In seven years our bodies are completely renewed. Seven years and not a part of me will be a part of what was once you. Except I wonder if somehow we all crawl into one another’s skin, if we burrow ourselves down and hunker in some niche unknown. I wonder if we curl up there in the tiny shadowed corners of some intangible place. Maybe we unfurl in cycles as endless as time, sort of like wings from larva, like petals from buds. I wonder if that is how it all works.
And I do not mean things do not change, that folks do not move on. We all do. We all move away from and toward, past the present and into the future. Clocks rattle on knowing only one direction: due north. And no matter the power of vortex, the torque of revolutions, the only thing that does not change is that I am still me.
Somehow part of me settled into the carpet, sifted through to the joy of whatever life once lived above this floor, and I know I will never get all of me out of this place. But I am not sad to leave. Too many bad memories crept into the carpet with me. I realize some things are better left to stretch into the baseboards and fold onto themselves as I turn to leave.
But I do not think I ever throw anything away. That does not speak to me. I am built for holding memories, for taking tiny pieces of things with me.
And my hands are so dry, not a nerve within them telling me I should be afraid. This is forward motion in my own nonlinear plane.
A Pascal line with six vertices, that is something like now. It does not matter that the vacuum cleaner hummed last night and built streaks across the floor. Hexagons sliced and diced till the intersections made straight lines. But that is not me speaking to Pascal; it is me speaking to me. I tried all I could to pull me from this place, but the vortex was not enough to expand, separate or erase.
Despite the clock hands moving only one direction, I know there is no such thing as nonexistence. There is no way to have or possess something like an anti-life. Like love turned hate, it can only be inverted. So, I will always be here. Part of me will always walk down this hall by way of dead skin cells crushed into the foam beneath the carpet. I am okay with that.
And due north whispered into my ear last night with her breath sweet on my neck. All she said was, “I have been waiting here all along. I was wondering what was taking you so long.”
(January 29, 2008)
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