10-Minute Timer

You'll Never

2009-10-16T13:58:00.000-07:00

he you, inside
you’ll never scream for life, you’ll never
you’ll never breathe
you aren’t
you’re never, and yet
i saw your head your slug-like, wormy
shape, armed and legged,
a salamander

the you, inside
you’ll never grow a heart, you’ll never
beat or move, kick, slap, swallow
you weren’t
you’re never, and yet
i still await you, in pieces, to exit
to continue nonexistence
on the outside

the you, inside
traps me with death, reminds me you’ll never
be wrenched from a hospital bed
you can’t
you’re never, and yet
cradled, the you, inside stays cuddled,
i suffer for ways you’ll never be held
because you’re not

you’ll never

May 20, 2007

2007-05-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

May 21, 2007
He’s bent in concentration, rather pointedly ignoring the Labrador until its owner allows it to ram a wet nose into the man’s behind. Awkwardly, he dips further towards the ground, knees creaking, twisting painfully to the left to glare spitefully as the pet’s owner mumbles an apology and speeds past. “Who does this? I would never allow Frank to do that. People these days. So rude,” he’s thinking out loud. From a distance it’s unclear whether he’s talking to the rapidly fading walker or to himself or to the plants he’s gently pruning around his lamppost. He pulls a length of rope from his pocket as he twists the stem of the clematis closer to the post, clamps it with one hand, and swings the rope around it to fasten it tight. He works his way up the post this way, grumbling. “This neighborhood. These kids moving in nowadays. Don’t take care of anything. Hire someone to mow the lawn. Why can’t he mow the lawn? His legs broken? Dandelions popping up all over. Leaves blowing into my yard. Damn dog poop all over the sidewalks.” He resumes his bent position, preening through the ivy to pull dead leaves, pave the way for his tulip tips to poke up through the earth. “I’ll be mowing this yard until my legs don’t work. Why should I pay someone $20 a week for the privilege of using my own lawn mower to mow my own grass? ‘It would be easier on you, dad’, hurrmph. Plbbbt. Easier for who? It’s half of my exercise. Take away my exercise and then I have to join the Y.M.C.A. or whatnot to take those fancy classes where they sit in chairs and tap their feet to music. Oh, and they’d charge me for that privilege too. Nothing free anymore. Used to be that all the goods things were. Pretty soon they’ll charge me to walk up my own block. Sidewalk fee or something, they’ll call it.” A sudden wind rustles the trees and blows his weed pile back into the ivy. He laughs, looks up at the sky, “It’s always something.”

April 9, 2007

2007-04-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

I’m going to be like this when I’m old. When I’m older. I’m going to meet my friends here in the corner of the coffee shop and laugh loudly about politics with people who call me by my last name. Each group member is verbally accosted as the door swings open, while they’re still bleary-eyed, brushing sleep from the edges of their faces with crinkled, claw-like hands. Old man voices with their dulled edges still reach shrilly into high-pitched giggles as they whisper about grandkids, kids, wives. Nobody here talks shop. It’s not about what you do anymore or what you did. It’s about the yard and the family and railroad car collections and coffee. Most of all the news. Who knew the weather was an obligatory topic.

I feel squeezed into their group by proximity alone. If my grandfather’s name had been Merlin, I’d have secretly watched him, certain the wizard within would poke out at an odd moment. I’d have searched closets for a hidden pointy hat, checked drawers for a wand. It would have been creepy to have me for a granddaughter, always peering around corners, hoping to catch him warming macaroni with his eyes or waving the lawn mower through the yard with the power of a charmed stick. Instead, I smirk at my computer, knowing Merlin truly is magical regardless. He’s a wizard of smiles, carrying a coffee mug smothered in family photos, presenting himself to the world each day ready to laugh. His gravelly voice expands his crinkled frame, a spell of kindness, good-heartedness, washing over me.

