free write

He knew the dream like he knew the back of his hand, like the way her eyes shone brightly underneath the Christmas lights, strung up gaily around every tree in the city. He knew this dream; he held it close to his heart like a pendant. Like a memory, spun-out and recycled and just a little bit off. A little too saccharine. A little too blurry around the edges. Almost tangible; he could feel the way it slipped and slid through his fingers, but he couldn’t hold on.

He didn’t try anymore. He shouldn’t have tried anymore. It was a little too hard to keep trying. To keep caring. And so he didn’t.

But the fact remained that sometimes Jeremy Sweet woke up in the morning in his single bed feeling as though something was lacking. Something was out of place, out of sight, out of reach and he couldn’t place his finger on it.

Sometimes Jeremy Sweet woke up and had to sift through all the thoughts and feelings in his mind and in his body to find what was real and what was just imaginary. What might have been real at one point, but the opportunity had passed a long time ago.

And sometimes Jeremy Sweet woke up imagining his arms wrapped around a warm, familiar body. Not in a sexual way, for Jeremy Sweet was not very much of a sexual person. Lacked the basic social skills necessary for any interaction that could lead to such an opportunity.

He didn’t try anymore. He probably could have tried, but it was just a little too hard. To keep trying. To keep caring. So he didn’t.

Instead, Jeremy Sweet sat up and ignored his hole-punched heart and slipped on the slippers he found in a department store last January for a reasonable price and he gave himself a minute to dawdle. He listened to the steady tick of the clock that hung high on the opposite wall, above the window that looked out onto the city, enveloped in its gray winter cloak.

The minute hand moved and Jeremy Sweet stood up and let his muscles stretch and protest and he lifted his arms high above his head, like rockets destined for the moon. His thin cotton shirt rode up and revealed his pale, white stomach. It was plain, really, just like everything else about him. He lacked muscles, lacked definition in general and it often reminded him of how his mother used to chide him as a child. Bean pole, she used to call him.

Jeremy knew it was a term of endearment, but it still left a bad taste in his mouth.

(unfinished)

Existence!

So there's not a ton to this yet but I'm in the process of re-rewriting my novel and things are finally clicking thanks to good music and encouraging friends.  Anyway, here is the first paragraph to the first chapter of the first book :)

There is a small town named Asheboro buried at the heart of North Carolina between the cool, green slopes of the Appalachians and the warm, grainy beaches, though neither is visible to its residents.  For them there exists solely rolling fields of gold and green, disrupted only by the black strip of warm tar that cuts through it clean and smooth.  They are warm people with rough hands from hard work and a country politeness that shows in their smiles and their lack of questions.  And it was here that I first found a life without fear.  And it was here that I made my first true home since it happened.  And it was here, beneath the Carolina blue sky and amid the hills that seemed to breathe the way they constantly rose and fell, that he discovered my secret.  So when the last rays of the sun kissed the red dirt and the first signs of stars shone from the violet sky, I left my tiny town.

A Long Time Coming

I’m going to let this go.  Because you had my heart for longer than I care to admit and you didn’t do much with it other than toy with occasionally for entertainment, kicking it around like a worn-out, but beloved hackeysack.  And I pretended that was okay, because for a while okay was enough.  And it’s like you knew exactly when I was going to fall apart because then you’d come with your soft touches and unique endearments.  Like needle and thread they stitched me back together and now I’m starting to realize that it wasn’t so much about keeping me in one piece as it was not wanting to deal with cleaning up the mess.

I can accept that.

I can’t accept your hypothetical musings.  I can’t deal with your months of silence and out of the blue declarations that always involve love and remorse.  Because I’m different now.  And though I will still need you in some way, I can’t hold out for you.  Can’t pretend that one day you’ll come running back into my life, sweeping me off my feet and holding me closer, tighter than you ever have.

Sometimes I wake up and my hands are fisted and my bones ache from the constant clench and my palms burn in thin crescents that my fingernails create.  And sometimes I wake up and it hurts to breathe and my eyes burn and my lips are cracked and bleeding because I gnaw on them in my sleep.  And sometimes I stay still and pretend that I’m still dreaming because I was happy and I know that when I move my heart will start to hurt again and this thin bed will still feel too big and everything will seem hollow.

But I get up.

Winter

Bare and dry bones that reach up towards the sky

and freeze

becoming gnarled and twisted things.

 

There is no life here.

 

Except that my breath curls and wafts

opaque tendrils that escape from my body

little clouds whose heat I can almost capture

in the palms of my hands.

 

Snow falls in tiny patterns that remind me

of the way your eyes sparkle.

