Dear Mildred Rodgers,
We were in bed one late, drunk night. I don’t know if you remember, but I asked if you would miss me, to which you relied, “In all honesty, no. It will be a great weight off my shoulders.” And I lay stunned, cowed, etc. Then you said, “What are you thihnking? Of course I will. You ask the strangest questions. Will you miss my cold house?”
And I said, quite frankly, “Yes,” but let me amend my response.
Last night I was in a drafty old farm house worked with polished wood and smoke. I sat in the kitchen drinking stewed wine and instant coffee with people dying. The wood stove made the room cozy and rosy and intimate, heavy almost with feelings of self-aware tragedy. It was late, three in the morning, perhaps, when I stood up from the table and announced that I’d be off to bed.
In the cold hallway, fumbling through passages and forgoing light, I could see my breath. It stuck to the windows. It stuck to the sheen of wood along the door frames, and I wiped it off with my hands.
I thought of your question and that frigid, drunken huddling. I thought yes, I’d still say yes, only now I’d realize that yours was a cold I could always leave if I only opened the door. But who wants to open the door?
Love Always,
Philip Carey
It was Independence Day when she brought to shore wreaths of wilted flowers from the bodies of men drowned in small, water-logged skiffs at sea. They’d celebrated too early and accepted gifts too early at sea, from the sea. Anemones, plankton, nudibranchs, and man-of-wars. She brought them between teeth like tiny arrows. She said, “Some said it was Independence Day and these dead men, their bodies, god bless their souls, but perhaps their bodies, too, had bubbles once, so some said to bring them to you.” These men and their flowers fell at our feet as we rose in a common cheer.
I’d heard from second-hand sources of this new development, or not a development, but a vow stemming from a memory. This latter interpretation was given over to me by numerous sources, all of which were not entirely credible, but by their sheer number seemed to indicate a general impression, a mood or feeling attached to such actions as manifest during non-developments, from promises made and rendered by one person to themselves which may indicate a change, but may also intend a barricade.
What happened was that seemingly on a whim, but probably on a memory, he took to insisting that he would neither speak first nor respond to anyone unless he had raised his hand and been called upon, “quite like in grade school.”
While I was not present for the all too familiar situation in which he began this endeavor, I do know that he had been talking rather vibrantly about this, that, and the other with an intimate but large group of friends around a mid-April barbeque, when suddenly someone noticed that he had been holding a small, grimy bird shell, cracked open and crusty around the edges. When asked quite cheerfully what he had got there, he immediately broke off his chatter and fell into a deep, frowning silence. Then, he held up the egg and with a look of “unfounded” and “defiant” and “innocent” anger he stated that even though it was Spring, he had neither found any official eggs, nor enjoyed the hunt. In fact, he was quite sure that an egg was a point to be missed and dismissed. And then, “quite disconnectedly,” he announced that he would not utter another word unless he raised his hand and was called upon.
This proclamation was greeted with amusement and delight, yet as the years go on, also with an amount of consternation. To this day, many people have said how they either try to make him speak before raising his hand or wait with increasing exasperation as they watch themselves, like in a dream, ask that he feel compelled to ask to speak.
In Pamuk’s Snow, he recounts how the difference between Love and the Agony of Waiting is slight indeed. Both cause you to throw yourself on the bed with pains emanating first from the stomach, then throughout the spine, and finally to the soul. Both make time stand still and (for those who Love and are Waiting) become the moribund mallet of the object. Both make quiet moments seem supreme, yet superficial. A million memories, a million conversations, may arise that vaguely or never happened. Distractions are put into place almost as a saving grace, which in more optimal and functional times are acknowledged and sincerely lauded for their shitbaggery, rather than their cloaking nature. An element of humor is present in the Love and the Agony of Waiting that make both unbearable.
Really, I think the difference is something far more simple: One may wait for Love as a concept or they may wait for Waiting and Wanting and A-Paining. But one just downright feels more hopeful in the former rather than the latter.
It’s a matter of word choice that I have yet to settle.
“you’re an ankle biter, though you’re collegiate.”
“but,” she said, “it’s strategic.”
“I know where that mighty tendon does lie
that takes a grown man down and makes him cry.”
“you think you know, but let’s not try
because in the end,
he knows the demand is more than the supply.”
dipped in the river styx and left to die, albeit in a fucked up incognito way.
I’ve been told that the world rotates and this is why the sun comes up and it makes sense rationally, with light blue diagrams and all, but in the end I think the sun moves and I’m here glued. I’ve been known to think this, feel this, in my bones about being stuck, pinned, moved about in a circumscribed sphere from time to time. but still, i try to guess.
I am moveable.
When he woke up in the morning he had a pounding headache. Amidst the clamor and bang he noticed the glips in thought from the night prior. How did I- but then self-preservation, saving grace almighty, kicks in and he’s tight inside but loose like autopilot kicks in and he’s hugs and casual. We’ve all been here before, kiddo.
He doesn’t want anything to do with me really. I am a strange remnant that heeded his call to stay when he was drunk and lonely, but still he didn’t want me really. But the beck and call. And I think I come too readily, regale to steadily, stay too easily, play casual for comfort’s sake. Am I the good girl a man wants to corrupt? Am I the man-eater a boy wants to conquer?
I am, like all others, regardless of gender, the impeccable mirror by which someone measures their own worth. That mote in a field of vision which might catch an eye and serve as a moment of existential reflection. That body warm, with a passable personality bigger than they know. And how.
My me will conquer all. My I will bask in your gaze and blaze. Mark my words.
maybe he got it again, but only with the foolishness that might accompany it all, i best guess that best practice is not on a poster. you will find no powerpoint for the winning team, no, except for paltry attempts at escaping ends-meat and piece-meal scourging around, shit bagging and destroying what you seconds ago created and trying to no avail. a hooting quiet holler that goes underground once in a while to recoup. you have no future.
try try try. you will not win. you will not win. you are doomed from the first, from your parents oversight to your lack of wherewithal-you are doomed. and you eat that and you keep smiling with no sympathy from quarters not shrouded in cheap perfume, booze, and degenerates, maybe a bit of inspiration, but dubious, tucked behind your ear.
you will not win, but you will keep wasting and wanting what you will never, ever have.
a-hole.
What do we care, my heart, for streams of blood
And fire, a thousand murders, endless screams
Of anger, sobs of hell, order destroyed in a flood
Of fire, as over all the North Wind streams:
Vengeance entire? Nothing! Oh, yes, entire!
Captains of Industry, Princes, perish! This we desire!
Power, Justice, History, fall! Down with the old!
You owe us that. Blood! Blood! And flames of gold!
i called to him half asleep before realizing that it wasn’t there and hadn’t been but another was. and i had thought all along as the individual sounds rolled through the darkness and i held my hands clenched hard against my breast:
in the name of the shit, bag, and holy ghost:
“i de-claim you.”