April 6, 2007

2007-04-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

Slowly, steadily, the dewy palms slip forward on the mat, tipping her head forward too far, stretching her neck, swan-like, toward the cool, cork floor. She self-consciously pulls them back, right first then left, readjusting her feet as well, hoping no one can see her downward dog floundering, flailing towards cow pose. But they too are concentrating, sweating, uncomfortable. In front of her the self-conscious woman with an enormous and perfectly round potbelly is trying to suck it in from where it rests on her thigh during warrior, but her sucking takes away from her breathing and inevitably it puffs back out to nap on her leg. She wears an eighties sweat band to ward off the dripping that embarrassed her previously during this power yoga course. The 90 degree room touches the skin with heat outside while the poses burn from the inside. Perhaps it does torch the calories, she thinks, optimistically, as her legs begins to ache, spasmodically, the muscle twitches becoming apparent, to her embarrassment. She unfolds her leg, feigning a loss of balance, shaking it briefly before bending again back into the pose. It is so quiet she can concentrate on the path rivulets of sweat make down her back, winding around shoulder blades to hit her spine, then straight down to pool above the waist band of her pants. Her eyes are closed, she focuses on her relief that she’s worn polyester rather than cotton pants. No pools of moisture showing through, embarrassing pee lines except in her underwear, which feels soaked through even now. When they bend back into another warrior variation, she glances at the clock. Twenty minutes to go. legs shaking obviously now, she’s relieved to sit down, takes her time crossing her legs perfectly before twisting her prayer arms to the side, sucking in her belly. On this side the woman is barely turned, and she watches the instructor move the woman’s arms outside of her knees, touch her belly for focus. Ew, touching when we’re that sweaty.

March 22, 2007

2007-03-22T20:55:00.001-07:00

Angrily, she glares, arms crossed, muscles tightening across her chest. She’s screaming inwardly, burying him in the back yard underneath the strawberries, which grow wildly the following spring due to the unexpectedly excellent fertilizer. She’s sure she could do better the next time. Why does he look at her this way? She’s not unreasonable. She’s not. But it’s okay to question, especially something silly. “Why can’t you just say ‘okay’” is a wholly unreasonable request. Why can’t he say “Okay, I’ll clean the bathroom your way this time so it gets fully clean” or “Okay, I’ll actually come home at 5:30 instead of pretending that I left the office on time and traffic was horrible” or “Okay, let’s go where you want tonight.” Why is it only silly if she questions it? She has proof, written down and approved in writing, that her request isn’t lame or unsupported or illogical. And then, just as it seems he’s cornered, he’s off to the money topic. He wins the money side, hands down. She’s not the provider. Never was, but definitely not now. When it comes to being “preventative,” he rules the game. He corners her on the “what will happen if” question, and she’s trapped, unnecessarily. These rules suck. Who makes them? It’s impossible to back down now because technically neither of them are “wrong,” but why move forward if nobody wins? Why is it wrong that she’s equally stubborn? And then it’s her fault that the argument is stupid. She doesn’t feel badly, however. An instinctive grin sneaks across her face, leftover from high school pranking and generations of naughtiness. It’s evil, she knows, and entirely frustrating, but the game slides over to her side. Winning is nice, she remembers from long, long ago — long before him. She wonders how it would feel again. Does anyone ever really say “You were right, I was wrong” aloud? She knows she hasn’t heard it, at least not as memory serves, and that seems a phrase she’d recall. Fiction is more powerful than reality sometimes. And the reality is that he slams the door, powerfully, and she runs to the bedroom, and, with a deep breath, buries her face in the mattress and screams, her voice muffled, as long as she can.

Blinking slowly

2007-01-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

My secrets glare up from an 8.5 x 11” sheet of paper, questions I answer slowly, methodically, happy to know the answers as this, the biggest question, looms. I write thickly, pressing deep into the paper with my felt-tipped pen, watching the ink seep into the pores of the page. It’s satisfying, the progression, and a way to pass the time unthinking, unafraid. In moments, I will be opening to him, a guided tour of labyrinthine folds and private space. I am not quite ready, and so I write slowly.

The last few moments are up and I walk to the glass pane, pulled sharply aside by the nurse with a flowered scrub tub and unsmiling eyes, hand in my pages and return to my chair, silent. I don’t need affirmation about these things. Do you think I haven’t gone through everything before? Do you actually think you are bringing up new points for me to consider? I wish I were a stone. I shield my face from this person who walked in with me, held my hand, told me I could always change my mind. I cannot change my mind. It’s not even a decision I had to make, but an obvious conclusion to a catastrophe. I didn’t know it would hurt everyone this much, so I am determined not to let it hurt me. She grabs my hand as I compose my face, squeezes it I-Love-You, just three times, smiles reassuringly, I think. I squeeze back, smiling too.

