so, these are the last days of february. this year, it was four solid weeks of gray, beginning on a sunday and ending on a saturday. never seen the calendar so efficient or organized. would that every month were this way.
last night, drunk by seven, popped a little blue valium in the bathroom before graduating from cheap beer to sugary, viscous jagermeister. sinking slowly in a stool at the bar across the street. katie the bartender's comment: "i've never seen you so sedated before." a thrill, really, to hear something like that. barely remembering the walks to and from the bars, the volume on "heads will roll" (new yeah yeah yeahs song) as high as it could go. so high that when i took my headphones off everyone's voices were muted. greeted by trent in the first bar. the perfunctory hellos. he says he is doing better than he was last week. i say that better is always good until it turns to worse again. he seems nonplussed. on the walk, seeing chase. can't tell if he is stoned. he's going to kick it with JJ for awhile. then bowling. he tells me not to "hurt myself" drinking and we part ways. then the bar, and then trent's admission. i speak with my roommate & her friend erica for a moment. erica relates the story of her trip out of maine. she went skydiving. i tell her it sounds enticing but that it reminds me somehow of swimming, which i am terrified of. she agrees after a moment of thought that the two are somewhat similar.
so i come home early in the evening though it is the syrupy dark of a maine winter. i don't remember passing out, but i remember the dreams ... i remember the dreaming, i remember being at home - HOME - which will always refer to the HOUSE i grew up in, though it is inaccessible now. i am in my old room though it is my sister's room now. my old desk is there, the one that fits in the corner. it is crammed with books, all my old books, the ones i've lost, all of them, and i am telling my mother and my sister that i am taking them back, and i am taking back my 1990 powder blue ford mustang, even WITH the huge dent in the side, even WITH the ominous rattling under the hood, i am going to drive it back to maine and it will combust somewhere along I-95 and take me and all my books with it in some huge fiery crash.
as though anticipating my death-wish, i am rebuffed and so i take to stealing, slipping the books out of the house one by one, two by two, as many as i can beneath the seemingly impenetrable greatcoat i happen to be wearing. i happen to espy my mother talking worriedly to my ex-stepfather in bed. he lays on his stomach, naked, unmoving. she is talking to a corpse. then the house is full of life, crammed with relatives, visiting from everywhere, little children running around - cousins who i could care less for, aunts and uncles who aren't really asking about how life is in maine, what i am doing, and i lie, i lie like a bastard, i lie so much and so quickly that my face turns blue. they ask me if i'm cold and i say that i have a genetic predisposition to change skin color when i lie. they are confused and leave me like images on a television screen, just slide off the set, off stage left, take off their masks and costumes and try all over again in a new character.
i am startled to wakefulness around six in the morning, having slept the best i ever have in my life, despite the crazed zoetrope of dreaming. i am staring at this thing, this "queer & allied" writing project that is happening in the city in a week or two. i am supposed to submit something but the only thing i have is unfinished and really quite terrible.
ran into the past the other day. some folks from college who knew me then and think they still want to know me now. joke's on them - they never wanted to in the first place and now it's all about making the past closer to the present so they don't feel so confused. who are these strangers who profess to know me? i don't want to know them. leave me alone.
and so it goes. i get lonelier by divesting myself of people who profess to care about me. and words do nothing to salve the wound. in fact nothing does.
i'm a waiter now. i'm about to turn 26 and i wait tables in a local restaurant. i live in a comfortable room with a lot of things. i drink a lot. i like to trip on drugs. i don't read as much as i should. i spend too much time watching television and stuck in the internet. i am gaining weight in the middle, though it is a subtle gain, i can feel it. it's all the beer, they say. if this cold doesn't end soon. if this winter doesn't shudder to a halt. if all this continues and continues to continue.
i need to make sure i go back to therapy. i am losing myself again. things are spinning out of control.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
parthenogenesis
1.
