Breathing Space

Restaurant booths are a problem because I want an escape route but there is always the possibility that I will end up trapped against a wall. My father is an unapologetic person, never concerned about how much space he takes up. That’s his hand, stretched across my section of the table. Hand: fist, relaxed. Knees spread, feet planted. That’s his backpack. This is the wall. I can’t move further.

My sister’s voice takes up more space than my father’s body. Even he has to retreat. Questions, concessions.

“What are you writing lately?”
He’s talking to her. She’s writing a book proposal. She’s happy. She says so. This summer is awesome, she says. She’s so happy. Things are going so well. I’m happy for her. There’s no room for me here. I surrender the craft. At this table, I am not even a writer.

He would deny that. If pressed, he would say he doesn’t ask me because he knows I don’t want him to, which is true. I have nothing to complain about. I am not writing. I am not here.

This is family.

No. No, this is me. My jealousy and uncharitable thoughts deserve no breathing space. Fittingly, I can’t breathe. Not that it shows.

This is my father. Before my sister arrived, we went to the grocery store. He said I am a grudging conversationalist. That I don’t give back. That I lack the skill of letting people know I care. I spoke of my inability to connect, of how I am inaccessible because I cannot access. “I don’t understand.” He said it’s the same for everyone. I said it’s not.

My father loves me and he is right. There are basic things that I don’t know how to do. There are other things I do know how to do. I know it’s true when he says that everyone feels alone, but if my isolation is the same as everyone else’s, why does it show? He himself said it shows. He knows he can’t touch me. Everyone knows they can’t touch me. Everyone is alone, but we are all alone in different ways. This way is mine.

My sister is happy. My father is not. I live where I live and no one can come here, not even you.

Except like this. Look, I can put my words directly into your head. I’m doing it now. Maybe I have no right, but I have done it. Welcome. Stay as long as you want. There’s room for all of us here.

Dilemma

Maybe I should start a blog.

No. You’d think I’d mean this, wouldn’t you, but I don’t. Four of my friends have grabbed themselves a Wordpress or something equivalent in the past month because they want to be writers. They start Facebook pages, too, to go with the Wordpresses or the Bloggers or the I don’t know what young people are calling them these days. Encourage “likes.” Because that’s what you do if you want to be a writer. You start a blog.

Already being a writer is out of the question. You are not one, it seems—no matter how much writing you do—if you don’t have an audience. More specifically, an audience made of people who do not necessarily know you. Who do not start out knowing you. They know you through your work. Or they will. Or they would, if it was me and this was a blog.

It’s not, you know. The point—See, the point is to share it. “Hey, look over here.” That was what this was going to be, at the beginning. They’re very clever, my friends. Good with words. Sincere. I could be clever, maybe. That was the plan. It failed, but still— Social media. Word of mouth. The link up there still works; I can post it places even if I’m not actually being clever anymore and just…

I can’t do it, though. This isn’t a fucking blog. I had—Oh, I had the wrong idea and I can’t twist my thoughts into the right shapes, I guess, because every single one of these posts is a letter to someone no matter how they start out, and what if a Someone should find me out? Find themselves? Catch me saying what I mean?

Sometimes I can’t say things when I want to. Make that all the time.

This is not a letter, but also it is.

I am not not-a-writer because I don’t have a fucking audience. I am not a writer for other reasons. Does writing for yourself make you a writer? I don’t know. I don’t write for myself; I write letters. It’s all I’ve ever done. What we have here is a failure to communicate. You see, I can’t speak.

Maybe I should start a blog, but what would I write there if I can’t abide the thought of an opened envelope? Of truth? Of someone else’s eyes? Maybe I should forget the whole thing. Of course, I’ve said that before.

.

It’s down to this: I can’t find myself under all this doubt anymore—as happens frequently, I’m afraid—and I don’t see a way forward. I don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to say of myself that I have integrity and believe it. All I see now is an idiot child-thing who will one day be someone that used to want to be a writer. 

But you believe in me. You always have. I cannot see anything about myself worth keeping, but you want me here. And I cannot build bridges or open doors, but I trust you as much as I can trust anyone. It’s down to this: I would rather keep promises than break them. I would rather create one fragile, worthless thing than nothing at all. I do not share or understand your faith, but I would rather prove you right than prove you wrong.

For Austin

A week ago, a young man from my neighborhood went missing. I didn't know him, but I recognized his face. Someone I had seen around. Two friends of mine went to school with his sister. I had walked in the places where he had walked. I followed every update on his case. I looked for him, though I still don't know why I wanted so badly for him to be all right, why this case felt so damn personal even though the man was nothing to me. Those who knew him believe that he went out to the lake that night to watch the storm blow in, and something happened. A stupid accident, the kind that makes no sense. He was found this morning.

