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There I was, walking, whistling “The Ants Go Marching One By One, etc.” My face was contorted, about as usual as one would expect from a whistle face. I only do this when I’m alone—and I was, for a moment at least, until he came from the opposite way.
I thought, I remember you! He had appeared once in a doorway in the fall, year 2006. I can recall feeling uncertain, and insecure, clinging to the acquaintance whom I bore no interest in for the sake of being acquainted. Now we were standing in front of her full-length mirror. Her breasts were bulging out of her top, and likewise with her midriff. I pretended to admire the decorations on the wall, compliment the comforters and the stale, institution-like charm of it all. He stood in the doorway as she laughed a shrill cadence of manufactured approval. Boys! New boys. They’d all been drinking alcohol, fascinating. I felt fourteen and twenty-four altogether, a regenerated life deadfall in a girlish figure. I became excited in anticipation of an evening brimful of havoc, and distributed my phone number accordingly.
All this gave way to a false relief, and the tension between who I was and wasn’t. For every day I tried, I grew further from myself; and growing further, I fell faster. Now I was walking faster, away from I remember you! and toward I’m going to forget you. Or better, I’m going to forget you, and the person I was that year.
Not to ostracize necessary growth, but to keep moving forward. I whistled, The ants go marching two by two…
Nothing but a passing.
I am thoroughly in love with this man.
I’m searching for validity, for justification, for the right words to explain why I am where I am, doing what I do. It’s day after day of seeking a congratulations, a memory, a truth. I’m driving solo and won’t go to sleep, I’m washing dishes and thinking too deep, it’s a Friday, a Sunday, an everyday too little, overanalyze, repeat.
It’s a familiar feeling that waits around, the lull and pass, the deafening sound of worry.
Her mother is dying. She’s made it very clear, through photographs and a description—that description, of fluids and fallacies.
He wants more coffee. He’s made it very clear, waving his thick, ragged index my way, under that crisp foam hat, amidst wrinkles and a livid complexion.
She’s a single mom. She’s making it clear, that her food stamps make it alright to go out on Saturday night, to leave her son with the Dad she mistook for forever, or just mistook.
He’s balding. It’s so clear, it’s painful and alarming. His mustaches conceals hours of sports statistics, and he’s a phony.
She thinks I’m a little demon. In jest she’s made it clear, and she’s willing to borrow me her cat any given day, for the sake of not being alone.
Of June
Of course I remember this night. I was lushly drunk off wine and having a darling time, running around in high heels, dancing with dads. I made the floors crush and the doors rush with ready—whoa, whoa steady now! Stand up straight, I couldn’t wait to take another sip and trip over those nasty sidewalks ripped, from years of hot and cold they shift, I drifted clumsy into the night.
Then I fight, a blank memory and scrambled mind of matter and debris, see the couch and long to slink to my knees, to succumb, to breath deep and heave, ho, heave, ho, to release the dance and the heels, the pool, the drunken chatter, my longing to feel, and suddenly…
Breath deep, heave, sleep, and leave. And on to a morning to pull myself together, so secret an abandoned eve.
Thanks (and then some)
It’s tomorrow already. I’m still awake, going to bed is and has been overrated since the 17th century. I’ve drank, twice my weight in tea, in thinking of better days. I’m still awake, my hairs are flayed in all sorts of greasy, mystical, maniacal directions of stress and late. I’m past care and before sleep. I’m still awake.
It’s today now and I’m still awake, and I’m going to thank everyone for each day. Thanks, thanks for calling and thanks for smiling and thank you for carrying my groceries to my car. Thanks for writing back, thanks for turning down the radio, thank you. Thank you for doing my laundry, for retaining my sanity, for the gift card and the get-well. Thanks for turning the heat on. Thanks for liking my eyes, thanks for running up the bill, and thank you, thank you for changing the toilet paper roll.
I thank you for each day, for this day we didn’t talk, and that day that I took the time to walk around the block and see, the folks I don’t usually see. Thanks for the .41 between my car seat, thanks for the extra cup with my tea, thanks for staying put. Thanks for the trash, and taking out the trash, and making me feel like trash. Thank you, and you, and you. Thanks for wiping your feet. Thank you for taking the time, and the space to realize that I’m waiting…still.
Everyone, thanks. I’m still awake.
P.S.
More thank you’s available here.
I excessively dwell on the past.
approximatelyes.com 