... the doctor, yelling, the nurses murmuring, the white white walls flashing colors like a mad zoetrope. she feels delirious, like that time in college she tried acid in her dorm room - the ceiling elongating to cathedral heights, the walls pulsing in tripartite rhythm - the epidural is doing nothing for her. she feels pain inside of herself, a different pain than a burn or even the dentist’s awful drill - it is a mysterious tugging, as though God is making origami out of her insides - God screwing up the swan, unfolding, starting again, each fold creasing her, causing her flesh to become weaker and weaker until on the seventh or eighth try, she rips in two...
the shriek comes from her asshole - she feels like she’s taking the most gigantic shit in the universe, but it goes backwards, redlining its way all the way up her spinal cord, tickling her vagus nerve - she is flooded with sensation, feels it burbling in her nose as though she is drowning. her hand falls to the side of the bed, grasping for a mate that isn’t there. her fingers curl. nails dig into her palm. blood oozes to the surface of the skin as though it is emancipated finally from a term in prison - she is barking, now, like a feral dog, thrashing in the sheets, howling, even, her neck snapping to and from, sweat-soaked curls of dirty blonde hair lashing the pillows and the bedsheets ... the nurses flinching, the doctor swearing, then yelping - it is like a scene at the zoo - and with a colossal bellow, she falls back, face contorting, and delivers, with a horrible squelching sound, a child, into the eager doctor’s latex-gloved hands.
that is the first sensation Ezekiel feels as he falls into the world as from a great height, the slippery latex of the doctor’s gloves. the glint of anodyne light from the doctor’s wire-rimmed spectacles. the perspiration gleaming like diamonds in the furrows of his brow. the ridged & blue-masked mouth, like a mandrill’s face - this, and the second - the abrasively chemical smell of their fear - and the sweet persimmon of relief the moment he opens his mouth to bawl the news of his arrival.
2.
it is like this. the doctor remembers the clutch of her hand, empty-fisted, curling in on itself. the struggling quest for her first postpartum breath. the weak flutter of her eyelids in direct opposition to the unfettered spread of her lips into a smile. he likens the curve of her mouth to the satisfaction he sees his wife repeat after they make love. perhaps he is a narcissist that way. she is getting used to breathing again. her child is wailing unceasingly. there was a chance - more than a chance - that it wouldn’t survive. silver scissors separate the infant from its mother and the doctor gently holds it aloft. in the bed, the glop of placenta, left on the sheets, glistening wetly in the light. the mother’s arms are outstretched, pleading. her fingers wiggle like a child’s to a cookie jar at an unattainable height. he takes pity on her, knowing she’ll never see the baby again, and places it like a jigsaw piece between her breasts. her eyes are tumescent with tears. her arms wrap around her progeny, her chin ducks to her chest, and she croons tunelessly, brokenly, body wracked with a tempest of sorrow.
the doctor can hear a clamor rising in the hall. the nurses are fighting their way back into the room, slapping at hands which wriggle at them. the mother rocks to a steady, metronomic rhythm. the baby is weirdly silent, an ugly, bloody mess of flesh and eyes and mouth and fingers, toying with the soaked curls of its mother’s hair. the fracas in the waiting room is getting out of hand. even beatrice and the whole of the administrative staff can’t hold back the rising tide of on-lookers, worshippers, and paparazzi. the woman is lifting her head. her eyes - sodalite blue, cut across the hospital room to his chest, then lift, weakly, up to meet his gaze. “doctor,” she rasps, “i’ve changed my mind ... i want to keep him.”
the doctor pulls down his face-mask, and sighs heavily. it is his job to retrieve the infant and keep it in isolation until the proper authorities can see to its care. “you’ve signed the papers, Cherie.” she starts shaking her head back & forth as though repeating the violent throes of labor. “the money’s on its way to your account right now...”
“it’s not about the money...” but her thrashing & the clench of her jaw interrupts the words, so he can’t be sure that’s what she said. he nods to a nurse, who stands by the bedside, eyes dark & tumultuous with consternation & fear. he nods, tersely, in their direction, and Cherie begins to shriek anew, bloodlessly, clenching the baby to her chest. a needle slips into a vein. her jaw falls slack and her eyes roll into her skull. her muscles are loosened as though untied. Ezekiel, shrieking in slight discord to his mother’s own ululations, slips into the awkward arms of Caroline Peavey, R.N. Caroline has never had a child, let alone a serious boyfriend, and yet it feels right to her when the squalling infant falls into her embrace. she instinctively clutches it to her breast, knees buckling as though he is a much greater weight than six pounds, five ounces.