 

I know you best here

 

In the swirling snow that hugs at my form

and kisses my lashes, soft but real

like the way the wind whispers against my neck

like the way your lips, chapped

(but I love you for it)

used to press quietly against my bared skin.

 

I could hear your heart beat

 

But now, with face pressed to cold snow

and unforgiving ground

I only hear the silence

wrong and out of place

teardrops leave little crystals on my skin

as they slide sideways to kiss the earth

 

A reminder of then

dry lips and unassuming freckles

down comforters and leftover sun

 

I loved you best then

(Maybe I'm Not There Yet But There's Always) The Promise of Tomorrow

So this is a personal essay about my hospitalization in 2004.  It was my main "manuscript" for my creative writing workshop last semester, and it's probably one of the pieces that I am most proud of writing.  Other than that, I think it pretty much speaks for itself. -Maggie

(Maybe I'm Not There Yet But There's Always) The Promise of Tomorrow

Sometimes I’m afraid that I’ll forget what it was like; the taste of stale air on my tongue and the muted sunlight in the plain, sterile room.  The plastic feel of the cheap tan sheets and the layers of iron and wire and glass that held the outside world at bay are razor sharp but sit at the periphery of my memory, as if waiting for the day that they can slip off quietly into the abyss.

And sometimes I worry that I’ll forget how it was I used to see things.  How that abyss wasn’t just a carefully crafted and strategically placed word, but an all encompassing darkness that clouded my emotions and created an unexpected heaviness in my limbs.  The way I seemed to be dying decomposing fading from the inside out is falling away from me and though my head swims with the liberation it leaves in its wake, my fingertips burn with the desire to pull it back to me.  My arms ache to hold it tightly to my chest and not yet not yet pries at my dry lips.  Relief dances through my veins when my fingers snatch it back and my disappointed mind soothes itself with promises of tomorrow.

Because tomorrow means a lot of things.  It means hope and moving forward and being one day stronger.  It means waking up and letting go and love and happiness and life.  It means getting one step farther away from that day where the world seemed to hit fast forward while I switched to slow-mo.  Then it was like falling sinking drowning and reaching out for someone whose name I had never even known.  But now, after over a thousand tomorrows it plays like a movie.  I blink rapidly to stop the encroaching dizziness and every time I open my eyes it’s a different scene.

 

There’s me on the hospital bed as nurses flit in and out like hummingbirds and the clock hands spin aimlessly.  My mom’s hand is curled tightly in my dad’s and the stark contrast in skin tone is only emphasized by the beams of fluorescent light.  Their shadows crawl up the wall like mountains.  Black.  I open my eyes.

 

“Ouch,” Mike-the-nurse says when he sees my leg, the worse of the two.  The wet lick of rubbing alcohol on the inside of my calf would tickle if it didn’t burn so much.  My breathing shudders from the cool trail that lingers and I try not to look at the lines and arcs, red and angry and swollen, that create words and wrap around my leg.  My mom sniffles.  I cringe at the pain—foreign but all too similar and my heart breaks because this was never meant to hurt them.  My lashes kiss the tops of my cheeks, squinched up and ugly in my grimace, but I open my eyes.

 

Deep breath.  The scratch of gauze on my arms and legs keeps me restless.  My father’s gaze does not help either and I think it’s because he can’t believe the extent to just how fucked up I have become while all the while pretending to be his perfect daughter.  Perfect perfect perfect and then he reaches out and grabs my hand and says “I love you,” and tears, big fat hot drops, leak from my eyes and my voice catches and squeaks when I say “Daddy,” and then my mom slides the door open, arms laden with juice and sandwiches even though it’s 12:45 in the morning.  I blink away the tears.  It’s quick this time.  Close and then I open my eyes.

 

The squeak of the wheelchair on the polished tile makes me wince and squeeze my mom’s hand tighter as we travel down a dimly lit corridor.  I’m tired but I’m scared I’m so scared because this is strange foreign daunting and I’m convinced now that I’ll be okay as long as my parents are with me.  There’s no need for this no need no need don’t make me and then we’re at the end of the hall.  It’s brighter here and the quick change is too much for my eyes—still sensitive and raw from salty tears.  I close them and try to make myself better, make myself happy, make myself enjoy life, make myself forget that I tried to end it all some odd hours ago.  My dad’s hand rests on my shoulder then and my racing heart stammers at the soothing touch.  I push the futile thoughts from my mind and try to be brave.  For Dad, for Mom.  For them I open my eyes.

