introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- twinkling lights / cozy corners tree still lit - 5 january 2017 "this time we'll ride this winter out / i guess we'll ride this winter out / i think i'll ride this winter out" ~modest mouse the rhythm of little feet on hardwood floor. there are snowflakes flying outside. it is weeks after christmas now and the goddamned tree is still up, gathering dust. if he didn't like the thing so much--if we hadn't made a morning and bedtime ritual of plugging and unplugging the thing, maybe?--it would already be boxed up and put away. i sit down to read or in front of the keyboard to finally unburden myself of all the words that i have been holding for too long now. he calls for "momma momma momma!" over and over and when i finally ask what it is that he needs, he just says, 'hi, momma.' this is life now. no time to remember what you looked like; no time to mend my irrevocably fractured heart. barely time to remember to look in a mirror to remind myself of my own face. we're settled in to this little routine. nothing makes me happier. i wish often that we had a dog. dogs are great secrets-keepers...but the time will come when the time comes. half my head is cold and shaved nearly clean except for the feathers i've let fringe my face like a chelsea-girl. the other half is getting longer, curling, reminding me of how far i've come. how far we've come. over two years it's taken to get this far. she thought i was joking when i said i wanted to get a tattoo on my head. a pistol. my head is a dangerous place sometimes...for others, for myself. i wasn't joking. instead, i've been doodling pinecones and needles and thinking of all that greenery and garland from the holiday and thinking that the delicate space between my breasts could use some secret ink, ink for only me to know about. when i'm not reading library books to a little fella or putting out household fires as they arise, i am quiet. housework and cooking and laundry are meditation. this is possibly the best way i can be. the closest to monastic life that i could achieve right now...i know i will spend the end of my life in some monastery someplace, a silent place to discard each of my memories one at a time. i barely know who i've been these last few years and maybe it's just the quiet denning up of winter and maybe it's the coffee but i haven't felt more like myself in so so long and i'm holding that close to my heart...keeping it warm where i keep the secret things that only my heart remembers. until, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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