i tread, ambiguous. i can’t get a word in otherwise.
my lips split and ooze in the chill, pinprick bleeding. she stares at me with dewy eyes and i start to understand how love is oppressive. i can feel my ribs through my skin, see my collarbones through white shirts. she runs her nails down my side, caustic in theory; i recoil into her touch.
this is what it means to be together, she says, now we are bound to each other forever.
she loves me like a debt. i dream of her hair on my pillow and broken heineken bottles on the carpet, awake with crossed eyes and bruised limbs. i bleed her out. i hate her appendages and the way they move. i hate her skin and the way it pulses.
she trembles against me. i watch her run down the shower drain.
In a shadow there is the blessing of a shadow. — Kuki Shūzō
i. to not move. to move. to run, fast, through the burning green foliage behind your apartment complex.
ii. to work. to dry clean your suits. to move your pen across the page with restless fingers. to fidget. to fumble. to scrutinize. to organize. to file. to stay late. to watch the door, watch the clock.
iii. to eat great big sandwiches and oily potato chips that leave crumbs all over your desk. to crack the shells of pistachios between your teeth, to play with the ragged edges of them. to speak to yourself. to play wall ball alone in your apartment. to shower in frigid water. to sleep, to try to sleep.
iv. to leave her voicemails. jade, i thought you would like-- jade, i saw-- jade, there is this article in the new york times about-- jade, what are you having for dinner? jade, is it raining there?
v. to look at the sky. to look at the dirt.
In a shadow there is the blessing of a shadow. — Kuki Shūzō
You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better. — Anne Lamott