 

“I need to check the extent of your injuries,” this woman says and I beg her no but she shakes her head so I plead with her to wait until morning but she shakes her head again cruelly and says “Now.  For our records.”  So with shaking hands I disrobe and squeeze my eyes shut.  Courage can only get me so far.  I count to 2047 and then she says “Okay,” but I wait until the door clicks shut and I know I’m alone before I open my eyes.

 

“This is your room,” the same woman says and I pause and fear races through my veins and I say, “I need to say good-bye to my parents,” but she shakes her head again and the bile starts its fiery ascent before she even tells me they’ve already gone.  I close my eyes because I can’t bear to look at this woman anymore.  I bite my lip to keep from growling out how much I hate her in this moment.  Tears well up and spill out and when it’s too painful to keep them shut any longer I open my eyes.

 

Flash.  They took a picture because I can hear the hum of the Polaroid camera wind itself down.  “Stay still, Margaret,” is all the warning I get before a needle is shoved unceremoniously into my arm and I gasp for air but I can’t breathe.  It’s too much, dear god this is too much and then suddenly nothing.  “What?” I say but that’s all I manage before my eyelids close, intent on returning to dreamland and the voice that warned me explains, “Blood work and a picture for our records.  Now go back to sleep, it’s only five.”  The door closes and I’m on the brink of slumber when my foot snags a blanket at the foot of the slender and bare hospital bed.  It’s soft and warm and familiar and in that instant I know.  They came back, my mom and dad came back, and nobody woke me up.  Nobody let me say good-bye.  Loathing, towards myself and that stupid bitch who only knows how to shake her head seeps from my pores and a scream bursts from my chest when I open my eyes.

 

No shoelaces no pens no silverware no necklaces no drawstrings no zippers no earrings no jewelry in general.  No school today it’s a Sunday.  Nobody I know.  20 minutes allotted for journaling but I have nothing to write about that is relevant.  Dear Journal, I’m in the hospital because I couldn’t take it anymore and someone finally caught me.  My arms itch really bad but if I scratch off the scabs they’ll scar.  Is that a bad thing?  I’m supposed to put ointment on them but some of these aren’t going to go away just because I put ointment on them.  Some of these are permanent.  Should that scare me?  They have schedules here but I don’t know them, though everyone else seems to and all I want to do is stay in this room and sleep until I’m at home again.  Maybe if I close my eyes… but no I can still feel the hard wood chair underneath me and I know that the plain white walls will greet me when I open my eyes.

 

He’s older, with sadness etched into little lines around his dark brown eyes and he barely lifts the edges of his lips when the nurse ushers me into the small room.  I sit in the cushioned chair on the other side of his desk and wait for him to talk.  I do not want to be here.  I’ve been saying that all day long. This is a mistake this is a mistake this is a mistake I’ve told anyone who looked like they might listen but I’m still sitting here, watching this old dark man who’s watching me and we both just kind of sit for a moment.  And then he takes a deep breath and says “Margaret,” and I correct him.  “Maggie,” I say, and he smiles a little and says, “I have a dog named Maggie.  Golden retriever.  Really lively,” and I shrug because I don’t care about some stupid dog that shares my name.  “Maggie, I’ve spoken to Dr. Paul, and she says that you’re on 40 mg of Prozac right now.  As your acting psychiatrist here, Maggie, I’m going to up the dosage.”  I don’t say anything.  I don’t care.  I don’t want to be here.  I don’t want to be.  He frowns slightly when I glance up from my focus on the patterns of the wood.  “Do you have any feelings about that, Maggie?”  I shrug.  “I never had one to begin with,” I say and he frowns.  I close my eyes and cross my arms and slouch down and pretend that I don’t exist.  He sighs and we sit like that again, waiting for the other person to do something and finally he clears his throat and says “You can leave, Margaret,” and I don’t look at him when I do open my eyes.

 

“I’m MC Hammer!” Chip says when he bounces into the family meeting room in giant, ugly parachute pants and my face cracks into a grin even as I tug down on my sleeves to hide my arms.  He’s 13 but he’s still my brother and he’s still too young to see these kinds of things.  I don’t give him enough credit, I know, because he is 13 and he knows what suicide and depression and cutting are.  He knows these things and he just doesn’t let me see it.  So I smile because I love him and because he makes me laugh and doesn’t make anything of the fact that it’s Halloween and he’s at the hospital seeing his sister instead of participating in the annual shaving cream fight he’s been talking about for the past month.  He grabs the legs of the offensive garment and pulls them out.  “They’re parachute pants.  Dad’s friend Vince lent me them.”  My dad reminds him that Vince told him to keep them.  I eye the almost zebra-like pattern.  “Vintage,” I say.  Chip smiles and then says he should go so my mom can come in.  Only two people at a time, after all.  And no friends.  I stand up to hug him and he’s my height now.  I bury my head in his shoulder and close my eyes so I don’t cry.  His arms wrap awkwardly around me and I know then that he’s older than I let myself believe.  I draw back and see him for who he is when I open my eyes.

