She laughs at me
in the simplest of ways,
no guile nor malice.
She laughs the way
a light illuminates.
She’s incandescent
in her joy
and I fall for her.
In the midnight susurrations of my city
I discovered the reason I’m not real.
I perched on the night’s sill,
trying to believe there was more
than worn out words
and misshapen meaning
scrawled in erasable ink.
While the emptiness of my hands
holds so much promise,
I listen to the ocean
in the cup of my palm,
dreaming of something more
than memories, the sting of salt
and the dying echoes of skylarks past.
I stand under a long grey sky
and wish that it were cold again.
There are promises on the wind
that never get fulfilled,
only made, shaded,
and blown away.
I wish that it would rain,
at least,
and wash away my sins,
but a handful of wishes
under any sky,
if not fulfilled,
look just like lies.
Some days I feel,
minuscule almost,
diminutive certainly.
If not for you
I think I’d fade
like weak, old, jeans.
Just a speck on the horizon,
the vanishing point
in an artists eye.
I shrink myself down
and crawl inside her pocket.
She doesn’t feel me there,
carried through her day.
It’s comforting,
the closeness of the fabric
and the presence of her skin,
so close to mine and warm,
it pacifies me.
I wake up in the palm of her hand
as her eyes slide over me
like the inquisitive fingers of a blind man.
I am an artifact, a pocket relic.
The noise of joy forms scenery around me.
I’ve built walls around myself
from stronger stuff than mirth
that finds me isolated,
and wondering, alone,
what part of me
is shaped by these people?
These shifting, shapeless,
that present all that is
and isn’t much
of who they are,
and all that is
nothing of any substance.
She walks with music in her sole,
a 4/4 swagger in bluegrass jeans.
Her heart beats a salsa
and her eyes talk of tango.
She keeps the time by making it,
takes the lead and let’s you follow.
Her words whisper waltz
but they read like rumba.
No timid, tepid two-step,
her lips are dirty dancers.
A muse, a muse,
give me something I can use.
A wisp of hair,
a scent, perfume.
The sweet caress
of silk and lace.
A summer dress,
a pretty face.
A soft and supple female figure.
A woman I can hold with vigor.
All I want, to be inspired,
to send that shock
that once is fired,
sets ablaze
that cunning spark
that in the night,
the gloom and dark,
will afford some comfort,
peace of mind,
and dare I hope
just might unwind
that tricky, tangled
web of wonders
so entwined
with all the blunders
jostling heavy through my brain,
that woeful mess
that causes pain
from all it’s inarticulence,
that finds me left
with no defence,
but hope,
but longing,
but self abuse,
when all I need
is just a muse.
Light, skin, the smell of sweat,
the taste of salted lips.
Hollow things and bloated
baobabs and overripe fruits,
fallen, split and spilt,
coursing remnants and empty,
still, touché to all things
between two parties,
flesh touching, cursing,
passing, unannounced,
gone in instances
from insecurities
and now, years later,
wandering allowed,
what’s lost? Only
what ifs and maybes.
Still plenty left unattended,
broken and unmended.
Past has passed
its haunts and harries,
the sun has set,
its light but lingers.
She undresses
in a sure but shy way.
It pleases me to watch
while she twists about
in her modesty.
“Creep,” she says,
through a smile
thrown over her shoulder.
She shrouds her skin,
but her eyes stay naked.
I run into Caroline outside Wicks office and she won’t shut up about some band she saw on the weekend. I’m told they’re named after a dinosaur and have almost a dozen members. The coolest part, she’s telling me, is how the lineup keeps changing but the band stays together, brought to life by the music.
Caroline talks the way a house fire burns.
I suppress a yawn as the oxygen around me dies. I can’t concentrate. A group of high school girls walk past. It’s hard to tell where one starts and another stops, they’re indistinguishable but for the colour of their clothes, like watching a slutty rainbow slink across the sky.
I’m thinking about killing myself.
There’s a jab in my ribs and Caroline asks me if I’m listening. I look at her and try absently to focus. I tell her, of course, that I was just trying to imagine how cool that must be, all those people.
