Are you really gone?
I have felt you in the next room for a long time. I call out. You don't answer... and now I'm moving out.
after
The sheets were softer than any I owned and far more expensive. Cream coloured beige and beautiful on a high bed, and I sunk into it and floated away in an undercurrent. His pupils were dilated, the surrounding colour a blue I hadn’t noticed before they were that close to me, and his kisses were what they were supposed to be, soft and hard by turns and thrilling. I was dizzy and he saw me as a dark thing, a difficult and prickly thing that had dropped its defences and allowed him to hold it. In the shadows we told each other things while playing on the radio in the other room was music picked to impress me. I waited until track one played again, and left, out on to the street and into my car, lips bruised; driving off into the night feeling like I was moving underwater.
What I have not told you about that night was that I was never supposed to be in that bed. Those sheets should not have been shared with me. His eyes were a pretty colour, but shuttered. I wasn’t allowed to bite. I said things that were callous, and they helped me make my insides feel hard. I was something to him and nothing at the same time. He did things not to my taste, they were not about me. I had said no to him a thousand times, and don’t know where I found the yes of that night. I had to leave before she came home. As I left, at the end of the street a police car sat, lights on, red flashing on the street where I walked, illuminating my path with the colour of an underworld. If they had taken me away for wrong doings, I would not have been surprised.
Neither of these accounts is true.
What I have not told you about that night was that I was never supposed to be in that bed. Those sheets should not have been shared with me. His eyes were a pretty colour, but shuttered. I wasn’t allowed to bite. I said things that were callous, and they helped me make my insides feel hard. I was something to him and nothing at the same time. He did things not to my taste, they were not about me. I had said no to him a thousand times, and don’t know where I found the yes of that night. I had to leave before she came home. As I left, at the end of the street a police car sat, lights on, red flashing on the street where I walked, illuminating my path with the colour of an underworld. If they had taken me away for wrong doings, I would not have been surprised.
Neither of these accounts is true.
during
I’ve been here before, and you know that. I don’t think I want to slide down that rock face. But right now, I’m wondering, wondering; wandering, humming along, pondering, singing ‘I don’t want to see you as the next in line,’ thinking about what is keeping me on the ground. Considering footholds but not even imagining the possibility that I won’t fall.
before
I’ve been thinking of you today. How fresh it felt to think of you, to have your face dancing in the corner of my vision.
Your tiny caresses are more and less than what I want. I can lean into them, but what will that get me? I can pull away, but what will that get me?
Your hands are warm and I’ve been cold. Your nails are clean. But your mind is slippery. I’ve been here before.
Your tiny caresses are more and less than what I want. I can lean into them, but what will that get me? I can pull away, but what will that get me?
Your hands are warm and I’ve been cold. Your nails are clean. But your mind is slippery. I’ve been here before.
It's a minefield. She is unable to leaf through photos, old papers, yellowing and curling at the corners, without his presence making itself known.
There is a film she enjoys watching about deleting memories, people from lives. The moral of the story is that there are always good memories with the bad, enough to make the forgetting as painful as the remembering.
She can't think of any memory with him that is singly beautiful.
There is a film she enjoys watching about deleting memories, people from lives. The moral of the story is that there are always good memories with the bad, enough to make the forgetting as painful as the remembering.
She can't think of any memory with him that is singly beautiful.
sometimesalways.
You throw at me what he's been doing lately. I guess I understand. He has a part of me. But you have a part of me too. Stop making me get the part that is his out so that you can look at it. The extraction makes me bleed.
22.09.09
I’ve been listening to a song that a woman sings to her man about wearing holes in the soles of his boots. She sings about waiting at home for him to stop his wanderings, about the dirt he might trek in to her house, about needing his strong hands, about waiting for him to be still. The song makes me think of you. I ponder the sight of your boots under my bed. I think about needing your strong hands.
I do need your strong hands. But I also think about those holes in the soles of your shoes. And I wonder about the holes in the soles of my shoes. I don’t know which one of us would be waiting for the other to be still. I don’t know if I would be able to wait at home wondering about another’s stillness.
