There’s a poem in a notebook somewhere that asks what edgy means.
When words came down it was of being broken, shattered, that sharp wit cutting even the fingers that hold it.
I want to ride the tumble, be bathed in the salt and accumulation of you until we wash to shore together.
Bright in the sun, smooth for her edges, still the shape that makes me
made softer by you.
that sat me in a room I want to be in. It showed me every sense, the shape and color of me, action that feels right to me.
I won’t tell it here because I’ll show you one day. But the important thing was that it ended with :
Everything I see is love + people + moments + things and I catch it all in curiosity.
He beat himself up over everything
punched fist over to bicep
She grabbed his arm and shook said
Get over it you’re fine
Her release was his relief
she left more bruises behind
He healed but ached
his chest tight over banging
She pushed him on sore muscles
Why are you complaining over what you did to yourself
Her words under his skin
he beat them out
She beat him up
Get up and over it all
It’s hard to get over when your blood is pushed around
Call to orders, let’s be civil folks
What do you need beside the obvious,
The oblivious
The mindless and the meek
What are you doing!
Why aren’t you moving get going
Just to seek
(I wrote this some time ago, it matters to me now)
There was a woman in a car on the highway talking on the phone, it wasn’t coming through the car but on speaker for a reason. She could hardly hear words on the other end it was so loud around. A woman was stapling packets by his desk. They weren’t important packets to disturb the phone call over but packets she needed to staple. He sat head in fingers exasperated breathing words so softly a stapler could drown out. It was an important conversation but not one he wanted to be on one side of the phone line for. His white shirt looked darker under the gloom of his mood or a day and body heat ridden. He was hot, this office was so hot he wished at least he could be in a car on the highway with the air there for him and him only, even if flowing with the words of this conversation. A rolling (slightly and slowly) cubicle rather than his postal box with a desk would be a nice place to be if he had to have this conversation. So it went and she went on, passing busses and a truck and someone going somewhere important or not. It was a day for red cars, or that’s the color she was seeing. This hot sun so bright they were maybe all she could see. And the air was broken. It was hot and thick and loud and densely unproductive in every sense. She had to get him through this conversation and ideally before the next highway split, this was not an ideal way to drive and the coming turn was dramatic enough for the moment. A blinker, change lanes, change sentences try not to change subjects, we’ll see though. If the phone line isn’t cut off, oh a shame. A conversation that simply no one wanted to have.
What is it to feel the weight of your footfall? To feel gravity pulling at your legs. What does it mean?
It means good traction and steady strides. What does it mean to know that you’re here? It means to have such sensitivity down to your toes of the ground you’re walking on. Can feel the stones and the softness of grass, you can feel just as much as you can hear the pricks of bushes and twigs.
He said this is your map, unmarked. This is the mountain you’ll figure how to meet, how to get which way you’re going and what you want to see. This here is the path before you, tan and vague in the earth instead of red on paper. We pivot away from what we notate but always going some way, seeing something, feeling something and that’s pretty good. You can see your way around the bushes that your feet feel the twigs of beneath each time your foot falls. I am stuck to them, adhered to this place by the math of it all.
This is the spot where my foot falls. I am the only one to step in these places. Even when you step in the footprints of somebody else it’s still a little different. Different size, different texture slightly off kilter, a little to the left or forward. My stride is different than theirs. Repeated over and over. Even when I write with my same handwriting over and over and over and can trace it so well, it’s always a little different every time. Some days it’s languid some days stark. Sometimes it’s a slow carry, even a crawl. Sometimes my feet don’t move at all and I sit down. In the sunlight or the shade I don’t know, you’re always wanting the opposite of whatever there’s the most of. Some days quick pace some days long strides, long hauls. Long languid footprints scuff at the heel – I felt that. Weight on my toes I feel that.
I thank God I can see the path between bushes. I thank Her more I can feel it by the weight in my toes. I thank God for being able to let me trace my finger over a map and feet up a mountain.
I think that this is here in front of me. I think this is hard. I somehow don’t think it’s Her fault. The terrain was made for life, not just me. She gave me a map to help me navigate. This here is for me to see and feel and meet in whatever way I do and She hopes for me I survive and thrive amidst it all on the path I find, not one made. It is not mine to ask her to pave just for me so I don’t have to think about where my foot falls. But why? Would I really want that anyway? Why not step even if in brambles, for better views. I can build strength and stamina through the weight of each footfall.
“I just realized that’s a completely different necktie”
“I changed”
Pause
“Yes,” look, turn, sweep, walk.
“Pesky little sentences,” muttered
It was an evening affair, a ball or dance or party of the night.
He was dressed with a red tie this time of an unsure shade. She had a long dress fit to trip on if it didn’t fall at her will so well.
She looks forward when she walks, she’s that sort of tall, height regardless.
Some sort of music plays, strings of the proud kind.
People danced or walked or mingled but they part down the stage.
A white wall and pedestal with a bust on top spin by, she’s around the corner.
Cake. “Hello beaut”
“First taste?”
“Could I ever not” – a bite, eyes close from rising cheeks, delicious.
She grabs the cake says, “thanks beau.”
Turn, sweep, walk, eyes to cake.
Someone in the hall, she moves to spin past.
“Tell me love, let’s have some tea” gloved hand out, she hardly sees it, eyes on cake.
To take his hand and dance, and find tea. Fork to plate she does.
Turn take sweep go
Things get dim and colorful
A pas de trois overcrowded, cake goes down on a small table, it spins away, cloth twirling like the drapes behind
She moves rooms
They aren’t dancing, but only if you think about it
A proper pas de deux, they wander perfectly in sync, spontaneous choreography
Does he have on a tailcoat or is it just his appearance? [dress it how you may]
A wheel on the wall he spins it
Door opens, it moves around and she’s in another space
Their grand romance leading her away
He took her to tea
She sits down like a fairy tale except
That it’s just a brief love story that stuck
Light walked through the front door with everyone else. Ran across sleek marble, skidding against the wall across like an excited child. It climbed the wallpaper, clinging to textures and scaling as high as could be reached. Exhausted and eager, Light skid down letting Gravity do the work. It pushed against the limits Shadow imposed, aching to see just a little more of the colors in store. Light crept slowly, stepped up casually, containing its curiosity of what could be. It caressed the corner, felt the edge and wished with all its might that it had fingers able to prise doors open.
But Light has to be invited in. Unless it sneaks, unassumingly, between cracks, in the gaps. Light is patient enough to be forgotten and eager enough to find a way. The most enthusiastic patron abound.
A little control, please, if I may.
I’ll drive the knife myself.
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