Sola

Remember your old hair? I saw some recent photos online and it made me laugh, thinking of how long it used to be. I suppose you need a more professional appearance now, shirts and ties and all that. You don't want to be "the guy with the hair." I'm still trying to figure out what to do with myself. Greg and I just moved to a new place, same basic size but a bigger yard, which is nice because we got a dog. He's a pug, and he's blind. He was a rescue. It took a couple weeks but he seems to have a complete mental map of the house now, and I guess pugs don't have great eyesight anyway, they mostly go on smell and sound. But sometimes he gets so excited, like if the doorbell goes, or when I pull out his kibble from under the kitchen sink, and he tries to go straight to the noise or the scent, like suddenly the whole world is just a straight line to the thing he wants most, and he'll bump into the wall or a chair or something. It's funny and a little sad.

Sorry you can't make it to the wedding. It would mean a lot to me if you could be there, but I understand. I'd like you to meet Greg, I don't know why. I guess it's weird to me that he doesn't know you, thinks you're just another friend from college, which I guess is what you are, but... your name carries no weight with him. He's always getting you and my friend Andrew mixed up when I tell him stories. And I just hope this isn't how it ends between us, with me going off into this new life of being someone's wife, which really will probably feel a lot like the old life, the one I'm living right now, seeing as we already have a house and a dog. Greg still works at the bookstore. I hope you're not angry with me. These things seem to pass by when we're not really paying attention, I turn back from a daydream, staring out the window, and a major decision has been made, and the world is different from how I used to see it, I'm with this person and not that person, in this city and not that city, like a totally passive recipient of my own life. You once spoke to me of regret, but what is there to regret? We're spectators drifting somewhere inside these cumbersome bodies. I love Greg and I'm going to marry him. He tolerates me, and he's always been there, even when he probably would have rather not been there, and I don't mean that as a dig at you, but then again, maybe I do. Maybe it's best that you're not coming. I think you've held my memory so tightly that you've crushed it, bent it out of shape, so if you saw me now you wouldn't recognize me. You'd have to ask someone just to make sure you were in the right place. And maybe I wouldn't recognize you, either, and I'd say, "No, he's not on our guest list," and you would be escorted out by my future brother-in-law, and you'd scratch your head for a minute outside the chapel and then leave, like always, right before actually telling me anything at all. We'd watch another piece of life play out from separate corners, as my friends and family cheer and throw flowers, so loud and fragrant. There goes Max again, that's our pug, crashing into the coffee table. I wonder what he's after?

Oh! I forgot to tell you. You were in my dream last night, visiting at my mother's house. You rode your bike there, but your hair was really long. That's how I knew it was a dream.

Thursday

It was one of those increasingly common evenings, the ones where he would stand alone in his apartment, staring out the window as the street changed its colors from the full chromatics of day to the orange wash of sunset, on to the Gothic violets of dusk before settling in to that long stretch of night, black and grainy. He didn't think of anything in particular while he stared: not of his middling career, the one that had promised to hold his attention for a lifetime but was now little more than a collection of habits, Tourettic tics that possessed him from 9 until 5; not of his friends, those genial apparitions who seemed to leave and reappear with the unpredictability of quantum particles; not of his empty bed; not even of the listless pop song presently leaking out of his stereo, a song he didn't really care for, but preferred to the terrifying New York silence of taxis and distant laughter that would invade his sixth floor duplex if he turned it off.

Across the street people kicked around like natural history exhibits. They looked serene and plastic in their lighted window boxes, like animatronic dioramas. He saw a child bouncing wildly on a sofa on the second floor. Up on four, he saw a middle-aged man leaning back in his chair, lecturing some unseen puppet. Scanning up to the fifth floor, he watched a woman carrying a large wooden spoon pace back and forth across the length of two windows, vanishing momentarily from one, like an optical illusion, before emerging in the other. The sixth floor, directly opposite him, was dark in both directions as far as he could see. He was alone on this plane of existence, caught between worlds. Life was ubiquitous above and below, but not here, not on six.