 

Three nights.  I’ve been here three nights and I’ve seen my family each and every one of them but it’s not enough.  I have a panda and a card from friends and there have been phone calls and letters but everything has to be pre-approved and I feel like a very small person here.  If I press my face against the window I can almost see, through the layers of wire and bars, Park Avenue.  It turns at the stoplight that I can’t see and becomes Second Street and after a block it intersects with Elm.  And five blocks east on Elm is my house and my family.  But I can’t see that.  And maybe that’s a good thing, because it would just make things worse at night when I go to sleep hoping that I’ll close my eyes and that’ll be it.  But Jenna left today and I’m in her old room and just the idea that maybe I can leave soon too has me thinking that maybe I want a tomorrow.  That maybe for once I’ll want to open my eyes.

 

Adam lives next door and when he passes by my open door I jump up from my bed and run for the phone because he’s been on it for the past fifteen minutes and there’s only an hour allotted for phone time and everybody wants it but I want it more.  Kate rushes up to it, but I’ve got Rici’s phone number already punched in and it’s already started ringing.  It’s ringing and I can’t wait to hear his voice and know how people are at school and what new music we’re playing in band and it’s still ringing and then Mrs. Clark picks up.  “Hey Mags,” she says, and her voice sounds sad and pitying and I know already that Rici’s not there and that I’m going to have to wait another day to try to hear a familiar friend’s voice.  Kate does her best to bite back her smile when I hang up the phone so quickly, but I close my eyes to keep from crying.  When Kate’s chatter reaches my ears I take a deep breath and open my eyes.

 

Empty is what I tell Melissa when she asks me how I feel after four days here in the hospital.  Empty is what I felt before and empty is what I feel now except that it’s not the same because what I’m not telling her is that I’m starting to feel something else too, something I thought I’d forgotten about but had been there all along and she sits and waits and doesn’t say anything and I don’t close my eyes, though I want to really badly.  “Hope,” I say quietly and she smiles and picks up the exercise we had just finished working on and I roll my eyes because it’s really dumb and I hated doing it.  “Artistic,” she says for A and I just hug my arms tight to my chest and wait as she goes through a positive characteristic I put next to each letter.  “You didn’t put anything for K,” she says and I shrug.  “There isn’t a positive adjective that starts with K.”  She purses her lips and I close my eyes to concentrate better on one.  “Klutzy?” I offer when I open my eyes.

 

Balloon volleyball is the name of the game for today and for spectators it’s probably the stupidest activity in existence but for us residents it’s a surprisingly fun time.  We don’t move.  We sit in chairs that don’t really roll but are almost bowl shaped and really comfy and we set those up as the staff puts the net in place and Jon blows up a balloon.  And then we’re off and I think that maybe this is fun because I need it to be fun.  Maybe this is fun because we haven’t experienced something so light in a long time.  And maybe this is fun because we have our one-on-one sessions later and they want to see us smiling at some point in the day.  And that’s when I realize it doesn’t really matter why it’s fun.  It just matters that it is.  Adam pops the balloon right by my face and I flinch and squeeze my eyes shut at the abrupt sound.  But I’m quick to open my eyes.

 

“Tell me something about yourself, Maggie,” Dr. Johnson says when I sit down.  He is my acting-psychiatrist and now I know his name.  “I play flute,” I tell him and swing my legs back and forth in the seat.  He smiles.  “So do I,” he replies and I smile because I didn’t think that my acting-psychiatrist and I would have any common ground.  Until this point I was convinced that he was only in my life because he controls how many pills I’m supposed to take each morning.  “When can I leave?” I ask him and I’m more surprised by the words than he is.  He looks like he was expecting this even though the idea of asking it wasn’t even in my thoughts when I entered his office.  I close my eyes so I don’t have to see his face when he gives me the most likely disappointing answer but then he says “Soon.  Really soon,” and there’s a smile on my face even before I open my eyes.

