The tragic truth was, they got it all wrong.
It’s not “all you need is love,” and it never was. People need a lot more than love. They need to eat and drink. They need shelter when it’s cold, and shade when it’s hot. They need adequate immune systems and properly working biological systems.
But, that’s not what they got wrong. The sentence was what was wrong. Somehow, through centuries of progress, evolution, ambition, creativity, whimsy, and absolutely divine hope the wisdom of the world had been mixed up. The message had gotten a bit confused. Convoluted. The universe of man and woman had played a game of telephone with it; each generation whispering into the ears of the next what it had heard. And each time, something was added, or tweaked, or removed. And so, by the time it was whispered by those infamous insects, love was turned on its head.
It was way too far gone.
~ ~ ~
When magic was first discovered, people mistook it for MSG. They claimed it wasn’t real or natural. They thought it was an overcoat, something draped over reality to make it seem better (or worse) than it actually was. It took what was and pretended it into something else. And, rest assured, that “something else” was powerful and elegant and full of the things that would certainly become legend. But people were always sure that it would be over one day, and that magic would disappear as merely a fantasy. A fairy tale.
As magic became more closely monitored, people began to attribute their daily misfortunes to it. And so, people who came in contact with magic started complaining of headaches, and mild nausea. Complaints of irritability and irrationality popped up wherever there was an exposure to magic. People now kept their eyes open at all times. They examined every one of their realities to make sure they were pure.
Anti-magic policies started showing up at workplaces and in public arenas. The army officially frowned upon the use of magic, but made use of its qualities to ensure the loyalty of their soldiers. Pharmaceutical companies started producing drugs to assist the bereaved – victims of magic abuse. Spiritualists and naturopaths provided alternative treatments. Psychological studies were funded by the government to analyze the long term effects of magic on subjects from different backgrounds. Historians and archaeologists joined hands in an attempt to catalogue how and when magic was first found and utilized.
As time went on, parts of magic were isolated, and understood. Different academics and scholars found names and categories, and drew some reliable correlations. Modern science began to recognize that magic was far more complicated than originally thought. Even though it had been commonly understood under one label for as long as people could remember, it was actually a series of complex phenomena that overlapped over time. Advocates for a simpler understanding gave rise to alternate theories. World epidemics heightened awareness of the thing, and conferences were called while political movements rallied. Eventually, everyone either claimed they understood it or didn’t care about it. Everyone had built up an immunity to it – even the extremists who still claimed to embrace it.
~ ~ ~
Finally free from magic, this world didn’t do so well. It seemed as though, just as they had overcome it completely, other ills started popping up. Depression, rage, rebellion, confusion, hopelessness, meaninglessness. The world was a far more dangerous, difficult place than they had realized. Having spent all of their time minimalizing magic, these other epidemics ran rampant.
“What were we to do?” their governments and their scientists said. “We only have so many resources, and so much time. Magic was clearly the worst of all the ills.” And it was true, they did have pills for headaches now. A new press release confirmed the growing confidence of society’s dominance:
“We do not know why we are in such a sorry state of affairs now, but there was a time when we were plagued by magic. While it sounds like a buzz word and a fairy tale now, there was a time when it was a real force in our lives. Thanks to our continual efforts and diligence as a people, we are no longer plagued by it. It is now only a minor inconvenience that our doctors can medicate for and our counsellors understand. Given time, we are certain that things like depression, confusion, and hopelessness will all be similarly contained.”
As years went by, the world got worse. They finally found a way to manage depression, but meaninglessness increased. They finally found a way to manage hopelessness, but not without raising the levels of blind fundamentalism. The world was not content the way it was.
Why was it built this way? Why did the universe throw one ill after another after another. No matter how technical the hospitals, people kept dying. No matter how skilled the workers, buildings still broke down. No matter how much money families had, they still hated each other. No matter what intentions lay between friends, disputes always arose.
Most said the world had grown cold to them. That they were abandoned, or that they were forsaken, or that they were otherwise doomed to live their lives conquering a disease or malcontent that was worse than the last. What else could it be? That seemed to be all existence had been for as long as they could remember.
~ ~ ~
There was a boy who held an ancient treasure. He had gotten it in his travels, and had tucked it safely away in his bedroom. A small cylindrical bottle with a tough-to-twist-off cap. Inside, he imagined, was the last remaining real Magic left in the world.