I do need your strong hands. But I also think about those holes in the soles of your shoes. And I wonder about the holes in the soles of my shoes. I don’t know which one of us would be waiting for the other to be still. I don’t know if I would be able to wait at home wondering about another’s stillness.
I nearly missed the turn. My friend, although incredibly confident in her critique of my driving could not drive herself and was not that much more skilled with a map. I was negotiating a borrowed, beaten up car through the unfamiliar landscape. Just before the turn, she had told me not to miss it. That was the extent of her navigation; a warning not to make a mistake. This should have been a sign for me to interpret all of her warnings (and there were many) as directives that were often as dangerous as what they were warning against, and hid as much as they made plain.
So I nearly missed the turn, and swung out dangerously, going far too fast, to make it in time. She swore.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she said.
I couldn’t either. I wasn’t really myself. I nearly missed the turn, and what if I had? I suppose we would have turned around, made our way back. But in the end, I made it. And I was on my way to you.
So I nearly missed the turn, and swung out dangerously, going far too fast, to make it in time. She swore.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she said.
I couldn’t either. I wasn’t really myself. I nearly missed the turn, and what if I had? I suppose we would have turned around, made our way back. But in the end, I made it. And I was on my way to you.
I think she slept with him. I saw, when I first told her, a flash in her eyes that she immediately snapped shut. A flash I now associate with the bubbling of her darkness. She inspected me, saw, decided secrets were best. She will never tell me. Secrets are a shield for her. But I think she has been kissed by those same lips.
I’d feel a perfect fool if that were true. I can still smell the scent of that house.
I wish we could laugh together, about our rough pasts and the feel of his skin.
I’d feel a perfect fool if that were true. I can still smell the scent of that house.
I wish we could laugh together, about our rough pasts and the feel of his skin.
yesterday.
I’m starting to forget the shape of your face. I remember only flashes of what your body looked like. I know it still exists; it’s just in bed with someone else.
The first moment you were inside me, I giggled at the rhythm of your thrusts. You asked me if I was laughing at you. I told you I wasn’t. I was. I was pretending to be sweet, at the time. But my sweetness is a finite resource, as you have now discovered, and occasionally the parts of me that are not gentle come out, boil over. I should have told you I thought that your hurried thrusts and attempts to give it to me hard deflated all the puffed up imaginings I had of you. You’re quite a proud man, when unclothed. Your pride might momentarily make you into a lion, but really you are a house cat. I told you that you made me purr. You never did.
If I had told you these things, instead of murmuring sweetness to you, instead of spinning sugar, you’d probably still be yearning to rub hard up against my leg.
It was your words that got to me and made me forget my own snigger. It was the meaning that you forced me to give to your rough caresses. I should have remembered that I laughed at you, as easy as sin.
As you left my room, you paused, moved slowly, so that someone else you once slept with didn’t see you leave. You once told me that you only ever kissed her, and it has occurred to me that that is not true, not true at all. You can not even be faithful to a long ago past. You are probably right now repeating this lie about me. “I only ever drunkenly kissed her.”
It’s not true, little girl. He fucked me and bit me and spread my legs so far that it hurt. He put his hands around my throat, gently, pretending that it didn’t mean that he hated me. He was angry when I bit him back and left my mark. My throat was marked for days. He was scared that I was laughing at him. He is probably far nicer to you. Maybe it is because you are prettier, or younger. Or because he knew, all along, that somewhere inside me, I thought he was a joke and knew he was a lie.
The first moment you were inside me, I giggled at the rhythm of your thrusts. You asked me if I was laughing at you. I told you I wasn’t. I was. I was pretending to be sweet, at the time. But my sweetness is a finite resource, as you have now discovered, and occasionally the parts of me that are not gentle come out, boil over. I should have told you I thought that your hurried thrusts and attempts to give it to me hard deflated all the puffed up imaginings I had of you. You’re quite a proud man, when unclothed. Your pride might momentarily make you into a lion, but really you are a house cat. I told you that you made me purr. You never did.
