partheneos

[partheneos]

i think the definition of nostalgia for me is staring at an old internet friend's profile, relieved because hey, you're still here, and hopelessly wondering what it would be like to say hi, how have you been in this ocean of time? i swear you weren't just an ordinary person, i still think of you whenever i see something you used to like. do you still like it? are you still like you were? and knowing you'll never ask, you've grown apart, and your heart cracks a bit, here; take this piece and carry it with you .

[partheneos]

Actually life is beautiful because the sound I make while trying to breathe around hot food sounds like my dog trying to eat an apple. When I yawn my cat tries to put his face in my mouth like a little dentist man and when he yawns I put my finger in his obligate-carnivore trapzone and we both know he will not hurt me. When I do not fold my clothes, they do not hold it against me.

I am demonstrably sad, and lonely, and full of fear. But there are other people who will hold my hand, who will point out the hawk overhead, who will give you That Look in a public place. The other day at a coffee shop a child said "look! It's snowing!" so all of us strangers went to go look out the windows. It wasn't the first snow and it won't be the last but wasn't it lovely like that?

How wonderful to live in a world where birds and frogs both say beep! How wonderful to have an ocean of beautiful sharks with their dinosaur teeth! How wonderful the moon and her changing face, how wonderful the bees and their dancing to communicate, how wonderful shrimp and their forbidden layers of vision! How wonderful, you, and what you will give the world! The way we love things enough to spend entire blogs devoted to them? How people will let me explain my Pokemon team to them? How we will both jump at the scare in the movie, how we laugh so loudly, how it feels to give someone your baking? How wonderful to be alive. I am sorry for forgetting.

This is the process of getting better. With wonderful people and wonderful strangers and wonderful friends: I am getting better, slowly. Thank you, whoever you are. In some way, you've been wonderful, and left a wonderful place in the world to ripple out to me. In some small way - isn't it beautiful - I promise, you've been helping.

[partheneos]

i know you like her more. i know when you’re lonely you turn over and look for her and not me. i know she’s your safe place, your rock and shield, your good dawn breaking.

but i keep thinking - maybe, maybe.

[partheneos]

i woke up with your smile etched onto my eyelids. your laughter still sounding in the stuffy air of my room, a distant echo i longed to pull closer. your perfume, your freckles, everything came back to mind in frenetic sequences, god i miss you so much.

close your eyes, don't think about her. don't think about the way she rested her head on your shoulder and her whole body searching from comfort pressed into your side, don't think about the time you cut a wild strand of her hair, brushing her nape accidentally, your hand burning red and hot and so sorry because this is the magnitude of what i need to give you and it's consuming me to hold it back.

it's ugly, this kind of feeling, raw and unfiltered and dizzying and i can't breathe properly and you shouldn't look at me like this, you could be horrified by what you'd read on my face. it's so difficult to pull back, to separate, don't tell her don't tell her don't tell her for god's sake.

if this is what love feels like then i'm not sure i want it, the monster in my stomach eats at my insides every single second, hungry for something more you'll never give me. it hurts to be rational, and pains me even more to deny this new, intense truth that's being tattooed under my skin.

please let me go, teach me how to cut this thread, i cannot bind you to me if you don't want to, but i'm weak and i won't tolerate this much longer without breaking every facade of self-control, without falling in front of you and asking to be forgiven.

(please, please forgive me).

[partheneos]

i hope you'll always be my friend, i whispered to the unforgiving stone of my sink. lights off, i didn't want to see right now, just live for a minute in a different drawer of my cluttered mind.

i told myself, this has to be enough. don't ask for more, don't push, don't pull, don't press the matter. i recognized the pull at my stomach, the red burning blazing my face. straight out of a movie, i know you'd say that if i just told you.

i can't tell you and i've been so close endless times, on the brink of falling, just hear me.

i look at you from a distance, a respectable space between us, and i hold my breath when you cross those lines again.

it doesn't matter how much you'll run them over, i'll be on the other side welcoming you into my arms, like friends do. i'm bottled up, don't worry, i won't pop the cork right in your face.

you're my friend. that's enough. please, let it be enough, my mirror mouths.

[partheneos]

i've always been good with threads. i learned to embroider at five, simple, linear stitches. i built a loom the other day. it's not perfect, the warp came out askew, but i made a small piece of fabric. a scarf for a fairy.

i sewed a button fallen off my shirt, kept it close with one hand while the needle followed the path.

i know, i didn't do a perfect job. but please, let me close the wound you carry around. it will stop bleeding, i promise, let me just get some red thread, see, it will be invisible.

my hands do not know this art in vain, let me be of use, let me help you. i can do this. i can stitch this close. it will hurt less, you'll hurt less.

[partheneos]

my arch nemesis cynthia is, of course, at the bank, because we both were sent like clockwork to pick up the checks of our husbands. she is wearing a lovely long green gown, which i know was on behalf of me, because, as my husband will tell you, our house abhors green and glamour. already the tellers look at each other under their little hats, for they love our tirades, i’m sure, although not more than i hate them. 

