2.26.1998
A fifth of liquor followed four days of anger and then I was done. Done drinking, done being angry. I uncurled my toes like a good boy and sat patiently. I did not look up until she was standing above me. She was awfully still which meant she had made a decision. Well? I asked, what is it? I prayed she might surprise me but my prayers went unanswered. Now I had to take her spoken words seriously and bring myself to believe, though I could not be moved by them, by anything. I had next to nothing left after a hundred hours of basic misery, watching tv until tv was essentially watching me, locked in my house, seated in the center of a room, dangerously safe, talking to myself, lost in a language full of images only I could decipher…Wrap the dutiful land with sky and milk, the clouds round and full with the dimmest hope, waiting to be sucked. The side of my face presses into an interminable chain link fence. Blood dripping like a leaky faucet. The pastures turn green. Sweat off the iron palms. My fingers wrap around the links and my body goes limp. Inseparable against the sky. Do not care if we live or die. The ghosts within me began to wail, long slow and rising from the caps of my knees to the pupils of my eyes. I woke from semi-consciousness to the aching of my calves and feet in Japanese position. My arms were somehow upraised with a power I had not bestowed. I remembered her and what she told me, before she even told me. And after she gave me her decision I was unable to be moved, I was speechless. I was sorry but I could not apologize. The good news was that the air began circulating again and the oil began lubricating my pores and I was no longer suffocating, and I could bring water to my lips and the chain link fence was gone. God had carved our lifelines and the sky was still with us.
by #katyamills
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