... the doctor, yelling, the nurses murmuring, the white white walls flashing colors like a mad zoetrope. she feels delirious, like that time in college she tried acid in her dorm room - the ceiling elongating to cathedral heights, the walls pulsing in tripartite rhythm - the epidural is doing nothing for her. she feels pain inside of herself, a different pain than a burn or even the dentist’s awful drill - it is a mysterious tugging, as though God is making origami out of her insides - God screwing up the swan, unfolding, starting again, each fold creasing her, causing her flesh to become weaker and weaker until on the seventh or eighth try, she rips in two...
the shriek comes from her asshole - she feels like she’s taking the most gigantic shit in the universe, but it goes backwards, redlining its way all the way up her spinal cord, tickling her vagus nerve - she is flooded with sensation, feels it burbling in her nose as though she is drowning. her hand falls to the side of the bed, grasping for a mate that isn’t there. her fingers curl. nails dig into her palm. blood oozes to the surface of the skin as though it is emancipated finally from a term in prison - she is barking, now, like a feral dog, thrashing in the sheets, howling, even, her neck snapping to and from, sweat-soaked curls of dirty blonde hair lashing the pillows and the bedsheets ... the nurses flinching, the doctor swearing, then yelping - it is like a scene at the zoo - and with a colossal bellow, she falls back, face contorting, and delivers, with a horrible squelching sound, a child, into the eager doctor’s latex-gloved hands.
that is the first sensation Ezekiel feels as he falls into the world as from a great height, the slippery latex of the doctor’s gloves. the glint of anodyne light from the doctor’s wire-rimmed spectacles. the perspiration gleaming like diamonds in the furrows of his brow. the ridged & blue-masked mouth, like a mandrill’s face - this, and the second - the abrasively chemical smell of their fear - and the sweet persimmon of relief the moment he opens his mouth to bawl the news of his arrival.
2.
it is like this. the doctor remembers the clutch of her hand, empty-fisted, curling in on itself. the struggling quest for her first postpartum breath. the weak flutter of her eyelids in direct opposition to the unfettered spread of her lips into a smile. he likens the curve of her mouth to the satisfaction he sees his wife repeat after they make love. perhaps he is a narcissist that way. she is getting used to breathing again. her child is wailing unceasingly. there was a chance - more than a chance - that it wouldn’t survive. silver scissors separate the infant from its mother and the doctor gently holds it aloft. in the bed, the glop of placenta, left on the sheets, glistening wetly in the light. the mother’s arms are outstretched, pleading. her fingers wiggle like a child’s to a cookie jar at an unattainable height. he takes pity on her, knowing she’ll never see the baby again, and places it like a jigsaw piece between her breasts. her eyes are tumescent with tears. her arms wrap around her progeny, her chin ducks to her chest, and she croons tunelessly, brokenly, body wracked with a tempest of sorrow.
the doctor can hear a clamor rising in the hall. the nurses are fighting their way back into the room, slapping at hands which wriggle at them. the mother rocks to a steady, metronomic rhythm. the baby is weirdly silent, an ugly, bloody mess of flesh and eyes and mouth and fingers, toying with the soaked curls of its mother’s hair. the fracas in the waiting room is getting out of hand. even beatrice and the whole of the administrative staff can’t hold back the rising tide of on-lookers, worshippers, and paparazzi. the woman is lifting her head. her eyes - sodalite blue, cut across the hospital room to his chest, then lift, weakly, up to meet his gaze. “doctor,” she rasps, “i’ve changed my mind ... i want to keep him.”
the doctor pulls down his face-mask, and sighs heavily. it is his job to retrieve the infant and keep it in isolation until the proper authorities can see to its care. “you’ve signed the papers, Cherie.” she starts shaking her head back & forth as though repeating the violent throes of labor. “the money’s on its way to your account right now...”
“it’s not about the money...” but her thrashing & the clench of her jaw interrupts the words, so he can’t be sure that’s what she said. he nods to a nurse, who stands by the bedside, eyes dark & tumultuous with consternation & fear. he nods, tersely, in their direction, and Cherie begins to shriek anew, bloodlessly, clenching the baby to her chest. a needle slips into a vein. her jaw falls slack and her eyes roll into her skull. her muscles are loosened as though untied. Ezekiel, shrieking in slight discord to his mother’s own ululations, slips into the awkward arms of Caroline Peavey, R.N. Caroline has never had a child, let alone a serious boyfriend, and yet it feels right to her when the squalling infant falls into her embrace. she instinctively clutches it to her breast, knees buckling as though he is a much greater weight than six pounds, five ounces.
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