At the point where my ribs meet, there is a triangular stone weighing down on me. The stone is searing on the inside, but dull, pock-marked, gray, almost forgettable on the outside.
Its size is always perfect: it fits in the palm of my hand, radiating blunt heat. If I hold it to my face, it covers my whole mouth. It fits so perfectly, no human being can roll it away to let all the ghosts out. If I held it over my head, its shadow might drown me out, the only sound a low electrical buzz.
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I open my eyes and I'm ankle-deep in brown mud the consistency of puppy shit. It's night, Summer a long time ago. In Antioch, down the hill from where I used to live: three or four hundred yards nearer to the graveyard.
The graveyard. Just over the low rolling hill from here, all the recently dead filed in drawers. Drawers with decorated façades: gold accents and glossy black and white portraits and old plastic flowers devoid of pigment. There are no handles on these drawers.
The electrical buzz flares. Its waveform seems to escalate. Overhead, the heavy gray wires lightning bolting back and forth enough electricity to kill us all. Metal ropes draping between three-quarter scale Eiffel Towers. And the crickets, continually.
The graveyard. Just over the low rolling hill from here, all the recently dead filed in drawers. Drawers with decorated façades: gold accents and glossy black and white portraits and old plastic flowers devoid of pigment. There are no handles on these drawers.
The electrical buzz flares. Its waveform seems to escalate. Overhead, the heavy gray wires lightning bolting back and forth enough electricity to kill us all. Metal ropes draping between three-quarter scale Eiffel Towers. And the crickets, continually.
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The triangular stone presses harder on my stomach; it's been there for as long as I can remember. Sometimes thinner and lighter, almost luminous. Most times just heavy, vague and tepid.
At night, when the wind shakes the thin glass in the windowframe, I breathe deeply and imagine my body dissipating. Becoming more of a ghost image; losing all its density and cohesiveness. Then actually hovering four or five feet over my bed.
I wish I could open my eyes and look down. See the stone below me, forcing its weight into the mattress. I exhale so slowly, knowing weightlessness more and more, floating out through the roof and toward the cold stars.
I let the wind wrap my feet in mist. I close the circle, drift away, like a childless balloon. Passing the wires, forgetting the moon.
At night, when the wind shakes the thin glass in the windowframe, I breathe deeply and imagine my body dissipating. Becoming more of a ghost image; losing all its density and cohesiveness. Then actually hovering four or five feet over my bed.
I wish I could open my eyes and look down. See the stone below me, forcing its weight into the mattress. I exhale so slowly, knowing weightlessness more and more, floating out through the roof and toward the cold stars.
I let the wind wrap my feet in mist. I close the circle, drift away, like a childless balloon. Passing the wires, forgetting the moon.
I really like that one especially the couplet at the end. Yeah If I close my eyes I can still hear the those wires that frightened and comforted me so many times. As for the graveyard, it has a whole different meaning for me now than it did then. How ironic to know that somone I loved would end up in one of the drawers that I always thought were weird and strangely "cool". No matter, Antioch will always be who I was and and the place that shaped my views for the years following.
ReplyDeleteAs the piece demonstrates, I'm with you, Shaney. Thanks for the great comments.
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