Then he looked up and saw her. She was on eight, maybe nine, and nearly at the edge of his visual field; he had to press his cheek against the glass to focus on her. A woman, tall but possibly not so tall, brownish hair, it was hard to make out the specifics, but he was drawn to her because she was also standing alone by her window, staring out. With the low fidelity afforded by distance and darkness he filled in all the gaps. She was beautiful, he decided, but just a little unkempt, slightly broken, her hair dried out from over-washing, her clothes unfashionable, and too baggy. Any moment now she would turn her gaze to see him, smooshed against the glass, and she would be flattered and a little embarrassed, and in the far dark she would fill in his gaps, as well, and in that way they would both hold equally distorted views of the other that were somehow more accurate than if they had met up close, in person, with all that fine detail. He imagined counting out her floor and apartment number and rushing out of his building, to the befuddlement of his doorman who had never known him to leave again after returning home from work, and he would fly across the street and into the opposite building, where the second, unfamiliar doorman would somehow know his purpose, perhaps would even call out, "She's expecting you," as he blows past the elevator, taking the stairs three at a time, sweating, palpitating, until finally he would burst into the hall on eight, or nine, race to find her apartment, orient and double-check his math in front of what he believed to be her door, compose himself, and then knock politely, after which there would be a pause, a strained note of anticipation, before an almost imperceptible shadow would eclipse the peephole and, a brief moment later, the door would open, and there she is, she had expected him, though maybe she can't quite believe he's actually there, hadn't quite let herself think that he was the kind of guy who would count out her floor and apartment number and race across the street just to see her, and now take her in his arms and kiss her, a kiss full of the passion absent from all the other aspects of his life, a bright, swirling kiss in the depths of night, like a film negative, and she accepts his kiss, for all its ambition and misplaced emotion, and they hold each other, just hovering there, halfway between the hall and her apartment, and this was where the fantasy dissipated, like the condensed breath he had to wipe from the window to see that she was gone.

Her window was dark now. The kid on two had stopped jumping on the sofa, but the woman with the spoon was still pacing back and forth. Here and then gone, and then here and then gone. Music dribbled out of the stereo at a low volume. He walked to it and turned it off, and listened, for a while, to the taxis and distant laughter.

Fear of the Body

Chosen we were, brothers in a storm, solid. When dusk came with leathery night-spears the sky pierced itself, flecks of white blood coagulating, and your fingers stretched my skin. I threw you down; never had we torn these gossamers and your boldness shocked me. In the dark I lost your form, chthonic voices shook the beacons of South and Southeast; there was no calling out. I spent the night among the grassy limbs, shifted constantly, awaking in a dewy film of marguerites. Now my voice carried far and returned at least seven more, but you were gone in all directions, sheets of ether, and I used the blade gifted by the State to rend my thigh muscle as I grieved. The essence poured out lapis lazuli, attracting vulturine ignis fatui which circled overhead. For what does light need a semi-precious stone!, only to be cast off, in part, absorbed. My riches dribbled through the marguerites and nourished them, and in return they burgeoned to provide me cover. Then I was fully drained; I rubbed dynasty salt on the limp flesh of my legs, brittle jerky drying under gargantuan flowers, but when I realized the extent of my own hunger I rolled the preserves into my lower torso and gouged the earth to crawl. By the time the will-o'-the-wisps caught me I had eaten all the best parts; they ransacked the ground, made the mandrakes scream, unaware that they were digging me a grave, cool and aromatic. I gave myself fully to the Land; and where are you? Corinth was rebuilt on musculature of brick and mortar; man longs to be a city. The plainsong venerated my asceticism, not your scent or flavors, quivering wavelengths trebled and another five, so when I lost the final piece it drew a cry of freedom. As the loam crumbled back they pecked for sour morsels; I tendered it without compunction. Why not? This thing brought only butchery.

