This much

8-27-07
I’ll show you this much to start with. Then you can decide if you want to see more.

She could have been talking about a series of paintings, or carpet swatches, or even houses in a peach-colored subdivision. Something there was more of. The first in a long list. Just the fleshy part. Just what peeked out. Just the part worth showing. The part that any seasoned viewer would see.

He, of course, wanted to see more.

She led him along the curb. The carpeting rolled out on either side. Shag and industrial, throw rugs, coiled rags, braided country coverings, grease-stained scraps, and also the sort you’d make while seated in front of a large loom, threading colors back and forth, back and forth.

It was a seemingly a sterile place. The edges were neatly trimmed even though some got creative with curtains. In a few places, almost hidden, were graffiti marks. He stopped and looked at these for a long time. Parts of speech and grammar and philosophical tenets and mathematical equations and other things that belonged to smart people. He found himself wanting to scrape some of the symbols off the wall and keep them.

By the fifth canvas, he was wanting to touch something, to stop beholding just with the eyes. He was sure she had a vice somewhere in the garage, amidst the loose nails and the wrenches and the various bottles of harmful chemicals. He could get inside of it, let himself be squeezed. Gently. Or not.

She would probably have safety goggles in there as well, and she might insist he'd wear them as protection. They'd be the kind you could barely see. But they'd provide a shield not from the fumes but from the colors and from whatever was beyond the colors. The smears and the scrapes, where everything might run together into brown, where there was still blood in pools of red. She didn’t want to show him this. Not yet. Maybe not ever. So it would have to be a slow walk. With lots of stops. She would ignore his questions and say things like: Look at this house. Let’s sit here on this lawn. Would you like to make a wish? Go ahead. There’s a dandelion right there, gone to seed. Blow on it.

He could see that there were swatches of carpet she was not laying out for him. She did not want him to get too comfortable. She was afraid he might run off. His eyes flickered. They absorbed the lights and the colors, which rearranged his cells, changed him. She liked that. These quick shifts, nothing held in place but the cumulation of which would signify, over time, something substantial and true.

He liked this outdoor light very much, but he also wanted her to lead him into a basement where it would be dark and cool and quiet. No matter if the washing machine was running. The thrum might make it safer. They could hold hands. He wanted her to answer his questions. He wanted her to stop pointing and flipping for a second. He wanted to see more.

He figured in a place like that, their eyes would have to adjust to the darkness, but afterwards they could look closely at everything, all of it, for a long long time.

Rub together too closely

8-23-07:

Light

8-12-07:

She woke up at 3 am. She was hungry and confused. She ate a piece of bread. Then she went looking for something. A clue. A sign. Something to melt into. She wanted mystical. All she found was a stack of old photos on the bottom shelf of his closet. Some were of his ex-girlfriend, a girl not so pretty but with a pretty flower name. One photo was of the ex-girlfriend lying in bed. Her leg was sticking out from under the covers, the calf thick against the maroon sheets. Looking at the photo was like looking into a stranger’s life. She did not feel jealous, but she had the desire to step into the picture, to sit there in the room with them just to hear what they talked about, to hear his voice and what it would say. It was raining by then and she could hear the tapping on the vents. She put the photos away and went to the front porch and watched it come down and liked the way it shined on the little leaves of the trees with the yellow of streetlight behind. The cement was warm on her bare feet. She thought about how different kinds of light on the same old everyday scene can change it. This light, this backlight behind the drops on the branches, said something about waiting a little bit more.

8-23-07:

Softness

8-1-07:

There is also the possibility of softness.

8-12-07:

You want to be slurped. You want something squishy, wet. That’s why you like rain after months of indifference. That’s why you like coffee. Someone once declared strength to be important. Boys will haul rocks around all day long and not complain. To yield is to be weak. To be weak runs the risk of evaporating.

They are all turning around and looking at the path and feeling smug. Meanwhile inside they are cracking. They feel like they’ve feigned their way. They feel like frauds. They didn’t even know what they were doing. And now, the rocks all piled up. Now they have a responsibility.

Look, the boys are still hauling. Someone is barking orders at them. They stop and mark territory. They curl their lips into snarls. They bury the bones. Hauling, heaving, hovering. Things that rub together too closely are weighed down by muscle. The gravity of having to prove one’s self. If you stopped for a minute. If you set the rock down. You’d see something smooth out of the corner of your eye. You could bend down and hold out your hand. A tongue would touch it. Would you feel it?

Or is it too late?

Wires

7-31-07:

She’s got her wires crossed. Can’t get a handle on the situation. What did he say? She’s hearing things. She would like to unplug herself from the situation. Some of the pictures are pretty, however, and she’d miss the electronic hum—that fizz of power we all live in and don’t even notice anymore. She tries to tune in to the truth. Where are her sockets? Maybe it’s that there are too many Goddamn options. She wants to just stop. And. Stare. At one thing. For a long long time. Get a handle on it, know its curvature and angles and assess its weight, know how it responds or provokes. Know it, listen to it. What are the words? What is actually being said? She could sit for hours this way and observe. Instead they’re asking her to dissect her heart and throw it in a bucket. This piece here, that piece there. Then you’ll have a fragmented narrative. She’ll be buzzing and shocked and quivering on the ground, but you’ll have your Goddamned fragmented narrative

of love.