(no subject)
something that's gone through serious revision that i'd seriously appreciate some criticism on:
be as mean as you want, PLEASE.
I. Memory of Shipwreck
The wind wrenched us from jigger to jibsheet. I heard the tearing of the sails, a slow, crisp sound like water boiling, the nightmarish cracking of timber. Waves swarmed over the deck, carrying with them arms and splinters, cannonballs, cargo hold. I heard the leftenent screaming -- gulls or children pained.
It’s been a year, a humble morning and porridge that I eat effortlessly. I write on scraps of skin and sandpaper because it makes me feel like I’m in control of something, makes me feel like I’m somewhat of a man.
But if I eat and sleep and breathe so effortlessly, then why is my breakfast always cold and why am I always tired and why do I cough upon waking? Sitting here, a humble midmorning with the smell of Liza’s thin little apple trees coming sharp through the window and the starlings singing in the thorns that grow along the side of the house.
She’s calling me -- gulls or children pained.
II. Morning
Most mornings Liza sits at the edge of the bed with knees and elbows bent, her back turned to me with her shoulders pale and round like sand dollars. Today she asks me if I’ve finished my breakfast. She always asks me if I’ve finished my breakfast. I tell her I haven’t. She shakes her head. I can’t see her, but I can tell she’s shaking from the clicks in the knotted ropes that stretch beneath the mattress.
“You have to eat, love,” she says. I shrug.
“I’m not hungry,” I say, pen pressed to skin, pen pressed to sandpaper.
She stands, I can hear the stiffness in her back and the soft rustle of her linen shift setting around her undoubtedly aching knees.
“Not even after so much sleeping?” she asks, her voice morning-catching in her dry, dry throat. Suddenly I think of how she’d look without skin, just soft glands and muscles lying on a bed of stripped scales, seven years bound and screaming -- selke smooth.
“I don’t sleep,” I say, shivering.
She’s behind me, her soft bird-like hands pressing against my collarbone, lips tracing the curved line from ear to neck to the near-spherical cap of my shoulder. I twist away from her; her fingers leave my throat and she walks around the side of my chair to stand beside the window. I touch the smooth inside of her lower arm and she softens or maybe stiffens, I can’t tell, and the light through the window streaks across her cheek. I open my mouth, trying to heave an apology up into my throat.
“Don’t bother,” she says. My teeth snap shut.
III. Memory of Sea
I lay chest-pressed to rotting oak planks, some piece of furniture from the captain’s quarters, no doubt, rocking over the swells of waves upon waves that I had stopped counting days before. I was ragged, starving, sucking the sweat from the inside of my browned left arm, trying to decide which one of my fingers I valued least. The gulls screamed, circling. Shitting on my aching back.
On days when the sea was calm, I’d lay there thinking of brick walls and curved spines, the rise and fall of soil or breasts beneath me. I thought of my mother’s hands, lye-worn and warm. The smell of bread rising. For each human thought I thought, for each thought of land I shoved a splinter of wood deep down under my fingernail. All was blue and grey and blue and grey. Lurching and colorless. I forgot what the color red looked like, bled, and remembered.
IV. Memory of Shore
I knew I had lost time when shore finally found me, but I had no idea how much. My legs twisted around one another as I took my first solid steps, knocked knees locking knees. I shaded my eyes with one curled hand and saw that the dunes both lifted and crashed like waves. I’d forgotten this, and the memory of the shapes of rock and hills and trees coupled with the sight of all of it before me after so much rollicking fluid made me laugh. And laugh. I laughed and it felt like I was laughing for every happiness I had ever experienced and every happiness I had missed, all the long yellow days and long slanted skies.
I fell to my knees, knocked knees locking, still laughing. The salt on my back stung beneath my sun-stiffened shirt so I tore it from my body and let the sea coax it away while I drew strands of kelp from my foreskin. I could feel the air cool and jagged, the pressure of strong arm that had appeared at my side at some point in the months I’d been kneeling, laughing. Their mustached faces loomed around me; I tried to twist away from their white shirtsleeves and flapping tails. I thought of gulls -- screams of children pained.
