Cold one o’clock in the morning. An idea. I’m sitting on the rim of my bath, suddenly overwhelmed by how tired I am, staring into nothing. This is alone with thoughts, head tilted, leaning forward, hands on knees. This could be a portrait. Controlled tense, muscles for blood flow. It’s chilly. Toes, hands, working inward from the edges. Inside my shoulders, underneath. Hold, two, release, two, next. Madness in the family. The inclination to sell the soul for not enough. I touched teeth like gamelan bars with my tongue. Ping. Tense. The thought. The idea that affection is tied to appreciation. A skill. A factor attached to how our eyes cried. There’s something different, of course I’m allowed to trust this one. That’s the trick. Hands out, fingers stiff, concentration focus, the smaller groups of muscles. The long curve of inside wrists.
“In the further the tower becomes a favourite place of condemned men and jumpers with a parachute.” The pigeons are awake.
A place to kiss sixty cycles of vibration remembering your name. That line again. Wrapped in memory, sporadic, thick. Eyes close and grin. The girl response, duck of the chin, eyes and pulse. How long and far and quick and deep and how very little can we ascribe to meaning but this. Question, query, I stand with joints popping, sinews complaining of the temperature, the lack of movement. The culmination of decision. Toes curling, protesting the artic linoleum. The idea. Standing, the mirror lowers into view. This can’t mean as much as crying.
Hypothesis: It’s all about commitment. Not the theology of the reluctant dutiful, but the soul threshing terrible awe. The trick now might be to build a time machine or a portal to another dimension. One where our shadows have as much substance as life.
I caught myself purring at work today. I was late, over so, but under by chance. Early, but not as early as I should have been. Another girl reached out from under my skin and stretched, breaking a film that had coated me. Commiseration should have limits. Same denial. If this is breaking apart, it is slow entropy, and better for it. There is a term for this similar to crawling through ashes. Another culture would say it’s a crime.
This may be the healthiest undertaking since I lived home, a third a continent apart from this.