Tonight, I could go downstairs and watch Prince of Egypt again.

I could.

Just pick myself up from the computer and go down and watch the movie and be replete with animated goodness.

I think I will.

Just watch me.

(pause)

Oh, never mind.

I noticed yesterday that June is gone.

June lived across the parking lot, in one of the one-story units, and she was one of the sweetest old ladies I've ever met. She loved Juniper; she said that she'd had a cat as a child who looked "just like him!" She'd fuss over him every time she saw him. (And like a good cat, he lapped up the affection and praise like cream.)

As I was cleaning, I noticed someone I didn't recognize mopping her kitchen floor. In fact, it looked like they were cleaning behind her refrigerator. Not *too* unusual, and she is a very old lady, so having someone clean for her is sort of expected.

But then I looked a little closer.

All of her furniture was gone. Little condo, entirely empty. No table, no sofa, just bare wood floors and a small freezer standing forlornly in the middle of the living room floor. She is gone, as if she was never here.

I hope she just found a nicer place to live, and moved. But if she died, I'd probably never know. She could be there one day and not the next.

It's strange, because I was thinking this week that my parents are my next of kin and the people who would be notified should I die suddenly. I could be hit by a bus and all any of my friends would know was that I'd suddenly dropped off the face of the planet. My parents don't know any of my friends except Misha (and they know Chris exists). Who would they tell? How would they tell them?

I now have a list in my wallet with about ten names and phone numbers on it. It says, "if I become incapaciated (ill, injured, or deceased) please contact these people."

A small hedge against a large and unknown fate.

The tree overhanging one of the neighbor's porch is hung with water droplets that glitter in the light of the floodlight. It's unearthly beautiful, like a scene pulled from my internal landscape.

The smallest thing spins me into memories like these. Remembering the crystal matrix where memories lay trapped under the glassy surface. Remembering walking in the redwood forest, smelling crushed redwood sorrel and playing hide-and-seek among the fallen giants.

Am I ready to leave this behind forever? I want to take the key with me and carry it with me always, so that if I need to I can steal back and ride a dun horse on the plain that is forever in the harsh noonday sun, for the moment transformed into a child of Sekhmet.

Just knowing escape is possible makes a lot of things easier to bear.

this direction spinning down
under your skin, underground
now we'll see what friends your monsters made
your stepfather, your teacher from third grade
maybe I've spent too long thinking
about all these wounds that cut so deep
maybe this time we'll talk till the morning comes
maybe this time we'll finally get some sleep

yeah, with me it's the same old story
I'm always pulling father away
and all I'm wanting is just one sure thing now
never changing, always the same

--"one sure thing", Walkingbirds

short poems for a long journey:
winter sleeps

I.

Sleeping in the hollows offered
by pines, steeping for hours
in the sharp scent of pine needles.
Shush and thump of trees shedding snow,
I am learning lessons from rabbits.
We are all curled up in our winter hollows.

II.

On the mountain, I catch
my breath--below, clouds boil
in the valley.

I sun myself on a boulder.
Snow-smell drifts up from below.

III.

Smiles at the threshhold.

The winter is long, and I bring
news, however trivial, of the outside world.

I trade near-current events
for a night beside the stove.

IV.

The full moon glitters, the air
is composed of tiny blades.
I sit in a tree, and breathe, and wait.

Below me, dark shapes flicker over the snow.
The huff and cough of the pack on the move.

V.

The river creaks uneasily to itself.

My bones agree.

previous entry   next entry
before | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | after

the new zero
| archives | reads | backstory | cast | what | why?
home
email