Reflections of a Thirty-five year old Character Actor (a found poem)
I think, even though it's so awful
My first crush was probably on Hot Lips.
But do you want to know,
Seriously --
What was my porn?
Barnum and Bailey's Circus program.
A creepy lady.
And I --
six years old.
She was all sequined,
total camel toe,
some retarded hat,
a whip.
I remember looking at her
literally bossing around poodles --
rainbow-colored poodles.
"That's incredible."
It was an awakening moment
when I was a kid.
Hot Lips, in short order from there.
(thanks to JT, MLP, and Bust)
--
To e.s.
They said you were doing so well.
You showed up once, a few months before.
The same as you ever were
Shy-smiling with your hair in your eyes
Wearing that poor-fitting white suit.
White -- or more like cream?
It was an ancient, pitiful suit;
worn in the pants and knees
Jen bet Charlie that you'd split a seam
the way you sat hunched over your guitar
on the ratty carpet of Dan's apartment.
They said you were depressed,
as clinical as it sounds.
You didn't leave your apartment for a week.
When you did something else lingered in the air
amidst the cigarette dust.
Sara suggested we start checking all the familiar spots
between your fingers and toes;
like a criminal.
You put away your white suit and funny checkered tie;
the Converse stayed until the very end.
It was the last sight of you:
those knotted laces and the canvas fray.
That was the day that music died
There are no levees in Texas.
At least not where I live.
There as cheap wine though
Crumpled cigarettes, and a couple of your tapes, too.
No one spoke when you started playing again.
We tried to find a meaning in the lines;
some grand farewell or fuck you to the world.
We tried to find signs of life with all its meaning
to try and make sense of our own, existing confusion.
The next day, your mom came over to say hello.
Tucked over her arm was that white suit in a plastic bag.
I tried not to see the similarities between it
and you in the morning after
the EMTs wheeled you down the stairs.
She told me you had always been a good boy, a smart boy.
That it wasn't your fault, some failing of her own.
After she left we thought back to that night --
No one could have ever guessed that the stitches split would be yours.
Two stab wounds in the chest:
because it's one for the money,
two for the show.
Showing posts with label longing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label longing. Show all posts
Monday, April 30, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
7:30 AM
I sing to the motherfucking body electric, you think as you hit your third mile. By now, all you're running on is your will not to go home. There's something frightening about expectations -- his and yours. You don't know how you'll feel when you see him still tucked up in your bed, asleep like a child. He was right, he does look like a painting. A Klimt, he's lost in his hair and tipped in gold leaf. A Picasso, he has more angles than you can count. It takes you a moment to see him as he is. A Van Gogh, the bedsheets are swirled with the motions that your bodies made together. You don't know how you'll feel when you come home and he's gone. It's not an anonymous no-name encounter like everyone thinks you're only capable of because you're young, you're handsome, and well, most of all, because you're a man, too. You think this all as you hit your third mile because it just happens to be the first good weather day of the year and that may or may not be a fateful coincidence. March fourteenth, two-thousand whatever.
It'll take another two miles for you to give up the guise and go home to face whatever it is that you have waiting for you there. It'll take another mile for you to acknowledge that a part of you secretly hopes he'll still be there. Right now, you're just coasting along on aching legs with a hangover between your ears and sweat crawling down your spine. It feels like a finger. Tickling, trickling. You should have stayed in bed.
It was dark when you woke up for your morning run. Five a.m. comes early regardless of circumstances hinged to the hour before or after. It was dark and you were scared of the body that wrapped around you like a vice. He had that wonderful slippery, sleep quality that makes everything softer. The wrap of his biceps, the sour of his sweat. He had flopped onto his back, arms spread and waiting. He smacked on the dialogue of his dreams, but none of it was coherent. A foreshortened Christ figure, hands dangling off the bed and feet twitching together. You drew the sheets back over his waist for modesty's sake and kicked yourself for it. What's the point? What is ever the point though? You question this every day because you are a well-oiled machine that runs on necessity. Want is a foreign concept. Even now, after you've processed want into being, you wonder if it's worth it or if you are on the slippery slope towards wasting precious time and energy. You worry about the future because for once, there's something on the radar that might just stick.