‘Oh, you have no idea,’ she says.
I point at the pack of smokes she’s holding and raise my eyebrow. She draws two out and slips me one without missing a beat. ‘I mean they play this really cool mix of old school surf rock and instrumetal, but it has this really heavy indie twist to it. It’s like, if Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Beach Boys had a baby, and then Muse fed the baby to Sigur Ros. I mean, it’s just incredible you know. I can’t believe you weren’t there.’
I want to get out of this conversation, but she doesn’t leave me any spaces. I nod slowly and light our cigarettes.
‘The lead singer, Tony, we kind of know each other from around, you know. Well, he was completely making eyes at me the whole time. I’m pretty sure he has a girlfriend, but it can’t be that serious if he’s making eyes at me right? Anyway, I saw her out one time and she wasn’t even that cute. I’m way cuter right?’
In my head I’m imagining a bottle of red wine, something vintage, and a bottle of valium. The note I leave next to my bed reads: This isn’t a good enough reason to stay.
Caroline flicks her cigarette into the planter behind us. ‘I have to go,’ she says. ‘I have to meet Jessie over at Caxton and then we’re going to some cider bar he heard about. I’m sure he thinks it’s cool, but I don’t even drink cider and he knows that. If he wasn’t so good in bed I swear I wouldn’t bother. You know what I mean?’
I have no idea. The words seem to make sense, but I can’t decipher them. I nod and tell her I’m meeting Dylan in the valley. She throws her arms around me and brushes her lips lightly against my cheek.
After she’s gone, I stand there and count my breaths.
Underneath all his hair, Dr. Wicks looks like some kind of rat, twitchy, nervous and cunning. He’s okay, I guess, but he’s a total hippiecrit. He keeps shoving all these affirmations at me, telling me about the power of belief. I can, if I believe I can, sort of thing. He still charges me by the hour.
I’m reading the spines on Wicks’ bookshelf. Most of the titles sound vaguely pornographic and I’m thinking about masturbating, only half listening to what he’s saying. I grunt inquisitively and look up. He’s got this, We’re both on the same team, look on his face that really grinds me for some reason.
‘Why don’t you know how the story ends?’ He says.
‘I haven’t made my mind up yet if they die or not. It’s the same either way really. I mean, in my mind, both have already happened. It doesn’t matter if they live or die, because both are true. So nothing happens.’
I can tell he doesn’t get it.
Wicks looks out at me from the underbrush of his eyebrows and twitches his nose. ‘Let’s talk about something else for a bit, hey?’
I don’t want to talk about something else. I don’t want to talk about anything really. I feel so tired.
‘I feel so tired.’ I say.
‘How are you tired Jonah?’
I sigh and don’t tell him. Questions like that really fuck me off. They’re meaningless little probes designed to open me up, but all they do is get under my skin. Wicks just sits there companionably, twitching his nose and darting his eyes at the notebook on his lap. The silence in the room itches at my skin.
Dylan’s hand is heavy upon my leg. It sits there like a passionless paperweight, placed on my thigh to keep me from moving. I have nowhere to go though, so I stay, moored under his paw, draining every glass that lands in front of me and watching for my cues.
Sarah-Jean, is braying incomprehensible things at me between mouthfuls of salmon. I nod my head to fill in the gaps like some half chewed ellipsis. My neck hurts. Her vapid patois keeps sticking to my palate. I chase it down with lick after lick of scotch, but it always returns.
Connor’s tirade continues across the table from me. I can hear his rhetoric in the rhythmic clutching of my husbands hand, keeping time on the inside of my thigh. I count the seconds. It’s a four, four beat. Of course Connor is a complete ass, but among this idiot council I’m sure he must seem like a reasonable man. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king, they say.
Some raw vestige of etiquette must live on in me. I’ve been able to feign interest in these people so far, but it’s becoming increasingly hard as they drone into the night. I imagine I’m attending the reading of some third rate play. I’m trying to enjoy myself, but I have no passion for it. The players are callow things with more real drama in the pages of their scripts than the words on their lips.
