jim is dying.
jim lies in the hospital
like some prehistoric animal, the doctor calls the tubes attached to his nose and mouth 'tusks'
jim shakes his tusks when i say hello
and his swollen fingers squeeze my small bones when i ask him if he can hear me
i was only there an hour, maybe only half of an hour, like a strange technicolour daydream stripped of focus
jim is burry, cold steam pours from his tusks
his heart rate is at the rate of an athelete darryl says
his breathing sounds like that of a man scaling a wall
i had nothing to say to him
i told him to get over the wall.
technicolour bullshit for his technicolour hospital gown
what do you say to a man who was so often truly unsavoury
do you say, hey you bastard, you fool, how could you let yourself land here, but get better you jerk
get better.
i always had this little fantasy, that one day Jim and I would Talk. You know really talk, not through darryl, and no longer always fighting and steppping around eachother and that I Would Save Him with my wisdom and my beauty and my youth and that we would do Great Things together.
this is what you get when you procrastinate. The handsome aisian resident assures me that he would not want to live this way. his acne scars and dimples are all blushing and twinkling at me at once. everything tonight is a blur. Dr. Chan is talking about reservoirs of air and i remember the mexican caves and i hate that Jim never visited mexican caves and never made love to mexican women. it is a thing, i have been taught, to be prized. making love. Jim will never again make love, he will never again smile.
I laugh quietly and dr. Chin smiles, his cheeks suck in and again the little dimples are pointing at me. i think i hate him. I hate them all. I came here tonight dressed for battle, everything is sharp and dark, my hair is clean and full and my whole body in a constant state of tension. i came here to fight for jim's life tonight. Up the hill to montreal general my boots kept an audible march. In my head i counted the steps. 345 give or take a few. a year is 365 days. Jim will not make it through the weekend.
but nobody else wants to fight.
Jim's dreaded family, a dimunitive auntie eva and Nancy, mouth turned down in a permanent dry frown. They are here for his money. I feel it in the way they ask darryl questions, the way they look at me. maybe they are here to make ammeneds. it doesn't matter, they have come too late. they want me to tell them that it's okay, that it's udnerstandable the way they left him alone. I want them to dissapear and stop polluting the air.
I cry like the small girl i am and the dreaded family, a sorry group of old and wrinkled folk, they are not dressed to fight, they are neither sharp nor clean. I hate them immdietely, thier weakness is like a vapour rising from them, a stench, and i fear that it may seep into jim's tusks like a green fog and that it will travel through the plastic tubes to his heart and slow it down.
they look at me as if to say who the fuck are you? and i look at them back. My lover holds the key to jim's house. My lover is a wreck. My lover will wear jim's engineering ring.
his eyes are on the verge of tears, he speaks too loudly in the hushed icu. He says things like, you're looking well jim, for a guy your age! and then laughs. Darryl has jokes to tell jim when he wakes up. he has planned stories he will read to him in recovery. Some joseph heller and a few ribjabbers about prime minister cretien. It appears that the stroke last night has left Jim paralyzed on his right side.
i tell darryl that jim is not going to wake up. we both cry. we look away from eachother when we do it.
like some prehistoric animal, the doctor calls the tubes attached to his nose and mouth 'tusks'
jim shakes his tusks when i say hello
and his swollen fingers squeeze my small bones when i ask him if he can hear me
i was only there an hour, maybe only half of an hour, like a strange technicolour daydream stripped of focus
jim is burry, cold steam pours from his tusks
his heart rate is at the rate of an athelete darryl says
his breathing sounds like that of a man scaling a wall
i had nothing to say to him
i told him to get over the wall.
technicolour bullshit for his technicolour hospital gown
what do you say to a man who was so often truly unsavoury
do you say, hey you bastard, you fool, how could you let yourself land here, but get better you jerk
get better.
i always had this little fantasy, that one day Jim and I would Talk. You know really talk, not through darryl, and no longer always fighting and steppping around eachother and that I Would Save Him with my wisdom and my beauty and my youth and that we would do Great Things together.
this is what you get when you procrastinate. The handsome aisian resident assures me that he would not want to live this way. his acne scars and dimples are all blushing and twinkling at me at once. everything tonight is a blur. Dr. Chan is talking about reservoirs of air and i remember the mexican caves and i hate that Jim never visited mexican caves and never made love to mexican women. it is a thing, i have been taught, to be prized. making love. Jim will never again make love, he will never again smile.
I laugh quietly and dr. Chin smiles, his cheeks suck in and again the little dimples are pointing at me. i think i hate him. I hate them all. I came here tonight dressed for battle, everything is sharp and dark, my hair is clean and full and my whole body in a constant state of tension. i came here to fight for jim's life tonight. Up the hill to montreal general my boots kept an audible march. In my head i counted the steps. 345 give or take a few. a year is 365 days. Jim will not make it through the weekend.
but nobody else wants to fight.
Jim's dreaded family, a dimunitive auntie eva and Nancy, mouth turned down in a permanent dry frown. They are here for his money. I feel it in the way they ask darryl questions, the way they look at me. maybe they are here to make ammeneds. it doesn't matter, they have come too late. they want me to tell them that it's okay, that it's udnerstandable the way they left him alone. I want them to dissapear and stop polluting the air.
I cry like the small girl i am and the dreaded family, a sorry group of old and wrinkled folk, they are not dressed to fight, they are neither sharp nor clean. I hate them immdietely, thier weakness is like a vapour rising from them, a stench, and i fear that it may seep into jim's tusks like a green fog and that it will travel through the plastic tubes to his heart and slow it down.
they look at me as if to say who the fuck are you? and i look at them back. My lover holds the key to jim's house. My lover is a wreck. My lover will wear jim's engineering ring.
his eyes are on the verge of tears, he speaks too loudly in the hushed icu. He says things like, you're looking well jim, for a guy your age! and then laughs. Darryl has jokes to tell jim when he wakes up. he has planned stories he will read to him in recovery. Some joseph heller and a few ribjabbers about prime minister cretien. It appears that the stroke last night has left Jim paralyzed on his right side.
i tell darryl that jim is not going to wake up. we both cry. we look away from eachother when we do it.