The Writer

I force myself to write in total darkness.
The puniest sensation can distract
My mind, tabula rasa in its starkness.
I turn the light on only to redact.

The puniest sensation can distract,
And like a needling itch, a new tattoo
I turn the light on only to redact,
Calligraphy extends beyond my view.

And like a needling itch, a new tattoo,
The black room coaxes me with promises.
Calligraphy extends. Beyond my view,
My muse, replaced by doubting Thomases.

The black room coaxes me with promises
That I, alone, can carry on without
My muse replaced by doubting Thomases.
Is “nothing” but a deaf man taught to shout?

That I alone can carry on without
My mind, tabula rasa in its starkness,
Is nothing but a deaf man taught to shout.
I force myself to write in total darkness.

All Filled Out

Lately, Rob felt his body occupied more space than his personality required, like a bachelor living in a three-bedroom house. The onset of puberty had severed his already tenuous connections to his physical self: he drove his mother to distraction at mealtimes, scooping large portions onto his plate and then hardly pecking at them, claiming that he couldn't tell whether or not he was hungry. At night, sleep attacked Rob, his limbs shifting suddenly from active to inert, pulling him below the waters of consciousness for a few hours before he bobbed back to the surface with no sense of rejuvenation. Bowel movements were also elusive, giving warning only moments before Rob felt he was about to burst. He resented his body: its selfishness, its stubbornness, its insistence on making the first impression. This sinewy corpus did not represent him.

At school, the girls ignored him, and the boys laughed at his maladroit attempts at athleticism. One day, in Geometry class, someone chucked a pencil at Rob while the teacher's back was turned. Somehow he managed the reflex of raising his hand to block the missile, but the sharpened tip met the soft flesh of his palm head on, piercing it with surprising force, so the pencil stuck out at a perfect right angle. The teacher might have appreciated the relevance to her subject if she hadn't screamed and nearly fainted at the sight of blood oozing out of Rob's wound, dribbling onto the square Lucite desk. Rob hadn't felt a thing.

At home, Rob examined the bandaged hand with a detached cynicism. This body was too demanding, and he was understaffed: he could think on his own, but desperately needed employees to work the machinery, to support him through these so-called awkward years. He noticed a small black spider crawling along the white bandaging. How skillfully it coordinated the movement of eight legs, he thought, a little arachnoid dancer, perfectly proportioned, unsegmented, totally in control. With a sudden volition, the spider began to force its way under Rob's bandages. It tickled, maneuvering past the dressing and onto bare skin, and then produced a novel sensation as it wriggled through Rob's open wound and into his body. Rob ripped away the bandages in shock, but the spider was gone. Oh well, he thought. There's plenty of room in there for one little spider.

That night, for the first time in recent memory, sleep lulled Rob underwater with tenderness, and instead of immediately reemerging, he lingered there and had wisps of dreams, formless but evocative, like silken shadows. He awoke in bright spirits and ate a large, healthy breakfast. The next week went by without a single instance of spilling his lunch tray in the cafeteria, or dropping his books in the hall. He wasn't late for a single class, as the urge to piss now bubbled up gradually, allowing him to strategically plan trips to the bathroom during breaks. Rob wasn't sure to who or what he should credit this good fortune, but he welcomed it regardless. For the first time since prepubescence, he was starting to feel like a whole person.

Over the following year Rob found himself increasingly comfortable in his once foreign body. His gangling frame evened out and his muscle tone improved; his mother couldn't get over how well her boy was "filling out." Sophomore fall he made the JV soccer team. The other boys began to take him seriously, inviting him to their houses on weekends to play video games. By the end of sophomore year he was tentatively flirting with a girl called Sarah, mostly just chatting at school and the occasional phone call, but there was talk, whispers, that she would totally hook up with him. More and more, Rob forgot the pain and awkwardness of his old life.