 

“I get to come home soon,” I tell my mom as she deals out the Kerry cards for another hand of gin rummy and she smiles.  Bush was re-elected today they told me, and I have both the Bush and Kerry decks of cards but I like these better.  My dad rubs my back and says that’s good and that they miss me a lot and I don’t cry because I don’t need to.  This is a good moment.  This is a happy moment for me.  This is real and I am here and I can feel.  And that’s something new.  Something to remember and hold onto for a long time.  And it doesn’t matter that I’m not all better and that the cuts on my arms and legs are still scabs and not scars and that there are still a lot of pieces to put back together before my life is whole again, because it’s all okay.  Because those things take time.   But I can work through it and I can get to the point where the scars are just scars and this week is not titled The Hospitalization but is just another week in my life.  I can do this because everything seems so much easier now that I’ve opened my eyes.

exercises

The day may come when you realize that I have always been there for you.  And though in some sense, I always will be I can no longer wait in hopes that eventually will at some point become today.

1/26

"It goes something like this," he says and taps a little rhythm on the smooth, cool surface of the desk.  And then he starts humming and I feel like I should be dancing or bobbing my head or joining in because I know my fair share about music.  I'm qualified.  But something about him and this impromptu jam session has me second guessing myself.  And even though every thing that I've learned about it is contrary to what's going on now, I'm starting to think this might be love.

1/26

Leah

This is how it ends:

I'm leaving," I say.  She sits like a statue on the faded sofa in the tiny living room of our small apartment, eyes forward, not even a twitch or a flick to show that she hears me.  That she recognizes my presence.  She is not going to stop me from walking out the door.

I think that maybe that's best.  Because we were never supposed to work.  I knew that from the start, but at the time it was like ever romance film I've ever made fun of.  Only thing is, I liked it.  I loved it.  Every single minute that we spent fighting to be together when the world wanted us apart was like the first time I ever held a girl's hand.  Our lives were linked together like teeth in a zipper: still separate, but with the appearance of making something whole.

This is how it begins:

She chews cough drops like they're the elixir of life.  Or maybe just happiness.  It makes me want to kiss her.  I want to know if the flavor that greets me will be cherry or orange or lemon or if it will be one of those disgusting eucalyptus cough drops that make my nose run.  But for some reason I don't think I would mind.  I think it would almost make me smile, even as snot runs from my clearing sinuses.

I make the mistake of telling Jared this, because we're in lecture and it's hard to pay attention when the professor is droning in monotone and it's even harder when she's sitting three rows down, going through that bag of cough drops like they're candy.

He laughs and punches me in the arm and says that she's Jessica's little sister and he'll introduce me after class if I'm really that interested and I say sure even though in my mind the phrase I'm interested I'm interested I'm interested plays like a favorite song set to repeat.

This is everything that happens in between:

Her name is Leah and I'm making a fool of myself which she mistakes for charm.

"She's only 20," Jared says and I don't care because it's only a two year age difference and it' s not that big of a deal.  My parents are ten years apart.

We kiss and she tastes like strawberries which makes sense because that's the color of her hair.  Strawberries.  They're suddenly my favorite fruit, my favorite scent, my favorite everything.  I can't get her green eyes out of my mind.

"Don't hurt her.  She puts all of herself into these kinds of things," Jessica warns me and I nod and assure her that that is not my intention.  That I can't stop thinking about her.  That she's taken over my world, and I've surrendered willingly.  Jess doesn't smile but she doesn't say anything else either.

And then Leah and I sleep together and when I wake up in the morning she's still curled in my arms only now she smells like vanilla and sunlight and autumn and I fall in love with her then.

She's young and doesn't know what she wants but she wants this.  Us.  I know this because she told me so, late at night with the moonlight kissing the pale freckles spattered across her cheeks and I'm only half listening because I'm dying to kiss every single one of them and she says "I want this."  So it's okay that everything leading up to that sentence sounded like she was trying to break up.  It's okay that I'm not feeling as upset as I probably should.

Sometimes she drinks like there's no tomorrow and I want to shake her and ask her what it is she's trying to numb away.  Sometimes I get drunken phone calls at 2 in the morning and then I go and pick her and her friends up because they can't make it home.  And this should bother me, and sometimes it does, but then she leans over and rests her head on my shoulder on the short drive home and the world rights itself again.

I'm getting ready to graduate and she's moved into my apartment because she's having roommate problems because a dress got ruined on a drunken escapade and I understand her, but can only relate to her in a distant and vague sort of way.  I wonder how things are going to work in the next few months when I move away, because I am meant for bigger places and larger things.

"Jessica said you would say that," she says with little rivers of tears leaking from her eyes and my arms ache to hold her so I do and I say "I'm sorry I don't mean it.  We can do this.  We can make this work," I whisper into her strawberry hair and she holds me tight and I don't let go.

