(no subject)
I could hear her speaking. I could hear them all speaking. I could hear the "s" linger for a second before the next sentence began. I could hear the timbre and the pitch. I understood that I was hearing noise but I couldn't make sense of what it meant. I knew nothing about these words. Each sentence they spoke stood alone and there was no continuity, no continuing story, no thought that was completed. I thought long and hard. I thought so hard I had to close my eyes and picture the words. But they were shape-shifters, they were chameleons, they hid in the crevices and wrapped themselves around and around until "T"s were molded with "F"s and nothing made sense.
Nothing made sense and they kept talking.
Curved into myself I spoke out loud to a room of white walls and shoes with rubber soles. My body felt like I had traveled up and down it. Up and down it until my footprints were my skin and underneath and everything. Sitting upon a soapbox she turned profile and looked out a tiny window, cut out of stone, just above the area where I had once written my name in marker. That was when I still carried around his last name as my own. From this side, she looked hollow and full all at once. She did this thing, always, right before she looked up into the sky- she touched her forehead lightly, made a motion, as if she were wiping away sweat, even when none existed. Closing her eyes deeply and then opening them again, her eyes sought out something just beyond the singular tree that stood outside, a noose tied to its largest branch. These were the days when nothing existed beyond the tree, and even is something had we were all too scared to imagine it.
These were the days of no imagination. And so what we clung to was our own skin. Though even that was never permanent. Even that was never thick enough. Even then, at the end of the day, we all fell back and became the walls and we were nameless and faceless. We were headstones. We knew what it felt like to be in our graves.
On this November day she exclaimed out loud that she had seen beyond and it was okay. It could be better than this. And so we touched ourselves and then the walls and then ourselves again and we finally realized the difference between the two. We were beating. We were warm. We could have motion.
Nothing made sense and they kept talking.
Curved into myself I spoke out loud to a room of white walls and shoes with rubber soles. My body felt like I had traveled up and down it. Up and down it until my footprints were my skin and underneath and everything. Sitting upon a soapbox she turned profile and looked out a tiny window, cut out of stone, just above the area where I had once written my name in marker. That was when I still carried around his last name as my own. From this side, she looked hollow and full all at once. She did this thing, always, right before she looked up into the sky- she touched her forehead lightly, made a motion, as if she were wiping away sweat, even when none existed. Closing her eyes deeply and then opening them again, her eyes sought out something just beyond the singular tree that stood outside, a noose tied to its largest branch. These were the days when nothing existed beyond the tree, and even is something had we were all too scared to imagine it.
These were the days of no imagination. And so what we clung to was our own skin. Though even that was never permanent. Even that was never thick enough. Even then, at the end of the day, we all fell back and became the walls and we were nameless and faceless. We were headstones. We knew what it felt like to be in our graves.
On this November day she exclaimed out loud that she had seen beyond and it was okay. It could be better than this. And so we touched ourselves and then the walls and then ourselves again and we finally realized the difference between the two. We were beating. We were warm. We could have motion.