By senior year you would hardly have recognized him. Starting forward for varsity soccer, class president, friends, followers, a steady girlfriend. For all his mother's hyperbole, Rob really had filled out; he'd come to love his body, and the pleasures of sport and sex that it provided. He couldn't wait for the tantalizing thrill of college, but at the same time felt a pang of sadness that he would soon be leaving this smaller world that had been so good to him, these halls and fields and basements, the sites of his Elysian days. Not surprising to anyone, Rob was voted to be the class graduation speaker.

"Where has the time gone?" his speech began. The gymnasium was packed to capacity with students, faculty, and the families of graduating seniors. "So much has happened in the past four years, and still it seems they flew by. We have transformed from children to young adults, and begun the paths we will follow for the rest of our lives." Rob let out a sharp, guttural cough. He saw, on the side of his hand, the tiniest fleck of green bile, and wiped it off inconspicuously on the podium. "At times the road has been challenging -- especially for those of us who took AP Spanish with Mrs. King." Gentle laughter spread through the audience. Students nodded, parents smiled. "But even the challenges were important, and worthwhile. Because the education we have received here, the friends we have made, all the things that we've consumed and allowed into ourselves, allowed to make us whole... these things will stay with us--"

He coughed again, violently. "Stay with us..." He moved his lips as if to resume speaking, but instead erupted in a fit of hacking and dry heaves. The crowd started to murmur. Rob raised his hand and everyone fell into silence. "Forever," he managed, wiping bile from the corners of his mouth. His voice sounded deeper, raspier. "We are a strong class... smart and skillful, like little dancers... perfectly proportioned, unsegmented... totally in control." Rob collapsed onto the podium, and before anyone could react, a million little spiders came pouring out of his open mouth.

Twenty-Six

Only as you become an adult do you start to learn the true meaning of the alphabet. You learn that A is an impossible ideal, an abscess, better dug out and left as a hole. You already knew Bs will sting when cornered, but you learn that their rapid population decline may be ushering an ecological apocalypse. Meanwhile, the C is polluted, its life ripped out daily by greedy trawlers and longlines. D is a cup your ex-wife didn't wear. Taking E can give you permanent brain damage, and getting caught in possession of it will get you arrested. One more F and your son will be expelled from school. G is tossed aside as corny and immature; you've outgrown it as both a film rating and a quaint exclamation to begin a sentence. Under the right circumstances and with preparation, H can be quite soothing -- but when you put it in a metal case and drop it from high altitudes, the results are devastating. I has been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Js, also, lead to brain damage and incarceration. By itself, K is harmless, but get three of them together in one room and there's going to be trouble. For decades, L preferred to stay in lowercase, for fear of being labeled "bent" and ostracized from the community (or worse) -- societal conditions are improving, but it's still a long road to graphemic equality. Two Ms are sweet, but one marks a seedy bathroom where bad things can happen. You've been familiar with N practically since you learned to speak, as it begins the word you relished so much as a toddler -- you just never expected to hear that word echoed back to you in equal measure in adulthood. O, at higher decibels, is quite good, but muttered often heralds an unwelcome realization. P still makes you laugh, despite your best efforts (some things never change). You can really identify with Q, rarely able to make a word without its more popular partner, living in shadow, specialized, pathetic. R, mark of the close-ended question, proof that she doesn't give a damn about what you think! You've always distrusted S, even in youth, and now you've felt the damage a snake's slithering sibilance can do. T is a welcome break, best enjoyed in the late afternoon (unless combined with A, in which case best to hold off until dark). U has filed numerous restraining orders against Q. And what of V, passionate, bloodied dagger, saint and sinner, source of life and death? These days, you try your best to stay out of its way. Primary schools never teach the true origin of W, the bastard child of U and V, disappointment to both, imbued with neither his mother's empathic charm or his father's intense focus and precision. X is poison, or a dirty movie (it's never the spot). Y is one of W's incessant questions, his special brand of curiosity, the kind not reflected in his repeated Fs, the kind that infuriates V and annoys U, but delights you, though you rarely get to see your "son" anymore, because of the restraining orders from his mother, but you don't care about genetics, only that he doesn't give up on asking Y. This is the orthography you've come to know. At night, when you lay down in bed, the letters press on you with a tremendous weight -- it's no wonder you cannot catch any Zs, no, not a single one!