"You've changed," Jared says and maybe it's true but I don't really mind the difference.  Except that sometimes the words bounce around in my head like pop rocks late at night when Leah snores softly beside me.  We no longer sleep curled around each other.

"What are we going to do?" She asks and I know that she's not referring to this weekend but I pretend that's what it is anyway and tell her my parents are coming in and I want to take them somewhere nice.  She purses her lips and then snags a cough drop from her pocket.  The crackle of the wrinkled paper echoes in our silence.

"I'm pregnant," Leah says and the world stops.  I ask "How long?" and she says "I don't know," and I sit down on the couch next to her in my graduation robes.  My cell phone rings on the kitchen counter.  My parents no doubt.  We have dinner plans and Leah and I just stopped by the apartment to change quickly but she just sits on the couch and cries and cries and cries and I hold her because that's what I'm supposed to do.

"I like the name James," I say and rest my hand on her stomach, still so flat but it's early yet.  I feel her hold her breath and think that maybe that wasn't the best thing to say.  "I mean, maybe, if it's a boy.  It's just that I thought it'd be nice to name him after my father."  She exhales and smiles and I didn't realize until then I hadn't been breathing either.

"I love you," she screams as I pack my bags because I should have listened to Jared and I should have listened to Jess and I should have just left her to her cous  dropss.  "I didn't lie to hurt you," she cries and my gut twists as I realize again that I have ignored pieces of my life and deserted parts of my future these past few months for a child that doesn't exist.  "I just didn't want you to leave me.  Everyone in my life leaves me."

"Give me some space," I beg her as I close my suitcase.  She retreats from our bedroom and I hear the old sofa creack as she throws herself upon it.

Returning, with some new ideas

So this hasn't been updated for a while, but it's not because I haven't been writing.  I've been working on my larger project (tentatively titled "Existence") and haven't been keeping up with my short stories.

In 2009 my plans for this blog are as follows:

• excerpts from "Existence"
• short stories and microfiction
• possible poetry
• starts or ends to stories I will write at some point, but may not get to or have time to work on right when I think about them
• and because I believe that improving at writing requires reading, books I've read and recommend (also possibly books I start, but end up detesting)

That's all for now.

Be back soon,

Maggie

untitled

I’m sorry that I can’t hug you back some days.  It’s not that I don’t want to because sometimes all I can think of is the comfort that comes with being held by you.

I’m sorry that sometimes I can’t hold your hand and that I shake when we kiss.  My fingers always ache to be twined with yours and my heart pounds happily when our lips connect, but I’m still so scared that this will disappear.

 I’m sorry that I fall apart at times and that my lows are sometimes too low and that I laugh when it’s inappropriate.  I know it embarrasses you sometimes, it embarrasses me sometimes too, but they’re few and far between now and when they do happen I close my eyes and hold my breath and it hurts less.

I’m sorry that sometimes you intimidate me and that at other times I break down and shut you out.  I don’t have an excuse for it, but I hope to always see you standing there when I finally open the door.

Gesture

To Be or Not To Be (The Unspoken Question)

“So,” Ethan says and his voice trembles a little, like he knows exactly what I’m about to tell him, and maybe he does.  Maybe I’m not as good at pretending as I like to believe.

I reach for my wine glass and his eyes follow the path, widening slightly even before I’ve pressed the thin curve of glass to my lip.  But on contact they catch my own gaze, questioning and it’s then that I know he knows.  He’s always been so observant.  It’s what made me fall in love with him and it’s what makes me frustrated with him now.  It just seems so obvious.

Everything feels that way though.  Like the way he combs his hair to the right to hide the miniscule recession of hair or the way he hums some unrecognizable tune when he washes the dishes.  Because he washes the dishes.  Or the way he bites at his cuticles when there’s something he’s dying to tell me but just can’t because he’s terribly shy.  I thought I loved these things.

But I know him too well now and the small habits and ticks that I used to find endearing only serve to wear at my patience.  And I think that maybe it’s because he knows that I know what each little gesture means.  I know that his fingers are raw and bleeding around the nails because he’s dying to ask me if it’s true.  If the little stick with the little pink plus sign that was somehow sticking out of the wads of tear-stained tissues is true.

