(no subject)
I. (of II.)
i made an effort to transplant a wandering heart into a contemporary set. The matte white walls borrowed the suffocating uncertainty from a general practitioner's ward; the compartmentalized glass stretched down from the planes of ceiling like limbless bodies, enclosing our heartbeats, and tempting our wanton desire to depart more cruelly than an open door.
One morning, i charged the window. It was like charging air. i fell violently forward, surprised at the ease of trading one set of coordinates for the next. Instinctively, i trained my eyes to the space i had once grown fearfully attached to, and had in return, unconditionally nurtured a professional stoicism. i waved frantically to the companions i had left within. They set their blank expressions to my excitement, posed like painted porcelain tea things in the department store displays, functional and functionless in being. The glass had always been insensitive - presenting the endless possibilities, and preventing us from realizing our potential. There was romance in our unsent letters, obscurity in distances, freedom in imagination. How we would pirouette from one station to the next! (How we forgot the hearts that lingered at each stop, the ones who kept our names alive in suffering, and the ones who continue to wait for our return.)
The window was a construct isolating its masses of restless bodies from unadulterated liberties, and absolute responsibility. Now, having distinguished myself as an autonomous unit, i felt a refreshing clarity in the senses, and a peculiar, heightened sharpness from within the cage of my chest.
November 2004.
II.
The snow was knee deep. There wasn't any way to tell where the hill started or ended, whether the trees themselves were rooted into the ground, or gave the deceptive impression of stability; for perhaps they were merely floating above buried civilizations and were only held in place by the ephemeral signature of the winter months. If i didn't take care, the entire forest would fall asleep in an instant.
The dull sensations of frozen fingers and ghost feet synchronized to a faltering heartbeat. The only thing keeping me from madness was this certainty that you had already gone away. But suddenly, i wasn't so sure and it consumed every movement, with one thought weighed against the next, on and on so tirelessly.
There he was, asleep on a low branch, some distance away. i prayed that the snow would not give me up. Closer and closer, , with arms outstretched.
i hugged the owl close with everything i had kept inside, every uncertain thought, small deaths and sleepless nights. he was so warm, but already i could sense the inherent fear of familiarity rise. he let out a scream and his wings gained the strength to level and disarm me. Away he flew, and there i lay in the snow, a fever clearing the way for spring, with the tall pines crashing all around. & still i held out hope that he'd return.
March 2006.