(no subject)
It is a cool day, a dark day, and I am far away-in a book that is. A low wind hums, teasing the pages of a copy of Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. My mind is far off; wandering in the dry heat of a desert afternoon-a vision of a lone cactus gleaming in the distance-the sound of my breath, emphasized, and lost in deep time. I am immune to my surroundings, I deny them, for I am away breathing in that clean desert air. I do not hear the cars drone past; the people stop, talk, and linger on. My eyes capture the page, eating up every word like the desert sun envelopes the earth- holding it paralyzed in its gaze. Page after page I turn: I am mesmerized. Suddenly I stop, halted, by the words I just read. I look up, awakened, frozen in this moment. I read and reread the passage but the affect is still the same. I slowly lift up my eyes and recite in my mind:
“Idle, foolish, futile daydreams. While we dream and drift on the magic river the busy little men with their gargantuan appliances are hard at work, day and night, racing against the time when the people of America might possibly awake to discover something precious and irreplaceable about to be destroyed.”
Today I bled. So much that it all came out in a gush of red. I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop the bleeding long enough to see where I was going. I was driving--somewhere--and my eyes hazed over while the blood leaked through seat onto, into everything, making a permanent presence. I had no where to go. I stopped the car. I couldn't stand, couldn't move. Too weak to call for help. I let it continue to come out, just keep bleeding myself into the world--out of the world. Hold on, she said. There looks to be no life left in you. Pale, white. Your lips were even white. A contrast to the bright red blood. I couldn't even clean myself up. Sad what we are reduced to in our most helpless states. Hours of bleeding, of probing hands reaching for a problem in the darkness. But all I saw was red. It is the color of my skin, crusted into it so much it is apart of it. Nothing much they said. Nothing much.
“Idle, foolish, futile daydreams. While we dream and drift on the magic river the busy little men with their gargantuan appliances are hard at work, day and night, racing against the time when the people of America might possibly awake to discover something precious and irreplaceable about to be destroyed.”
Today I bled. So much that it all came out in a gush of red. I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop the bleeding long enough to see where I was going. I was driving--somewhere--and my eyes hazed over while the blood leaked through seat onto, into everything, making a permanent presence. I had no where to go. I stopped the car. I couldn't stand, couldn't move. Too weak to call for help. I let it continue to come out, just keep bleeding myself into the world--out of the world. Hold on, she said. There looks to be no life left in you. Pale, white. Your lips were even white. A contrast to the bright red blood. I couldn't even clean myself up. Sad what we are reduced to in our most helpless states. Hours of bleeding, of probing hands reaching for a problem in the darkness. But all I saw was red. It is the color of my skin, crusted into it so much it is apart of it. Nothing much they said. Nothing much.