we move through time blind and at an impossible pace. weren’t we young once? i do not feel older, do you? i feel burdened, i feel exhausted, but not old.
Didn’t we walk for miles in Paris? Didn’t we run out of money in London? Didn’t we look for houses that we couldn’t afford? Didn’t we have our friends over for scary movies? Didn’t you get a master’s degree? Didn’t we stay up all night the first week with the baby? Didn’t we bid on a house without any money to put down on it? Didn’t we eventually buy a house just before a blizzard?
Didn’t you make me happy? Didn’t I disappoint you?
How can we stop this? How can we stop time and live it all again and over, frame by frame, moment by moment? Watch her mutter for the first time, see him crawl all over again, watch you sleep by a hotel window, make love to you for the first time.
I want it all over again. I want the beginning right through the very end. I want to watch it all happen again and edit out the mistakes, linger on the moments we’ve surely forgotten but make us what we are. I want to remember our first kiss, I want to savor the last. I want you, forever and ever, until it all becomes a rosy blur smashed into an eternal sun.
Monthly Archives: August 2008
i will not
i no longer dream, i weep.
she comes to me in the night, she stands rigid, afraid. she no longer knows how to look at me. sometimes.
she says, sometimes i breathe and i can almost smell you, the way you would when you came out of the shower, clean and freshly born and i’d want nothing but to feel that coolness, to feel clean and new in your arms.
and i interrupt her, but i’m not clean anymore, right? what’s your fucking point? i crush the pencil in my hand, rip out another another page.
no, she says, you are not clean. she touches my brow, you’re drowning and i cannot find you. she kisses my temple, looks me in the eye. i will not.
heist
you dirty fucker, why don’t you get to it, what are you fucking waiting for?
and i told him the time had to be right, the money wasn’t there yet, the teller wasn’t ready yet, there were too many people looking, waiting, i tell him anything to get him to calm down, to keep him from ripping his hair out, from ripping the seams off the leather seats.
but the truth was we were waiting a really long time for her and still, nothing. she must’ve known with her lunatic brother on board that this was going to happen sooner or later, and sooner was better before he lost his shit.
i was just losing my nerve.
the rift
and here, here we were, how has it been? to begin again, out there, in the dusk of fall. sitting on the porch i see the chalk lines my daughter has left: tales of anger and boredom: she is her father’s daughter. such rage for all of four. who am i, who am i, i’ve lost her, i’ve lost him, adrift. i am adrift. i am the rift, i am the absence of all that you were.
money scramble
it has been miles since I’ve written: miles since I’ve engaged with the process long enough to produce something substantial, perhaps even meaningful.
it feels as if it has been weeks since I’ve seen the sun even though I’ve stared straight into it from behind dust thick blinds. I am blind and wounded and beyond repair.
I tell her in the dark: when we come into money it’ll be easier. I whisper, it’ll be hard at first, but you’ll be better off.
Scrambling in the pale light she asks, what does that mean? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
imaginary linger
He says to me in the dark,
(always in the dark when he is closest to me, ghost hand well placed on my desk, a mouth full of ashes beside my ear, he says,)
I don’t know what’s worse: that it was all in my imagination
or that you still linger in mine.
michael’s christening
just a few short words:
first, thank you all for coming, it means a lot to us to have you here with us to celebrate little michael’s christening.
i’d also like to thank my father, whose name he’s graciously allowed us to give to our son. baba, most fathers want their sons to grew up to be like them. we’d like michael to grow up and be the kind and generous man that he’s been named after.
i’d like to also thank ted & penny: you guys have been very good and dear friends throughout the years. each stage of our lives, from having coffee in omonia to birthday bar-be-ques, has only served to deepen this friendship. we are thankful and honored you are our son’s godparents. christening or not, we’ve always thought of your family as an extension of ours and we love you.
i have to say we’ve been very, very lucky to have the right people, family and friends, the people we’ve come to need, love, and respect the most, show up at just the right time.
even though some of you were late today.
na mas zisei!
weeded
Weeds have taken over his life, they’re everywhere, in his yard, in his mind, in his teeth. The dentist peers in, fingers the gumline, sticks in his fist, tugs the front row. He laughs, well what can I say, your gums are lousy. My neighbors argue midday into the street, she says to him, I am disgusted with you, I can’t even look at you; and their dog squats over my curb and we all watch helplessly. Even now, any random phone call brings it all to a head.
vague meat
spent, he lies and tells you where he’s been. nowhere special, she says, and lies, lazy hand across his forehead. i’m so thirsty, you tell him. he laughs at me. she told you to say that, didn’t she. i told him nothing, she says, drapes a hand across your shoulder. i shudder and push down the hunger to rip them all up.
something like this, all day long.
