(no subject)
whisked into the center of space,
Which unfurls in an aurora of orgasmic light
Before opening wide, like a jungle orchid
For a love-struck bee, then goes liquid,
Paint-in-water, and then guaze wafting out and off,
Before, finally, the night tide, luminescent
And vague, swirls in, and on and on. . . .
(excerpt from My god, it's full of stars)
And there is nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing that can hold me but my own arms and the air around me and time itself. Holding me always in the same spot over and over while the scenery changes. While my eyes change ever so slightly. While the world changes through them. Once, I saw the underside of the window as something above me. Memories are like shards of glass. Clear and sharp and cut-outs all scattered through my being like a thousand little stars - meaning small spots of light in the endless black that is existence, or is supposed to be anyway. I am unsure sometimes. When I focus very hard I can stretch them and elongate one of those little spots of light into a streak. Hours become days. Some come back more easily than others. But they always come back with a startling quality that makes me doubt the existence of time. Sounds, smells, colours - the four year old's feelings, the thoughts of the six year old. How odd that is. to experience again the feelings of a being completely different in size and brain structure. We hardly share cells. She does not exist anymore.
When I was three years old I broke my middle finger. No one noticed, for some reason. The moment is caught clear and easily bubbles up to the surface. The door was at the time a pale powdery blue. There was a window in it, one I could only just look into. On the same high as my eyes were butterfly stickers; somewhat worn, somewhat brownish. I do not know who bought them, where they came from or where they went. The door is white now and if I stand I see only glass. I would have to crouch to see the same shape of door and even then everything would be different. The colour, the smell, the garden beyond it. Either way, I was looking through the window, tried to pry the door open. My fingers were weak and tiny and it was somehow a hard thing to accomplish. I did manage to open it to just a crack, eventually. My fingers were still between the door and wall when someone who did not notice my fingers wrenched between closed the crack to keep the cold out. My mother? My father? I did not at that moment care to look, so now I do not know. If I close my eyes and step into the memory I feel the pain of a snapping middle finger again. And remember how the texture of tears felt on my face then. Slightly different. Odd. I cried and cried; they told me it would feel better soon. Eventually, I suppose it did. But that is once again washed away in the surrounding blackness.
Sitting on the back of my mother's bicycle, looking down at my small feet encased in ruby red wooden clogs, at the ground speeding past under the wheels. Twisted ankle on a pillow. Looking up, one day, and seeing green light playing through leaves; feeling something almost painful, but good. Holding a small bird, hoping it would survive. Running after a little boy. The warmth of the sun on my back. Looking up at my grandfather telling an awful joke, rolling and somersaulting over their pristine beige carpet. Biting a bully and the childish feeling of utter satisfaction as he screamed in horror, not letting go immediately. Burying a friend's feet in sand and shaping it into a mermaid's tail. Long rows of Latin words, my trying to shape my tongue around French the first time. The smell of a wood fire. My first harp, strings stills hurting, fingertip flesh all tender and unused. Someone combing my hair, not yet long, none too gently. Making daisy chains. Feeling my face swell and facing myself in the mirror; a twelve year old face swollen with allergic reaction; the feeling of wonder that my face could do that. The panic following shortly after. Suddenly looking at something as if for the first time and suddenly seeing it strange, and new and never the same again. That sensation of wonder, again. And again. And again.
The tip of my formerly broken middle finger is permanently bent to the left.
Sometimes I like to think it could give me an illusion of permanence. Something to hold on to.
Some sort of waypoint in time, for when I get lost a little and forget about chronology.
Which unfurls in an aurora of orgasmic light
Before opening wide, like a jungle orchid
For a love-struck bee, then goes liquid,
Paint-in-water, and then guaze wafting out and off,
Before, finally, the night tide, luminescent
And vague, swirls in, and on and on. . . .
(excerpt from My god, it's full of stars)
And there is nothing and nothing and nothing and nothing that can hold me but my own arms and the air around me and time itself. Holding me always in the same spot over and over while the scenery changes. While my eyes change ever so slightly. While the world changes through them. Once, I saw the underside of the window as something above me. Memories are like shards of glass. Clear and sharp and cut-outs all scattered through my being like a thousand little stars - meaning small spots of light in the endless black that is existence, or is supposed to be anyway. I am unsure sometimes. When I focus very hard I can stretch them and elongate one of those little spots of light into a streak. Hours become days. Some come back more easily than others. But they always come back with a startling quality that makes me doubt the existence of time. Sounds, smells, colours - the four year old's feelings, the thoughts of the six year old. How odd that is. to experience again the feelings of a being completely different in size and brain structure. We hardly share cells. She does not exist anymore.
When I was three years old I broke my middle finger. No one noticed, for some reason. The moment is caught clear and easily bubbles up to the surface. The door was at the time a pale powdery blue. There was a window in it, one I could only just look into. On the same high as my eyes were butterfly stickers; somewhat worn, somewhat brownish. I do not know who bought them, where they came from or where they went. The door is white now and if I stand I see only glass. I would have to crouch to see the same shape of door and even then everything would be different. The colour, the smell, the garden beyond it. Either way, I was looking through the window, tried to pry the door open. My fingers were weak and tiny and it was somehow a hard thing to accomplish. I did manage to open it to just a crack, eventually. My fingers were still between the door and wall when someone who did not notice my fingers wrenched between closed the crack to keep the cold out. My mother? My father? I did not at that moment care to look, so now I do not know. If I close my eyes and step into the memory I feel the pain of a snapping middle finger again. And remember how the texture of tears felt on my face then. Slightly different. Odd. I cried and cried; they told me it would feel better soon. Eventually, I suppose it did. But that is once again washed away in the surrounding blackness.
Sitting on the back of my mother's bicycle, looking down at my small feet encased in ruby red wooden clogs, at the ground speeding past under the wheels. Twisted ankle on a pillow. Looking up, one day, and seeing green light playing through leaves; feeling something almost painful, but good. Holding a small bird, hoping it would survive. Running after a little boy. The warmth of the sun on my back. Looking up at my grandfather telling an awful joke, rolling and somersaulting over their pristine beige carpet. Biting a bully and the childish feeling of utter satisfaction as he screamed in horror, not letting go immediately. Burying a friend's feet in sand and shaping it into a mermaid's tail. Long rows of Latin words, my trying to shape my tongue around French the first time. The smell of a wood fire. My first harp, strings stills hurting, fingertip flesh all tender and unused. Someone combing my hair, not yet long, none too gently. Making daisy chains. Feeling my face swell and facing myself in the mirror; a twelve year old face swollen with allergic reaction; the feeling of wonder that my face could do that. The panic following shortly after. Suddenly looking at something as if for the first time and suddenly seeing it strange, and new and never the same again. That sensation of wonder, again. And again. And again.
The tip of my formerly broken middle finger is permanently bent to the left.
Sometimes I like to think it could give me an illusion of permanence. Something to hold on to.
Some sort of waypoint in time, for when I get lost a little and forget about chronology.