freedom breedom

today i wait, and pretend and look as if i am busy, look as if i am catching the deepest pulse of things, as if i am somehow saturated in the integrity of this place.  but let's be honest, i'm only moving for the dollar, for the dollar so i can keep moving.  was it in my power to escape the rat race?  is it in my power still?  from a place of comfort and employment i venture to the ledge and wonder what it would feel like to jump off, to end in free fall, to feel free and know that any moment i would be obliterated, shattered into a billion, billion tiny molecules collapsed and taken back to the bitty bits from whence i cam.  and yes, can't we be obliterated here, on this ledge?  on this solid ground?  caught up in a landslide, broadsided by a car or my personal favorite, combustion from within, a heart attack, lung failure, a sudden giving up without the intending to give up?  of course i'm afraid to jump.  i watch those beautiful bodies of friends i know flying through the air and wishing to be one but not and cannot.  cannot?  will not.  will not?  will, yes, but not.  confusing isn't it?

the pick up point

limbs in the dark are enlightening
the side of the road is waiting
for something
for a ride
for a place to be whisked away
travel mug is squirming
in my arms like a baby.

11/23/2011

dream heavy in the nights when you're alone
are you starving for affection?
are you starving for something you can't keep down?
what is this hostile place?

i'm willing to go as deep as i must for a sentence. 
take it from my marrow,
willing to give up an appendage...
maybe...
not an appendage,
but willing to bleed out a while,
just for a sentence
you see?

it's been long. 
and long it has been. 
perhaps i'm sleeping too much. 
rain fills the ground
everything is fat from too much penetration. 
you see 
i'm waterproof apparently. 
nothing's getting through to me.

A Little More

His hot little face extremely red and sore, diaphanous sheets of skin blooming from around his eyes and nose and ears like new pedals, lips so red and bleeding they looked like the carved out muscle of a bull while he was still alive and a large gaping mouth, sending out what might be hell incarnate for anyone who had to hear it.  This is the image that comes to me as a poisonous vapor before I sleep and dream and wish I hadn’t done such an awful thing.  How they could show such an image on the news and then re-print it hundreds of times to put on the front page of the local newspaper is a mystery to me.  Such insensitivity.  Such sensationalism.  These reports, these dogs of the press, why not tell us he was severely burned, why not tell us that time will heal the wounds, why not let us imagine in as little or as much detail as we want?  Why make the pain eternal?

His eyes haunt me.  Puffed and swollen things like a baby bird just born.  His eyes haunt me, eyes I had never seen, green, blue, brown, hazel, I’ll never know.  At night, when his tortured face comes to me, I try to imagine him opening his eyes; I try to imagine what they would look like, beautiful things, big and round and crystal blue.  Always blue.  Blue like yours.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I’m really, really sorry.

*

I was sitting in my mother’s living room, a towel wrapped around my shoulders, my feet bare, and my throat dry. 

“Go on and take a bath or you’ll catch a cold” my mother yelled from in the kitchen.  She was making macaroni and cheese, the kind out of a box.  I ignored her and stared into the TV.  “Breaking News” it said.  The gaunt, young news anchor had a stoic and passionless face.  Her hair was flat and she was cold, I could tell, but back straight and shoulders square she delivered the news.  This was, after all, the biggest story to hit our county since the attempted burglary at Mr. Patterson’s place and the subsequent death of his dog, Peaches, who was shot six times.  The dog was not shown on TV. 

“There has been no new developments as to how the infant is doing at this time.  When he was admitted to the hospital, it was clear that he suffered from third degree burns over his entire face.  The medical staff on hand was especially worried for his eyes” The image of the infant came to the screen burning in a moment that would never end.  “It is too soon yet to comment as to whether or not the child will be rendered blind by this horrific accident”.

“Blind?” I whispered to myself.  My mother was standing behind me with a wooden spoon in her hand.  I looked up at her timidly.   

“What’s got you so frightened huh?” she asked extending the spoon with macaroni for me to try.  I had no appetite whatsoever and told her so, “How could they show such an awful picture?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s a sad story isn’t it?  Sad, sad story” she petted my head, “But don’t worry, the baby will be just fine.  Now, why don’t you go on and take a hot shower.  Sitting around in those wet clothes is going to give you cold”.


It had been raining for days on end.  Literally.  The hours pooled around my soggy toes in waking and drowned my tired ears at night.  In my twenty two years of living I had never seen so much rain at one time.  All the older folks around town seemed rather happy for the rain.  “We’ve been in a drought for the last fifteen years; it’s about time we get some damn rain”.