Is this what you really want? And need -- How about it? It's been years since you've needed somebody. You've done just fine on your own and its dangerous to add in that variable of another body... No, another person with wants and motivations. Another person who you know needs movement and the constant rotation of new things to see and do. Can you possibly sustain the interest of someone like him? If you can't, how will you handle not being that shiny new thing? Will you throw a tantrum and dissolve into a pathetic mess like before? You don't want to think about it, but you've been here before.
That's when you realize that you've detoured and left the shaded overhang of the park. Your apartment is in the distance and you imagine you see his blinking white body flickering in movement from the window. A lighthouse signal. There are rocks everywhere and you're going to need it as you ease around mothers with their three wheeled jogging strollers and newly brought out patio furniture. You smell morning smells. Fresh coffee. The sugary tang of doughnuts and other breakfast pastries. Diesel fuel from the rumbling garbage trucks. Sweat.
You stop only to unlock your door and fling it open. He's standing in the middle of your kitchen, sheepish and holding a mug. In your absence, he's showered and figured out the mechanics of your coffee maker. He's wearing one of your striped towels like he belongs. Maybe he does. You look just as caught as him, red cheeked and trembling with the lack of movement.
"I can't survive without a cup of coffee and a shower," he explains. It's the small things that keep him going, you realize. Your theories and concerns begin to receed to basic, more manageable ideas. He is young and bright in his towel. His smile wraps around the coffee cup. It is inquisitive and twitching with a private joke.
"Good morning," you said and the words don't quite fit. Still, they're there and they're all you've got to offer.
It'll take another two miles for you to give up the guise and go home to face whatever it is that you have waiting for you there. It'll take another mile for you to acknowledge that a part of you secretly hopes he'll still be there. Right now, you're just coasting along on aching legs with a hangover between your ears and sweat crawling down your spine. It feels like a finger. Tickling, trickling. You should have stayed in bed.
It was dark when you woke up for your morning run. Five a.m. comes early regardless of circumstances hinged to the hour before or after. It was dark and you were scared of the body that wrapped around you like a vice. He had that wonderful slippery, sleep quality that makes everything softer. The wrap of his biceps, the sour of his sweat. He had flopped onto his back, arms spread and waiting. He smacked on the dialogue of his dreams, but none of it was coherent. A foreshortened Christ figure, hands dangling off the bed and feet twitching together. You drew the sheets back over his waist for modesty's sake and kicked yourself for it. What's the point? What is ever the point though? You question this every day because you are a well-oiled machine that runs on necessity. Want is a foreign concept. Even now, after you've processed want into being, you wonder if it's worth it or if you are on the slippery slope towards wasting precious time and energy. You worry about the future because for once, there's something on the radar that might just stick.
Is this what you really want? And need -- How about it? It's been years since you've needed somebody. You've done just fine on your own and its dangerous to add in that variable of another body... No, another person with wants and motivations. Another person who you know needs movement and the constant rotation of new things to see and do. Can you possibly sustain the interest of someone like him? If you can't, how will you handle not being that shiny new thing? Will you throw a tantrum and dissolve into a pathetic mess like before? You don't want to think about it, but you've been here before.
That's when you realize that you've detoured and left the shaded overhang of the park. Your apartment is in the distance and you imagine you see his blinking white body flickering in movement from the window. A lighthouse signal. There are rocks everywhere and you're going to need it as you ease around mothers with their three wheeled jogging strollers and newly brought out patio furniture. You smell morning smells. Fresh coffee. The sugary tang of doughnuts and other breakfast pastries. Diesel fuel from the rumbling garbage trucks. Sweat.
You stop only to unlock your door and fling it open. He's standing in the middle of your kitchen, sheepish and holding a mug. In your absence, he's showered and figured out the mechanics of your coffee maker. He's wearing one of your striped towels like he belongs. Maybe he does. You look just as caught as him, red cheeked and trembling with the lack of movement.
"I can't survive without a cup of coffee and a shower," he explains. It's the small things that keep him going, you realize. Your theories and concerns begin to receed to basic, more manageable ideas. He is young and bright in his towel. His smile wraps around the coffee cup. It is inquisitive and twitching with a private joke.
