Posted in While I was Dying on July 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I don’t know that anybody has ever called me out of the blue to hear my voice.
And we are all voices, alone, so much as we are bodies or hearts or souls. Sometimes the only thing we have to connect two spirits is a voice – the harmony and waves of time spent together.
Anyway, to keep it simple, I was so surprised and heartened. To think that a part of my body could mean so much to someone – that life could be so extraordinary.
Posted in While I was Dying on July 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I suppose, was that during all the time there were still two hearts linked inextricably across space. Like tin cans in communication, or clothes strung up on a beautiful tight-rope, there was always a sense of danger, and excitement, and wanting.
And when the day itself was long, as they all are, the two of them had an extra heart to listen to. Stories to enjoy, and dreams to imagine, and something beyond the something of the self.
It amazed him that there could be so many secrets in one world, or that he could discover such a profound sentiment. Amongst everything else, it even seemed like the days were different. His breath was different. He could always imagine the second set of eyes. And sometimes, even, that there was another body beside him. A sort of phantom wanting.
All of this to say that it made the day easier. It made the hours simpler, drawing time into a simple, resolute line. The before them, and the after them. The time for working, and the time for dreaming. The ghost of something real was always hovering in the distance – always threatening to become a body worth loving.
And he could deal with it. I could, I mean, learn to live that way. I never really believed the chest had room in its cage for a second heart, but then I’d never wanted to make space before. To occupy it, shape it, make all of the chaos into something beautiful and remember that beauty is usually chaos re-wound.
It’s strange to feel another body so far away. Strange and real.
Posted in While I was Dying on July 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I read somewhere recently that good art should make you want to live your life in a different way.
Perhaps that’s one of the answers for what good art should be – certainly, I agree with the sentiment.
And again, talking with a dear artist friend of mine over lunch, I told her this – you can’t always choose to make the art which makes you comfortable.
And that old poem – I don’t feel like writing today – and writing, of course, because you find your own ugliness between the syllables.
I watched a film about war today. A film about war, and forgiveness, and exile, and perhaps the spirit. About transformation and disguise, and that most profound truth – that pretending to be something can transform you into that thing.
It was beautiful. But what struck me even more about it was that it made me want to make my own statement about war. About the ugliness of hurt, and the profound sadness in destroying your brother. My stories, it seems, have always been so intimately linked with love – with boys and girls and boys – that I was so struck to find I wanted to say something about that most global of truths – something that is so close (but far) to my own life.
If I am remembered at all, it will be for love. I know this, believe it, live it. But I like to think – like the cycling of the body into the divine – that all our passions feed from the heart to the universe. Every passion echoes.
I suppose I wondered, and maybe even began to believe, that good art should unlock a dormant passion, an exposed belief. It needn’t change you – just remind you.
Posted in While I was Dying on July 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Perhaps the most important things in our lives are the ones deepest buried in the snow. In our bodies, our arms, our promises. We’re afraid they’re not nice, that they’ll change our looks – our eyes – even as we’re transformed.
The beauty is all of the things we don’t know. It’s finding someone to teach you the way, who wants to let you in. It’s the look in their eye, the tone of the voice, the things they want you to know in secret.
Lust is confidence. It’s only for us. It’s segmented, the body splitting time and piece. It’s all of us poured into each other.
It’s the magic of change. The finding of the words that don’t even make sense in our language. The beauty of connection – carried away in a tongue nobody else would recognize.
It’s beds. And underwear. Perfume. The ache of waiting. The hush of noise. The melt of bodies. I couldn’t even tell you, or imagine how we do without, but the body given – the touch received.
How could you go back after a face like that? How can anyone unmake a kiss?
Posted in While I was Dying on July 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I’ve always believed the last war,
the real conflict,
the moment – exploding
would have nothing to
do with soldiers,
guns, war,
the body bags
would be empty except
for an orgasm.
Something pressed, the
detonator of bodies
watching limbs to get
her stuck between the
man and the man and
the lessons of
generations.
I knew, I know
the ash will be
the blood and bodies
smushed with primal
force, something
even Einstein
would be surprised at.
No drafts, no deserters,
please don’t force me to
become a prisoner I swear
I’ll die and incinerate
and make my bones history
before I ever become the
bomb, moment, explosion
at the heart of everything.
I can only tell you that
all the moments will milk
together like eggs – like
yolk – like her first moment
pushing something into
existence.
You won’t even believe me until
you are gone, a fleeting flash
of quicksand desperation and
the smile your mother told
you to hide at school.
I’m not lying – the last
smile for humanity will
be a war waged
on the bodies and backs,
scars and heels of men and
women and men locked together
like a helix
and Shiva.
If I’m lying,
by the time you find
out I swear to God you’ll be dead.
Posted in While I was Dying on July 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »
The last pretty good thing I worked on was that party, a few months ago, where I awkwardly talked to you right by the door. And part of you was really charmed and interested, and part of you thought I was a loser, and most of you was drunk. And you looked great in the light from the lamp outside, filtered through the screen, as it was.
The last really good thing I worked on was you, with the bushy hair and knows-too-little smile. Happy to see me, and full of teeth, and just another in a long line of things I don’t really want to do. A dead-end promise, a repeat decision-maker, a quaint reminder of some emotional alley I tried to OD in.