But that question got filed away and stored for a later time when I reached for the wine glass.  The rim is cool and slick against my lip and I remember the article in Cosmo that said to use your drink as a prop for attracting men.  But this isn’t a game of whether or not Ethan loves me, because I’ve known that since he whispered it against my neck three months ago when he thought I was sleeping and two weeks after that when he said it clearly across the table at our favorite diner.  This is about something that he wants to talk about and that I don’t and this wine glass is the answer.  Just a tilt will do, just the smallest incline to send the bittersweet liquid across my palate and down my throat.  Just the smallest angle will send fire down to the pit of my stomach and will explain what I cannot.  That I cannot do this now.  That I am not as strong as he believes me to be.  That this kind of thing is for other people and that I’m not ready to be the woman he thinks he loves.

But Ethan doesn’t play by the rules.  So when I start to move the glass just ever so slightly he breaks and asks, “Will you keep it?”

I hesitate.

Dream Story

Hole Punched Moons and Missing Stars

This is a house.  This is the window and this is the little red door and these are the three and a half floors that reach up to the blue blue sky.  This is the orange couch with ugly brown stripes that lives in the den like a tiger.  It curls itself around the wall and breathes deeply but shallowly.  Hick hick hick every time someone rubs their fingers through its fur.  Hick hick hick with the small bites that each touch leaves in its wake.  It opens its eyes, foggy and baleful with old age and yawns with a wide-toothed smile that would be fearsome if it weren’t so cracked and worn with age.

This is the rug that greets your toes and tickles your heels and kisses your arches and says Welcome Welcome Welcome.  It used to say bah but the couch got really hungry a long time ago and felt neglected and went straight for the jugular, so to speak, of the shag pillows in the study.  But that was a long time ago and the grudge has long since passed, though they stay separated.  It would hurt too much for either of them to be in the same room now.  It’s just too much to ask of anyone.  So now the couch growls sometimes in its sleep and thinks of soft warm things when it dreams at night in its den and the rug counts its brothers and sisters to go to sleep each night.

This is Olivia.  This is her house.  This is her window and her little red door and her three and a half floors that scrape some of the blue off of the beautiful sky.  This is her purple hair, cut short in an awkward bob that curls at the apples of her cheeks.  This is her orange hair, long and flowing and pin straight.  It grazes against her back and creates an itch between her shoulder blades and she just reaches around with her long long arms and scratches it. 

This is Chip and this is Daniel and they live with Olivia and they are her friends.  They used to be her brothers but then something happened.  Something important that she can’t remember but it left everything in ruins except for this house.  This house with the orange door and no windows and seven floors that rip through the red sky and leave it tattered around the edges.

Chip lives in the den with the tiger and he pets it occasionally and it goes hick hick hick but he doesn’t mean to hurt it.  It’s just that sometimes he forgets.  He lives in the den with the tiger and the tan carpet that have splotches of green from the bad thing that happened that nobody can remember anymore and Daniel explained it once.  He said they were water spots, like the ones you find in the ceiling when it rains too much except that the spots are on the ground now because the water is slowly coming up from below now instead of from above.

Daniel lives in the study with a lone shag pillow and his laptop and his wire-rimmed glasses and his sweaters and he stays there until the sun goes down.  Until the red sky that’s torn in places and worn-out in others shifts and changes and fades to purple.  He gathers it in his hands and molds it and melds it and punches a hole in it—sometimes whole, sometimes half, and sometimes somewhere in between—and puts it all back up where it belongs.  Sometimes he forgets to punch a hole at all though and then the sky is very dark.

This is Olivia’s room, which is very much the same as the one she had before the bad thing but is somehow different.  Things seem less concrete now.  If she presses her hand to the wall it caves in on her hand, like those foam pillows that she played with the other day at the  mall while her parents picked out a new mattress for the guest room but they’re not here now and neither is the mattress.  She has a small bed that is pushed up against the wall and a radio and a clock that goes tick tick tick almost like the tiger downstairs but not quite.  She has two windows and she looks out of these and watches Daniel make the sky and the moon and never stars and wonders how it was things used to be.  A ringing starts in her ears and she thinks that maybe she’s thinking too hard on certain things but somebody has to now that they’re the only people left.  It stays that way for a while though and she feels out of place, like something is dragging her to the surface and now she can’t breathe and she wants to stay in this world of purple skies and hole-punched moons and tigers and sheep but then Daniel looks up from the yard and says Wake up Wake up Wake up and Olivia opens her eyes.

Dialogue

On a Staircase in a Museum in Chicago

“So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“What do you mean about what?  About the painting, of course.”

“I don’t know Elle, what do you want me to think about it?”

“Well don’t you have any opinion?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.  I like the colors.  They’re very striking.  They make me want to open up my soul and tell you absolutely everything about myself.  Things I swore I’d never share with anyone else.”

“You’re a dick, Jason.”

