DAILY SCHEDULE WHEN I HAVE LOVE ON A LEASH

nameless leash of the past II

my most common thought when in the throes of despondency is “i want to go home.” it’s my easiest excuse, to think that everything would be fixed if i could just go back. but where would i live then?

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mostly a writing exercise. i’m trying to show my process more & allow myself my riddles, not to mention all the meandering i do.

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05:15: dawn grazes its knuckles against the windows and none of them crack. i’ll be on my feet now, flicking my toes up and down the floor, sleep making my hands slippery over my school shirt. the buttons phasing in and out of my fingers. 

05:32: we leave the house half-forgetting what doesn’t ask to be remembered. the shrinking snark of brandy in the distance, the keys hanging from the lock; my sister running up the stairs to retrieve them, the tinfoil in my lunchbox. 

07:18: we twitch in our sleep and when the songbirds start flitting around the yard, we press our ears to the mattress, 

08:41: the way we’d press our ears to the desk in the lazy hours of class, impossible water rushing underneath. 

09:12: when the teacher announces noon mass, excitement slithers through the room in ripples. the chalk on boards, the squeak of the floors, even the terrified loop of the numbers seem to fade into pleased static. 

10:15: we prepare for an approximation of breakfast. i’ve learned to tie my mom’s mystery knots in grocery bags, produce bags, all sorts of openings that wouldn’t close without the appeasement of her hands. 

11:02: her wedding band, the mole on her palm. it seems strange to forget how they once winked and glistened from a shelf in my head, within reach. these days, it’s not until i see them up close, replace her hands in the sink, brush paint on her nails, that the shelf tumbles forward. 

12:22: the cathedral always makes a good dollhouse, busy sessions of life lived in the artifice of prayer and chant. all players speak the same script, perform the same gestures, contemplate the same fantasy. 

12:24: the supper is my favorite part. i close my eyes and kneel at the table of sacrifice with the rest of my dolls, a picture of stillness feeding faith. 

12:27: i like to think of that imaginary meal as nothing more than a meal, unseen but inconceivable, transcending rendition. like Jesus Himself sits among us, too distilled and punctured and well and truly dead to speak of betrayal. eyes closed, without asking. that ancient backlog of shame letting loose on the pews. 

13:05: the sun seems so real i almost remember it. 

13:20: at my computer. i once used to separate the incident of the web from the incident of my possessing but i find i don’t own much of anything anymore. the computer is not a room of the house; i am but a room of the computer. forecast says snow and i’m not sure if it’s on tv or outside. 

14:09: the treetops bend like saws and my shirt sticks to my back. for a second, we’re suspended in the space between the tv and the room, which doesn’t exist, the same place sound goes when it can’t escape the speakers but can’t burrow into the curve of a pair of headphones. 

15:04: nothing asks to be remembered. if anything, the very act betrays our asking.

16:44: when i have my headphones in, i start hearing above the music—harmonies turned whispers, riffs turned knocks, percussion turned footsteps. when i wash the dishes, i must angle my body toward the entry archway, lest the silence forget its place. 

17:20 pareidolia is best defined as a craving for perception. i splay my hands flat against my journals and don’t read a single one. 

19:00: this supper is different, if only because the configurations of flesh have depth, feel, come away with grease. it doesn’t smell like incense. my mom cooks and sings and when we sit at her table our lips bow into varying degrees of salvation. 

19:14: the moon is a well-assembled puzzle, indulgent, smitten, almost a stranger. 

20:17: the sound of hurt invites itself in around this time, muffled under the door, the way cold wind or mosquitoes would. at first i think it’s that second voice, but this one most certainly starts inside a mouth, playing telephone with plastic cups to host dislocated messages from strangers. 

22:31: the future is as promised, somewhat—mystifying and laminated in delightful color. but only if you’re craning your neck in the right angles. 

23:25: it’s a graceful fiction, if a bit obscene. equal parts alluring and devastating. the conviction of sound when everything is quiet.
 
23:45: i make plans for tomorrow, haphazardly, waiting for time to shiver holes in its patch of fabric and drop us where we belong. 

00:00: sleep is a sentiment, a wish-you-well, a bouquet of lovely pauses where you can hear your breath. the shy breeze knocks against windows dawn hasn’t been able to crack. 

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