Stop, POTS: You cut, I choose.
The writing that happens right after, or during, is filled with orange plastic chairs that are weeks and watercolor views and dark hard pits of fruit; the later writing is always/mostly the pit between the sternum creating ffff-sounds, ssss-sounds, slowly deteriorating.
The summers were spent at the house on the water, rented for seven weeks, which was precisely four weeks too long. The bugs would come in through the screens and sit on the bread, your knee, the walls. The breeze would come in too, the sound of the salty ocean on the soft insides of lips, the mucous membrane puckering with ridges. This was at the very beginning of wrinkles, when they appeared only after dusk, in florescent light. It was calm then, if not entirely joyful.
The house by the highway where it sounds like water lapping in the distance, never traffic. On the corner, four red Mercedes accordioned together, dominoes in a car accident, each one ridged to perfection. Riding bikes down to the horse races, strangers pointing at the white girl in a prom dress riding by in the heat, helmet on. We all celebrate in our own ways. 1183, give or take, a little or a lot. There are many roads to and from the nunnery, but you forget them all once inside. The silence is all encompassing, quieting desire, hope. Riding by there, you said This Is Where It Happened. The six-year-old baby girl grabbed by the head, by a dog, his jaw clamping around her, and suddenly, she and the dog covered in blood, and slow release. Her three-year-old sister screaming a foot away. I think you patched her up, but that's not the part I was interested in.
The other stories are left as snippets: Gunnar sniffing around & grabbing the po boy bag at the dog park - his owner hobbling over to bark at him, rolling over on your stomach in the morning, the debated midnight loquations, all the words gulped down & washed away with alcohol. We argued downstairs at Mimi's, about the direct line to the heart, if addicts should be allowed in, who gets to choose. Of all things. That one night I spent 6:36 to 7:52 am wishing I were a bird. Billy Collins' papery wings and the tongue of the bell ringing...longing to be rung. Returning home feels like heartburn; each time I come back.
The summers were spent at the house on the water, rented for seven weeks, which was precisely four weeks too long. The bugs would come in through the screens and sit on the bread, your knee, the walls. The breeze would come in too, the sound of the salty ocean on the soft insides of lips, the mucous membrane puckering with ridges. This was at the very beginning of wrinkles, when they appeared only after dusk, in florescent light. It was calm then, if not entirely joyful.
The house by the highway where it sounds like water lapping in the distance, never traffic. On the corner, four red Mercedes accordioned together, dominoes in a car accident, each one ridged to perfection. Riding bikes down to the horse races, strangers pointing at the white girl in a prom dress riding by in the heat, helmet on. We all celebrate in our own ways. 1183, give or take, a little or a lot. There are many roads to and from the nunnery, but you forget them all once inside. The silence is all encompassing, quieting desire, hope. Riding by there, you said This Is Where It Happened. The six-year-old baby girl grabbed by the head, by a dog, his jaw clamping around her, and suddenly, she and the dog covered in blood, and slow release. Her three-year-old sister screaming a foot away. I think you patched her up, but that's not the part I was interested in.
The other stories are left as snippets: Gunnar sniffing around & grabbing the po boy bag at the dog park - his owner hobbling over to bark at him, rolling over on your stomach in the morning, the debated midnight loquations, all the words gulped down & washed away with alcohol. We argued downstairs at Mimi's, about the direct line to the heart, if addicts should be allowed in, who gets to choose. Of all things. That one night I spent 6:36 to 7:52 am wishing I were a bird. Billy Collins' papery wings and the tongue of the bell ringing...longing to be rung. Returning home feels like heartburn; each time I come back.