Mannequin

She strikes a pose,
and those who pass by
pause a few seconds,
envy only what they see.

A warped vision,
smiling through clenched teeth,
doe eyes betraying the deep insecurity
hanging from her bones.

Fragile, fragile, and a wisp topples her.
Fine lines trace the path
along her porcelain shell,
and where it breaks,
nothing resides.

The glass shows her from all sides,
in all poses,
paler, thinner, more perfect.
A mannequin,
nothing more.

ca. 2007

A brief pause before the push.

I’ve found myself the past few days with very busy days followed by very busy nights. I’ve been more social this weekend than I have in quite some time…the thing about the transition from a daily class/activity schedule to a fairly routine work schedule is that it’s left me with a lot more free time – which I hope I’ve used in productive ways. It’s also left me as something of a hermit, typing away at my keyboard or writing away in my notebook on my sofa. It’s not necessarily lonely, and I think this time spent with myself has been long overdue, but it means that I have to try harder to hang out with friends still in school or those from work or else the time will grow stale.

So that meant this weekend I was out, neglecting my writing and research. Maybe not neglecting, but at least letting it rest before I hit that point of creative burn-out. Last night, though, as I watched the Oscars telecast, I started on the beginning. And had to stop while researching for details I didn’t realize I would have to include. The unexpected does come with the territory, I guess. But it’s progress. I know I said I’d have something to share by the end of last week, but it just didn’t get out in time. 

I really shouldn’t hold myself to a deadline, probably. I’ve never been great with deadlines.

Ashes

White China

She was a fragile thing, a fine white china plate covered in delicate cracks – the kind of plate that looked perfect on the shelf with her polite smile and soft hair. But holding her in your hands, you felt the seams in her façade, tense to the point of snapping into many beautiful porcelain pieces if you exerted just the right amount of pressure.

When I met her, she immediately stirred within me an inevitable hero complex. I diagnosed her condition as a fear of intimacy springing from an unknown past and from this, I was determined to save her from the inner warring forces which kept her rooted in the familiar and threatened to rip her tightly wound psyche apart.

Her salvation began with a simple touch of the hands at the kitchen table, a gesture which elicited a surprised and terrified squeal. Much later, it progressed to the wrapping of my arms around her tightly hunched shoulders as she fought the shivers running through her skin. Then it was a bare kiss on her cheek, followed by a tentative one on the lips. Eventually, I was able to fit our bodies together like two mismatched puzzle pieces in a small bed padded by old blankets. She never reached out, never came willingly, but that was always an acceptable truth to me in my experimentations.

Then, we found ourselves in the bathtub. Together we sat, listening to the splashes of water against the tile and the forced sound of our own quiet breathing. She put her head on my shoulder, focusing on the white tiles to ground herself in something more solid than our two bodies. She swallowed thickly. Her heart beat furiously along, ignoring the steady guidance of my own against her back. It pounded wildly and quickly in her chest, faster and faster and heavier and heavier, as a young rabbit in the grip of absolute panic. I heard its frantic drumming echoing against the walls and in my ears, rippling the water around us in an indistinguishable pattern. To touch her was to feel as if something was rattling on her bones in hopes of escape, beating and demanding attention so adamantly that I could no longer distinguish between the individual beats.

And suddenly it stopped.

She sighed one last time and closed her eyes as if in sleep. The water droplets lingering on her skin grew cold in the air. Around me it was silent and blissfully still.

At last. She was finally free, and my job was done.

There tends to be lots of thinking on long car trips.

I spent many hours driving this weekend, listening to one song on repeat as my thoughts attempted to take shape into something like eloquence. Night driving sends me into a singular focus: as the reds and yellows of the sunlight deepen into blue and then to black, what I can see narrows to the repetitive streaks of white that keep me on my path, the dark outline of trees rising on my left and right, the occasional pair of headlights coming and going on their own journey. I feel so alone. It’s quite comforting, this rare stretch of time where I don’t talk to anyone, where I’m just listening and letting the music blasting from the radio inform the tone of my thoughts.

I had to go back to my outline last night. The plot changed somewhere along my journey into something more satisfying on a character level. I still don’t know exactly where it will end, but I’m tempted to leave it alone for now and see where the story takes me. Once I get to that point, I mean. It’s somewhere in the indeterminate future of this writing process I’m on. I’ve barely left the gate (although the horse race analogy I was envisioning in that sentence doesn’t necessarily make much sense for such a solitary undertaking).

But for those interested, by the end of this week I hope to have a little part of the beginning polished for consumption, though I can’t guarantee it will be lengthy. I can only use my boyfriend as a sounding board so much before I have to just put it out there for someone less biased to see. We’ll see how it goes…

Something Found

Fried chicken for my valentine.

The majority of my Valentine’s Day was spent at work. The most enjoyable part of it, however, was sharing KFC with my boyfriend while watching That 70’s Show on Netflix. So, not too much differently spent than a normal evening.

So, I was nominated for a Liebster Award.

I give my many thanks and appreciative words to Tony of A Way With Words (because I rarely get to do things like this and it seems like a fun exercise for self-reflection).

So here  it goes:

11 Facts About Me

1) I’m a (very recent) college graduate.

2) I’ve never finished any story I’ve ever started writing, at least in the sense of actual completion (revision, etc.).

