A Mind, Lively and at Ease

     I would like to archive my memories. It would be the opposite of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. See, I’ve always had trouble picturing the past. I only know that this will become detrimentally worse. My emotions erode each memory I conjure. My mind is a painting in the Louvre that people take flash photography of, despite the numerous signs and security guards. Each time that a memory is refurbished, a little more is left to the imagination. I hope that you experience the same, because maybe then the erosion of winds and water will illuminate a new perspective for you.

     The memory of you became filmy, deteriorating slowly. Sometimes, it comes together perfectly without provocation. I savor those moments when your surprised, maybe even shocked, expression is fully captured. No, I cannot remember that moment exactly at will, but I can easily derive the whirling, sudden downpour of love that shattered my memories. Ever since, the past filters softly in the back of my conscious. I wish I could pull that memory back to see through my emotions to the truth. Logic needs data. Logic needs archives of facts. I don’t appreciate numbers, but when it comes to you I wish I had a whole matrix to study. Instead, I wade through feelings and inclinations. All I find is a filmy, almost opaque, veil to cover your eyes, nose, and mouth. 

     Facing the stinking mouth of the lion they call rejection, I wrote a letter to a politician. It never seemed a question whether the letter itself lends genius, but still I pressed my family for critique and answers. I’ve been staring at that lion for so long, that the door seems so distant and ill-proportioned. It became smaller and smaller as I peered at the breathing nostrils. Each breath the lion takes, I hold mine back. Each breath the lion takes, it sucks air in preparation for a lunge and swipe.

     What if I lunge first? What if I jump that distance and the concrete that absorbs my leaky emotions? No. I mustn’t scrape my knees. What if I break a leg? What if I break my heart?

     The lion yawned, gaping and wafts of stale breath diffused toward my delicate nose. Still, he stares as I focus on his yellow canines layered in plaque. The lion, they call him majestic, licks saliva over his gross lips. His intentions broadcasting through his tense muscles and brawny figure. Though laying on the ground, as if bored or complacent, his reflexes could easily carry him far quicker than my poor, weak and white legs.

     The lion snorted, only three feet in front of me. He seemed contemptuous in his half-lidded glassy over-sized feline eyes. Did I miss something? I can’t remember whether the lion was here earlier, or whether it had been here the whole time. When did I first fear rejection?

     The little boy, with his muddy old tennis shoes, yelled over the heads in my second grade classroom, “LOUD MOUTH!”

     He called me every day for a couple of weeks. Each night, our thirty minute conversation filled with nothings about our days ended him telling me, “I love you.”

     “Yeah… okay. Talk to you tomorrow…” I replied every night, so hesitant to say something I didn’t understand, let alone know. I told my parents about it, and they laughed. So, from then on I just found it funny.

     “Loud mouth! I don’t like that loud mouth over there.” I think he was pointing at me. I looked back in astonishment. What had I done to him? Why was he so cruel? I probably stood up, and told him it’s over.

     The next day my best friend starting dating him, in second grade. That lion, it began to stalk me, circle me, in second grade. Now, I barely let classmates read my essays, unless they’ve been revised with obsession and compulsion. The lion sleeps under my bed at night, waiting for me to rise. He tears the backseat of my Camry on the way to school in sync with the rhythms of my radio. I’ve given into staring blankly at the wide bridge of his nose. He has the powers of a snake charmer.

     Yet again, he yawns—bored with my insight. He’s bored with potential energy. He fails to be entertained by me anymore. He has become forgotten, but not in motive. A lion becomes acknowledged in its obvious nature and large person. I found myself only a foot in front of fangs and claws. As he yawns a third time, I jump into his mouth. I expect death, but instead, find the escape route.

      I mailed a letter to a politician today, from the inside of a lion’s mouth—rejection, be damned.

     On Sunday mornings, she went to the cathedral. That doesn’t sound necessarily important or interesting in any way. Most of our parents combed back our hair, putting fancy little frocks on our chubby little torsos on sunny Sundays through our childhood. We would fidget and squirm on the pews, turning to face the people behind us to stare into the eyes of strangers. You could spend the whole hour or more studying the people around you. Masses can be so automatic unless are aware of your need for discipline, for dedication to an unknown.

