silence. break it.
the ragamirole of his thoughts, spindly legs over rotted wood with floor boards peeling up where the nails were never driven and he had never been driven, only obsessed with details and the limits of what he could know and he wanted to know everything, everywhere, where did she go, whom did she speak with, how were her legs crossed and on and on it went until his father told him he was stupid.no-
Camera shot, exterior, dolly left. She comes into focus. She watches the door to the backyard, we watch her from behind watching the house, watching the door. Slowly pan out, children come into view, both on their knees, picking dandelions, laughing at weeds. Coming into view, top of the frame we see him in a window on the second floor, hand parting the curtains, mostly grey behind the screen. Watching her watching the door while we watch. Fade to black, children still laughing.
Category Archives: frags
abandoned pieces, fragments, scraps
e v e r y t h i n g
sometimes i think if i tapped into it and didn’t let go it would overrun
e v e r y t h i n g
Silence. Break it. I
silence. break it.
she sits around and twiddles her thumbs. she sits around and twiddles her thumbs. she sits around and thinks of the affair and wonders if she ever smelled her off him, some rank smell that escaped her noticed but was there mocking her and sitting in her chair scratching her thumbs she wonders if she’s smelling it now as he comes through the door after the rain, sopping wet from her, no-
she doesn’t sit around. she doesn’t sit around waiting for him. he’s waiting for her. long days engrossed with the children, the house, the bills, the mortgage, the car he never drives because she’s always taking it to work and leaving him stranded with all this responsibility. it was sensible, he was sensible. they got by on her alone. her alone and they were getting by with him alone and the children alone and the stray cat that crossed the street in the lonely night looking for vermin, no-
silence. break it.
Six months
Six months into the new year, where did it go? She abounds, cuddles closer to me each day. The boy is unsure but smiles nonetheless. Slowly my love forgets. She says the stars are like pinnacles og greatness that have long died and all we see is a legacy we can only imagine.
And I wonder what will provide a reprieve from a checkered history and an unrelenting future.
I dread
The dark days, when the chill begins to set in and never leaves you. When everything around you begins to die and wither and molt. When you find yourself sleepless because the night has arrived much sooner than you wanted and lingers long past the morning.
Always, always, a love of the sun and missing it desperately.
You want to be
Because in the end you want to be found, you want the limelight, you want the glory.
You want all the people who had abandoned you to realize what they had lost, you want to be redeemed by fame.
But that is the key thing here: redemption. You are looking to be redeemed, to be found worthy.
And ultimately, you are not.
I take pictures
I take pictures:
The man from the suv rummaging through my recycling bin
Her quiet disappointment when I turn away from the children
The strand of gray hair looped over my ear
I take pictures:
My daughter’s boredom perched in front of the tv set
My son’s anger as I lock the door behind me
My mother’s face as I tell her I no longer believe in god
I take pictures everywhere I go and everything I left
An over ripe
An over ripe plum clamp between teeth shiny but old. Should I do this? The disappointment all over again, the hushed silence, from the gut, from an incomprehension. I’d sell it all off for a measure of comfort, a moment of absolute stillness. But it moves, jaws work forward and backward, it’s easy until the core, where it’s all gnashing and unforgiveness.
Mother's day
You’ve heard time and again, that you are a wonderful mother. And it’s obvious, the children adore you, they hound you, clamor around you for affection and attention.
But you are not only the mother of children. They are not the only thing you have given birth to and have nutured. I look at our life, at our house, the things we have seen, accumulated, and enjoyed. I look at the span of time, the stretch of years between now and the time your casual gait across a room changed our lives forever.
You gave birth to all of this, to us. You have cared for us and nutured us and tended to us with such care and grace. While I tore down walls only to put up new ones, you fed and cleaned the soul of this marriage, you tended to my wounds at the cost of yours.
Like any loving mother, you’ve put your children before everything else. You’ve made love the organizing principle of our lives. You’ve made us into a family that can withstand anything.
Worth telling
At some point I have to ask myself, is this life worth telling. Not living, mind you, of course it is worth living. But is it worth telling?
I had said to him, at the very least to leave behind a legacy for my children, a transcription of who their father was and how he viewed the world.
At the very least, is it worth telling?