The Space You Left Behind

"No Accidents Permitted."

 

The tin sign in my mother's guest bathroom still cracked me up whenever I read it. But I was long gone well before then; I laughed at everything those dark days.

"Your dinner is at the grocery store," I read the sign on the mirror which sealed my agonizing fate: I was probably going to starve to death. I tore the note down and flushed it down the toilet. I giggled and remembered how this was going to be the summer of my liberation, reinvigoration, inspiration... and god dammit! I was going to make a big deal out of it.

Of course I did not know how I would execute this fluffy goal. I used my new dance technique and waltzed the hallway pretty well all the marble floor was covered with my shoes and ended up I the kitchen. I grasped a butter knife and imagined myself cutting an onion loaf, then gasping as I cut the bread while it shrieked in agony. I said softly and condescendingly, "Bread. You are food and you shalt not scream," to which the poor loaf replied, "Take the margarine! It isn't even real butter!" I roared madly and swayed over the cutting board dizzily contemplating my state of mind.

Man, do I need a plan.

I need a plot: A sketch, a motive, an order; a lot of rich ideas in a conscious and chronological structure to guide my inattentive idleness in a clear direction.

I tossed the fake loaf into the trash and headed out the side door for a morning stroll through the swampy, wealthy, expensive, gated neighborhood. I headed east with my pocket compass functioning - I tended to get lost with or without it - but I had it so that this way I had something to blame for my directional mishap, should the case come up.

The deep south had a strict manner of informing and reminding one how unnatural the great outdoors were when one found oneself outside in the thick of it. I sweat like the born northerner who I was while the bugs of impossible shapes and sizes collided with each other in midair trying to bite, sting, kill and who knows what else they had on their dirty little cell-sized minds when they hissed and spit at me. From the moment I had shut my mother's screen door to when my new Converse touched the asphalt of the sidewalk, the waves of buzzing tore at my eardrums. The nagging lack of stability and my unusual equilibrium was a growing concern for me as I grew older and less balanced, but today's disconnection I encountered in the southern heat was all too much for me - every time I staggered towards it.

Centuries later I was at the end of the driveway, I wiped the sweat off my brow with the back of my forearm and gazed at my mother's house reconsidering my walk and other life decisions that only I could remember. Instead of going on or turning back, I stretched my arms in front of me my hands facing outward in front of my chest and I fell straightforward, down into the thick swampgrass of the lawn - a move of nonstrategic condemnation - where I expected nothing else but my mind to take inventory of my intentions.

The weather inside was as bad as it was outside. I found the last of the coffee and set a pot on the stove to brew. I could hear the wind in the windows seeping into the living room and I sat in the old oak rocking chair and waited.

 

I raised my tired eyes to my dangling bangs. Mom told me to get a hair cut before the funeral but the consequences never crossed my mind. The mirror was behind me, so I stood up and watched myself carefully. I used to trust mirrors until I saw other people’s reflections in them. Everyone trusts that the mirror reflects the image one sees, but not me – not anymore. Episodes of false intent made my heart pulse sickeningly and reminders of the images long gone were not to be tangled.

How can you validate/verify/trust your existence?

 

First of all, you must admit that you are going mad. Loco. Insane in the membrane. You must shatter that mirror, stomp on your shadow, suck helium from an innocent child’s birthday balloon, where your bra or underwear outside of your clothes, drive your truck from the backseat, eat bugs, smile all the time even though your face hurts and your friends have written you off, read the paper upside down, chant in squeaky one-syllable throaty grunts, declare your royalty to your friends and enemies – you can probably conjure many more extreme monsters than you want to think about.

 

Shall I stop here?

 

Naw.

 

Part I

 

Consider this story.

(Remember – if you are trying to find yourself, don’t do it here.)

 

Something was missing.

 

I untangled the telephone cord from my arm and I watched the distorted reflection of myself in the glass of the China cabinet; my eyes glazed over and my lips curled dryly against my teeth, possibly as an expression of suspicious hesitation. I glared at the mouthpiece of the phone and realized I was nodding my head as if I might be acknowledging the end of all calls – forever and ever, amen. Blinking hard, deliberately, and knowing my lack of focus would be nonexistent if I had slept longer – or gone to bed earlier – or could decide if I was a night person or a morning person – or neither, I instantly changed my mind again. I would never make another clear decision as long as I should live. That was a stupid decision, you are thinking, for a person who, only a few words ago, declared she would never make another decision. Pensive and perplexed, I knew something was missing.