3) I just promised my co-worker that if tickets for a fun. concert on Friday dropped below $75, I would go with him (currently at $190).

4) I’ve met Harper Lee twice. The first time she hugged me; the second time she told me she liked my hat.

5) My favorite stage role I’ve ever played was as Agnes in a production of Agnes of God. The most fun role, however, was as Rosie in The Wedding Singer.

6) I am addicted to Dr. Pepper, which I do not think is an exaggeration.

7) I love the wearing the color red.

8) The first book I ever read by myself was Go Dog Go.

9) I’ve kept all of the cards and letters I’ve ever gotten, which I like to go through when I’m feeling down.

10) I really want to learn how to swing dance (West Coast, to be specific).

11) My favorite fictional character is Alan Shore; I admire his eloquent verbosity and unabashed hypocrisy.

 

11 Questions I to Answer

1) What brand of deodorant do you use?

• I use Secret. It comes in a light blue container.

2) What book(s) are you reading now?

• I just started reading A Private Life of Henry James: Two Women & his Art and I’ve been working on The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test for a bit.

3) If you were a Beatle, who would you be (John, Paul, George, or Ringo)?

• Tough one. I’d love to say Paul, but in terms of personality and group dynamics I’d most likely be George.

4) Name one of your guilty pleasures.

• Eating an entire bag of sour cream and onion chips in one sitting.

5) What (or Who) inspired you to create your blog?

• Myself, mostly, wanting to actively maintain a blog. But indirectly, my friends Dan and Anne Lofton, who have been supportive of my writing even when they haven’t read much of it.

6) Where were you when (choose one) –  a) JFK was shot. ; b) Watergate was exposed. ; c) OJ Simpson was arrested. ; d) The Twin Towers collapsed.

• When the Twin Towers collapsed, I was sitting in my 5th grade science class blissfully unaware.

7)  Share a favorite Bible verse (or quote from classic literature).

• As far as Bible verses, I do love 1 Timothy 4:12: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”
• “I am a creature of my Pen, my Pen is the best of me.” – A.S. Byatt, Possession
• “Write about what your everyday life offers you: describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty – describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around, the images of your dreams, and the objects you remember.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
• “No one can advise or help you – no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would die if forbidden to write. this most of all: ask yourself in the most silent of the night: must I write?” – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
• “Novelists write for countless different reasons: for money, for fame, for reviewers, for parents, for friends, for loved ones; for vanity, for pride, for curiosity, for amusement: as skilled furniture makers enjoy making furniture, as drunkards like drinking, as judges like judging, as Sicilians like emptying a shotgun into an enemy’s back. I could fill a book with reasons, and they would all be true, though not true of all. Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is. Or was.” – John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman

8) Do you believe in parallel universes?  (If so, do you know how I might visit one.  No, really, I want to know…)

• It’s a very interesting concept, but I don’t believe I or scientists know enough about the universe we currently inhabit to say yes. So, no.

9) List 3 songs you never get tired of listening to.

• “While You Were Sleeping” – Elvis Perkins
• “All For Swinging You Around” – The New Pornographers
• “Land” – Patti Smith

10)  As you were growing up, what posters (if any) did you have on your walls?

• I didn’t have posters on my wall growing up because I didn’t want to disrupt the pretty yellow/orange aesthetic of my bedroom (I expressed myself in other ways), but I did have a lot of art (original and reproduced) found in museum gift shops and weekend markets: Degas dancers, pretty ladies with umbrella shades, men and women chastely standing/kissing/embracing, and men riding llamas up a mountain side.

11)  Have you ever memorized a poem?  If so, what poem?

• My senior year of high school, I had to memorize the opening of The Canterbury Tales and some Shakespearean sonnets for various theatre classes, but beyond that, I’ve memorized two: Blank Joy by Rainer Maria Rilke and Adagio by Seamus Deane.

A Love Poem in One Hundred Sixty-Five Words

Book “Reflection”: The Blind Assassin

I took me far too long to finish this book. I blame school and my own reluctance to read after four years of doing so non-stop. And I’m sorry that it was this particular book that I neglected; it surely did  not deserve my inconsistent audience.

I’ve never been very good at book reviews, because I’m rarely eloquent enough to explain why I like or dislike a book. Perhaps it’s the gut emotional reaction I feel when I finally finish a book. It was positive to this book, not so positive for books like The Imperfectionists or The Lonely Polygamist (the last books I read for fun). All good books in their own right, but I prefer books that I can pull quotes from, like this one. It hits on various themes of loneliness, of rewriting memories, telling the truth, leaving a legacy behind – all themes that I like to write on and read about. Margaret Atwood is such a great writer, that’s about all I can say. All I’m capable of saying about this book.

“[…] I feel a strong urge to join in, to contribute;  to link my own tremulous voice to the anonymous chorus of truncated serenades, scrawled love letters, lewd advertisements, hymns and curses.

      The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,

      Moves on; nor all your Piety not Wit

           Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

      Nor all your tears blot out a Word of it.

Ha, I think. That would make them sit up and bark.

Some day when I’m feeling better I’ll go back there and actually write the thing down. They should all be cheered by it, for isn’t it what they want? What we all want: to leave a message behind us that has an effect, if only a dire one; a message that cannot be cancelled out.” – The Blind Assassin, p. 420