If I had told you these things, instead of murmuring sweetness to you, instead of spinning sugar, you’d probably still be yearning to rub hard up against my leg.
It was your words that got to me and made me forget my own snigger. It was the meaning that you forced me to give to your rough caresses. I should have remembered that I laughed at you, as easy as sin.
As you left my room, you paused, moved slowly, so that someone else you once slept with didn’t see you leave. You once told me that you only ever kissed her, and it has occurred to me that that is not true, not true at all. You can not even be faithful to a long ago past. You are probably right now repeating this lie about me. “I only ever drunkenly kissed her.”
It’s not true, little girl. He fucked me and bit me and spread my legs so far that it hurt. He put his hands around my throat, gently, pretending that it didn’t mean that he hated me. He was angry when I bit him back and left my mark. My throat was marked for days. He was scared that I was laughing at him. He is probably far nicer to you. Maybe it is because you are prettier, or younger. Or because he knew, all along, that somewhere inside me, I thought he was a joke and knew he was a lie.
past...
Did you ever see a photo of a group of people taken before they knew you, before there was any chance of you being in the photo? Photos of groups of people who you now talk to every day, people who you might write messages of warmth to inside a birthday card. These photos cause a sharp stab of sadness in my middle.
I can usually pin point where my sadness comes from with precise exactness, as if describing to someone where I have left a belonging; “the sadness comes from the third drawer in the white wardrobe, left hand side.” But this sadness? I have no idea of its origin. Where does it come from?
There’s a photo of his familiar face, but young, much younger than I know it. His hand is raised. There’s a photo of another leaning against the wall, grinning. There’s one of her on a fairground ride. I didn’t know any of them then, how could I have? They were in another city and years ahead of me. I was struggling through the mire of my childhood in those years.
His smile, the turn of his head, her long legs, make me miss somewhere I’ve never seen. Why do I yearn to be there, where it is impossible for me to have been? I was elsewhere, maybe smiling, maybe on my own ride. I feel a tightening of longing in my gut. I can’t stop looking at this past, this evidence of how this person came to be, and feeling terribly, terribly sad.
I can usually pin point where my sadness comes from with precise exactness, as if describing to someone where I have left a belonging; “the sadness comes from the third drawer in the white wardrobe, left hand side.” But this sadness? I have no idea of its origin. Where does it come from?
There’s a photo of his familiar face, but young, much younger than I know it. His hand is raised. There’s a photo of another leaning against the wall, grinning. There’s one of her on a fairground ride. I didn’t know any of them then, how could I have? They were in another city and years ahead of me. I was struggling through the mire of my childhood in those years.
His smile, the turn of his head, her long legs, make me miss somewhere I’ve never seen. Why do I yearn to be there, where it is impossible for me to have been? I was elsewhere, maybe smiling, maybe on my own ride. I feel a tightening of longing in my gut. I can’t stop looking at this past, this evidence of how this person came to be, and feeling terribly, terribly sad.
25
“Silly girl. He’ll cut you into tiny, bite sized pieces. From the cuts he makes, all the humanity of you will seep out. He’ll lick it all up, taste it on his forked tongue. He’ll roll it around in the cold inside of his mouth. He may celebrate your taste. He’ll tell you that you taste of peaches, or the rain. He’ll tell you that you taste like something you’ve always wanted to taste like. I always wished I tasted sweet, and feared that I tasted bitter, like a lemon, like burnt coffee. You will probably believe in your sweetness more readily than I ever did. You’ll smile. But then he’ll spit it all out. He’ll curse you for the mess you’ve made, kick at you while you try to mop up the mess with your own wadded up skirts. Silly, silly little girl. You are not imaginary and soon he will have no use for you. You taste just as bitter as the rest of us.”
I wish someone had said this to me, all those months ago.
I wish someone had said this to me, all those months ago.
last time...
Today I miss you.