Of course, it’s not easy to see such an upside to all the rain, especially when you’re young and all you want is to run around in the sunshine, make big plans and gaze out at the clear unimpeded horizon and tell yourself in a low and soulful voice, “there, that’s where it’s at” even when you don’t know what you mean.  Perhaps the young ones need the sun more than the older ones precisely because we don’t know what we mean.  And who could think with all that rain tapping on your head anyway?
“It’s been raining so much my skin smells like mold” I told my mother. 

She only laughed and replied, “A little rain is good for the soil”.  She pulled back one of the kitchen curtains, “See?  Look at those weeds!  Have you ever seen them so spry?”  She laughed again. 

“It didn’t rain this much in Florida” I huffed.

“It’ll be alright, you’ll see”

But it wasn’t alright. The rain didn't stop, even when those older folks who liked the rain turned their backs on it and joined the rest of us in praying that it would stop, the rain thundered on.  It didn’t matter how much I wanted something, the rain made it clear that there was something greater in this world than my wants.  Of course, it wasn’t simply the rain that made me realize this; rather it was my entire situation, the rain of which only made it so theatrically clear.  I was stuck in a small town, not just any ol’ small town, but my hometown, pressed firmly under the paradoxically portly thumb of a repression.  I went away four years ago swearing never to return save for the few family holidays.  I went away and graduated from a fine school with a degree in psychology.  The moment I stepped from the sweet and sheltered threshold of my college life to the “real world” I instantly felt the pain that would be my future existence.  Unemployment and a very ill economy smacked the rose colored glasses right off my raised little nose with such force, I would feel the whip lash for years to come.  Rather than wonder the streets begging for a dime, I not-so-humbly returned home where I put my psychology degree to use heartlessly scrutinizing my co-workers and our customers at the local coffee shop.

“So you come back.  Thought you were going to live in the big city” Stephanie hissed.  I hadn’t been working at the coffee shop more than three days and already the girls were openly ripping me to shreds.  In my town people liked to keep up appearances which meant if they had anything nasty to say to you, they would either shroud it in some clever banter or give it to you in private.  Somehow, such prudence skipped our generation.

“Big city?  I would hardly call it a big city, but I suppose if all you’ve seen is this town, well then I do suppose it’s pretty big” I said snickering.

“So you went away to a fancy school so you could work here?  Seems like a waste of money seeing as I never went away and I work here and will be taking vacation at the end of the year.  You won’t get vacation for a long time” she spat.

“Vacation?  Really?  Gee, where you going to go Stephanie?  Across the bridge to Lockwood?” I asked sarcastically.

“Just seems like you went away to be something and you come back nothing.  Sad, that’s all” she said, bumping past me to gather supplies from the back room.  Unlike most of the student body from my high school, I went to college and moreover, I went out of state.  I knew from the moment I hit high school that I wanted out of this town, I wanted more than its population of two hundred and fifty could offer.  Sure, the annual country fair with its prized chicken contest, the grocery store that acted like a swap meet for all sorts of gossip and the public library the size of an outhouse was in some way quaint if you were passing through, but it was damn depressing if you were young and expected to make a life there. 

I had always thought I was smarter than the average scrubby little kid this town spit out endlessly like watermelon seeds.  I was drinking coffee by the time I was eight and not just because my father died and my mother still always poured two cups in the morning out of habit, but because I was already out growing this place.  I needed the speed and lights and strangeness of a city, hell, of a bigger town even.  I watched my mother grow dimmer each day after my father left.  The town was starving her, and yet, there was just enough stimulation to keep her alive, my sisters, her little garden, the Mrs. Pueschel’s alleged affair with the bag boy at the local grocery.  When I told my mother I wanted to go to college she was thrilled.

“That’s wonderful honey!” she said wiping her wet hands on her jeans and releasing my newly shorn sister from her seat in the kitchen.  My sister always wore her hair short, something about it being neater and cleaner my mother said.  My sister hated her short hair and I could hear her at night sometimes plotting her getaway to a land with the long haired ladies. 

“In Florida” I continued and opened the refrigerator to fetch a piece of cheese.

“Florida?” her voice dropped an octave. 

“Yes, Florida.  The school is really nice and they are giving me a full scholarship”

My sister tugged on my mother’s leg.  “Where’s Florida?” she asked.

