshed when she walked. Her glasses were large and brown, almost fashionable again, except, they had layers of green grime in the corners. She had turquoise rings on her fingers and different stones on her pinky. Her fingers were rough and ink stained, one of person who has many books in their house with cats, and sits with her legs wide open reading and scribbling notes under a yellow old lamp while a cat meows at her window. She would say something like: “ Oh don’t make such a fuss Gogol, you’ll only make Shosta (short for Shostakovich) annoyed,” and look over the tops of her glasses at a lazy fat tabby lounging on some old magazines licking his thigh. Her hands looked like my hands: a little dirty.
I looked at her, at her crooked teeth while she spoke to me, and imagined her young again. She would be wearing the same exact outfit and it would be 1982. Her firm breasts would be bra-less and her legs would be freshly shaven with toes exposed and one silver toe ring. She would be sitting in the grass with her friends, the same men that are fat and wearing pink polo shirts now, and laughing. Just laughing and laughing and laughing.
As she kept talking to me, I listened with a friendly face, but her hair was swirling up above her head and mixing with the palm trees and her wrinkles smoothed out with every word. But, she found the urge to open up in the quiet library and break the silence rule by talking to me about a pianist and violinist that was half-Japanese. I told her that I also played the piano and violin and was half-Japanese, and she told me that she had ESP sometimes. This exchange was necessary.
Later, I tried to say goodbye to her, but every time I turned down an aisle, she would turn to someone or shelf a book down the next. For some reason I felt embarrassed to go up to her and say goodbye, as if she had just given me a stone confessing her love for me, so I wanted to make it as casual and friendly as possible. I didn’t want to imagine her hands caressing my face. After the third try, I had to give up. She had turned away from me and her bracelets were bangling like crisp words, and, I think, in the back of her mind, under that silver waterfall, she was laying in the grass laughing.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
The Marriage
The separation was easy, and the divorce was even easier. Just as we had coasted into our marriage, we had coasted right out. Our philosophy was to ride the wave to see where we would go and wherever we went, we went, and whatever happened, happened. We had met at a dinner party full of couples and singles looking to be a couple. We sat on a tan couch and drank red wine and talked about Murakami. Later we laughed at the sculpture on the fireplace, and later, at everyone in the room that we didn’t know. We broke apart a few times, engaged in random conversation in different pockets of people and then met again. We left together.
It was just like that. Our relationship went the same way, the days in and out without regret and in and out without worry. We didn’t think about falling off a cliff, and never asked to be caught.
When we married, it reminded us of the party where we met. Secretly I wanted an ice sculpture of the same sculpture on the fireplace; secretly he wanted to invite those people we didn’t know. Secretly I wanted to kiss the first man I met at that dinner party in the hallway after the ceremony just to see what it would be like to crash into a ship that would eventually dock.
We moved into a house by the sea. It had high ceilings and wooden walls and floors. It was airy and the sun shone in every morning. We filled it with plants and old books, papers and sauces. We kissed goodbye in the morning and hello in the evening. We ate dinner and drank wine after. We made love tenderly and touched each other’s bodies like clean sheets. And when we stopped kissing for years and moved further away at night when we slept, we adjusted.
I started to look for a new apartment in the city, closer to the university I would be starting in the fall. He helped me scour through the papers and drove me to meet landlords. They suggested the apartment may be too small for two people and we smiled and said it was just for me. I pointed out the windows and he remarked on the wooden floors.
Then, he would be gone for weeks at a time. The house was empty and cool. I would put my feet up on the couch and lay naked. I would stay in for days and never put on anything. I packed slowly and threw away old letters. He would come home from his trips and kiss my cheek, and I would be wearing something old.
When we signed the papers we were fair. We knew what was ours and what to give and didn’t mind either way. He had found a smaller house to rent in London, where he took up a position at a new firm. I said I would visit, but I didn’t think I would.
When we finally started to break down our home, the newspapers stained our fingers and the cardboard boxes shed strips of brown skin. The last piece was the big wooden bed we had found at an antique shop. It had flowers carved into the posts and delicate cracks. It used to creak at night when we were laying still, longing for something, wishing to splinter. We had assembled it on our own, parts of it were broken so the nails were random and dug in deep. When we took it apart, tenderly, and slowly, beads of perspiration formed on my upper lip and on his forehead. Standing in the center of the frame with just a few more nails to pull out we looked at each other for the first time with a sense of urgency and he pulled my face to his and kissed it. We started to cry, started to shake and splinter and crash. Large waves were splashing upon our ears and our grips tightened. We held each other tight, sweat churning and foaming, and jumped.
It was just like that. Our relationship went the same way, the days in and out without regret and in and out without worry. We didn’t think about falling off a cliff, and never asked to be caught.
When we married, it reminded us of the party where we met. Secretly I wanted an ice sculpture of the same sculpture on the fireplace; secretly he wanted to invite those people we didn’t know. Secretly I wanted to kiss the first man I met at that dinner party in the hallway after the ceremony just to see what it would be like to crash into a ship that would eventually dock.
