the cup

Soon she had stopped washing the cup altogether - this white ceramic bowl of a cup (she used just the one.) It would have been impossible to ever have thought of not washing it.

It had been a slow transition. At first she had stopped using soap all together – simply rinsing it out. No one was around to hold her accountable and it was her cup, god damned it.

It was there to greet her in the morning or late afternoon when she called on it for tea or coffee, only soon to find it hard pressed at the bottom with grounds of coffee or fragments of tea. It was then, that she would run a cloth over it.

Soon there was no reason to empty the contents and she would come upon it half full, with a ring encircling the inside to mark the evaporation from the night or days that she had left it before.

The saucer had been forgone long before. It was unnecessary to falsify the use of the cup by placing it properly with its aiding ceramic concubine.

Then one morning while indulging a tea, she sipped - hot and fast a flake of chamomile deep into the sensitive part of her throat. She spasmed to cough and simultaneously breathe  as her eyes watered. She felt the error of having abandoned the ritual of cleaning the cup. Remorse and grief swelled inside her and she swore to the heavens that she would never fail to wash the cup again if she could at once be restored to calm unaware breathing.

In her panic and blurred vision she reached for water only to slap the cup to the floor. The sound of the shatter caught her breath. She peered down at her toes and among the bits of tea and broken ceramic fragments. It was pathetic and hearbreaking to see the dead cup. She could only walk away for a cloth to collect the remains.

Once back in the kitchen, milling around for a cloth in her confused state, she looked up. The blurry vision cleared and she released the cloth in her hand to see not one, but many more white ceramic coffee cups complete with saucer companions. It struck her as odd and funny and her grief gave way to humor as she laughed at herself and the broken cup.

29 mai 2008

his room.

One is never alone in Fable’s room. That is to say the permanent occupant is that ephemeral companion, the sun. How he loves her. I’ve seen him dancing in her, holding hands, pressing his cheek out to be caressed by this mother. His enjoyment is to be reflected upon, not giving much back except the silent smile to himself, which are the terms that suit them. He needs only to be there. Like the tree, the cloud, the building so that she may reflect from them. That is there relationship, and that is what suits them.

As soon as I enter this room I feel her pushing me. I have to fight to sit down under her weight. I have to part my path and dig out my space from her intense stare, but she’s constantly felt upon my side like a wall that I’m trying to keep from crushing me. It’s not always like this, but in this minute she is.

In this minute I see Fable, but just his outline. This is what happens when you play tug of war with the sun, she blinds you to grasp her object which she can never ever really grasp anyway. Instead she creates a fury in your eyes, explosions on your skin in her frustration to grasp, to have her fingerprint felt. But in these instances she is quickly evaded, out of her element.

What’s funny about reunions is that you don’t fully see the person that you’re reunited with for a good five minutes. Caught up in the bursting lava in your chest, the flickering lights in your brain, it is the sense of touch and smell that actualize your friend or lover. So, I’d have to say I didn’t see Fable at first, I smelled him, and felt him. It was the only communication that dulled the lava and lights, the only senses capable of answering their desires, making him more real that seeing or hearing him could ever.

The initial hug has certain advantages. One of the first being the permission to linger. Followed by the reflection of both sadness and relief in the fact that you’ve been reunited which highlights the empty seat you’ve saved for them. It’s also an introduction. If you’re lucky you’ve had the good bye hug that makes your welcoming hug rich with the promise of new stories and the next level of getting on with things.

Soon we are back in our old routine, his room doubling as our tree house when we are together and decidedly the age of five involuntarily. Only when the sun is with us, though. Like a mother ever present we wouldn’t dare try the stuff we do when she leaves the room. Because her exits and entrances are solaborious we both have time to accept the leaving of the bed as well as the anxiety of waiting to enter it. 

In the wake of our hug we sit facing the computer vibrating with all sorts of desires and not knowing which to do first. Who should begin the catching up? Should we just remain silent and enjoy our moment, or speak toeach other through prose and music? Never having to pick one, we pick like cherries from each bin and spend the rest of the morning into the after noon in the honey ourexistence . There are short bursts of laughter or tackling-bear hugs that escape one or the other of us in our joy to be sharing the same space again, but soon we settle.

If I told you right now what I thought of that moment I’d use the word perfect. I might even have used the french word, PARFAIT, being less demanding than it’sEnglish sister and implying the flaws that make PERFECT flawless. Being temporary as these moments are, it faded into the late after noon and evening when we found our hunger calling us again. the harsh ways that our bodies remind of ourexistence is as beautiful as it is annoying.

The rooms, houses, of others has always settled me much deeper than the rooms and houses of my own. The place of myself hold my materials, history, and names. As if they were sponges ever saturated and no amount of squeezing could release the liquids. Sleep comes to me faster and heavier, but only when the sun is with us.

As she being to descend the tightness of my chest both grips me and undulates to release it’s contents. This happens under the awareness of Fable who is more adept at handling the functions of his own chest. His patients of this process of mine comfort me and allow me to relax into it. I tell him I love him and he smiles and hugs me. I know tomorrow will bring more of this.

06 marz, 2008

The House is Breathing

wood opening its pores under the pressure of the warm air, releasing a musky nostalgic odor into the air. As the wood stretches, it dislodges its rusty nailsa hair. Just enough to emit that metallic sulfuric scent that mixes with the musk of wood.

The glue of the linoleum warms and old plastic sweating joins the cacophony. The new and old plaster of the walls dances with the sent of crying brink beneath it and the mold that has come between them.

The dust of winter around the edges of the windows winces at the sun and gives off it’s noxious odor of metal as well when you reach for the latch.

All of these smells that are cooking and racing to get out are signs of the house breathing. She does this for all four seasons but you never notice it. You never even think of it, until the poppies begin to bloom and the birds begin to sing. This is when her breathing is most present. This is when you know it is spring.