V. Mourning
Clocks. I’d forgotten how they worked, but remembered most numbers. I could barely speak at first, felt like I hadn’t spoken in years. All that time at sea, at sea - I had been afraid that if I had caught myself talking out loud, holding conversations with trade winds and storms, I would have gone insane. So I never spoke. All that time adrift and I said nothing.
I slide inside of Liza, her chestnut curls spread like foam across linen sheets surrounded by that same salt spit, the freckles on her nose and the girlish flash of skin under upturned skirts.
I stop, shrink away. I can barely touch her anymore; I am hardly a man. That constricted, gently pulling wetness too much like riptide on backs of thighs. I’m spitting apologies and crying hateful salt, cheeks chock-full of excuses I never thought I’d need. She never seems to mind. She holds me by the shoulders till I sleep.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, teeth pressed tight to lower lip.
She is standing now; I groan and drag my hand across my face. I watch her through the slits between my fingers; watching her fingers cross corset laces and jerk, listen to the stiff rustle of her arms into homespun sleeves.
“Liza,” I whisper, breathing steam, “I thought you knew it was going to be hard.”
Her eyes get narrow and she stares right at me as if I really do have her skin folded up and stuffed away somewhere.
“Don’t,” she says. One word, and quietly.
“I said you should have left me for dead, remember?”
“Don’t say that.”
“You should have left me for dead.”
I stand, shaking.
“This is what happens when you reach into oceans and unknowns, you find shit like this,” I spit, pounding my driftwood chest with one set of knotted knuckles. We stand. Staring at each other. Flour flies from her shawl as she wraps it round her shoulders and settles on the windowsill, credenza.
“Where are you going?” I ask her.
“On a walk,” she says.
“A walk?”
“A walk. I’m thirsty.”
VI. Memory of Leaving
For it’s not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me
but my darling when I think of thee
be as mean as you want, PLEASE.
I. Memory of Shipwreck
The wind wrenched us from jigger to jibsheet. I heard the tearing of the sails, a slow, crisp sound like water boiling, the nightmarish cracking of timber. Waves swarmed over the deck, carrying with them arms and splinters, cannonballs, cargo hold. I heard the leftenent screaming -- gulls or children pained.
It’s been a year, a humble morning and porridge that I eat effortlessly. I write on scraps of skin and sandpaper because it makes me feel like I’m in control of something, makes me feel like I’m somewhat of a man.
But if I eat and sleep and breathe so effortlessly, then why is my breakfast always cold and why am I always tired and why do I cough upon waking? Sitting here, a humble midmorning with the smell of Liza’s thin little apple trees coming sharp through the window and the starlings singing in the thorns that grow along the side of the house.
She’s calling me -- gulls or children pained.
II. Morning
Most mornings Liza sits at the edge of the bed with knees and elbows bent, her back turned to me with her shoulders pale and round like sand dollars. Today she asks me if I’ve finished my breakfast. She always asks me if I’ve finished my breakfast. I tell her I haven’t. She shakes her head. I can’t see her, but I can tell she’s shaking from the clicks in the knotted ropes that stretch beneath the mattress.
“You have to eat, love,” she says. I shrug.
“I’m not hungry,” I say, pen pressed to skin, pen pressed to sandpaper.
She stands, I can hear the stiffness in her back and the soft rustle of her linen shift setting around her undoubtedly aching knees.
“Not even after so much sleeping?” she asks, her voice morning-catching in her dry, dry throat. Suddenly I think of how she’d look without skin, just soft glands and muscles lying on a bed of stripped scales, seven years bound and screaming -- selke smooth.
“I don’t sleep,” I say, shivering.
