it's a smile after all
the thing about seeing a picture you took on the camera that you took it with is that the image frozen on there is something that was actually in front of it, once, that camera in your hand, your hand, you. there's none of the buffer of travel or transfer. it was there, & so were you, but now it's not.
it's a photograph of a great day
this was a ridiculously great day
it lasted like three times longer than we thought it would, far far far into the night, ended collapsed side-to-side on a middle pillow in the back seat, with m quietly awake and thinking i was asleep & behaving accordingly
& i saw nothing in this face that could ever have told me
we had a long road trip into the recesses of massachusetts with a & e. close forest, our road wound tight around a small river full of flat stones that looked like so much more fun than the asphalt & we said so. we passed trailers & crumbly hotels & backwoods target ranges. m said, "i wish there was some kind of shooting game where you'd shoot at targets shaped like animals, you know, & when you hit that particular target somebody brought you a bunch of meat, like served you a dinner made out of the meat your target was shaped like. you'd hit a deer-shaped thing & you'd get venison. isn't that genius? that's genius"
i said "m, i think that's called hunting"
but we didn't hold it against him, you know, i mean he was a goddamn vegetarian, you know what they're like
in the car was when i found out he'd never been out of the country, when i got the full force of why losing ghana this year was such a blow. i let him lean on my peace corps thing. i peddled it off on him. he'd be perfect. he'd have been perfect. he said he'd think about it, think about it for sure. the roads were beautiful. it was late summer, early afternoon, and amy had put on Passing Strange. they were explaining it to me, sort of, but in that over-my-head way with one another, they all knew it in & out and i could lay back idly and reach up into the conversation at my leisure and pull out threads, it was a golden warm beautiful day, m & i were in the backseat & we had granola bars & fruit.
two hours after the photo was taken, dusk falling by the stage & we standing in front of it,
came the line "she walked in the door & we danced all night"
or that's how i remember it
at the second half of the line m grabbed me by the wrist and twirled me into a dance i didn't know i was doing
& he said "man, i'm glad you came. i'm so glad you came."
the only place any of this exists anymore is inside my head. cryptogram compressed tissue in a skull, nobody's but mine, nowhere to go but in.
it's not well hidden, there are no guards, nobody is looking for it.
in the photo i found he looks me in the eye
&hours&hours later i stayed at his house because it was too too late to try to get home, four am, five am, i slept in his bed with the purest honest exhausted intent & besides that a dress that was virtually impossible to remove without pliers & besides that i wasn't drunk really.
woke up from a sinking dream under his arm, hand on ribs calm, breathing, with the most profound relief
not charged, not awkward, not uncomfortable, nothing
under an arm, nose to shoulder, warm calm sunday morning.
i spent the rest of the morning reading to him about ghanian parasites & on the futon he fell asleep again, on my shoulder.
all warm in my stomach knowing that i was going to get him to goddamn ghana, warm in my cheekbones because i had to. because i had to. because he was someone i'd woken up with, & because i loved him that way. he was flashes of pearl brilliance between a brick wall, all crumbled riddled holes ground through with the years of whatever was haunting him, with his insecurity, with his infinite goddamn sadness to which he was entitled, as a goddamn verified genius he was allowed this
but that day i woke up all wound up with him &, in a voice he would not hear, said, "m, i am going to fix your life"
like an asshole
because i had no idea what the fixing really entailed
he was a beautiful kid but he doesn't exist anymore.
he has been cremated & he is an imaginary friend
i have catholic italian coworkers who have said "well, now you have another little angel looking out for you!", presenting the idea to me like a whistle from a cereal box, dangling it like a little bell
cute, thanks
that's cute
as a dead kid m performs all kinds of amazing feats
he does the double rainbows on either side of I-91 in the mother of pearl autumn afternoons
he fucks up the pictures of himself i uploaded in bizarre faint-colored geometric ways
he plays four particular songs in a row
and he does all these extraordinary things because now he's only my imagination.
all that is real now is what i have done because of him
what any of us have done
m has converted himself into a series of accidents
but when he was real he was so real. when he was real he loved weird sushi & machine pieces.
when he was real he was game if not constantly enthusiastic when i forced new music on him as a semi-stranger
he said "some of it was incredibly sad & that was kind of a turnoff really", he didn't like sad music. HE, with THAT face,
he didn't like sad music.
he called me "hey lady" in texts, & drove a state for me, charmed my friends, retracted into himself back in my truck & told me he'd had no friends in high school, recovered full force when we busted out the limericks
when he was real he never bothered to get his motorcycle license but took the thing nine hours to harrisburg & back in the rain with a pile of luggage strapped to the back in a tarp,
took me on my first ride around the block all breathless and conquered conquered conquered
he was stubborn & strange & that's why this has happened
"he wanted to be an island," said angie, "& now he is."
m doesn't exist & i do
i don't know who won
i don't know who's done better
if i'd have done it he never would have.
all this feeling in my arms, visceral slick chemical muscle memory demands to pick him up, pick him up, pin his arms to his sides & step on his feet keep him motionless motionless, to keep him motionless until we figure out out. i couldn't have felt like this without knowing, couldn't have known before this. oh m i'm not even angry i'm just so fucking sad, i'm just so fucking sad.
a picture of you looking me in the eye, & me without a word of comfort, me with my vocabulary & nothing in it i can give you to clear the brush out of other paths in your mind, other winding roads less spiraling less drastic less crumbling, other possible places to be or go, solutions long enough to carry you to higher ground. in this photograph i was a venue & i had nothing. i've got nothing.