“Too damn far away” she replied staring hard at me.  “Now go up and fetch your sister, she could use a trim too”

I began to walk away with my sister, “No, you stay right here.  We’re going to talk about this Florida business”.  I remember sitting at the table watching my mother skillfully measure my youngest sister’s blonde locks and snip, snip, snip.  With each clip of the scissors I felt my dream of Florida being cut out from under me.

“Why don’t you want me to go?”

“Because it’s too far away.  You’ve never been that far away.  What if something happens?”

I shrugged my shoulders.  She was worrying, she was being a drag.

“If you’re all the way down in Florida, how do you expect me to get there and help you when you need it?”

Then I said something that I would regret saying for the rest of my life, something that would keep us from speaking to one another for most of my four years of college.  “You’re just afraid.  You’re afraid I’ll leave you like dad did, leave you and get out of this shit hole town”.  The moment I said it, I wanted to take it back.  I had never sworn in front of my mother and I had never used my father’s name to hurt anyone.

She was shocked.  She put the scissors gently on the table and told my sister to go up to her room.  My sister, though only still so little, could feel the gravity of the situation and she begun to cry.  I listened for her whimpering as she climbed the stairs.  My mother sat in the chair next to mine and looked me levelly in the eye.  She was so calm and then, suddenly, she slapped me hard across the face, so hard I thought she might have broken my jaw.  I cried out in shock.

“Your father died.  He died on his own, it had nothing to do with me or you or your sisters.  Don’t you ever desecrate his memory again just because you want to hurt me.  Go to Florida if that’s what you want to do.  But don’t you ever, ever make the mistake of talking to me like that again.”

I left for Florida in the fall.  Even with months in between our blow up and my departure date, mother’s and my relationship remained strained.  I came home for two Christmases and each time I waved goodbye to the small town on my way back to the airport, I was so thankful to be leaving again.     

I knew the town had a way of ensnaring people, not for any charm or promise of a better life, but because of connivance, because you could just get by and maybe have enough change to play a round or two or pool at the local bar.  Most folks in this town had been here since the town first began.  Streets were named after families and mom and pop stores were still king.  My parents were high school sweethearts.  My dad was a big time football star and my mother was an odd choice, being the nerdy, quiet type.  But somehow it worked and until my father killed himself, our family was the pride of the town.  My father was the manager at the local farm supply store and my mother was a school teacher.  My grandmother was alive then, so we’d spend time with her while my folks were out making a living.  We were an upstanding family, with a clean and well kept yard, always present for church on Sundays.  Of course, things change and it’s usually the smallest of things that make the greatest changes.  A bullet, a word, a shot of cheap vodka. 

*

I daydreamed through my days at the coffee shop and garnered steady and loyal disliking.  I couldn’t blame my classmates; I was slow in my tasks, disinterested in the customers and horribly clumsy.  And moreover, I didn’t care.  I was selfish.  I thought I was so learned but in reality I didn’t know a damned, damned thing. 

"This sucks!" I mumbled under my breath.  Steamed whole milk had already begun to sour on my black slacks.  It was ninety-eight degrees behind the counter and I was trying my best to keep my sweat from dropping into someone’s double spiced cinnamon dulce late.  The line of cups at the bar had begun to snake over to the register counter and greasy pawed children with rotting teeth were begging apathetic teenage mothers to get them their “coco-now”.  It was all very pressing.  Give the people what they want said the manager, he, only forty or so years older than the greasy pawed children but as much an impatient prick.  I searched for a can of whipped cream under the espresso bar only to have my hands come up empty.  Meanwhile the crowd of people was pushing against the counter like a tidal wave threatens to crush a break wall.  Their hungry eyes shouted “we will take our lattes and cocoas and anything else we damn well want!”

"Fricken’ kids and their whipped cream" I huffed under my breath.  I turned on my heel and in the process knocked over a nearly completed cinnamon dulce latte, then the only thing about my night that showed any promise of progress.  The crowd instantly quieted and stared at me in disbelief.  The world had shattered, the momentum slowed, a man in a business suit cried.  I let myself duck into the back work space to retrieve the whipped cream.  I would forget about the mess for the time being.  I would make the drink over again for the young college student who thought talking about Marx at the top of her voice qualified her as intelligent.  I would apologize, compliment her on her all black wardrobe, black trench coat, black leggings, high heeled black leather boots and a black beret and maybe even ask she believed in a revolution, just to stroke her ego a bit.  If she was kind she'd drop a nickel in the tip jar to help the unfortunate.  And I would smile and go on working the rest of the evening in my puddle of souring milk and high fructose corn syrup.

