(no subject)
It is so quiet here. Here being this town, my home, my office at work. Most of the student population has moved home for the summer. Their absence is felt in the stillness of my eardrums. A little less buzzing, the pressure has dropped. I feel like one of the last people on earth. In this softened stillness. I walk into a room and the lights are on. Everything appears to be in order and still somehow askew. How long have the lights been on? Weeks? Months? Years? Because I am one of the last people on earth, I feel I have a responsibility to myself, to humankind. There are few of us left.
I've been gone for days. A week maybe more, but that is days. And days add up. Clock hands in their circular orbit unaware of gravity as they float over seconds. Those splinters of plastic, unaware of the irrevocable stories being told just below their swift forward marching movements. Unaware of the heart that beats "Go. Go. Go." as it tries to beat fast enough, strong enough to reach hypersonic speeds. The trajectory always curved before us. Our hearts never seeming strong enough to break free entirely. But sometimes they do. In a flash so bright if you are looking. A shimmering beat. Then breathlessness. The heart stops, but before it does it makes a sound like saying the number “6” really slow and sleepily. The heart exhales then burns in the atmosphere, a dying supernova. If you look you can sometimes see one, piercing the deep blue depths. I'm returning now, tethered to home and all those small things that seem so great. Safe.
When I left there was a war, and in the violet light of war we can sometimes see how slender and pale we really are. In the midst of war, our hearts beat wildly. They beat their timpanic war cry. They beat wild enough so that they may break through the confinement that holds them. In Winter it is the numbing weight of ice. In that first warming day after the long succession of sterile cold, suddenly we feel strong. But really we are too puerile and unwieldy in our reach to know just how loud our hearts beat and the deafening effect this has on one another. We pretend that our bodies are not slivers of grass subject to a stampede of feet, or water, or the suffocating lack of water. Instead we thrust out our angles enough to fill every space, and we forget that Spring is a season of war, a time when fragility is inevitable and surviving is something that happens or it doesn't. Fragile seeds gasping in the thawing ground, feeding on scraps of moisture. New buds scratching the fickle dirt floor with tiny tendrils. Clinging to scarred branches staving off early abscission. Struggling to live through the day. The day filled with possibilities of violent skies. Violet skies. Violence. At night, frost comes and places its shivering mouth over your mouth, kissing the warm air out of your lungs. If you make it through that, then you just make it through that.
I returned to a changed landscape. The war is almost over now. Now the expansion. In the car ride home I see crops being tended, tractors treading lines. I see a field of clover stretched out in its sloping square, already yawning in the afternoon light. Then everything that survived pauses for one second while the sky breaks in half and leaks sunlight from it’s open wound. Nourishing and invigorating. Light seeps down in golden bluegreen hues. We turn to let the light fall on us, over us, into us, until the mending of molecules is complete and the sky belongs to itself again. Night falls and we are pleased and only slightly uneasy. Suspicious of all this beauty and fullness. A beautiful woman that men will never trust but still grasp for, cling to, love and destroy. We gawk at the abundance that suddenly surrounds us. Curving fingers smooth collar bones. Hands ready to peel off layers of clothing and legs ready to run and jump into the ocean or a lake at midnight. Ready but waiting for the water to warm. The once winter barren shrub now full of green, sways its heavy hips in a breeze. Heady. Heady hearts on the verge of tipping into chaos. We stick out our elbows to make room for our heaving chests. Expanding and contracting gasping to breathe it all in until there is nothing left. Until there is nothing left to do but lie on our backs and breathe like we are the last people on earth.
I've been gone for days. A week maybe more, but that is days. And days add up. Clock hands in their circular orbit unaware of gravity as they float over seconds. Those splinters of plastic, unaware of the irrevocable stories being told just below their swift forward marching movements. Unaware of the heart that beats "Go. Go. Go." as it tries to beat fast enough, strong enough to reach hypersonic speeds. The trajectory always curved before us. Our hearts never seeming strong enough to break free entirely. But sometimes they do. In a flash so bright if you are looking. A shimmering beat. Then breathlessness. The heart stops, but before it does it makes a sound like saying the number “6” really slow and sleepily. The heart exhales then burns in the atmosphere, a dying supernova. If you look you can sometimes see one, piercing the deep blue depths. I'm returning now, tethered to home and all those small things that seem so great. Safe.
When I left there was a war, and in the violet light of war we can sometimes see how slender and pale we really are. In the midst of war, our hearts beat wildly. They beat their timpanic war cry. They beat wild enough so that they may break through the confinement that holds them. In Winter it is the numbing weight of ice. In that first warming day after the long succession of sterile cold, suddenly we feel strong. But really we are too puerile and unwieldy in our reach to know just how loud our hearts beat and the deafening effect this has on one another. We pretend that our bodies are not slivers of grass subject to a stampede of feet, or water, or the suffocating lack of water. Instead we thrust out our angles enough to fill every space, and we forget that Spring is a season of war, a time when fragility is inevitable and surviving is something that happens or it doesn't. Fragile seeds gasping in the thawing ground, feeding on scraps of moisture. New buds scratching the fickle dirt floor with tiny tendrils. Clinging to scarred branches staving off early abscission. Struggling to live through the day. The day filled with possibilities of violent skies. Violet skies. Violence. At night, frost comes and places its shivering mouth over your mouth, kissing the warm air out of your lungs. If you make it through that, then you just make it through that.
I returned to a changed landscape. The war is almost over now. Now the expansion. In the car ride home I see crops being tended, tractors treading lines. I see a field of clover stretched out in its sloping square, already yawning in the afternoon light. Then everything that survived pauses for one second while the sky breaks in half and leaks sunlight from it’s open wound. Nourishing and invigorating. Light seeps down in golden bluegreen hues. We turn to let the light fall on us, over us, into us, until the mending of molecules is complete and the sky belongs to itself again. Night falls and we are pleased and only slightly uneasy. Suspicious of all this beauty and fullness. A beautiful woman that men will never trust but still grasp for, cling to, love and destroy. We gawk at the abundance that suddenly surrounds us. Curving fingers smooth collar bones. Hands ready to peel off layers of clothing and legs ready to run and jump into the ocean or a lake at midnight. Ready but waiting for the water to warm. The once winter barren shrub now full of green, sways its heavy hips in a breeze. Heady. Heady hearts on the verge of tipping into chaos. We stick out our elbows to make room for our heaving chests. Expanding and contracting gasping to breathe it all in until there is nothing left. Until there is nothing left to do but lie on our backs and breathe like we are the last people on earth.