“oh, is that your knitting?” my arch nemesis cynthia peers her eyes at my hands. “is it some kind of… sock?” everyone knows she and i used to be close before we were married and our husbands, smartly so, have introduced us to the idea of true vengeance.

“it is a scarf,” i say. i want to tell her that when the time comes and the world gets cold it will go over my mouth and i will breathe warm air and it will fill my lungs and i will be able to run around with my love even in the dark night. “it is not,” i say, “over surprising that you should be caught unawares of a scarf,” i say, “as i’m sure enjoying winter festivities are too beneath the handsome qualities your husband prefers.” pompous ass.

the tellers pass each other eyes for now it has started and they are delighted.

my arch nemesis cynthia thrusts out her hand. a white bottle. “rat poison,” she says. “i would expect the whole town knows about your little problem.” stage whisper. “such a shame, my dear.” then she rustles her long green skirts - which i know she wore on behalf of me - and she shimmies herself out of the room like royalty. oh, she floats everywhere she goes, beautiful black hair behind her. the bottle in my palm is cold. i will devise how to get her back starting first thing tomorrow.

the week, as always, is a long week, for there is much to make and do and knit and be. my husband comes home and i love him for who he is; for he never comes home without checking the state of the house up and down. he is the kind who loves his home so completely and sets each room like a stage for a great band to come playing. i am too ashamed to tell him why so many of the rats go missing, only make him a stew the next morning to celebrate. his favorite, although not mine, i’m afraid. plenty left over.

my arch nemesis today - of course - in a green the color of rotting. a bruise is uncarefully covered on her cheekbone, so striking against all of her dainty. her husband would say it was for her ungraceful nature, and i know mine would agree. i strike first, already delighted by my master plan, shoving over our best picnic basket tied with a bow. “i made you and yours a stew,” i say, “for beneath all that you carry” all that horrible wealth of your husband  “it seems you’re getting rather skinny.” i can’t resist one last comment. “i am worried you’re about to waste to nothing.”

She plucks it out of my hand. “yes, if it weren’t for you and your husband’s dwindling wealth,” her sarcasm is biting, “i’m sure i will be nothing in, oh, 5 weeks time.” she arches a brow. “so long from now.”

“i am counting the days,” i tell her. her lips purse. the tellers behind me make a choked titter. perhaps, by their estimation, i have won this round quite completely. i go home to my husband smiling. he asks where i have been and i tell him i’ve been at the bank, but he checks anyway because i like to get up to tricks and he doesn’t like to fall for it. it is a good game we play. at night, when he is asleep, i am so in love that i must convince myself to pull the covers over my nose and practice breathing. how silly to wake him up for a young girl’s feelings. 

the first week of five: she gives me a solid, ugly ring that requires three knuckles to hold. “i feel so badly for your status, and i must remember to practice charity,” she says. “it such a small thing, but do be careful amongst all that thin pine furnishing of your house, which dents so easily.” my husband appears at the bank’s front door. just checking. so lovely to be picked up by him. at night, in a rage, i try it - beneath the table bends easily. i scuff out the scratch with walnut before my husband can see. i pull the covers over my face in bed and breathe.

the second week: i wear her ugly ring and give her more stew, this time hearty with meat. her dress is a meadow. my heart each time it sees her collapses on itself. she hands me clothes for my husband, since his wealth continues to go missing, and the charity of her heart is so loving. i am so ashamed i bury them far by the old tree, where all my shames go hiding. again, the covers. it, by now, helps me sleep. i have gotten so good at it that i can simply shimmy my shoulders to be perfectly toasty and buried.

the third week: she asks how comes my knitting. i tell her it’s nearly complete. she asks how comes my husband, whom she must know has been ill recently, and who is doing quite badly. i go home to him, shaking. even sick he is a good housekeeper, who comes home examining for dust and dinge so i do not fall behind on my chores. who checks to be sure i spoke to only him and no one more, for fear a man might snatch me. tell me, who else has a man so involved, in this day and age?

the fourth week she is envy green. i shove a whole heaping of stew at her, for now her husband has gotten it. i say it will return him to spirits, she laughs, a sudden, beautiful sound, even in the quiet of a bank. everyone stares. maybe it is the stress that is making her quite improper. i feel the same way. so much is happening and it always seems she knows. she says she heard he has left me nothing in the will, which everyone already knows. she says she doubts either of us can dig upwards from the hole we’re both in. i look at the bruise on her nose. i tell her to mind her own husband, and be careful where she goes.

the fifth week: so final. her, garishly lime green. and i in black, to pick up a check that hardly seems the effort. it will be enough to cover my husband’s funeral. she smiles at me and hands me a silver bottle. she says quietly: now that i am destitute, there is one thing for it all, and everyone would understand quite completely. it would be quiet, and quick, and complete.

it is the night of the new moon, so dark no man can see in it. i receive notice her husband has died, and i am sorry to say i find a terrible joy in it. the air has changed cold. i have left a note asking to be buried in my scarf, the last thing i have made on this earth. i go through each perfect room, but there is nothing else to take with me, for the house has always been his and his alone, and now aches to be gone of him. i would not serve as a good tender for it. having spent so many nights watched carefully, the silly girlish freedom i’d gain would surely set the house ablaze.