The last really great thing I noticed was that your heart was carved by an artisan. That something spun you, cracked and gorgeous, into existence and then blew you into my life. And like some beautiful lighthouse keeper I saw you on the shore, and still haven’t really decided whether to blow the horn or not. And I’ve always seen myself as a passing phase, so it’s hard for me not to believe that blues run the game, but here we are. You’re kind of all the things I want rolled into one, and maybe a bit more. I don’t know why I’m trying to keep my body in such pristine shape when it’d be better bruised up with you. Safe to say I’m trying to keep my wishes to myself, and not focus on your mouth too much.
I know it might not be my masterpiece, but I also know I don’t know the first thing about my daemon. I’d hate to think I’m going to end up anywhere near the place I expected to be.
Posted in While I was Dying on July 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »
The only thing I have learned,
I think, sometimes,
is the breakable nature
of me.
It is something like the bodies
of people, of dolls,
made from fine china
and porcelain.
It is something like the time
and hours of ages, of
childhood compressed into
scars and scars.
It is something like every bird I
see, every bird I meet is a bird
broken, flightless,
beautiful.
All of them, always, flying
somewhere I cannot see
with wings so scratched and
weightless.
I wonder, sometimes, as I am still
the child who wrote you, if a bird
will ever carry me up and away
to sunrise.
I know it is so hard to be any kind
of body at all, a ballerina or a
bird, that I am amazed every time
I find myself caged.
Posted in While I was Dying on July 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I know, the thing
we should not share
is the only thing
worth sharing.
A body, and only,
the breast, the thigh,
the words I know
as caring.
Even here,
amongst the arms,
the women, men,
and all,
I think of you,
most often, truly,
before the rise
and fall.
I am kiss and
swig and breath
and things better
not born.
I am arm and
axe and hand
and salt and
spit and horn.
I am the body most often,
the heart penetrated for fear,
I am the voice in early mornings –
dim, if only, to hear.
I am falling so deep and true
and kind, for your voice,
your smile. I think so often of
all the things, unshared –
unbidden, unkept, unspoken of.
Things I know we feel. Heart
and lock and whit and smile
and most of all – fear.
On the day we arrive, together
with smiles and ears. I can kiss
you then, I hope, if only to
repay the years…
Posted in While I was Dying on July 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »
When I don’t really feel like working, and we aren’t really together, and I feel farther from the words than I would like –
I usually remember how much I want to write. How desperately and deeply it rounds the corners of my soul, and gives me wings I do not deserve. That God or some other beast believed in me enough to leave some trace of dew and beauty, something hearty to keep me alive during my time in the desert.
On the days I would rather not write, anyway, I remember that we are so lucky to have one calling in our life. That I am many things, so many of them strictly for you, but that I am willing and able to transform for the sake of making something so beautiful beyond myself.
I talk all the time now about the story that goes on forever. Perhaps, I hope, someday I will be synonymous with that story. With the early ones, about boys and girls, or the poetry about ribs and eyes. The pieces of the story that will keep going after I die, after you become something else, after we are not one any longer.
I hope I will have those relics, and those postcards for strange lovers, and the occasional photograph to prove just how much everyone meant to me.
I remember, once, I wanted to create a string of photographs for everyone I had ever liked. Even at 17 the thing stretched for miles and miles, wrapped up in everything I believed at that age.
Now I think I would just like the pages, and the bed to share them with someone. Just the room, and the smile to keep it warm. Just the notebooks, and something to think about.
I was watching something about Woody Allen the other day and someone mentioned that he had a lot to say. And, I suppose, that’s what keeps me going. No matter how many naps I take, or people I fall for, or any of that – there’s always something new the world is trying to tell me. And I know the day I crack my ribs open and let it all pour out of me will be the day I remind myself just what my claim to life is, just why I’m a part of history.
For now, I believe in the fact that I need to keep making. Creating for the moments and the loneliness and the exploration. Trying to become the bird that will fly to the heights that I have not yet seen.
And sometimes you are there, too. The last work in my early period, or the prologue to my heart, or the first good novel I’ll write. I’ve always wanted to be me, but I don’t know what I’ll become with you.
On days like this I’m here and there.
Posted in While I was Dying on July 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I’ve always wondered what a second would look like split apart.
I know, I know, of course you milliseconds. Nanoseconds. Something even smaller, I’m sure. But it always seems to me there is so much more to time.
For instance, the way it worked today. Everyone always seems to drone on about the adaptability of time – how it moves so slowly in Summer (but is over too soon!). We can feel a day is so long as we’re living it, but we can also sleep for 10 hours of a day without even intending to do so.
We’re at the mercy, the behest of our time. Our culture even wants to measure it, so tight, even, to control it. To kill time, work it, shape it, maim it in later years.
We want our moments to last forever, but our bad times to pass away instantly. Constant excitement, endless intimacy, virtual change, frozen exposures.
The strangest part, I suppose, is when I am with them. How time is at once too short, and endlessly long, and porous as the ocean. How I can feel the distance and the warmth of something I barely know. How the hours drag, then light up again with surprise.
This is a strange thing, and still so present on a long day today. Like Chekov, I can see how many hours are in front of me. The strangeness, and adaptation. It’s a small reminder of the breadth of feeling, the magic of becoming.
And still, so unusual. I suppose I have spent so much of my time waiting, and here I am hoping to arrive.
Words From A Room