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every day is infinite
Tuesday January 22, 2008
This is the kind of silence that is more than the absence of sound. But it is also more than even the lack of spoken word, because normal silence is a light, bland sensation that one hardly notices until one hears the sound of it shattering. And by that time, it's gone.
This is more than quietness, more than neither of us verbalising our thoughts; this is a heavy, oppressive void that a scream would serve well to pierce, but even then there would be an aftertaste of emptiness.
You won't look at me, and i want to ask if this helps, if it dulls the pain, like a band-aid on a cut that keeps bleeding.
I can't use the words that you have. All i'm able to summon in my mind is the harsh ring of different. Different from you, from them, from who you thought i would (wanted me to) be.
I can't begin to speak or even feel. I'm in shock, yet i precipitated this to happen. It's not fair, because all your life you had no idea this was coming to meet you, somewhere down the road. My veil ripped away, my lies of omission laid bare.
We sit and stare. At the table, the salt shaker, the remnants of breakfast i forgot to clean up. There is more than bread crumbs between us. We finally look at each other, but make no eye contact, because that's letting someone see through the window to your soul.
It comes to me, a pang of understanding, and i crumple inside like a discarded tissue. I've stabbed you in the eyes and you'll never see the same again, never look at me like you did Before. Even though you forced me to, it hurts you to look at the creature who did this. Hurts to see. Hurts to know, the truth, so i begin trying to convince myself that there was no other way. | | | |
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Saturday December 22, 2007
i was trying to avoid her eyes, because every time i looked into them i flooded with the same recurring shame, relived the crushing powerlessness of the moment, felt those memories of her eyes on me burn themselves awake after lightly slumbering in my mind. i would retie my shoe, fuss with a hangnail, or pretend to be otherwise simultaneously occupied with something trivial every time she tried to talk about it with me. i did, however, have to respond, and i always managed to evade honesty and thus attempt to dispel her concern by minimising everything.
it wasn’t that bad, i would say. it could have been worse. i was actually pretty lucky. and of course, it’s in the past. i’m okay now.
i was never sure how much of it she was buying, but whether i had allayed her concern or simply frustrated her into giving up, she ceased to broach the issue.
but one day,
“look at me.”
so i looked at her shoulders, at the sleeves of her pretty blue sweater.
“no, look at me. look me in the eye.”
i had never understood that saying. after all, didn’t people have two eyes, not just “the eye”?
but my private fever thoughts could not buy me time, and my time was up. i was floored, cornered, trapped. her next words were as if to hopelessly confirm this.
“you can’t hide forever.”
with sweating palms and grating emotions, i lifted my head to meet her eyes.
somehow this was all it took for silence to crack wide open.
and even though i’ve died and had to start all over again, i’m old enough to know that it’s now too broken to ever mend or be repaired. | | | |
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Sunday December 16, 2007
I miss you.
Do you remember, that night in June when we lay in the backyard, staring up into the midnight blue heavens. You kissed me and said that I tasted of moonlight, and I told you that I could feel the starlight in your hair.
We were silly then, and innocent, and we probably knew it, but in that moment it didn’t matter.
You came up close and asked me softly, “Can you hear? Can you hear the stars? They’re whispering across the sky…”
I smiled because it was exactly the kind of fancifully illogical thing that you would say. I have never stopped marveling at the fact that after that man tortured all the life out of you, you had maintained, in rare and beautiful instances, a childlike ability to see magic. A gift I don’t think I’ve ever possessed.
When you lived with me on this side of the barrier, I used to say that I couldn’t imagine a world without you.
And tonight, after one year of wandering lost without you to breathe life into my existence, I still can’t. I didn’t cry at your memorial service because I just couldn’t believe. I’ve always had trouble believing, but on that day I couldn’t believe that you were really gone.
Eternity is something difficult for me to comprehend. How it is, that we have only one life that we'll never be allowed to relive, even if we make a mess of it. How it can be that some deeds can never be undone, can never be reversed. How it is reality that I will never, never, see you again.
I’m shivering, but it’s warm out here in the grassy spot where we lay. But the place on either side of me is empty. There are tears in my eyes now, but they’ve been there before so I know what to do. Just wipe them away and try to swallow, even though there’s a lump in my throat that I can’t get past.
I fall asleep a silent hour later. A deep sleep in which your face comes to me again and I feel happiness, for the first time in twelve months.
But the neighbour children make a racket trying to leave for school, and before I can touch you, you are gone, back into my dreams. | | | |
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Saturday December 15, 2007
endarken:
to be shown the darkness, to be made
to see something terrible.
like enlighten, but no one should want this.
and you endarkened me and i’ve spent my life trying to accept that
it can’t be undone. and i’ve stared up into the heavens and pled with god to show himself to me, but either he’s just not there or he’s
playing games with me.
but no, no, i won’t believe when there’s no reason to believe, so i guess
the sky is just a gateway not to any guiding force, but to an inifinity and eternity
of cold, empty s p a c e and why
put faith in that, why should i?
and sometimes there are just too many voices, and all
screaming, at me or each other but when you’ve decided that their pain is yours,
it doesn’t really matter.
and when the lenses of your eyes are shattered beyond repair like everything else, it’s hard to see in any other colour than
f-r-ag.m.entat-ion.
and you endarkened me first in just one corner of my mind but
it spread and slowly then exponentially infectiously until swallowed my being whole and the mirror glass is clear but
the reflection is broken (so why do)
they say it’s a blessing but ( i ) say it’s a curse, because i
c-c-c-an’t (live) with
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this--- | | | |
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Thursday December 13, 2007
You’re looking for Somewhere Else; we can see it in your eyes. You want a way out, an escape from the memories, so you run around in the labyrinth of your mind, hoping to stumble across an exit sign.
Except all you find are razor-edged pieces of yesterday and the shards of shattered dreams for tomorrow. So you fall to your knees and turn to the sky, begging it to lift you, because today isn’t a place where you can live.
The walls of the maze are made of stone, you whisper through the tears when i lean down to kiss your forehead in the hospital bed. I know what you mean, but there isn’t anything to say. There will be an answer, we told you, stealing a line from your favourite song, but you wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t believe.
The two of us make the drive in silence, your back to me, the hood of your little sweatshirt hanging loosely down. You don’t move when we pull into the driveway. So i say,
“We’re home.”
I hear the words fall from my mouth like pebbles into a well, causing small disruptions in the stillness. Then instantaneously fading away.
You’re still staring out the raindrop-spattered window, out into the grey hopeless world, when i touch your shoulder with all the caution i've ever had.
You haven’t heard me; you haven’t felt me. Even as i walk around to your side of the car and pull you from the vehicle, i know you’re far away from our front yard, lost in place that i can’t reach. | | | |
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