I feel all the lingering benefits of human interaction for now. I am thankful for even these small impersonal exchanges. Some reprieve from the somewhat serious, thoughtful novel I am nearly finished reading, is proving a good thing. When all else fails I can watch Bijou sprint towards the stairs without an ample leap and skid into a face plant at the far end of the dining room- like just now. He’ll tear the loose packing paper to ribbons, he’ll hunt shoelaces with vigor. So, as I was saying before… reading The Coma by Alex Garland, twittering to Raishawn, texting to Paige, emailing resumes, talking to Lily, talking to David. I feel so full of affection, unlike the often deflated- cold feeling I find myself reeling in. Everything seems to grow exponentially in the positive, as though possibilities multiply. I was walking earlier and thought to myself:
“It is time, opening my eyes- I am a concierge. I am the Innkeepers daughter, lurking the halls late into the night. I am a secret keeper, small pale hands clamped over quivering lips. I am a chalice of the unspoken- fill me up.”
Not really sure where that is going maybe I will write a short story or a poem, incorporating real life hotel stories told through the lens of colonial America. Perhaps it will be no more than porn in my brain, either way. I continue to overindulge in Morrissey, Neil Gaiman, soy lattes and twitter. I have been very, very bad.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Nightmares...
Her toad like features growing as she comes closer into view, how her glasses tremble with each wet cough. Her skin differs from that of your average toad, it is paper thin. The blossoming of blood vessels speckling the overall dull grey, of its powered surface. The skin it puckers and wrinkles with each breath, at each bend of wrist and turn of head. She is also not near the size of her amphibian kin, towering in her squatness to a height of nearly five and a half feet. Surely no toad has ever seen such height or girth! Her waddle is ever paired with a lipless grin, congestion rattling her chest with every heave. As part of what we can only assume was good natured humanity, she was taught of many human customs. Atop her head there lays a disheveled wig, brown tangles clipped sloppily with an ornate barrette. The fringe piece forming a large bump hung near center of her forehead that is capped by two curved wings, much like that of a handle bar mustache. Her eyebrows thick with adhesive crown her strange eyes in a most unsettling way. In her longing for ponds she wore large netted sweaters frayed and patched with long grasses, the weaving of twigs and were often riddled with gnats. It was this day that she turned to me with her large magnifying glass, center over one half of her face- like some chemical causality, and began to dissect me. The large antique tweezers had prongs tainted by rust and bent askew from ill use. They were sharp as blades on the soft skin of my arms and neck, how her eyes grew and bulged with her amphibian delight. All wincing, pain and tears took no pause from her. I was to be tortured, for I was unlike the toad- for I was but a girl.
* * * * * *
It was dark near the cabin, headlights giving little away but a small path made by previous travelers framed on each side by spindles, by trees, by twigs. The knocks of an old engine, the bumps of knotted roots, patches of grass and hard stone slowly surfacing the soil. Something so oddly familiar fills me, relief with an edge of doubt, it tastes like summer, like fear, like traveling. I am not alone but they are not with me now in consciousness, they are dreaming elsewhere despite the shaking of this old truck, they drift onward. Finally, we come to a stop, a man dressed in worn blue jeans, red flannel shirt and black vest. His features hidden by a beard, his eyed so dark, lashes so long- that his expression gives me nothing. We walk the unlit path, we come upon the door, it opens. I feel a strange pain sometime later and I begin to see my nose come into view. It is fierce pain, it is red flames, it is the crackle of broken bone and no explanation. I cover it, I run- time is lost then until I am in the cabin once more, I see my reflection in a dirty mirror. My profile, horror- my nose is flesh, all red with burst capillaries and perfectly round! It is a clowns nose upon my face and suddenly everyone is gone. There is something so cold in my right hand, I know better than to touch this thing I see so clearly despite the grime threatening total supremacy on its reflective surface. I try to swallow, remember to breathe- I am counting steps. I finally recover enough of my senses to realize that there is an ice pack in my hand. Cool could relieve the swelling, I think aloud. I press it to my face and feel nothing, my eyelids spread wide in panic and I cry. I wonder how this could happen, I plead for them to return for me, I pray to gods I have never known and curse my very maker. I feel the cold on my lips and chin even from inches away. I wonder if my nose will simply fall off or if the rest of my face will soon follow in its swelling. I am so alone, so frightened, so lost- it is then I reach out with those lips and grasp cold plastic casing that keeps unknown blue fluids inside and I bite, hard. It fills my mouth, the tartest poison- it tastes like bleach smells and dishwashing soap. The texture burns my throat and takes my mouth from me. Whatever would I need it for anyway, I am alone.
* * * * * *
It was dark near the cabin, headlights giving little away but a small path made by previous travelers framed on each side by spindles, by trees, by twigs. The knocks of an old engine, the bumps of knotted roots, patches of grass and hard stone slowly surfacing the soil. Something so oddly familiar fills me, relief with an edge of doubt, it tastes like summer, like fear, like traveling. I am not alone but they are not with me now in consciousness, they are dreaming elsewhere despite the shaking of this old truck, they drift onward. Finally, we come to a stop, a man dressed in worn blue jeans, red flannel shirt and black vest. His features hidden by a beard, his eyed so dark, lashes so long- that his expression gives me nothing. We walk the unlit path, we come upon the door, it opens. I feel a strange pain sometime later and I begin to see my nose come into view. It is fierce pain, it is red flames, it is the crackle of broken bone and no explanation. I cover it, I run- time is lost then until I am in the cabin once more, I see my reflection in a dirty mirror. My profile, horror- my nose is flesh, all red with burst capillaries and perfectly round! It is a clowns nose upon my face and suddenly everyone is gone. There is something so cold in my right hand, I know better than to touch this thing I see so clearly despite the grime threatening total supremacy on its reflective surface. I try to swallow, remember to breathe- I am counting steps. I finally recover enough of my senses to realize that there is an ice pack in my hand. Cool could relieve the swelling, I think aloud. I press it to my face and feel nothing, my eyelids spread wide in panic and I cry. I wonder how this could happen, I plead for them to return for me, I pray to gods I have never known and curse my very maker. I feel the cold on my lips and chin even from inches away. I wonder if my nose will simply fall off or if the rest of my face will soon follow in its swelling. I am so alone, so frightened, so lost- it is then I reach out with those lips and grasp cold plastic casing that keeps unknown blue fluids inside and I bite, hard. It fills my mouth, the tartest poison- it tastes like bleach smells and dishwashing soap. The texture burns my throat and takes my mouth from me. Whatever would I need it for anyway, I am alone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