i've got this picture of m looking me in the eye on a great day in a golden late summer afternoon full of music, and it was a great day. & it wasn't enough to help. it wasn't enough to change this.
it's a photograph of a great day
this was a ridiculously great day
it lasted like three times longer than we thought it would, far far far into the night, ended collapsed side-to-side on a middle pillow in the back seat, with m quietly awake and thinking i was asleep & behaving accordingly
& i saw nothing in this face that could ever have told me
we had a long road trip into the recesses of massachusetts with a & e. close forest, our road wound tight around a small river full of flat stones that looked like so much more fun than the asphalt & we said so. we passed trailers & crumbly hotels & backwoods target ranges. m said, "i wish there was some kind of shooting game where you'd shoot at targets shaped like animals, you know, & when you hit that particular target somebody brought you a bunch of meat, like served you a dinner made out of the meat your target was shaped like. you'd hit a deer-shaped thing & you'd get venison. isn't that genius? that's genius"
i said "m, i think that's called hunting"
but we didn't hold it against him, you know, i mean he was a goddamn vegetarian, you know what they're like
in the car was when i found out he'd never been out of the country, when i got the full force of why losing ghana this year was such a blow. i let him lean on my peace corps thing. i peddled it off on him. he'd be perfect. he'd have been perfect. he said he'd think about it, think about it for sure. the roads were beautiful. it was late summer, early afternoon, and amy had put on Passing Strange. they were explaining it to me, sort of, but in that over-my-head way with one another, they all knew it in & out and i could lay back idly and reach up into the conversation at my leisure and pull out threads, it was a golden warm beautiful day, m & i were in the backseat & we had granola bars & fruit.
two hours after the photo was taken, dusk falling by the stage & we standing in front of it,
came the line "she walked in the door & we danced all night"
or that's how i remember it
at the second half of the line m grabbed me by the wrist and twirled me into a dance i didn't know i was doing
& he said "man, i'm glad you came. i'm so glad you came."
the only place any of this exists anymore is inside my head. cryptogram compressed tissue in a skull, nobody's but mine, nowhere to go but in.
it's not well hidden, there are no guards, nobody is looking for it.
in the photo i found he looks me in the eye
&hours&hours later i stayed at his house because it was too too late to try to get home, four am, five am, i slept in his bed with the purest honest exhausted intent & besides that a dress that was virtually impossible to remove without pliers & besides that i wasn't drunk really.
woke up from a sinking dream under his arm, hand on ribs calm, breathing, with the most profound relief
not charged, not awkward, not uncomfortable, nothing
under an arm, nose to shoulder, warm calm sunday morning.
i spent the rest of the morning reading to him about ghanian parasites & on the futon he fell asleep again, on my shoulder.
all warm in my stomach knowing that i was going to get him to goddamn ghana, warm in my cheekbones because i had to. because i had to. because he was someone i'd woken up with, & because i loved him that way. he was flashes of pearl brilliance between a brick wall, all crumbled riddled holes ground through with the years of whatever was haunting him, with his insecurity, with his infinite goddamn sadness to which he was entitled, as a goddamn verified genius he was allowed this
but that day i woke up all wound up with him &, in a voice he would not hear, said, "m, i am going to fix your life"
like an asshole
because i had no idea what the fixing really entailed
he was a beautiful kid but he doesn't exist anymore.
he has been cremated & he is an imaginary friend
i have catholic italian coworkers who have said "well, now you have another little angel looking out for you!", presenting the idea to me like a whistle from a cereal box, dangling it like a little bell
cute, thanks
that's cute
as a dead kid m performs all kinds of amazing feats
he does the double rainbows on either side of I-91 in the mother of pearl autumn afternoons
he fucks up the pictures of himself i uploaded in bizarre faint-colored geometric ways
he plays four particular songs in a row
and he does all these extraordinary things because now he's only my imagination.
all that is real now is what i have done because of him
what any of us have done
m has converted himself into a series of accidents
but when he was real he was so real. when he was real he loved weird sushi & machine pieces.
when he was real he was game if not constantly enthusiastic when i forced new music on him as a semi-stranger
he said "some of it was incredibly sad & that was kind of a turnoff really", he didn't like sad music. HE, with THAT face,
he didn't like sad music.
he called me "hey lady" in texts, & drove a state for me, charmed my friends, retracted into himself back in my truck & told me he'd had no friends in high school, recovered full force when we busted out the limericks
when he was real he never bothered to get his motorcycle license but took the thing nine hours to harrisburg & back in the rain with a pile of luggage strapped to the back in a tarp,
took me on my first ride around the block all breathless and conquered conquered conquered
he was stubborn & strange & that's why this has happened
"he wanted to be an island," said angie, "& now he is."
m doesn't exist & i do
i don't know who won
i don't know who's done better
if i'd have done it he never would have.
all this feeling in my arms, visceral slick chemical muscle memory demands to pick him up, pick him up, pin his arms to his sides & step on his feet keep him motionless motionless, to keep him motionless until we figure out out. i couldn't have felt like this without knowing, couldn't have known before this. oh m i'm not even angry i'm just so fucking sad, i'm just so fucking sad.
a picture of you looking me in the eye, & me without a word of comfort, me with my vocabulary & nothing in it i can give you to clear the brush out of other paths in your mind, other winding roads less spiraling less drastic less crumbling, other possible places to be or go, solutions long enough to carry you to higher ground. in this photograph i was a venue & i had nothing. i've got nothing.
i've got this picture of m looking me in the eye on a great day in a golden late summer afternoon full of music, and it was a great day. & it wasn't enough to help. it wasn't enough to change this.