May wastes her days on sodoku and ginger tea. She’s decided to do nothing until her heart is finally ready to be seen by another. That recognition is the painful part- that solitary “I am” that beats itself bloody into “we are.” No longer does the rag of her heart continue- “I am” “I am” “I am”, steady and familiar, but “We are” “We are” “I am” “fuck this” “I am” “we are” “fuck this.” This is the empty space- the confusion. These are the hard, long days of the heart. Torn muscle fiber must fuse back together. Love must heal itself. Healing must seep from the secret reservoirs we carry inside of ourselves that reach from beyond ourselves- those roots that hurl themselves into the soil. The tendrils press into the firmament, bruised and hungry towards the dark, hot- wet center of everything- the furnace and dissolution that reconstitutes fragments into working parts- severed limbs and memories of theme parks and early morning sex and lazy days on the couch into mulch into nitrogen and protein and back into the gray matter in her twenty four year old cerebrum. In six months, the cloudy solution of time will have nurtured the roots and killed the memory- not the memory, but the teeth of the memory- the force of the memory- the ache of the memory. In six months, she will be ready to see me- new- developed and wreaking of the liquid bath that was given me in bromides, iodides, and chlorides. She will see me as newly developed film. In seven years, every cell in her body will be reconstituted- even the cells that hold her memory will be morphed and new. Her eyes, her fingers, her lungs. Oh the agony of it! She cannot remain. The object of my desire cannot remain! The me that she is waiting on cannot remain. Oh, with her new trouble free heart, she will see a new world too. In seven years I will not be me and you will not be you! What then is the “I am?” What then is the “We Are?” The weight of this thought makes me wish you would put down your ginger tea and kiss me hard on the mouth.
This season, you will strengthen your roots. Next season you will press your branches out from within you- high into the mid summer sun. Your heart will heal and blossom and many will come beneath you to sit in your shade. You will sit atop a large hill and people will be happy to see you and know your peace. Then you will shed your summer leaves. Like new skin, you will feel the wind blow with such acuteness- such sharpness that it will make you shiver. Then the hard rain comes- the one that falls on the lucky ones. The one that makes your bark thick, that forces you back down down down to the dark, wet- hot center of everything- below the firmament- below yourself- where desire and freedom and love do not exist- to be steeped in sweet thick amniotic fluid, bleached, and ready to be born again- farther and farther from who you are now- farther from me.
May wastes her days on sonnets and big girl dreams.
May wastes her days on valium and benzedrine.
May wastes her days in forests by covered streams.
May wastes her days looking for keys to houses she hasn’t lived in in years.
The weight of this thought makes me wish you would put down your ideas of me and kiss me hard on the mouth.