"Good morning," you said and the words don't quite fit. Still, they're there and they're all you've got to offer.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
We are stitched together now.
It is winter and I am curled up in the narrow bed of my girlfriend. Lying close, we are heat-sticky and naked. A scar spreads over her shoulder like a leech. It is from an old boyfriend, she told me. It was a party. He was drunk. The beer bottle shattered before either of them knew what had happened. Twelve stitches. I kissed that scar. I would never be that careless. That scar was before me, but it reminds me of how one day I will be a memory just like it. She has taken a job in London and I have become the old boyfriend.
We promise to write every day, and do. I begin planning a trip to visit her, perhaps even to relocate. There is no money for it, but we write to forget. After awhile, we adjust. That is when our letters become infrequent. There is no desire between us anymore. There is no need to escape. The letters stop.
Years pass and my girlfriend becomes a stranger to me. My memory of her is unreliable. Only goodness remains.
When I am thirty-eight, I meet Holly. She is nothing like my girlfriend. I cannot say exactly how, but I am sure of it. Our memories paint over the old. I cannot seem to remember anything at all about my girlfriend. I propose.
When I am forty, Clarissa is born. Pink plastic has takes over the house. I trip over toys and wipe noses. I become Daddy.
One afternoon, Clarissa and I are left on our own. We play strange made-up games that involve running and bossy commands. She is four and imperious. I have left the morning cartoons to run as background noise and the children's programming fades into the afternoon news report. We are ignorant of this until the sound of explosion rattles us out of our dream. I twist around to see smoke billowing from a subway somewhere. Clarissa yelps and stares. I slap a hand over her eyes but she strains to see between my fingers.
Out of the darkness, a body staggers out. She is limp and pale. Her face is smeared red and black. She falls to her knees and a set of paramedics sweep her up. I know that woman, I realize. Her face is not one to be forgotten, I think while knowing that I have done exactly that. Then, I remember. All the goodness rushes back to me:
Snow gathers on the windowsill of the dorm room. We are pressed chest-to-back. I can feel her heartbeat. The scar on her shoulder is flushed pink. It happened before they knew what hit them.
Clarissa wrenches away and tumbles back against a case. The vase that sits on one shelf topples down. In flight, it shatters. There is blood on Clarissa's shirt. She is stiff with shock. Her eyes are wide and betrayed. How could I be so careless?
Twelve stitches become the scar that sits on my daughter's shoulder.
We promise to write every day, and do. I begin planning a trip to visit her, perhaps even to relocate. There is no money for it, but we write to forget. After awhile, we adjust. That is when our letters become infrequent. There is no desire between us anymore. There is no need to escape. The letters stop.
Years pass and my girlfriend becomes a stranger to me. My memory of her is unreliable. Only goodness remains.
When I am thirty-eight, I meet Holly. She is nothing like my girlfriend. I cannot say exactly how, but I am sure of it. Our memories paint over the old. I cannot seem to remember anything at all about my girlfriend. I propose.
When I am forty, Clarissa is born. Pink plastic has takes over the house. I trip over toys and wipe noses. I become Daddy.
One afternoon, Clarissa and I are left on our own. We play strange made-up games that involve running and bossy commands. She is four and imperious. I have left the morning cartoons to run as background noise and the children's programming fades into the afternoon news report. We are ignorant of this until the sound of explosion rattles us out of our dream. I twist around to see smoke billowing from a subway somewhere. Clarissa yelps and stares. I slap a hand over her eyes but she strains to see between my fingers.
Out of the darkness, a body staggers out. She is limp and pale. Her face is smeared red and black. She falls to her knees and a set of paramedics sweep her up. I know that woman, I realize. Her face is not one to be forgotten, I think while knowing that I have done exactly that. Then, I remember. All the goodness rushes back to me:
Snow gathers on the windowsill of the dorm room. We are pressed chest-to-back. I can feel her heartbeat. The scar on her shoulder is flushed pink. It happened before they knew what hit them.
Clarissa wrenches away and tumbles back against a case. The vase that sits on one shelf topples down. In flight, it shatters. There is blood on Clarissa's shirt. She is stiff with shock. Her eyes are wide and betrayed. How could I be so careless?
Twelve stitches become the scar that sits on my daughter's shoulder.
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