* * *

Six days in the water. Six days from the night they say you didn’t jump. Your parents have no son. Your sister has no brother.

Think slow thoughts, and dark. Soft as the water. You are six days beyond thought, but when I think of you, I put you in your body. The body this morning’s fisherman took for a dummy. Where are you now?

I like to believe that in the end, you felt the storm—the one you’d gone out looking for. I like to believe that in that last second when you breathed it in, there was a knowledge and a coming home. That it was worth it. As worth it as such a thing can be if it must happen. 

You probably hated the storm then, if you thought of it at all. You probably cursed yourself for your carelessness, or some uncaring god who turned his back for a minute. Just for a minute, and then—

You were probably terrified, and there was no homecoming. Caught, tossed, dashed, broken—with my thoughts I give you power in your death, make you a child of the storm that took you. Thunder, lightning, wind, Austin and the rising waves.

It is a little gift, and meaningless.

Go, Austin. Still forward. Rest beyond thought. Six days is too long; one minute in the water was too long. Too late. Sleep.

Letter

And I will love you until there is nothing left of me to see you.

If you think this is written for you, you are right. If you have ever closed your eyes for no reason or held your breath too long.

If we’ve never met. If, under our feet, this old Earth still turns.

The Advantages of Being a Babysitter

"I have freckles, too. On my arms. See?” I pull up my sleeve to show you—the right sleeve—thinking it’s enough, but no, you are six years old, all fragile limbs and sunlight, and you want to see them all. What can I do? Grab your hand, stop you—no, not that one— How can I? I bite back a gasp as light, your light, falls on what’s had me wearing long-sleeved shirts on eighty-degree June days: the faint lines of old mistakes crossed with the harsh reality of the recent, scabs still not healed, the scar tissue I wear around my wrist like a bracelet. It isn’t bad. I’ve seen worse on other people’s arms, but this one’s mine. I hold my breath.

You don’t even blink.

Of course you don’t. You’re six years old, all questions and tangled hair. You don’t know. You don’t know. In the dark, with shaking hands, I have told myself over and over that it’s nothing, but to you, it really is. To you goodbye is as simple as “You’re dead! You’re dead now!” and “Now I brought you back." Where I see mistakes, you only see my arms.

And now you bring me back. I see them, too.

Realization

[Disclaimer: I am much more okay now than I was when I wrote this.]

* * *   

The awareness slips in on shadow feet and questions.

What is the cause of the sleepless nights?
Is the ceiling really so fascinating that you’ve had to stare at it for three hours after waking?

For several days running?

The small things that aren’t getting done—who isn’t doing them?

How can the results of hours of your own work and exploration seem repellent to you?

What did you do to your arm?

Are you truly not troubled by your failures?

What did you do to your arm?

“No,” you protest, “but I’m all right. It’s not what it looks like.” Do you know of anything else that looks like this?

What kills is how insidious it is. How you don’t even notice that something is wrong until there’s blood everywhere and, just like that, you’ve broken a five-month streak of no new scars—No, not even then. Even then you make a conscious decision not to acknowledge it. “It’s nothing. I refuse to reinforce this behavior with attention.” It’s nothing. You’re nothing.

And you try to fight back with all the evidence at your disposal: “No, I’ve been leaving the house; I’ve been talking, taking pictures…” Mediocre pictures that no one wants to see. No one wants to hear what you have to say. No one cares, you self-involved child. You try, but— What have you not been doing? The self-professed writer who hasn’t written anything serious of her own free will for six years. Gave up on it even then. The “inspiration” who has not finished a single thing in almost twenty-one years of existence, who responds to her few undeserved triumphs with panic attacks.

The siege commences and the portcullis slams down, just as you’ve been thinking it’s past time to learn the art of unlocking doors. Remembering, anyway, the past results of unlocking. They say, they say, “I’m here for you, you can tell me, I want you to tell me,” but they never know what to do when you take them at their word; “I feel this way,” you say, and even the ones that know you best, all they have to offer you is, “Well, don’t.” And unspoken—and if you can’t help it, don’t tell me. It hurts to hear it. When all you want is, “I know. I understand. I love you anyway. I love you even though you are a broken excuse for an imitation of a human being. I love you.” Even though you hate yourself for wanting it. Even though you know exactly how they feel and why they say it, even though you’ve said the same damn thing in their situation and cursed yourself for it afterward. You don’t want to hurt anyone.

“But I decided to be happy!” you protest, and the shadows laugh and fold themselves around you. Welcome back.