Entry for October, Week 1 of Brigits_Flame: "There it goes."
Here's my entry... I wrote a new piece... and decided I liked this older, slightly revamped version better--at least for this topic.
...ugh. Kinda angsty though. Apologies in advance.
(Oh, and this was totally back before my Creativity professor forever shattered the allure of Salvador Dali's works for me... pretty sure I'm scarred for LIFE. Seriously.)
Anyway.
Here goes:
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"Damn You, Dali--The Persistence of Memory"
There it goes.
Again. That noise.
I should be thinking about your flight, the distance, the ticket in your name, but my showerhead is leaking in the bathroom and the sound is overwhelming, a staggering series of drips, splashing to the plastic floor. It’s all I can hear, all I can think about, when instead I should be musing on what color the sky is in Taiwan, because I wonder if we’ll be looking at the same thing. You know, like in the movies. When I stare at the moon and you stare at the moon and we feel this connection… but then I remember that you really will be on the other side of the world, literally, and when I see the moon you’ll be rising to a warm, muted sun.
Because, you see, while everyone is separated by a handful of miles and a day’s worth of missed memories, we are separated by years, eons, by the things I never said when you were lying there, your eyes closed and breathless in that calligraphic slant… the things I never said when I had the chance, the seconds dragging us further and further across a vastness of failing words and that one, damned phrase. The one I could never say. And I swore that next time, next time, I…
I should be thinking about how the miles pull apart flesh like stitches, seams in fabric and the shirt you wore when your arms tightened around me, when I breathed your cheap shampoo. I’ve engraved every second into the back of my eyelids, but I try so hard to dream, and so often, that your image is fading. I should be desperately pulling your soft, childlike hands to the forefront of memory but all I can think about is that stupid showerhead, that fucking showerhead and how it won’t stop leaking and tormenting me with a reminder like the telltale tick of my alarm clock in the split second before it beeps, thrusting me into a reality I would much, much rather ignore.
I am alone. And I am angry with you, sometimes. I know it’s not your fault, but sometimes I wish we could be like everyone else and fight about how I set my silverware on the table instead of on a napkin, how makeup disgusts you, how you detest motorcycles even though my father used to race them. I wish we could fight about moving too fast. I wish we could fight about needing more space between us. I wish we could be like everyone else, but instead our arguments consist of distance, of tears along telephone wires. Everyone else parts with “see you soon,” while I say hello, goodbye, I think I love you, and wonder if I’ll ever see you again. I don’t ask this aloud because in all honesty, I don’t think I want to know.
But the shower… the showerhead, the damned showerhead, ringing in my ears, transposing my heartbeat into a somber cadence… My thoughts falter. I count the drips and the beats beneath this bone cage, hoping they will coalesce into one distraction from life, from you, from everything, but to no avail. To forget, it will take more than this.
Much, much more.
...ugh. Kinda angsty though. Apologies in advance.
(Oh, and this was totally back before my Creativity professor forever shattered the allure of Salvador Dali's works for me... pretty sure I'm scarred for LIFE. Seriously.)
Anyway.
Here goes:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Damn You, Dali--The Persistence of Memory"
There it goes.
Again. That noise.
I should be thinking about your flight, the distance, the ticket in your name, but my showerhead is leaking in the bathroom and the sound is overwhelming, a staggering series of drips, splashing to the plastic floor. It’s all I can hear, all I can think about, when instead I should be musing on what color the sky is in Taiwan, because I wonder if we’ll be looking at the same thing. You know, like in the movies. When I stare at the moon and you stare at the moon and we feel this connection… but then I remember that you really will be on the other side of the world, literally, and when I see the moon you’ll be rising to a warm, muted sun.
Because, you see, while everyone is separated by a handful of miles and a day’s worth of missed memories, we are separated by years, eons, by the things I never said when you were lying there, your eyes closed and breathless in that calligraphic slant… the things I never said when I had the chance, the seconds dragging us further and further across a vastness of failing words and that one, damned phrase. The one I could never say. And I swore that next time, next time, I…
I should be thinking about how the miles pull apart flesh like stitches, seams in fabric and the shirt you wore when your arms tightened around me, when I breathed your cheap shampoo. I’ve engraved every second into the back of my eyelids, but I try so hard to dream, and so often, that your image is fading. I should be desperately pulling your soft, childlike hands to the forefront of memory but all I can think about is that stupid showerhead, that fucking showerhead and how it won’t stop leaking and tormenting me with a reminder like the telltale tick of my alarm clock in the split second before it beeps, thrusting me into a reality I would much, much rather ignore.
I am alone. And I am angry with you, sometimes. I know it’s not your fault, but sometimes I wish we could be like everyone else and fight about how I set my silverware on the table instead of on a napkin, how makeup disgusts you, how you detest motorcycles even though my father used to race them. I wish we could fight about moving too fast. I wish we could fight about needing more space between us. I wish we could be like everyone else, but instead our arguments consist of distance, of tears along telephone wires. Everyone else parts with “see you soon,” while I say hello, goodbye, I think I love you, and wonder if I’ll ever see you again. I don’t ask this aloud because in all honesty, I don’t think I want to know.
But the shower… the showerhead, the damned showerhead, ringing in my ears, transposing my heartbeat into a somber cadence… My thoughts falter. I count the drips and the beats beneath this bone cage, hoping they will coalesce into one distraction from life, from you, from everything, but to no avail. To forget, it will take more than this.
Much, much more.