He wouldn’t let his parents or friends know that he had it. They would laugh at him and tell him that there was no such thing as magic. That was just an old bottle of pills, they’d say. So he hid it.
Sure, privately, deep down he must have known that they couldn’t be magic. Magic was not found in bottles. But he knew what they made him feel like. Taking one of those pills made his heart flutter. It made it beat strangely, and erratically. It made him light-headed. And something of that felt strangely familiar. Normal.
And such a feeling could only be magic, he mused. Nothing else in the world compared.
~ ~ ~
“You all need love”
Friday, November 27, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Three More Ways of Looking at Love/Unfinished
You said, ‘I love you’. Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? ‘I love you’ is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them. I did worship them but now I am alone on a rock strewn out of my own body.
from Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson
I wish I could write about it. Sometimes I fear I have never really felt it, although this cannot be true. I have been warmed by this thing called love, I’ve been burned by this thing called love.
I’ve written about it, obliquely. I’ve circled it, and I’ve hinted at it, and I’ve called it possession, I’ve called it desperation, but I’ve never named it.
Every song that’s ever been written has been written about it. Every book that’s ever been written has been written about it. Every movie that’s ever been made has been made about it. Everything you’ll ever do will be done because of it.
I’m circling it again. I’m edging ever closer, though, ever closer to the edge, to the dizzy heights, the cliffs of love.
Jeffrey Dahmer loved his boys. He loved them so much he tried to keep them with him forever. I’ve tried to keep love forever. I’ve tried to bottle it, but love sours fast.
Love soars, love is vast.
Love is a vampire, drunk on your blood...love is the killer you thought was your friend.
from ‘The Beast’ by Concrete Blonde
It’s better than ice-cream, it’s better than an orgasm, it’s better than Christmas and kittens and sleeping in. It’s all of these things and none of these things and it’s more than the sum of anything, it’s everything. It’s walking in the rain and crying and being unable to tell the difference between tears and rain. It’s listening to your favorite song twelve times in a row. It’s memorizing a poem and reciting it to yourself quietly while the world around you collapses. It is not words, it is not sound, it is not taste or touch or smell. It is waking up to sunlight on your face. It is sunlight. Love soars, love is vast.
Jerome was sliding and climbing on top of me and it felt like it had the night before, like a crushing weight. So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.
from Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
I have loved him for eight years. He hurt me; I hurt him. We played the game that lovers play. We worked hard to destroy each other. We did it well. I didn’t speak to him for years. I thought about him every day for years. I hated him; I loved him. Even while I hated him I loved him. Even while I loved him I hated him. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted desperately to see him suffer. I enjoyed my suffering.
This is an old story. You’ve read this story before. You’ve lived this story before. This is my story; this is his story; this is your story. This is our story. This is the only story that’s ever been written.
When I was young, I thought that love would save me. I thought that if only I loved and was loved in return, I would be happy. And now I have loved, and been loved in return, and I have been happy. I have also been sad, scared, hurt, bewildered, amazed, scarred, bewitched, and I’ve soared. I’ve reached the staggering heights of physical and emotional delirium. I have lived every adjective. I have tasted the word ‘love’ on the air, and I have spelled out ‘love’ with my fingers in the sand. I suppose I was saved by love, then. I suppose it is everything I hoped it would be.
This is me circling it, again. Why can’t I write about love? Fuck all this poetry. Love is not poetry, or it’s not all poetry. Love is storyline and dialogue and specifics, too.
Try again.
I have loved him since I was twenty-one. When I was twenty-one we met in a strange place, at the top of the world. The sun never stopped shining, or it never shone. The days were endless in light, endless in darkness. A fairy tale beginning. I would like to avoid poetics, but the place where we met is too perfect – too unbelievable - to describe any other way.
A place of extremes. The coldest cold you have ever felt, and the fattest sun you have ever seen. Liquor and cigarettes and money, and the longest nights. Long nights waiting for the sun to set (and it never does), or waiting for the sun to rise (and it never does). You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to fall in love to the tune of a vanished sunset, to the song of a sky that goes on forever.
This is not what I meant to write.
Try again.