     She was a woman with meaning in her life. She spent all morning on Sundays walking to the cathedral. Those whom needed to repent joined her journey every morning. They were special cases of wrong morals that needed someone greater to forgive them, because they cannot possibly forgive themselves. They walk up to the altar, smoothing their hair and collar, with solemnity. They cannot, and will not, enjoy the service. They attend like kids showing up for detention, disparity on their brows and impatience for the sweet chorus—calling for more, more repentance.

     Some people use church as a way of community, but at this cathedral brotherhood hardly exists. Followers, people that consider every unknown as absolute, hold prejudice against the penitent. How could a gathering with a placed hierarchy truly create a community and not a society? With the pews contorting your backs and the surrounding gravity of repenters and triumph of followers, you can hardly expect a friendly greeting.

     She shook hands outside the church every morning, grabbing palm to palm with embrace.

     “Good morning!” She smiled!

     “Good morning!” Her face lit with happiness. They murmured replies, with an embarrassed turn of the head. They couldn’t avoid her, how her hand outstretched so near you, like the supporting cables of suspension bridges. She was happy. She led a great life. She accepted the mystery of religion and its ever widening gap and repetition of “Why?” She saw the temporary earth and sun and sky. She saw good in all, silly, wonderful woman. She looked everyone in the eyes with the love of humanity and nature. She acknowledged the life of all and the combination of wholes and parts of the universe that cross unbounded and connected. 

Did I give it away?

   Sweet teasing, letting all exhale

into a hint.

     It makes waffles

and you would expect a waffle-

   maker…

are you content with reality?

Questions and questions,

     motives, methods

forever persisting invincible mystery.

     Clues, I can winkle out.

     Lies, I can perceive,

though your thoughts subsist

  without my curiosity overturning

a rock,

     prying off the fingers holding

them,

     without my clear-headed

assumptions.

««»»

Perhaps you elude my prodes and

     wandering scans

because you do not see what is in

   front of you, as I do,

but see what I see in front of

   me.

We are tumblers, clicking into place.

   Our fingers clasp, each a print

     into the other print,

each a corresponding piece,

     I admit.

     I found myself in a hat shop, looking through the beaver coats and stiff brims to find the perfect accessory for my large head. I buy one every week, adding and adding to my mint-condition collection. I feel it in my bones, an urge. I’m solving the mystery of seams and glue to discover why I am the way I am. The rack, a lifeless rack of empty heads that hold up their floating hats, mesmerized me with the dizzy intricacy of Escher. Each has a place to sit, a place to rest in the crowd. I figured a hat could hold me up against gravity. There are marionette strings attached to their tops, forcing life in my wooden body. I saw a society of hats and their positions, and their roles. We walk carrying briefcases filled with dried pulp and dark, shiny ink. We shuffle and bustle and scruff up to the doorsteps of philosophy. Do the hats bleed of mercury? Do we keep the hats to keep our heads? I refuse to wear them. That would ruin the beauty. That would ruin my adoration for studying their curves and lines.

     One sick summer day that oozed with the heat of hell, I dropped a hat. It seemed to be snatched from my head by the air, taken suddenly and without warning. I was struck and standing. It turned and flipped as the horse hooves beat their anger into it’s form. The carriage tossed it like lettuce for a salad, and I just couldn’t do anything but watch the tatters become confetti dusting the ground. My happiness washed away as if I had fallen into a puddle and could not reach the rough edges to pull myself up. I empathized with humpty dumpty. I felt as round as his white face and as broken as his shell.

     Luckily, I remembered the material of hats. I took the pennies that strangers offered as I sat on the coarse corner of building meeting ground. I would use them to buy my various hats in multitudes of colors and finishes. Without a hat, without it’s constriction and looming derision, the warm pink hazy sky appeared above. I never wear hats anymore.

It’s my birthday tumblr!

     So yeah, I still have no excuse for not posting. Basically, I don’t want to force myself to write when I’m not inspired or just plain BUSY (sociology, I will kill you). I have a lot written down, but I’ve just been too lazy to post it. I’m not very good at posting directly onto tumblr. Really, I like writing with nice pens in my journal—something to do with being able to flip the pages and come back to work on something. I may delve into the archive and find something to share. Anyway, I’m being reallllly lazy on my birthday!

     I’ll be back soon, I promise!

Hope you guys are having an awesome April. My car has had a nice bath of pollen in the last couple of days. I’m pretty sure I’ve swallowed a few gallons of pollen air particles. Yum.