Top 10 Bizarre Body Mods
Top 10 Bizarre Body Modifications
Published on August 17, 2008
[This list contains text that some may not consider family friendly] Many of us have had piercing in the ears and probably quite a number of us have piercing in other less common parts of the body, but there are some people who have outright bizarre piercing and other body modifications. It was certainly not an easy task to find “safe” pictures for this list – but I have done my best!
10.Branding
Human branding is the process in which a mark, usually a symbol or ornamental pattern, is burned into the skin of a living person, with the intention that the resulting scar makes it permanent. This is performed using a hot or cold iron. It therefore uses the physical techniques of livestock branding on a human.
9.Subdermal Implant
A subdermal implant refers to a kind of body jewelry that is placed underneath the skin, therefore allowing the body to heal over the implant and creating a raised design. Many people who have these implants use them in conjunction with other types of body modification to create a desired, dramatic effect.
8.Earlobe Stretching
Most people can stretch to at least 2ga (1/4″) and still have the tissue return to normal when they remove the jewelry, but there really are no guarantees. Don’t stretch your ears unless you are certain you’ll be okay with it forever. Once the elastic limit of the skin has been passed, or a large amount of additional tissue has been built up, the hole will not close again completely. A person who is either obsessed with stretching their piercings, or with showing off their many stretched piercings, is known as a “Gauge Queen”. Some wear this term with pride, others use it derisively.
7.Tongue Splitting
Tongue bifurcation, or tongue splitting, is a type of body modification in which the tongue is cut centrally from its tip part of the way towards its base, forking the end. In most cases, the split is created through scalpeling or surgical laser. Self modifiers often choose to achieve a split by gradually tightening nylon bindings inserted through an existing tongue piercing over a long period of time. This method is long, arduous, and requires a high pain tolerance.
6.Tooth Filing
Tooth filing is a form of body modification in which people file their natural teeth to create a desired look or shape.
5.Tightlacing
Also called corset training and waist training, this is the practice of wearing a tightly-laced corset to achieve extreme modifications to the figure and posture and experience the sensations of a very tight corset. Those who practice tightlacing are called tightlacers. Some tightlacers call the corsets they wear training corsets.
4.Pearling
This is the practice of permanently inserting small beads made of various materials beneath the skin of the genitals–of the labia, or of the shaft or foreskin of the penis. As well as being an aesthetic practice, this is usually intended to enhance the sexual pleasure of partners during vaginal or anal intercourse. The practice seems to have been fairly common across world cultures and is still done today. You can see a VERY Not Safe For Work image here.
3.Corneal tattooing
Eyeball tattooing has been around for a long time; in the 19th century it was commonly used to correct cosmetic defects in blind eyes. The procedure can be performed with traditional tattoo needle or a syringe. The eye is simply held open while the pigment, which is the exact same type used in a regular tattoo, is injected into the eyeball.
2.Anal stretching
The process of anal stretching is a lot like earlobe stretching, except you don’t wear the “jewelry” around the clock. Like stretching a piercing, it involves slow and increasingly larger play over an extended period of time. The image above is for “tools” to aid in this modification.
1.Extraocular Implant
The implantation of jewelry in the outer layer of the eye, this is one I must admit I had not heard of. Apparently first done in the Netherlands, it has come to the US. According to Dr. Christopher Rapuano, a corneal surgeon at Philadelphia’s Wills Eye Hospital, “You can think of it as crazy. I mean this is invasive surgery where you are cutting the surface layer of the eye open to put a little piece of jewelry in. The first time I read about this I said, ‘Oh, my God, who is doing this?'” The safety of this procedure will have to prove itself over time, since it hasn’t been performed on many people, but the possibility for infection and complications is definitely there.
Bonus Pierced Glasses
James Sooy and Oliver Gibson have come up with Pierced Glasses – the most minimalist eyewear since the Pince-nez was invented in the 1840’s. I would not have believed this one if I had not seen it with my own bespectacled eyes.
Notable omissions: penis splitting (try finding a SFW image for that!)