When I returned armed with six cans of whipped cream, you were working on the espresso bar, steaming milk and pulling shots, bright eyes smiling, blond hair pulled up into a bun, a small golden heart hanging on a dainty chain about your neck.  You wore a fitted white t-shirt with a stenciled print of Jim Morrison, skinny jeans and nothing but a pair of Reef slippers on your feet.  The long line of cups, which under my tutelage appeared as drinks lined up for a slaughter, looked in your skilled and dainty hands like precious gifts from heaven.  Some people just have a way of calming their surroundings, like they can slow the agitated particles of the air, mellow the manic beats of the heart, quiet the ranting of the mind, and deliver the soul from trouble. Skillfully and seemingly effortlessly, you had assuaged the great bottle neck that only moments before threatened my very sanity.

"You showed up just in time" Melanie said giving a parting wave to the last customer who made her way to the exit.

"Are you supposed to be here?" said Stacy counting the meager change in the tip jar.

"Nah, I came in with talk with Michael about a schedule change"

"Well thanks for filling in.  Space case screwed up again"

"That was a big rush" you said levelly.

"A big rush?  Yeah right" Stacy said laughing. “Why are you always defending her?”

“Well somebody has to” said Melanie laughing.

You came back to where I had decided to make myself busy washing dishes.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, just spilt some things and it kinda snow balled on me you know?" I said, trying not to let you see my watering eyes.

"Yeah, I know how that gets".  You put your hand on my shoulder and a wave of tranquility flooded me. "You smell like sour milk".  Your nose scrunched up and you laughed.

"Yeah, my apron's drenched" I felt your hand fly from my shoulder and you were gone.

"Here" you extended a freshly cleaned and starched apron to me.

"That's nice of you, but I don't need it.  It's almost the end of the night and there's no point in getting a fresh apron all dirty"

"Of course there's a point, actually it's exactly the point.  Here take it".  You said pushing the apron to my chest.

"Really, I'll feel bad taking your clean apron.  My shift's almost over"

"You feel like those things that surround you.  If you want to stew in sour milk fine, but personally I think you deserve better than that.  Take the apron" you smiled.

"Thanks"

"Not a problem.  You working tomorrow?"

"Yeah in the afternoon.  You?"

"Got the morning shift. I'll take your apron and wash it for tomorrow and you can use mine.  We'll switch back later.  Sound good?"

"Great"

"Great.  See you tomorrow".  You started to walk away.

"Hey!"  I hollered and you turned around. "Thank you.  You are..." I stumbled for the words.

"Amazing?" you finished with a laugh.

From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were different from everyone else and it was precisely your difference that made me want to know you.  You felt like escape, you felt like another world entirely.  There was something about the way you moved through space as if you were slicing through various realities, as if you were so confident and clear about what was and what was to come.  Sure, you were beautiful, but that wasn't what drew me to you.  It was the way you walked about your day as if everything were in its proper place; it was as it should be.  You, unlike everyone else, didn't seem to hunger with want.  You were and are content to be.  How very Zen of you.  I tried to explain this once during a lull at the shop.

“I think you think too much” you said smiling.  “But thanks for the compliments”

“Yes, you’re right, perhaps I do think too much” I rolled the idea around in my mind.

“You’re thinking too much right now”

“Yes” I said seriously.

She pinched me on the arm, “Snap out of it will you?  Your brain is going to overheat pretty soon”

You had a way and it wasn’t something that you put on to make yourself seem better.  You simply were better.  I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you.


You were to work the morning shift until noon on that Tuesday.  I was supposed to come in at noon.  What happened to me, you must being wondering, what happened to me, why wasn’t I there to help you when you had helped me so many times before?  There is no gentle way, no nice way of relating the following events, so I will write them plainly in the hopes that you can perhaps cleanse your troubled conscious. 

I hated working at the coffee shop, I hated the town.  I had developed a habit of drinking a little or a lot, depending on my liquor stash, before work. I wanted to take the edge off what I believed was a rapidly declining quality of life.  Things had gotten worse, I was feeling more and more depressed about my situation and the fact that I was so far from what I expected of myself.  The incessant rain, of course, did not help ease my depression.  So that morning I woke with not a sunny thought in my head.  I pulled out the cheap vodka I had bought a few days ago and poured myself a shot.  I meandered through my morning, taking shots and clipping my toenails.  I remember distinctly, because I replay this moment over and over in my head, when I reached for the bottle, my head a little swirly and thought to myself, “If I drink anymore, I may be too drunk to make it to work”.  I looked out the window and the rain was coming down in sheets, like a curtain was continually closing on my life. 