At least, I think I might miss you tonight. I’m going somewhere. The last time I was there, I spent all night talking to you. You told me you loved me, I could feel your grin across a land mass. That was when we had unfinished business. That was before you took me to bed again. I wore the shoes I had on when we first met, in the summer heat. I drank too much wine, and you made me happy, just with words. That was one of the moments when the feeling of you always being with me was good, a moment when your presence was no burden. Just a secret. It was beautiful, it was precious, it was a little charm in my pocket, it made me feel like everything shone differently and that I was more to the world than what I could see. Tonight, I will hear the same voice that sung to me that night but there will be no words from you, none, not one. I’ll be glad and feel bitter and feel sad. I’ll be free. I’ll still miss you.
There’s this tiny hole somewhere that makes the structure unsound. I drip drip drip out of it. Because, when the hole heals over, I pick the scab off, every now and again. And then I miss you. I’ll miss you, until I no longer do. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you. It’ll drip, drip, drip.
Right now, I play music that I used to listen to before I knew your name.
At least, I think I might miss you tonight. I’m going somewhere. The last time I was there, I spent all night talking to you. You told me you loved me, I could feel your grin across a land mass. That was when we had unfinished business. That was before you took me to bed again. I wore the shoes I had on when we first met, in the summer heat. I drank too much wine, and you made me happy, just with words. That was one of the moments when the feeling of you always being with me was good, a moment when your presence was no burden. Just a secret. It was beautiful, it was precious, it was a little charm in my pocket, it made me feel like everything shone differently and that I was more to the world than what I could see. Tonight, I will hear the same voice that sung to me that night but there will be no words from you, none, not one. I’ll be glad and feel bitter and feel sad. I’ll be free. I’ll still miss you.
There’s this tiny hole somewhere that makes the structure unsound. I drip drip drip out of it. Because, when the hole heals over, I pick the scab off, every now and again. And then I miss you. I’ll miss you, until I no longer do. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you. It’ll drip, drip, drip.
Right now, I play music that I used to listen to before I knew your name.
2008
“I wouldn’t leave.”
She says this to me again. She says it often. She re-tells stories, and this utterance is the punch line. She has said it to a friend and a doctor. I assume that she has said it to him. She hasn’t ever told me that story. But she’s told me that he’s told her to leave. I can only assume she said it to him.
“I won’t go.”
This is a strange thing to say, when someone wants you to go. I would never say it. I am always asking “do you want me to leave?”
Sometimes I leave before any questions are posed. I gladly leave before I am an unwelcome guest. I left him, before I could work out what he wanted. After he’d come, and fallen asleep beside me, I left the room. Left him alone, moved to another bed. In the morning he followed me there, and he put his hands on me until I moved against him and left myself for a second. And then I closed my legs and left him again, gathering my things with haste… leaving, leaving, leaving… quickly, quietly, head spinning, running, gone. Now, I see his hands and I wonder what my world would look like if I was the kind of girl who said “no, I won’t go’ instead of “I’m going now.”
Now, I drive along, alone, listening to that girl singing with her school girl voice: 'I left him, and I can leave you too' and I wonder who I’ll leave next, and if he'll still be in the room when I go. I wonder when I’ll feel I can stay.
She says this to me again. She says it often. She re-tells stories, and this utterance is the punch line. She has said it to a friend and a doctor. I assume that she has said it to him. She hasn’t ever told me that story. But she’s told me that he’s told her to leave. I can only assume she said it to him.
“I won’t go.”
This is a strange thing to say, when someone wants you to go. I would never say it. I am always asking “do you want me to leave?”
Sometimes I leave before any questions are posed. I gladly leave before I am an unwelcome guest. I left him, before I could work out what he wanted. After he’d come, and fallen asleep beside me, I left the room. Left him alone, moved to another bed. In the morning he followed me there, and he put his hands on me until I moved against him and left myself for a second. And then I closed my legs and left him again, gathering my things with haste… leaving, leaving, leaving… quickly, quietly, head spinning, running, gone. Now, I see his hands and I wonder what my world would look like if I was the kind of girl who said “no, I won’t go’ instead of “I’m going now.”