i follow her instructions. quick, quiet, complete.

the horrible rustling is what does it. like a million green skirts. and then it is dark, and i am in my own coffin, eerie with pine. my head hurts but i must be quick and quiet. they have listened and buried me with my scarf. i shimmy my shoulders just-so and get it over my face. bring my arms up, ugly ring heavy, and begin to hit as hard as i can, over and over, the thin wood of my husband’s favorite furniture, the cretin. it would be pine, of course - he left me no money to be buried in any nicer recourse.

the wood splits so horribly, and then it is very hard to breathe, harder than under the covers, and i have to remind myself to be patient and continue to dig upwards, while my throat closes and my heart beats so loudly and the whole thing is so heavy it is a universe. the shifting of gravedirt is loud, and loud, and i feel i will be turned into a worm, and i fear everyone has forgotten about me, or i have gotten the timing wrong, or i will really die down here in the dirt and the cold

but then her hand, and my hand, and we are both digging towards each other, and she lifts me so easily from the ground like a plucked turnip and holds me against her, us both panting and muddied. we can only stay like this for so long, here in my pauper grave, and then we are both running to the old tree where we met, and unburying a second thing; my lovely box of shame, and men’s clothes, and all of my husband’s dwindling fortune i have slowly been squirrelling away.

my love and angel cynthia, who has black hair like a curtain and a mind so fast i sometimes am in frank awe at it, who is, even now and dirty and raw: even now the only sun in my life.

like this, i a man in an almost-dawn, and us cleaned by the river, and her smiling so widely, and only a faint bruise on her, and our pasts behind us in ugly garish colors. and her delicate hand and beautiful nose and when i finally get to kiss her it feels like green feels; my favorite color, all warm and nature and sunny grace and grass and lying awake so filled with love it makes you shake.

i hold her, and she holds me, and our future is a love like a dream unburied.

[partheneos]

to rain and memories

come with me. keep quiet, you do not want to disturb this merciless time. take my hand, i know the way. let's turn back, dive straight into pearlgrey memories.

it's raining here. don't shy away from it, let the drops soak you, reach your rigid bones. allow the water to ease you down, to melt this sticky tension you've carried for years on your skin. the cold can't touch us here; we're shielded, hidden by fragile rationality.

come nearer: inhale this bittersour air. a lake is not in motion; it's no sea, no rapid stream. it's firm water dusted with rotten leaves, shores dotted with grass islands.

be careful; the mill is still spinning, water still is powerful here. a creek, and a splash, then again. the rhythm is carved there, on dark signs against the wall. could we dance to this mute ballad, each step a new intake of water? would you spin in time with the wheel, fall back into coded moves when it sighs heavily under the weight?

this is not the moment. one last look, we have to go. it's too easy to lose ourselves in this deserted village, there's no anchor, no red thread to lead us. it's just thoughts and our damp clothes. i figured out the way a long time ago.

there, a spot of colour, bright under a somber sky. go ahead; don't talk, i can't hear you. the hard slaps waves produce crashing on the lid are overwhelming, let's just become wordless beings, return to humanity's dawn and the inarticulate noises we couldn't call words yet. primordial instincts still live between our heart and stomach; call to them, claim your origins.

it's blinding, this sudden outburst of details, i feel it too. shift your focus, look better. there, don't you see them? hundreds of shiny locks secured to a rusted gate. water used to flow here, you know. men directed the course elsewhere, but memories still remain.

over each one of those locks there are names, local and foreign, carved with a blade or scribbled in blue pen. abbreviations, nicknames; there too. i raised a trembling hand, when i came here. now, we aren't more solid than this lightrush wind, we're smoke raising above a chimney. reach out with the last strands of your mind, make of them a weightless wrist.

turn over the metal, what do you see?

between names, a constant thread of love, looped around dates and numbers. it's a resilient fabric, it won't break easily.

these were wishes, did you guess? you can feel laughter, endless instants and lovestruck sentences. did they ever come true? is it possible, to preserve love with a silly superstition?

we're dripping rain from shapeless bodies, lost in labyrinths of complex thoughts. we're so far from reality, maybe some form of plain magic is allowed here. can you then hear the prayers whispered, thin sounds ringing in this heavy air?

don't forget me. don't leave me, love. we'll always be together. i promise you we'll find a way to love openly. please, don't let me forget them. please, make so that we'll be able to marry next fall.

close your eyes. just for a moment, let the breeze lower your eyelids. see, this is all i've got. this love fasted around an old gate, names of faceless beings. do you have answers to my unspoken questions?

love is rooted so deeply in our kind, and yet we can't understand it. we can't break it down into smaller elements, analyse fragments of quickened heartbeats under a microscope. how could i get near to this redhot fire without being burned to ashes?

no, don't get closer. hold still. if i'm not careful, i'll bring you inside the storm flaring up inside me. if this is not reality, let me dream for a moment, let me live in my gray-shaded mind, here, on a rainwet shore with a screeching mill.

it's time. i'll take you home. go ahead, you don't need my guide anymore. look forward, over the lake, beyond the rain of my tears.

there's your life. i'll stay behind.