I lifted the bottle and poured another shot.  The seconds it took me to make that decision, that selfish, selfish decision, the small stature of that little glass would change everything.  Of course, I didn’t think of it like that.  I didn’t think of anything really only of wallowing in my own self pity.  Bottom’s up!  Before I knew it was time to leave for work.  I was much too drunk to drive, I knew, so in my inebriated state I decided to ride my bicycle to work.  It’s a good fifteen miles from my house to the coffee shop as you know and uphill almost the entire way but I pedaled onward regardless of the futility of the situation. About five minutes into my bike ride, it began to rain. And it rained. And it rained. I was getting soaked and was too drunk to pedal with such limited vision not to mention the steep incline that I began to walk my bike up the hills. I can't remember if I was crying. I do vaguely remember seeing a pine tree at the top of one of the hills and thinking how I would like to take a rest for a while.

I was shaken awake by my mother who smelt of lemons and cigarettes. It was no longer raining but she was in a bright yellow raincoat nonetheless. My sisters were in the backseat and the youngest one pushed her tiny Polly pocket up against the window.

“Honey!  Honey!  Are you alright?” my mother’s voice was shaking.

"What?"  I asked wearily.

"What the hell are you doing over here?"

It was a good question. I looked down at myself, soaking wet, your freshly starched apron wrapped around my waist. "I don't know"

"You don't know?" my mother shouted, "you don't know" she was shaking.

"I was trying to go to work" I said, trying to sound somewhat responsible.

"Well, obviously you didn't make it. Your boss Michael called me and asked where you were. I got worried and drove this street up and down looking for you." her eyes began to water, "Thank god your sister saw the reflection of your bike's handle bar in the grass" I could see her shoes were soaked and water had traveled by capillary action up her pants to her knees. Capillary action. I learned that much in college.

"I’m sorry" I muttered.

She let herself fall on her knees into the grass. "I’m just happy you're okay" and she hugged me so tight I thought I would break into a million little pieces.

"There was an accident at the coffee shop, poor thing" she said.  I was looking over her shoulder at the tiny Polly pocket in the window, "your friend Rachel. Apparently she dropped boiling tea on a little baby".

hope

how do i even begin?  it's been so long, i'm not sure if i recognize me.  recognize the serious and sympathetic, the poignant and poetic.  at least i hope i was these things, hope i am these things.  it's already november and i haven't written anything of creative substance in almost a month.  the reason?  i'm afraid of failing.  just starting seems much too difficult.  it's as if i've lost who i am.  in part that is.  i'm flourishing in so many ways but those ways have not made it to the page and i fear that perhaps they never will.  can't be as fresh, can't let the butter of their true brilliance saturate the layers of a freshly baked hot biscuit.  at least i hope they were fresh, i hope they were brilliant.  they were, are, to me anyway.

it feels so strange writing again.  it feels difficult to let it all spill onto the page.  sadness and confusion are easier to write than fear.  fear, i fear, doesn't look very good on me. 

i move from the bed to the chair an admission that perhaps this timid little post might actually be my re-introduction.  who knows.  but i hope.  there isn't much of that around these days, hope.  wasn't that obama's slogan, hope?  that was bold.  another four letter word.  fear.  also four letters.  but i won't go on enumerating four letter words.   what is this about?  me.  yes me.  i've grown so much.  i'm not sure if you can see it.  can't quite catch it with a measuring stick, but i know i've changed.  as i should and as i have no choice.  but i'd like to think that my recognition is worth something.  i wish i could tell you everything that i've been learning.  i wish i could get it all down onto the page.  i hope someday i will.  until then, i continue to punch keys in the dark and pray that i won't be afraid to write exactly what's in my mind.  honesty.  and not try to repackage how i'm feeling because the Buddhists remind me to be mindful and of mind.  yes, i'm trying.  i'm thinking so hard it hurts.  to be simply myself.  to do as best i can in this life.  to live and to write words as they come to me.  not to lose the honesty, the open heartedness of it all.  is the difficulty in my mind alone?  i am overwhelmed by all the details of this life and i'm afraid to write because i don't know if i can do them justice and i'm afraid i won't remember it all and i'm afraid it won't have enough heart or eloquence or wit.  i'm afraid i'll get it wrong, i'll botch this beautiful thing called life.  lately i have been fearful.  i hope, with this uncomfortable admission, i will make my way back to writing.  i hope.  i hope.