Now, I drive along, alone, listening to that girl singing with her school girl voice: 'I left him, and I can leave you too' and I wonder who I’ll leave next, and if he'll still be in the room when I go. I wonder when I’ll feel I can stay.
10:43.01.07.09...
I don’t miss how my stomach filled up with tiny little lead balls of confusion whenever you periodically updated me on your latest conquest. But I can’t say that I don’t think about the smoothness of your hand on the back of my neck.
2001
In a room, alone with slamming doors. With the mad clearing, the piles of things not wanted, of things to be cleared, of junk the she doesn’t want to see. All the others have gone the way of the rats, jumped ship long ago… now only my ears can hear the thuds of rage and the obsessive shifting of furniture. What is it? Shall I look under the bed? On the red table? Where have you put it in your whirl wind of all possessions constantly moving? Will I be here for you if you go looking for me? Will I be in this green room and will I hide from me in the piles of ‘do you want this? Can I get rid of it?"
01.07.09-07
I’m just now starting to realise that there are certain things that will always be stained by your presence, now banished. That there will always be books that have two authors for me; you, and the person that wrote the words. When I read those books, I read them with you, whether you know that or not. I read, alone, in my bed with cold sheets, you in my head reading with me, as if you were looking over my shoulder making comments. Your narration overtakes me.
Now when I read about that character, the one like me, I can not see her without seeing you. I can not think about her without thinking about what you think of her. What you said about her stung, and I will always feel that sting, because I will always see the words “she looks like someone I could fuck and leave” alongside the words of the real author. When I think of her fixing her mussed up hair with a self-consciousness that made her hands shake, and her pulling the sheet quickly over exposed breasts, I see a hideous reflection of my own inadequacies and how they must have appeared to you, you who can not even abide seeing a woman not able to move without consciousness on an empty dance floor. I think about what you must have thought of my lack of grace. My fumbling touches, my insipid moans, my too intense feelings and my inabilities… how you must have compared them to the detached grace of the beautiful women who had been there before me. I wonder if you compared me to the ones who were there after.
I wonder if you took me to bed so you could narrate in your head a story about a little girl who thought too much of you while you thought too little of her. A girl that you took from and lied about, used as a mirror and then forgot. A girl you emptied yourself into. At the fore of this story would be everything that made her forgettable. You would outline with scientific precision every imperfection that allowed you to treat her like she was nothing to anybody. There would be no consideration of your own imperfections, you would not reward the girl for her ability to see them and love you anyway.
Now when I read about that character, the one like me, I can not see her without seeing you. I can not think about her without thinking about what you think of her. What you said about her stung, and I will always feel that sting, because I will always see the words “she looks like someone I could fuck and leave” alongside the words of the real author. When I think of her fixing her mussed up hair with a self-consciousness that made her hands shake, and her pulling the sheet quickly over exposed breasts, I see a hideous reflection of my own inadequacies and how they must have appeared to you, you who can not even abide seeing a woman not able to move without consciousness on an empty dance floor. I think about what you must have thought of my lack of grace. My fumbling touches, my insipid moans, my too intense feelings and my inabilities… how you must have compared them to the detached grace of the beautiful women who had been there before me. I wonder if you compared me to the ones who were there after.
I wonder if you took me to bed so you could narrate in your head a story about a little girl who thought too much of you while you thought too little of her. A girl that you took from and lied about, used as a mirror and then forgot. A girl you emptied yourself into. At the fore of this story would be everything that made her forgettable. You would outline with scientific precision every imperfection that allowed you to treat her like she was nothing to anybody. There would be no consideration of your own imperfections, you would not reward the girl for her ability to see them and love you anyway.
15.06.09.08.07.
This morning I dreamt that you were standing in a large almost empty room. I was standing there, nearby, with my Father. He treated you with as much anger and contempt as I am now feeling for you. He pushed you down; there was a surge of violence in my breast. A dream of you is not usual. It is as if now I have attempted to banish you from my waking thought, you have crept in to my sleeping hours. And the only one there with me trying to help me to feel less in love with someone unworthy is someone who has so often been unworthy himself. Our only defence against you was school yard violence.