I feel harassed.
I excuse myself to the kitchen. More wine, I say, Sarah-Jean looks frankly parched, the poor thing. I laugh lightly to show how nonchalant I am, that their company is the last thing I’d wish to be away from.
I take two bottles of Shiraz down from the pantry. My eyes flicker to the bottom shelf and over the rat poison there. I think briefly about seasoning their wine with it and proposing a toast to better times. I wonder how hard it is to dig a grave and if we own a shovel. I will tell my husband I am woozy from excess and can not stomach another drink, though I know how he thinks. Nonsense, he will say, and I will be compelled to drink to my death along with the rest.
Better off dead maybe. That or answering a slew of uncomfortable questions to the police. A couple of somber detectives with rugged jaws. Five o’clock shadows in long coats with understanding expressions draped over their steely gazes. Tough men, with maybe a soft spot for a fresh young widow. Perhaps one who is understanding and bold enough as to offer his shoulder in a consoling way. Perhaps Prison. I’m not so sure prison would be any worse than here, I doubt that it could be. At any rate, I am sure I’m not tuned for it. I think I would miss sleeping in on weekends and not being stabbed while I do so. I quite enjoy my freedoms.
I slink back to the table with the wine as quietly as I can. I sit down and compose myself. Even with a mouthful of meringue, Sarah-Jean will not shut up and Conner must have hit his stride because I can feel the tempo in my thigh growing more upbeat when Dylan casts his meaty anchor back over my leg. I fill their glasses and raise mine. To better times, I say.
I think after dinner I will play the piano.
We’ve been stuck in here for days, a week maybe. I’ve lost track. Just the three of us, the rain and the rising tide. Build a house on stilts and expect to need it I guess. The power went out last night, now all we have to occupy us is the sound of the rain; A relentless rooftop tattoo and a constant reminder of our captivity. I tell Christie, this is how cabin fever starts, just to stir her up, but she only shrugs and looks at me with sad wide eyes.
The water is lapping tenderly at the back deck, urged up and down by the whims of the river’s tide. If I lay on my stomach with my arm hanging down, I can press the flat of my palm against its skin. I stay like this for hours. I imagine I can hear it wanting. It needs us.
I can hear Dale and Christie arguing in the kitchen. Its the same argument they always have, only amplified. They call my name for mediation, but its more than that, I know they want a side to be taken. I stay at my post, listening to the impartial lapping of the water. Christie comes out, wielding my name like a blunt instrument, and kicks me sharply in the heel of my foot. We’re running out of food, she says. I tell her not to worry, that at least we have plenty of water. She gives me another kick and storms back into the house. The rain sounds like a thousand whispers and I strain to hear its secrets. I press my palm to the water and listen, but the noise from inside is drowning it’s voice. If only they’d be quiet.
Dale looks relieved to see me back inside at first. I watch his relief turn to shock while I slide the knife into his stomach. Christie starts screaming as Dale hits the ground. I swing around to silence her, but my foot slips in Dale’s mess and I fall forward. My head connects viciously with the kitchen bench and the world turns white for a moment. I can hear Christie running through the house while I pull myself up. I shake my head lightly and listen to her footfalls, there’s nowhere for her to go, the house has become an island. My island. I can hear the rain again, beating restlessly against the roof; marching orders.
I find Christie in the bedroom, she hasn’t even locked the door. She’s crouched in the corner next to the bed, hands over her face, sobbing quietly. I stand over her and she looks up at me with those sad wide eyes, her face wet and her mouth moving. I know there’s meaning there, but the rain is so loud now I can’t hear what she’s saying. Its not important. She scrambles to her feet and tries to push past me. I knock her to the ground and kick the fight out of her. She doesn’t struggle while I tie her up.
The water’s so high now that Dale and Christie are almost submerged before I roll them off the deck. There’s hardly even a splash. I lay back on the deck with my arms out wide and my head lolling off the edge. I can feel the water tousling my hair gently. I think I’m crying, but I cant be sure. I stay like this for hours. The rain feels so warm on my face.
A Few Short Words 