freedomdreamscape
both times she swallowed a toxic air of uncertainty. tainted rejection trickled down her throat. he dropped her hand as though he had never known the warmth of her skin. both choking on words that don't seem to escape from their lips. both bothered and bewildered. unraveled and afraid of the darkness beyond their time together.
there is someone standing in the back of the room, and he's so keen. i see him standing there smoothing over his red suspenders, every so often adjusting his thick-rimmed glasses as if to zoom in on my face. he's keen. keen on me.
i am digging deep into my pockets while emptying out the contents of my life. crumpled train tickets to nowhere, miscellaneous trappings of nomadic years, and a bountiful selection of vague notions towards a life possibly well-lived. daunting are the thoughts of having to go through everything and bring about a tremor up the spine at being reminded of all that has been and everything that never was.
there he stood. alone. red tie neatly pressed against the horizontal lines of azure on his crisply ironed shirt. a camera and flood-lights positioned in front of him. a signal. a clear of the throat. a motion of three fingers. two fingers. red lights.
Sometimes there are little pieces of people strewn about in parts of the city with special memories locked into leather lockboxes. Sometimes people carry heavy things which may wither away; it happens because materialism does not like to follow us to the grave. There are lemon-yellow duffels which hold soft things that young women need to make themselves feel above standard and important. And beautiful. They bring their duffels and their monogrammed Louis and their Balenciaga motorcycle vintage collector's edition filled with subservient objects to help them become objectified. Yet, women object to objectification.
i am an attendant at the affair to which i do not belong. there are rows of chairs draped in pearl-white satin, bound together by sashes of crimson silk bows. i am an attendant here and there is nobody to greet me with a smile. there are perfumed women covered in taffeta and revlon lipstick stumbling in heels that haven't been worn since what's-his-name's little boy's christening. they stumbled then too. there are groups of children getting into trouble, and getting filth all over their faces before the ceremony. synchronized motions of handkerchiefs are whipped out of handbags and pockets to dab and nag at filthy child faces between lapses of dulled small talk about doctor's visits and Marilyn's botched face-lift and Leslie's divorce. Some say her husband was having an affair with his dentist's assistant.
catcher of playthings. return my deflated red ball. my kite ripped down the middle by late-july winds. did you ever find that rowboat, the one i used to float in the tub while pops told stories about fantastical people? catcher of playthings. and the headless doll (twice removed). my dusty xylophone and its blue case. how about the musical carousel horse that died, when the batteries ran out?
tree trunks which bear souls. bare souls. naked soldiers. stripped of a cavity. for bare-naked souls to fly free. fly fast. they hold fast. steady. in bodies, trunks of trees which bear souls. bare souls.
five stars for the man with the gimp leg. three stars for the mistress with the humpback. two stars for the prep with the slightly crooked nose. one star for the poster girl supermodel wannabe from outerspace.
you are the staple. chicken is my staple. open my mouth. because i'm broken. so staple. fix me with something useful. like man made fixer uppers. like staples.
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