 

My mom told me that my writing often started with the pronoun “I” and I considered this her way of telling me that I was a narcissist. But I am not.

 

PAUSE

 

I may be a narcissist but at least I am writing in first person. Pronouns are nouns of perspective. They also help one to not repeat the nouns they represent. AND writing in second or third person would be ….. nevermind. Wendy is not finished here. Pronouns versus antinouns.

 

PAUSE

 

Back to my anti-story.

 

Something was missing. I slid away from my claustrophobic non-reaction and I started all over again.

 

Do you remember the day you finally called me back and forgot to tell me how you finally remembered why you forgot the reasons which caused you to forget to call me earlier?

 

I don’t recall reminding you to rehash your reasons. You were too much to take and I wouldn’t take much more than you had to give because I am forever broken with inhibition. You are too much for me to absorb and too much to take and how much I wouldn’t take than a few more of your giving me that much more passion of the lack of what I didn’t miss in on the out.

 

This ain’t no story. This ain’t no goddamn coffee house. This ain’t you and it ain’t me.

 

Part II

 

This is not your favorite summer. The smile of the patio furniture and the unbending smirk of the tattered lawn chair reminds you of the birth of your words, echoed in silence and magnified by the PTSD you will never recover from because your mind reminds you of how close pre-traumatic stress is blazing through the drawn curtains of your shaken heart and jittery pulses of neuotic blood pumps normally but your synapses won’t let you interfere. But you paid a lot of soul cash for these moments – you wouldn’t change a thing anyway (would you? could you?); your life is about to begin – any second now – you can feel it…

 

The air suspiciously reeks of cherry wheat ale and fresh factory plastic; winter is far away and so are you. Like every sunrise you slept through. Like each bad habit you enjoyed. Like me.

 

The time arrived again. You vill sit and you vill enjoy it.

 

You will mind your manners just like I told you.

 

You can’t seem to get out of your head, even though we told you, “There’s nothing to worry about.” Or when we said, “Relax, just calm down.” Or your favorite, “Don’t worry. You worry to much. You need to stop that.”

 

You wonder why you didn’t tell them the truth. Your truth is that this is not your favorite summer. You aren’t worried about anything and no one gets it because they are not aware that their wise words will change you. If one more person tells you that you’ve got to stop worrying, you may not be able to explain to them why because they are ignorant and self-righteous – they are not not not trying to help you – they are saying those words that make you want to die because you are anxious and you live with it every day and every moment you pray to be calm (even for ONE day), but you nod and hope you will die because you can’t survive surrounded by fear. “Don’t worry,” and you say in return, “OH! I will stop worrying right now! Good idea, fcuk-face! I forgot that I could just turn off chronic anxiety disorder! Silly me!” Of course, then your heart would palputate terminally. That will teach those calm assholes.

 

Part III

 

Your friends didn’t call, text, email, didn’t leave you a message in a bottle, didn’t meet you by the rocky beach. Seismic waves.

 

No smoke came from the chimney.

 

This is not your perfect weather. Please hold your breath as the thermal nuclear radiator opens its doors.

 

Um. It really depends on whether there is a change in the weather. Take a seat. You are brilliant, except today. Today your brilliance has been replaced by radiance.

 

Every word (sound) is a vibration, every vibration controls and sustains the universe.

 

Below has nothing to do with the unfinished entry above.

 

Readers: The article/sales pitch below is __________ and more infuriating than _________ and this dude must be __________ and ____________. Please read it and send me your reactions/responses. I found this site to be as hilarious as it is insulting to semi-educated people everywhere.

 

Unless it works. If so let me know and burn me a copy. Hehehehe.

 

Good night, moon….

Spare Some Change?

 

Changing the first thing you want to say to the world is never easy; it's not impossible and it is inevitable - if you never try to change anything you want to say anyway, and you never change, do you?

