Day 08 - A moment, in great detail
yesterday was such a looong day. interviews and errands and all sorts of emotional stuff going on over here on winterwood lane. finding one moment that is interesting and i'm comfortable sharing is hard. i had to pass over everything and focus on when the loooong day was over.
so. the moment was in the bathtub. i want to write about what happened just before, and what happened long before, to show you how this moment is important to me now. but that's not how this is supposed to go. i was soaking in the bathtub, laying down, almost completely under water. i was listening to my heartbeat, thinking about what i always think about when i think of hearts these days. how they're a muscle, they're useful. not the holder of love like they're so often described. i can't recite it, but i was thinking about this poem that anna posted a while ago that has kept a steady hold on me:
The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart
I do not mean the symbol
of love, a candy shape
to decorate cakes with,
the heart that is supposed
to belong or break;
I mean this lump of muscle
that contracts like a flayed biceps,
purple-blue, with its skin of suet,
its skin of gristle, this isolate,
this caved hermit, unshelled
turtle, this one lungful of blood,
no happy plateful.
All hearts float in their own
deep oceans of no light,
wetblack and glimmering,
their four mouths gulping like fish.
Hearts are said to pound:
this is to be expected, the heart’s
regular struggle against being drowned.
But most hearts say, I want, I want,
I want, I want. My heart
is more duplicitious,
though no twin as I once thought.
It says, I want, I don’t want, I
want, and then a pause.
It forces me to listen,
and at night it is the infra-red
third eye that remains open
while the other two are sleeping
but refuses to say what it has seen.
It is a constant pestering
in my ears, a caught moth, limping drum,
a child’s fist beating
itself against the bedsprings:
I want, I don’t want.
How can one live with such a heart?
Long ago I gave up singing
to it, it will never be satisfied or lulled.
One night I will say to it:
Heart, be still,
and it will.
it was my first bath since leaving michgan. i love baths and have had bathtubs available for soaking in, but couldn't yet. last night, though, it was time. so i ran a bath, had a shot of tequila and a soak. listening to my breathing, steady and deep. listening to my heartbeat and the words of the poem running through my head again and again. i want, i don't want, i want, i don't want.
it was in this moment the weight of the last few months began to lift off of me. and i knew, once again, that i would be okay. i will always be okay again. and i was alone, this time, when it happened.
so. the moment was in the bathtub. i want to write about what happened just before, and what happened long before, to show you how this moment is important to me now. but that's not how this is supposed to go. i was soaking in the bathtub, laying down, almost completely under water. i was listening to my heartbeat, thinking about what i always think about when i think of hearts these days. how they're a muscle, they're useful. not the holder of love like they're so often described. i can't recite it, but i was thinking about this poem that anna posted a while ago that has kept a steady hold on me:
The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart
I do not mean the symbol
of love, a candy shape
to decorate cakes with,
the heart that is supposed
to belong or break;
I mean this lump of muscle
that contracts like a flayed biceps,
purple-blue, with its skin of suet,
its skin of gristle, this isolate,
this caved hermit, unshelled
turtle, this one lungful of blood,
no happy plateful.
All hearts float in their own
deep oceans of no light,
wetblack and glimmering,
their four mouths gulping like fish.
Hearts are said to pound:
this is to be expected, the heart’s
regular struggle against being drowned.
But most hearts say, I want, I want,
I want, I want. My heart
is more duplicitious,
though no twin as I once thought.
It says, I want, I don’t want, I
want, and then a pause.
It forces me to listen,
and at night it is the infra-red
third eye that remains open
while the other two are sleeping
but refuses to say what it has seen.
It is a constant pestering
in my ears, a caught moth, limping drum,
a child’s fist beating
itself against the bedsprings:
I want, I don’t want.
How can one live with such a heart?
Long ago I gave up singing
to it, it will never be satisfied or lulled.
One night I will say to it:
Heart, be still,
and it will.
it was my first bath since leaving michgan. i love baths and have had bathtubs available for soaking in, but couldn't yet. last night, though, it was time. so i ran a bath, had a shot of tequila and a soak. listening to my breathing, steady and deep. listening to my heartbeat and the words of the poem running through my head again and again. i want, i don't want, i want, i don't want.
it was in this moment the weight of the last few months began to lift off of me. and i knew, once again, that i would be okay. i will always be okay again. and i was alone, this time, when it happened.