5:33 a.m. - 2005-07-11
Digging in the Dirt Rant
And now, back to our story ... following a short hiatus (AKA complete meltdown) ...
The day Rick left, the walls mocked me. Staring blankly, ecru flesh ripped with nails. Tape hanging useless. The emptiness so tangible, mirror of my bleak heart. Everywhere I looked, his absence shrieked in derision. I tracked the cracks in the ceiling like a child in my lonely crib. Scared of the dark. Exposed in the light. Face contorted with grief. Mouth filling the empty air with animal moans. I couldn't imagine searching out wicker from underneath piles of shoes to repopulate my world. It was now a sham. Knick knacks of despair. Rick rented an apartment just across from mine. With his new friend. To slap me afresh each morning. I would see Rick leaving for the theater. In his freshly ironed dress shirts. With his frozen smirk. Worse, his friend would wave at me. Tell me how tired he was, alluding to fevered nights in Rick's embrace. Stumble into the laundry room with a pile of Rick, carelessly stuffing the clothes I had cared for into the machine. Fumbling for quarters. Asking me. My shame was primal. Tendrils stretching back before time as I knew it. Back to the little girl digging in the damp ground. Making castles from frozen orange juice cans. Watching the upstairs window now and again for confirmation of her existence. Seeing her mother's silhouette, she continued to rule her tiny world. Earthworms and butterflies. Should it disappear, even for a moment, the panic would grip her small torso. Doubling her in terror. Her little legs could not carry her fast enough to the safety of her source. Rapproachement. The protection that must be outgrown or it will strangle like the morning glory the rose. Loving death grip, intended to heal. I looked around the hallow apartment. The task seemed overwhelming. Starting again. I couldn't locate a reason, except perhaps my beating heart. And so, I scattered my tattered mermaids once again. Covered the erratic holes in the surface of my soul with what was left of my thrift shop jewels. Went on with the business of living. One day, I saw his long haired friend, grinning his lascivious grin. The next day, I did not. Or the next. And then Rick was at my door, begging solace like a stray cat. Disheveled. Eyes blank as my walls had been with his departure. I gave him nothing and the circle was complete. I had started a new life. Composed of this and that. Dancing to country music. Reeling in a room full of make believe, sure footed cowboys. They bought me Cuba Libres. Coreographed my pain into graceful heady swirls. Quick quick step. Quick quick step. Corny lyrics triviaziled the ache that ran just below my coy giggle like an underground brook. Bubbling with a message I did not want to access. Alone. Alone. I dated a few. Gentlemen callers, dragging them like prey past Rick's screen door at all hours of the night. One in particular became a regular guest. Blond and tan. He looked like an actor. He was an actor, playing his part so perfectly that I was soon bored. Daily he would arrive with flowers. "Happy Monday," he would say. "Happy Tuesday". I was continually stepping on his lines, irritated by his prefabricated, unrestrained joy. Straight teeth. Eyes like a perpetually cloudless sky. Circus canopy stretching over my desolate heart. One night on the phone, I ended it. Something he said that I don't even remember. I pulled down the windchimes he had added like a presumption above my bed. Erratic pewter cranes. They tinkled ridiculously as I deposited them in the trash bin behind my building. Looking up, I caught Rick's silhouette in the upstairs window. And I felt safe.
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