Zero
Her dresses were light and fought the wind of an open road like something caught but pretty anyhow. I was not too young to remember this, nor too young to know my mother was on some serious drugs. I remember her trying during her last days and me letting her win because she was succeeding; simple.
I saw the notes later:
Vicki:
Please read this. Please order Conrad down the hall as you read this. Please, do this. OK, I killed myself and my “remains” are inside this hotel room. No, I’m not joking. Poor, poor, Conrad. I know -- it tortures me so that I should likely live, but I can’t. We’ll leave it at that. Ok, Conrad. Jesus, Conrad. Don’t tell Conrad. Compose yourself and take him downstairs. Collect a package for you at the front desk containing money and the number of his father. Tell him everything and tell him that he’s to tell Conrad his mother’s dead. His father will be very happy to retrieve him. In the meantime, stay in the other room I reserved for you. You seemed nice. I’m sure sorry this gig is heavier than promised, but you’re awful important to me right now. I trust and thank you.
- A
The other talked about goodness and its importance and how she failed.
I was watching you.
What did you see?
Defiance.
You’re so stern. How can you be so serious? ’Saying shit like that, how can you be anything but amused? You must be terribly oblivious or perhaps self-important, how can you not see yourself right now; your utter ridiculousness? You should be laughing, Conrad; you’re dense; handsome, but dense -- a lovely piece of wood.
(He had the possibility within him to know me; I seized it and in that seizure I became something else, though something more myself. That was me; he was me, then -- and I did what it took to become of it.)
I’ll be honest, I mean, well, I should say first that I feel secure in myself but nonetheless often feel convinced that I am alone.
I think that’s cheap because it’s so evidently true.
(I put my head on his calf not because I liked boys but because I liked him; time becomes fiction now. Yes, it must be fiction because time is so cheap right about now -- some tawdry denomination of interval that encloses and assigns that time when my head lay down and when it was no longer so. That interval was not an interval but entirety, but when time does recapture us in its hands, transforming the aforementioned moments as detritus, yes perhaps special but still residue; a not now -- and the moment is dwarfed by the sensory presence of the all encompassing now- now, I become not-so-much the atemporal sap and time is again true. It is not that that is indescribable, but that that is not experienced which is untrue.)
I like your short hair. The way it feels. The way it looks. Like some helmut, some shield; I need protection and you’re a steely, lonesome, dry sponge, aren’t you, Conrad. Fuck you, then, warrior. You need me, too.
What?
I know you’re straight or whatever, but don’t you think I’m beautiful?
What?
(Things come before and after this, but it is my hope that there is a singular heaviness of the now -- apart from the suicide, drugs, prom and paranormal animals -- that the now is an appealing door you are interested to walk through)
I saw the notes later:
Vicki:
Please read this. Please order Conrad down the hall as you read this. Please, do this. OK, I killed myself and my “remains” are inside this hotel room. No, I’m not joking. Poor, poor, Conrad. I know -- it tortures me so that I should likely live, but I can’t. We’ll leave it at that. Ok, Conrad. Jesus, Conrad. Don’t tell Conrad. Compose yourself and take him downstairs. Collect a package for you at the front desk containing money and the number of his father. Tell him everything and tell him that he’s to tell Conrad his mother’s dead. His father will be very happy to retrieve him. In the meantime, stay in the other room I reserved for you. You seemed nice. I’m sure sorry this gig is heavier than promised, but you’re awful important to me right now. I trust and thank you.
- A
The other talked about goodness and its importance and how she failed.
I was watching you.
What did you see?
Defiance.
You’re so stern. How can you be so serious? ’Saying shit like that, how can you be anything but amused? You must be terribly oblivious or perhaps self-important, how can you not see yourself right now; your utter ridiculousness? You should be laughing, Conrad; you’re dense; handsome, but dense -- a lovely piece of wood.
(He had the possibility within him to know me; I seized it and in that seizure I became something else, though something more myself. That was me; he was me, then -- and I did what it took to become of it.)
I’ll be honest, I mean, well, I should say first that I feel secure in myself but nonetheless often feel convinced that I am alone.
I think that’s cheap because it’s so evidently true.
(I put my head on his calf not because I liked boys but because I liked him; time becomes fiction now. Yes, it must be fiction because time is so cheap right about now -- some tawdry denomination of interval that encloses and assigns that time when my head lay down and when it was no longer so. That interval was not an interval but entirety, but when time does recapture us in its hands, transforming the aforementioned moments as detritus, yes perhaps special but still residue; a not now -- and the moment is dwarfed by the sensory presence of the all encompassing now- now, I become not-so-much the atemporal sap and time is again true. It is not that that is indescribable, but that that is not experienced which is untrue.)
I like your short hair. The way it feels. The way it looks. Like some helmut, some shield; I need protection and you’re a steely, lonesome, dry sponge, aren’t you, Conrad. Fuck you, then, warrior. You need me, too.
What?
I know you’re straight or whatever, but don’t you think I’m beautiful?
What?
(Things come before and after this, but it is my hope that there is a singular heaviness of the now -- apart from the suicide, drugs, prom and paranormal animals -- that the now is an appealing door you are interested to walk through)