I have only dreamed of you once before. I was sad in this dream, terribly sad. The kind of sad which prohibits that satisfaction felt in fat warm tears, the kind of tears that leave trails of salt that dry and pull on the skin when you rearrange your face from sadness to spent contentment. This is the kind of breathless sad that keeps one’s legs twitching long after the light has been turned out, the kind of sad that is a silent scream, not an audible sob. In this dream, you took me into your arms and waltzed with me, through the icy cold stillness of my sadness, ignoring the dead weight of my feet. And I told you of it, and you sneered. You see my feet. You ignore no one’s inability to be weightless, and you told me how unlikely it was that you would ever dance with me. You reminded me that you could be nice, though. Unspoken was the pledge to never give any of that to me.
My Father once told me about a dream he had about me. There was a small black and white cat, lost, without a caretaker. I took it in for a while but it ran away and I could not make it come back. My Father seemed delighted that he had dreamed of me and that in this dream I was so charming. That in his dreams I was someone who saves alley cats. He told me like it was a secret, something to be kept from everyone else.
I don’t know what made me try to take you in, or why I stopped expecting you to stop running away.
I have only dreamed of you once before. I was sad in this dream, terribly sad. The kind of sad which prohibits that satisfaction felt in fat warm tears, the kind of tears that leave trails of salt that dry and pull on the skin when you rearrange your face from sadness to spent contentment. This is the kind of breathless sad that keeps one’s legs twitching long after the light has been turned out, the kind of sad that is a silent scream, not an audible sob. In this dream, you took me into your arms and waltzed with me, through the icy cold stillness of my sadness, ignoring the dead weight of my feet. And I told you of it, and you sneered. You see my feet. You ignore no one’s inability to be weightless, and you told me how unlikely it was that you would ever dance with me. You reminded me that you could be nice, though. Unspoken was the pledge to never give any of that to me.
My Father once told me about a dream he had about me. There was a small black and white cat, lost, without a caretaker. I took it in for a while but it ran away and I could not make it come back. My Father seemed delighted that he had dreamed of me and that in this dream I was so charming. That in his dreams I was someone who saves alley cats. He told me like it was a secret, something to be kept from everyone else.
I don’t know what made me try to take you in, or why I stopped expecting you to stop running away.
february09...
A few days ago I had an image of myself, with my feet curled under me, reading, in your bed. And I thought to myself that if I was there, I could be happy. I thought that if I was allowed to curl up my feet and read and laugh with you, with one of your pencils in my hair and my glasses perched on my nose and the smell of you seeping into my skin, I'd be content.
I don't know if that's true. These moments rarely hold as much happiness as they promise. I might feel trapped by the sheets wrapping around my legs, I might kick them off. I don't really know what you smell like, I no longer remember, I don't know if it would seep into my skin.
I know the cure for unhappiness is happiness, that there is no other. And I know you can't give that to me. But I still wonder about your sheets snaking about my limbs.
I don't know if that's true. These moments rarely hold as much happiness as they promise. I might feel trapped by the sheets wrapping around my legs, I might kick them off. I don't really know what you smell like, I no longer remember, I don't know if it would seep into my skin.
I know the cure for unhappiness is happiness, that there is no other. And I know you can't give that to me. But I still wonder about your sheets snaking about my limbs.
valentine's day...
In her resting state her memories travel. She will be reading or writing or talking and realise that her mind is travelling to where he is, and that she can prevent herself from talking to him for days but she is still travelling to him through unfamiliar surroundings. She is looking above her, around her, seeing a colour palette that is different to the colour palette of the city she occupies. She sees leaves that are a different green. She realises that she is under a bridge; lost, trusting that someone else knows the way. She is in-between there and here. She hates it. She’d forget that journey if she could.
march03...
In front of me is a net of lights that shine, making all of the kilometres of space between us look like a plate of glass that reflects the stars, or undulating inky water logged nothing, with holes in it that let in points of illumination. Caught in the net are thousands of voices, talking, laughing, lying, singing, screaming, sighing, groaning, gasping. And you are out there somewhere in my city, with your own grumble added to the throng.