A door to the long hallway of more doors with charts and labels pushes open into this room of waiting chairs, some empty, some filled with people huddled over their own forms, some squished together as couples lean into each other. “Marie,” the nurse calls, and I am instantly relieved. I push my face against my sister’s shoulder, huddle into her like I used to on long car trips when she sat in the middle to keep the peace. She pats my head easily, plays absentmindedly with my hair as she reads the book she brought along. I am not sure whether she’s reading for fun or to forget about me, about where we are and what I’m doing, how she has to play along. What if she is only playing along? I blink hard to shut it off, and then the nurse pokes through again for me.

December 6

2006-12-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

I awoke powered by a vision, or, rather, empowered. It was clear what I needed to do.

With the calm deference of a sage, I opened my computer and wrote an email, detailing the moves I needed to make in order. The stage was set. I sat, cross-legged, in my armed chair and spun around once for fun and again for luck. I would never sit there again. Opening my email program, I set an auto-responder for the address I once used for work. Check. Then I recorded a new voicemail message on the office mailbox. Done.

I was feeling lighter and sort-of floaty with each completed task. This would be a fantastic journey. As I piled my things into a post office carrier, stolen from the mailroom, co-workers began to take note of my impending flight. They did not inquire directly, but gathered near the doors of cubicles, continuing phone conversations with stretched cords or attending to some hallway filing problems. I began to hum softly, the dwarves song from "Snow White." Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go, which was ironic because that's not where I was going at all.

My checklist was halfway done now. With my box piled high, I dropped a few folders on the now-empty desk, picked up a sharpie. Grabbing a lone piece of white paper from the printer just to the left in the hallway, I wrote "goodbye" and taped the page to my computer monitor. Done.

I made my way to the door without speaking to anyone, dropped my identity badge, security tags and office keys at the rear entrance, and walked to my car. The drive home was like being on drugs, euphoria and rainbows everywhere. Tears well in my eyes thinking back on this occasion. The beginning. I felt driven to make the most of my choices from now on.

Here I sit, thirteen months later, about to walk back into the ugly beast I left. And I feel proud that I made that choice, still, even after all the failures that have occured since. But I do not want them to know they've affected me like this. I want to be a stone.

December 3

2006-12-03T18:00:00.000-08:00

it's amazing how poorly we fight as a couple even after all this time. george and i,i mean. we were having a "discussion" on saturday about how we should change the way we observe the sabbath. it was something he had brought up during another talk one day about kids, and i was saying that it would be hard to raise kids adventist if we weren't already doing everything. it would seem fake, i think is the point i was trying to make. well, by the time i had set the stage and literally proven that he had initiated the whole thing, he was pissed off already. i just wanted to talk about what the both of us could do together that would make us feel less guilty about our weekly saturday non-observance. we pretty much mark the day by skulking around knowing what we should be doing and feeling defensive about it. i, for one, have had enough of that.

aside from the guilt, i also think it's just a human thing to want to talk to somebody about what you're feeling. but george acts attacked b/c he feels bad. whenever i bring it up, he feels bad. he doesn't understand that i'm NOT doing it to take hiim down several pegs or ruin his weekend with bad thoughts. i'm doing it and talking about it for me. it's really quite selfish.

anyway, he stared across teh room at me, both of us seated opposite each other on couches, the dog snuggled next to my leg but listening instead of sleeping b/c she can hear the tension in our voices. he's crossed his arms over his chest and also crossed his legs. i can't help but feel defensive, since he's acting like i'm his mother making him do chores. then my mind flips back to the night before where i did make him vacuum tho he didn't want to and i feel like nothing i do is right. for a few minutes, i talk about the things i mentioned (above) and how i feel about them, me personally and nothing to do with him. i tell him that i want to make a change for me, but that it would be really nice if religion was a thing we did together. i really feel very alone in the matter and it worries me. now i sound like my own mother, which is a fantastic mood-booster.

i swear swear swear i'm not judging him. i super swear. i can't judge him without taking myself down much further since i am the one who knows soooo much better and doesn't practice. i'm the one who feels routinely guilty and knows exactly how to solve that dilemma but is too lazy to push that knowledge into practice. crazy, rihgt? who acts this way. i think possibly criminals do. i am a criminal of the mind, some sort of evil cranial offender. also, i am stupid.

so i began to talk about this because we have been married five years and still neglect to finish arguments. when george walked off after this one, it hovered in teh air, hanging over me, pretty much the rest of the day. we'll come back to it, i'm sure, in a month or two, when i'm annoyed over the same things. and it will go exactly the same way, like we are two stupid chidlren in a kick fight that hurts us both.