 

I can't believe my eyes can roll so far back into my head that it hurts. And yes, it IS because I am drunk. But not that drunk to write more.

 

Go on and ask me to forgive you while I am surrounded by my own helpless survival. Facebook has room for all of us though, eh?

 

What do you need from me? I forgot to answer the question because the words are wrapped around my spine and were thumping on my temples.

 

What do you need from me? Here's a little lesson that I pray no one of my friends has to learn.

 

Break down the reasons which you think that you need reasons from me for: then ask me again. I will be as pure as the driven blows you proudly pounded upon me for reasons for reasons for reasons. I am never going to forget your reasons but I will tell you now that I forgive you if only for myself, because I want everyone to be happy and move on. I won't ever forget you. I won't ever regret you. I won't ever forget to remind myself that I am my past and my collection of experiences makes me the charming alarming rock star scholar who I am, and you are a part of that. But I wish you hadn't broken my heart into one million billion pieces.

 

What did you think I would say to you? Did you think I would say no? At worst, I may not answer you - not because I don't forgive you, but because I don't know how to explain that you should have broken someone else's heart and I can't recollect the stars for you nor am I able to give you the peace of mind that you seek.

 

If you steal and break and commit crimes against a person, you can't come back. But you did. But you and I know that my friends forgot what happened to me back then, and you don't know how long it took me to make them trust me again.

 

I forgive you anyway.

 

I forgive you because I am not the person you are asking to forgive you for your wicked games and safe return to humanity. You know what you did to me. I know what I did to you. I let it go.

 

I let it go and then you brought it right on back.

 

Changing the first thing you want to say to the world is never easy; it's not difficult either - if you never try to change anything you want to say anyway, and you never change, do you?

 

Here is a lesson I have been hoping to learn.

 

I rehearsed for years before you let me audition. I wrote words for myself until I told you I was writing. I want to start over. Maybe get a new job in a new town; maybe the short side of the stick will be the method I take to find the path and I will be on my way.

 

Maybe everything I don't like and all the wrong I see along the street each day will vanish and anything I say will be the right words and I won't have to rehearse and all of this will be okay.

 

My little spell on you that I cast was just a fraction of the world and a decimal point farther than the grammatical issues you all are facing every single day. Don't be shy; I have the resources and won't think at all about explaining the correct way - for sure I will ask you something about a problem I can't solve someday.

 

I have to be grateful for those who have destroyed me as much as I am grateful for those who have mended me.

 

Your name is still as uncomfortable as my recovery rendered me - as lost as I was - I lost myself because you happened to me. No way, man. I forgive you. But I never got a chance to say Fcuk You. 

 

Here's a little lesson I never wanted to learn.

 

 

* Random quote from the heart:

"Drink up and be somebody!" - Denver Joe

 

"Can't you see that I am in peril?" I knew all eyes were upon me; expected that my nerves would cool and I would totally break this recognizable yet unusual entanglement and I cursed under my breath, but that action tickled my throat to no mercy. I got the hysterical giggles at our Lucky Strikes show in the middle of "Stars Go Blue" which is a hilarious song to begin with.

 

Everyone should enforce good manners.

Everyone but you.

Anyone but me.

 

Back to the story.

 

Sometimes its the story starts right smack dab in the middle.

 

This is where I would like to begin. So yes, that is agony without the delightful hope which is sometimes a denotational intentional noun - intangible. I am on Mark's laptop and I am unemployed but that is just twice this month... I feel shame. Peril. No hope. Happy to be alive and scared to the living end to be alive. Keep in mind, I can't control my head's little mental _____ but I sure as hell am feeling that this is no time for me to think, my love. I have to be a player and I am not savvy to advice but I suggest that a sound judgement of me that would be adorable to boucily resonate around my head while I pace about and my stupid stuborn brain is thinking that maybe my bad luck - MAYBE - "How am I living?"

Now I am having a Class C panic attack.

I have to do what I have to do

Because it is what it is and

I can only do what I can do

and

If the universe ....

 

NOT EVERYTHING is PARALLEL!!!

 

Not on my time. No way.

 

No one deserves the right to make you feel like a bad person.