the things you say
part 7
Some weeks have gone by. There has been silence. No sound in
this small world of you and I. I have lain head upon the grey white of this
unwashed pillow and considered the uneven surface of the flat white ceiling. I
have located its flaws. They are many.
It has been monumental, that task, lifting my head. I strain
my ears until they want to bleed in the listening for a whisper a movement from
you. There is nothing. Just the stillness of air unruffled by hope or
possibility. Just the bland scent of
nothing but tedium, the inner walls of standard cardboard boxes, the hard to
fathom colour, the jolt of disappointment, empty, uniform, recognised
nothingness. Not even a twinge of leaf mould to make the heart move faster, no
concrete, no acrid heat on dirt. No scent of rat.
This then is where I find myself. Lying in a pit. Mattress
shaped below me. Pillow damp with the uncontained dribble, spilling from the
corner of this hanging mouth, slipping, sliding slowly across my cheek to pool
on the cotton beneath me, to moisten then dry, moisten then dry, layers upon
layers. I am looking, eyes open, but the
looking is inward. What is this? What is it? I have heard the things you say. I
know them. I hear them, I read them. I am quieted by the tangible mutual desire
we feel when nearby. i sense you as you sense me. We talk across crowds with
words said to all and speak to each other. We do. I do not think it. I know it.
In our presence the world becomes clearer. There is hysteria. There is
laughter. There is intimacy. A blurt of
telling, a burst of excitement, stilted in shyness, in distance, in recognising
and maintaining the required space between us. It ends too soon. And when there
is no formal reason to come together we are held, like this, apart. There can
be no step forward, not from you. You are not allowed to say, cannot say,
there, under such scrutiny. I can, I can say for I am freer, but I, i am
afraid. The fear of this, my imagination.
In this place, this state, this pit, where I know all the
things no one wants to, I catch a gust of you. A net cast wide, my net cast so
wide, happy to snare an imagining. Come and find me, you say. Come and look. I am
not even sure if the words are yours, are meant for me. They are so wrapped in
formality. But it becomes enough to bring me back to the world of chance, of
hope, of some small offering of possibility. I know the distance is vast, untraveled,
uneven. I will take hold of your words and make them mine, stitch them into my
hem, hidden in weight and fabric. I will keep extending this hand and soon I think
you may see it, hope you may catch hold of a fingertip, a palm, a wrist and
know that it is solid.