December 1

2006-12-01T13:55:00.000-08:00

i'm not sure why the lull of barnes and noble is so much more thought-inducing than the hum of my own house. here, for example, the refrigerator's lone purr metes out the time in hourly increments. occasionally, the water runs inside the freezer area to produce ice cubes that drop loudly into the bin, clanking crabbily against the plastic sides trying to squish into the confined space. a tuft of air, like an old woman's sharp inhale when stepping onto a chill floor, is sucked into the furnace moments before the warmed air gusts out full blast, marking currents along the carpet and across teh cat's fur where she lays next to her water bowl ont eh fluffy bathroom rug.

the busyness of a bookstore has a deafening yet inaudible quality that defies explanation. perhaps its that i can't single out one specific noise without deep concentration that helps everything blend into the perfect background noise. i'm pretty sure that i heard christmas music playing overhead when i first pushed through the double doors,b ut now it's an indistinct background with teh rest. no 'sleigh bells ring' shoves into my brain over the sound of milk steaming at the cafe or people pushing chairs around, the drone of strangers' voices, speaking into cell phones, calming children, asking for help. the soudn i most enjoy, when i cna pick it out, is the crispness of new pages turning. the woman three tables over hands her cell phone to her daugher, who rambles on to grandma about hot chocolate and a new pink something or other. but i am listening to the swish of my magazine, the light crackle of the thin recycled paper as i pluck a page edge in readiness. and when i flip it, the swoosh of air flutters out from between teh pages i had opened, closing them with a little kiss.

if i concentrate, i hear cars slopping by in the melted snow, alarms being clicked and doors slammed. entrances and exits indistinguishable. greeints of the cashiers and well wishes as the plastic bag-armed customers carry their proud purcahses to the door. there's the squeak of boot against tile and the more muffled thuds of different feet on carpet, some cracking heavily against the concrete beneath with important steps and some shuffling softly along with dainty toes.

the most horrifying fact about working from hoem is my constant state of high alert for loud noises. i know that as soon as i get going on something, the loud hissing and meowing and huffing of my dog and cat chasing each other will painfully put a stop to whatever's going on.

November 30

2006-11-30T21:58:00.000-08:00

It's nearly closing time at Starbucks on a Sunday night, and I'm sweeping slowly near the door, corralling the dust into a cheap black bin. just taking my time because three tables away a college-age couple is fighting in whispers, deciding whether they should stay together. i have my back to them because i'm smiling and often making cynical faces as they describe their feelings to each other in fervent tones. ah, college. i'd say i'm missing the drama but i am, in fact, sooo over it.

instead, i eavesdrop. the guy, wearing designer jeans (high maintenance) and loads too much product in his hair, keeps rubbing what i assume are sweathy palms across his thighs under the table. she intones slightly too low for me to catch her words, but i can tell when she's said somethign too personal or awkward by his hand-wiping. they are both leaning low over the table, faces close, obviously comfortable with each other. it's very dawson's creek. they're talking it out all mature when i used to break up with boyfriends by throwing a mean note in the locker vents. it's either progress or a sham, since i keep hearing the word "like" i'll assume it's the latter.

the girl wears her hair in a relatively formal updo, considering her location, and taps kitten heels impatiently against the bench side. she gestures, holding her pinkie finger awkwardly to the side, though her hands are out of view under the table. i can see the colors rise to her cheeks between my peekings. she seems very low-key, possibly easy going, but it's hard to tell from the course of this impassioned conversation. occasionally, her left hand flies to her hoop earring, twisting it painfully. neither of them are drinking their coffees. hers, a vanilla latte, says very little about her. she could be a classic or even a little on the dull side. his, a double soy raspberry mocha sans whip, broadcasts his high maintenance self to teh world.

i do judge quite a bit with the coffee. whether they said thank you, in both cases a yes here. whether they smiled while ordering, how long they lingered making the important decision of what to get, and how quickly they snatch it up to taste it. but, oh, they're on the move. i feel from body language that they've decided to break up. there's tension in teh air as he rises, one last wipe of the palms before he tosses his coffee cup in teh trash. neither hesitates as they move towards the door, towards separate cars, but then, suddenly, there he comes around the side of her corsica. they hug, nuzzling into necks for what appears to be the last time. they hold tight, sidestep awkwardly, and part ways.