You are probably striding about in streets full of people, where the lights turn the sky blue after dark, where the sky isn't so inky because the lights bunch together there, as if for warmth. A sea of people and possibilities is churning before me and I search for only you. You, a buoy or a predator.
I am standing on a hill, where the light is sparse. I am looking backwards. My feet are in grubby shoes, scuffing on gravel. Where I am standing, the ground is still and silent. But I feel as if a wave of water is shifting the sands beneath my toes.
You are probably striding about in streets full of people, where the lights turn the sky blue after dark, where the sky isn't so inky because the lights bunch together there, as if for warmth. A sea of people and possibilities is churning before me and I search for only you. You, a buoy or a predator.
I am standing on a hill, where the light is sparse. I am looking backwards. My feet are in grubby shoes, scuffing on gravel. Where I am standing, the ground is still and silent. But I feel as if a wave of water is shifting the sands beneath my toes.
december 08...
There’s a small room. Cluttered like mine. White walls, red bedspread. Yesterday’s glass of water is on the bedside table, last night’s dinner dishes on the floor. The wardrobe doors are left open, photos are tacked up, the mirrors are spotty.
When he’s not there, she imagines him in it; watching her drink tea, and listen to her music, do her hair in the morning, smearing lipstick. She has imaginary conversations with him in her head. She isn’t able to predict his answers very well. She can really only dream up the best way to tell her stories, a way that will make her memorable to him. She imagines opening her door for him, hastily clearing a space on an ugly chair, gathering arms full of second-hand books and tights and unused diaries. She imagines him sprawling in the chair, not taking up as much physical space as he should. She tries to imagine his mental tally of the room’s shortcomings. His reaction to the books on her floor, his perusal of the things she gathers around her. She imagines him thinking; “no, not her. Not this one.”
The only place he really inhabits in her life is the space she clears for him, with apprehension. He may or may not sit in the cleared space. She tells herself this sternly by lamplight.
But then she whispers imaginary things to him when she turns the light off, again she has imaginary conversations with him in her head. She imagines his answers, strokes hair from his forehead, imagines what he’d look like underneath her sheets with his head on her pillow. Then she wakes up in a different place.
There is another small room that’s cluttered like hers. Yesterday’s glass of water on the bedside table. The wardrobe doors are open, there are little circles of paint peeled off the walls, where pictures have been tacked up then ripped down. The mirrors have spots. The bed is unmade, the books are not put back on the shelves. Here, the same imaginings take place, in an imaginary room after the light is turned off.
When he’s not there, she imagines him in it; watching her drink tea, and listen to her music, do her hair in the morning, smearing lipstick. She has imaginary conversations with him in her head. She isn’t able to predict his answers very well. She can really only dream up the best way to tell her stories, a way that will make her memorable to him. She imagines opening her door for him, hastily clearing a space on an ugly chair, gathering arms full of second-hand books and tights and unused diaries. She imagines him sprawling in the chair, not taking up as much physical space as he should. She tries to imagine his mental tally of the room’s shortcomings. His reaction to the books on her floor, his perusal of the things she gathers around her. She imagines him thinking; “no, not her. Not this one.”
The only place he really inhabits in her life is the space she clears for him, with apprehension. He may or may not sit in the cleared space. She tells herself this sternly by lamplight.
But then she whispers imaginary things to him when she turns the light off, again she has imaginary conversations with him in her head. She imagines his answers, strokes hair from his forehead, imagines what he’d look like underneath her sheets with his head on her pillow. Then she wakes up in a different place.
There is another small room that’s cluttered like hers. Yesterday’s glass of water on the bedside table. The wardrobe doors are open, there are little circles of paint peeled off the walls, where pictures have been tacked up then ripped down. The mirrors have spots. The bed is unmade, the books are not put back on the shelves. Here, the same imaginings take place, in an imaginary room after the light is turned off.
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