A Rigid Proposal

When I say I fell madly for Mr. Red, I mean it literally, for the intensity of my love was a kind of psychosis. I relayed to countless friends, relatives, anyone who would listen, every detail of our dizzying first encounter: the precise square of sidewalk I stood on; the arc, in minutes, of the wayward sun; the air temperature in Fahrenheit and centigrade; the poses of the mannequins in the shop window outside of which I first glimpsed his burgundy overcoat, his pleated gray trousers, his polished Italian loafers, his derby; the per cent humidity of his breath as he whispered in my ear; the synesthetic taste of honey his voice conjured in my mouth; his equine gait when he parted; the rate of my pulse. So vital was the memory that it felt physically engraved in my neural tissue.

Yet whenever I finished the story, which to me was the total picture of romance, my listeners would respond with the same infuriating questions: "What did he look like?" "What did he say?" I accused them of missing the point, or jealousy, or being simple. I refused to acknowledge, even to myself, that I couldn't remember what he looked like. His face, surrounded by such vivid subtlety in my mind's eye, was cast in shadow. Likewise I found it difficult to recall exactly what those honey-sweet words were that Mr. Red whispered to me. In fact, I could hardly remember how I came to know his name was "Mr. Red" at all. But these felt like shallow anomalies in light of the undeniable love that had blossomed inside me. Over the following weeks, Mr. Red called on me several times, and my love grew exponentially with each visit. During our time together he seemed completely whole -- he seemed to make me whole -- and yet upon departing there always remained these minor gaps of his facial features and the content of his speech.

Family grew distant. Friends stopped returning my calls. Everyone was tired of the incessant tales of my courtship with Mr. Red, tales that, to them, lacked the crucial elements that would make them worth telling. A few people tried to convince me to end the affair, but I lashed back at them so fiercely that soon I spent all my time alone, waiting patiently for the next visit from my beloved.

One evening, he arrived and, as usual, removed his derby but kept his overcoat. We sat on the sofa across from the lit fireplace, and he took my hands in his. A renewed swell of love erupted from my very core, nearly paralyzing me, and it was all I could do to stop from screaming at the top of my lungs. Even now, I would not hesitate to call it the happiest moment of my life. Mr. Red released my right hand and, still delicately holding my left, reached into his overcoat pocket and removed a butcher knife. He raised my left hand to his hazy lips and kissed it, once, like a sting of venom, and the hand went numb. Then he whispered the only words that didn't instantly evaporate, that I still remember to this day:

"A token... of your love?"

His voice had an alien cadence, like speech played backwards. I acquiesced, with a smile on my face, and at that moment I burned for him with a passion I did not know existed, something so fiery and tumultuous that I somehow broke through into a state of bliss. He brought the knife to my wrist and cleanly removed my hand.

I have not seen Mr. Red since he left that night. The prosthetic fits well, and I have resumed nearly all of my normal activities. My friends and family reabsorbed me without fuss or questioning, like welcoming back a revived coma patient, my lost appendage dismissed as unsurprising collateral damage. According to them, the important thing is that I've moved on. And I have, more or less. I've even started seeing someone, a lovely young man with clear, angular features and a crisp speaking voice. He is very understanding. He knows I'm coming off a serious relationship. He knows a part of me is gone, although he says it's barely noticeable. Once, over dinner, he asked if I missed my ex. "Not at all," I replied. The truth is, yes, relentlessly.