“They’re a bunch of clouds, Elle.  It’s just a canvas painted blue with streaks of white that blend together towards the top.”

“It’s an O’Keefe.”

“It’s a waste.  Oh don’t give me that look.”

“Care to elaborate then?”

“It’s a waste of paint, of canvas, of space, of my time.  Stop sighing, you asked me to explain.”

“I just don’t get you anymore.”

“It’s a painting.”

“It’s an O’Keefe.”

“It’s just an opinion.”

“But it’s your opinion.

“And what does that have to do with anything?”

“It has to do with everything!”

“This isn’t about the painting, is it?  Oh don’t cry.  At least not here.  Let’s just move to the side and—”

“No.  No we’re not pushing this to the side again!”

“Elle—”

“No!  You will not be embarrassed of me and you will not push our problems under the rug again.”

“Problems?  What problems are we having?  I’m sorry that I don’t like the cloud painting.  I just don’t get it.”

“You don’t get anything that I like!  That’s the problem!”

“Elle, please, calm down.  This is a museum.  People are looking.  I’m sorry.  Okay?  I’m sorry.  But I love you.  I wouldn’t have given you this ring if—”

“Let go of me.”

“I’m sorry.  What I’m trying to say is that I wouldn’t have given it to you if I didn’t love you.  If I didn’t want to marry you, Elle.  I want to make this work.”

“I… I…”

“Oh, Elle, don’t do that.  Please, please don’t do that.”

“Take it back.  I can’t marry you.  I can’t do this anymore.”

“Please.”

“Take it.”

“I can’t believe this.  You’re leaving me because of a painting.”

“It’s an O’Keefe.”

How to Not Fall in Love

How to Not Fall in Love

Don’t look at him.  Don’t notice the color of his eyes or the way his smile goes all crooked to the right or the really light almost invisible freckles spattered across his nose.  Don’t do this unless you absolutely positively have no other choice.  Make sure to remember this when you’re first introduced.  Looking in between the brows generally does the trick.

Don’t be friends.  Don’t find the things you have in common or count them towards your chances because everyone has things in common and everyone stands a chance if you let them.  It’s not unique.  Be sure to keep this in mind when he asks you what kind of music you like to listen to.  Just because you both like Coldplay doesn’t mean he wants to hold your hand.

Don’t give him your phone number and definitely don’t ask for his.  Don’t let the butterflies come to life in the pit of your stomach the first time his name shows up on the small screen and don’t let your voice crack when you try to nonchalantly answer with the ever popular “Hey what’s up?”.  If it comes to this point make it clear that you are and will always be busy.  The extra minutes you spend with him on the other end are not worth the nickels and dimes you shake from your old piggy bank that you keep stuffed in the back of your closet.

Don’t spend Friday nights on his couch talking about the smallest details of your mundane life when you could be out with friends.  Don’t tell him about how you feel abandoned sometimes because the people who you grow closest to seem to leave for different places and different people and don’t listen to him when he says he won’t leave you.  He doesn’t mean it the way you want him to and you can’t get back the hours of sleep you lose from thinking about those four simple words.

Don’t make him a mixtape that spells out exactly how you feel and that has all the songs from all the memorable moments the two of you have ever shared.  Don’t think he’ll appreciate or understand it or call you at two in the morning to suddenly air out the mutual feelings that have been sitting heavily in the air between you for the past few months.  They don’t exist.  At least not for him.  The only person who’ll actually listen to the mix anyway is you.

Don’t analyze every little movement at the movie theater.  His knee touching yours is not a secret code that means “I want to be with you,” and the way your knuckles graze each other when you both reach for the popcorn is only a testament to the fact that you should have bought your own bag.

Don’t cry into your pillow the night he starts seeing the girl from the math class you are both in.  Don’t imagine what it would be like to be in her shoes.  Don’t think about how their first kiss (on the front steps of the school) should have been yours while you wait impatiently to walk home with him.  Don’t let the chaos ripping through your body start to tear at your chest and don’t let the tears creep up into your eyes when he finally turns and smiles at you with the friendly grin and not the one that she always gets now.  The shuddering breaths that leak from your chest will only make it worse.

Don’t let him in on what’s got you down.  Don’t pour your heart out and let all the desperation and frustration and humiliation trickle into your voice when you tell him that this wasn’t how things were supposed to be.  Don’t let him know that your heart was his from the start because he won’t know what to do with it and he certainly can’t keep it.  Don’t tell him the feelings and thoughts that have been echoing and bouncing around the walls in your head for days weeks months years.  Don’t say it and you won’t feel it.