We moved into a house by the sea. It had high ceilings and wooden walls and floors. It was airy and the sun shone in every morning. We filled it with plants and old books, papers and sauces. We kissed goodbye in the morning and hello in the evening. We ate dinner and drank wine after. We made love tenderly and touched each other’s bodies like clean sheets. And when we stopped kissing for years and moved further away at night when we slept, we adjusted.
I started to look for a new apartment in the city, closer to the university I would be starting in the fall. He helped me scour through the papers and drove me to meet landlords. They suggested the apartment may be too small for two people and we smiled and said it was just for me. I pointed out the windows and he remarked on the wooden floors.
Then, he would be gone for weeks at a time. The house was empty and cool. I would put my feet up on the couch and lay naked. I would stay in for days and never put on anything. I packed slowly and threw away old letters. He would come home from his trips and kiss my cheek, and I would be wearing something old.
When we signed the papers we were fair. We knew what was ours and what to give and didn’t mind either way. He had found a smaller house to rent in London, where he took up a position at a new firm. I said I would visit, but I didn’t think I would.
When we finally started to break down our home, the newspapers stained our fingers and the cardboard boxes shed strips of brown skin. The last piece was the big wooden bed we had found at an antique shop. It had flowers carved into the posts and delicate cracks. It used to creak at night when we were laying still, longing for something, wishing to splinter. We had assembled it on our own, parts of it were broken so the nails were random and dug in deep. When we took it apart, tenderly, and slowly, beads of perspiration formed on my upper lip and on his forehead. Standing in the center of the frame with just a few more nails to pull out we looked at each other for the first time with a sense of urgency and he pulled my face to his and kissed it. We started to cry, started to shake and splinter and crash. Large waves were splashing upon our ears and our grips tightened. We held each other tight, sweat churning and foaming, and jumped.
The Shirt
I had a dream about you last night.
We were in your car; it was much like the time you picked me up from the airport: I remember your big smile like a happy puppy when I came down the escalator and instead of running up and kissing you and laughing and being in love, like I dreamed about doing later, I just walked up to you and we walked to the luggage. The carpet was a brown mix, like your brown pants, like my brown suitcase that had ended up on another flight. You were driving home, my new home, down unfamiliar streets thousands of miles away from my old streets, and talking about what I said when we first kissed. I didn’t remember and you got quiet. A little bit later, I kissed your ear and told you I loved you and you squeezed my shoulders so tight it hurt.
So it was like that. That part was real. This part is the dream: we were in your car driving through swirls. You looked different, more saturated, and you were smiling. I reached over and hugged you while your hands were on the steering wheel and I said: “I’m so glad you are here! I missed you so much!” Later in that dream your sisters baby cut himself and was bleeding black blood and everyone was screaming and running because it was the Black Death, and you were a man with a young blonde girl on a horse riding away down a dirt path lined with tall reeds into the sunset.
We were in your car; it was much like the time you picked me up from the airport: I remember your big smile like a happy puppy when I came down the escalator and instead of running up and kissing you and laughing and being in love, like I dreamed about doing later, I just walked up to you and we walked to the luggage. The carpet was a brown mix, like your brown pants, like my brown suitcase that had ended up on another flight. You were driving home, my new home, down unfamiliar streets thousands of miles away from my old streets, and talking about what I said when we first kissed. I didn’t remember and you got quiet. A little bit later, I kissed your ear and told you I loved you and you squeezed my shoulders so tight it hurt.
So it was like that. That part was real. This part is the dream: we were in your car driving through swirls. You looked different, more saturated, and you were smiling. I reached over and hugged you while your hands were on the steering wheel and I said: “I’m so glad you are here! I missed you so much!” Later in that dream your sisters baby cut himself and was bleeding black blood and everyone was screaming and running because it was the Black Death, and you were a man with a young blonde girl on a horse riding away down a dirt path lined with tall reeds into the sunset.
The BBQ
The colors of the buildings were brilliant and strange like summer oranges plucked, then left to rot on the grass. The buildings of the city shot straight up like syringes piercing the blue skin of the sky. The heat was unbearable, lazy, lounging in every corner. Even the shade could not escape.
From above we watched the grill battling with the sun, and the people, trying to hide inside with warm beers, slowly, slowly laugh. We were in the middle. In the middle you still receive smiles and plates of hot chicken with cool potato salad, but the currency of conversation is unnecessary. In the middle you find patterns in the ceiling and look at your phone constantly.
The paint peeled off the walls as the party went on. The phone changed only when it moved off the table and into my hand. The oranges sunk deeper, melting into the ground.
From above we watched the grill battling with the sun, and the people, trying to hide inside with warm beers, slowly, slowly laugh. We were in the middle. In the middle you still receive smiles and plates of hot chicken with cool potato salad, but the currency of conversation is unnecessary. In the middle you find patterns in the ceiling and look at your phone constantly.
The paint peeled off the walls as the party went on. The phone changed only when it moved off the table and into my hand. The oranges sunk deeper, melting into the ground.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