She’s behind me, her soft bird-like hands pressing against my collarbone, lips tracing the curved line from ear to neck to the near-spherical cap of my shoulder. I twist away from her; her fingers leave my throat and she walks around the side of my chair to stand beside the window. I touch the smooth inside of her lower arm and she softens or maybe stiffens, I can’t tell, and the light through the window streaks across her cheek. I open my mouth, trying to heave an apology up into my throat.
“Don’t bother,” she says. My teeth snap shut.
III. Memory of Sea
I lay chest-pressed to rotting oak planks, some piece of furniture from the captain’s quarters, no doubt, rocking over the swells of waves upon waves that I had stopped counting days before. I was ragged, starving, sucking the sweat from the inside of my browned left arm, trying to decide which one of my fingers I valued least. The gulls screamed, circling. Shitting on my aching back.
On days when the sea was calm, I’d lay there thinking of brick walls and curved spines, the rise and fall of soil or breasts beneath me. I thought of my mother’s hands, lye-worn and warm. The smell of bread rising. For each human thought I thought, for each thought of land I shoved a splinter of wood deep down under my fingernail. All was blue and grey and blue and grey. Lurching and colorless. I forgot what the color red looked like, bled, and remembered.
IV. Memory of Shore
I knew I had lost time when shore finally found me, but I had no idea how much. My legs twisted around one another as I took my first solid steps, knocked knees locking knees. I shaded my eyes with one curled hand and saw that the dunes both lifted and crashed like waves. I’d forgotten this, and the memory of the shapes of rock and hills and trees coupled with the sight of all of it before me after so much rollicking fluid made me laugh. And laugh. I laughed and it felt like I was laughing for every happiness I had ever experienced and every happiness I had missed, all the long yellow days and long slanted skies.
I fell to my knees, knocked knees locking, still laughing. The salt on my back stung beneath my sun-stiffened shirt so I tore it from my body and let the sea coax it away while I drew strands of kelp from my foreskin. I could feel the air cool and jagged, the pressure of strong arm that had appeared at my side at some point in the months I’d been kneeling, laughing. Their mustached faces loomed around me; I tried to twist away from their white shirtsleeves and flapping tails. I thought of gulls -- screams of children pained.
V. Mourning
Clocks. I’d forgotten how they worked, but remembered most numbers. I could barely speak at first, felt like I hadn’t spoken in years. All that time at sea, at sea - I had been afraid that if I had caught myself talking out loud, holding conversations with trade winds and storms, I would have gone insane. So I never spoke. All that time adrift and I said nothing.
I slide inside of Liza, her chestnut curls spread like foam across linen sheets surrounded by that same salt spit, the freckles on her nose and the girlish flash of skin under upturned skirts.
I stop, shrink away. I can barely touch her anymore; I am hardly a man. That constricted, gently pulling wetness too much like riptide on backs of thighs. I’m spitting apologies and crying hateful salt, cheeks chock-full of excuses I never thought I’d need. She never seems to mind. She holds me by the shoulders till I sleep.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, teeth pressed tight to lower lip.
She is standing now; I groan and drag my hand across my face. I watch her through the slits between my fingers; watching her fingers cross corset laces and jerk, listen to the stiff rustle of her arms into homespun sleeves.
“Liza,” I whisper, breathing steam, “I thought you knew it was going to be hard.”
Her eyes get narrow and she stares right at me as if I really do have her skin folded up and stuffed away somewhere.
“Don’t,” she says. One word, and quietly.
“I said you should have left me for dead, remember?”
“Don’t say that.”
“You should have left me for dead.”
I stand, shaking.
“This is what happens when you reach into oceans and unknowns, you find shit like this,” I spit, pounding my driftwood chest with one set of knotted knuckles. We stand. Staring at each other. Flour flies from her shawl as she wraps it round her shoulders and settles on the windowsill, credenza.
“Where are you going?” I ask her.
“On a walk,” she says.
“A walk?”
“A walk. I’m thirsty.”
VI. Memory of Leaving
For it’s not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me
but my darling when I think of thee