Despite everything, despite the ways we have destroyed each other, we remain together, somehow. A couple, of sorts. A couple of misfits, a couple of freaks, a couple of outcasts. Despite the fact that he makes me angrier than anyone I’ve ever met. Despite the fact that he disappoints me and has always disappointed me and will continue to disappoint me. Despite the fact that I did my best to destroy him. Despite the fact that I cannot be around him. Despite all this, I still love him. He still loves me. Two people who will never be happy together can still love, despite the impossibility of it. This is love. This is what soars, this is the vast impossible sky of love.
That is what I meant to say.
Love soars, love is vast.
***
A caveat:
I cheated this week. I read ‘Beloved’ last Friday, and it was poignant and sad and full of ideas and imagery; writing a ‘reply’ should have been easy. I started something, and I even figured out how it fit, snugly and succinctly, next to ‘Beloved’. I wrote 519 words, and then I…stopped. Those 519 words are jostling against each other, restless as tiny nervous birds, in a file on my desktop. The file has a name; the words have a purpose; there is a story there, somewhere. Somewhen.
I’ve not found it yet, so this week you got an old piece, 'Three More Ways of Looking at Love'. It was written many months ago, and although it was not directly inspired by ‘Beloved’, it was written in an attempt to write about love the way Zach writes about love; clearly, sincerely, and unequivocally.
***
Fuck it. This is an experiment, right?
Here.
Read it.
Unfinished, or In Through the Red Door
Yeah, there are a few clubs here, in the City. The usual mix, I guess; lots of filthy dives like this place; an exclusive trans-bar that’s almost im-fuckin-possible to get into, believe me; a rain-blow dance club for the queer kids – you know, the kids looking for cheap sex and even cheaper drugs; a couple of your classier S&M joints, where everyone wears Carnival masks and drooping feathers; and the Red Door.
Well, to be precise, the Red Door used to be here. Now, it’s no longer. I mean, the building is still standing, and the sign is still there, but that’s it. No more lights. No more music, unless the clanging of bones against bones against splintered table legs counts as music.
It was the place to be, the Red Door. Everyone went there, and I mean everyone. Kids from every scene imaginable (even the Vampire kids, who are way too fucking elitist to ever mix with City scum), every kind of trans-creature, even City men in suits and slicked-back hair.
I guess the big twist, and the reason we all went there, is that the Red Door was all about love. Yeah, the front door was red, but if you looked closely you’d see that it was actually a hundred different shades of red, made up of interlocking hearts, some of them the ‘O’ in love, some of them just perfect little hearts, like the ones you make when you’re a kid: fold a piece of paper in half, draw a wing, and cut. The walls inside were painted red too, and we used permanent markers to write on them. Management allowed one love story each; other than that, there weren’t really any rules. I guess there was a whole city’s-worth of love stories written on the walls.
I mean, it’s no fucking wonder the place went insane.
Can I remember what I wrote? Jesus. I actually wrote a lot of things on those walls, to be honest. I don’t remember them all. They were probably mostly long strings of drunken expletives, anyway. I mean, that’s what I do. You’ve figured that out by now, I bet.
I think it was around the time when I first met Fresia that I wrote something coherent. I don’t know. Ask her if she remembers.
Personally, I remember a lot of stupid fucking poems.
Have I ever been in love? Wrong question. Moving the fuck on.
It was a nice place, the Red Door. Not like this place, just another goddamn dive in a city full of goddamn dives. The drinks were good and strong. They had names like ‘The Beatrice’ and ‘Temporary Madness’ and ‘Ophelia’s Cunt’ (yeah, that was my favorite). No black lights to pick out the lint and semen on your dress; they wouldn’t have worked with the red walls. Just dim lamps on each table, and a few rippling spotlights on the dance floor.
I actually remember the song that was playing that night:
I can't forget I am the sole architect
I built the shadows here
I built the growl in the voice I fear
Hey pretty, don't you wanna take a ride with me
through my world
from Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson
I wish I could write about it. Sometimes I fear I have never really felt it, although this cannot be true. I have been warmed by this thing called love, I’ve been burned by this thing called love.
I’ve written about it, obliquely. I’ve circled it, and I’ve hinted at it, and I’ve called it possession, I’ve called it desperation, but I’ve never named it.
Every song that’s ever been written has been written about it. Every book that’s ever been written has been written about it. Every movie that’s ever been made has been made about it. Everything you’ll ever do will be done because of it.
I’m circling it again. I’m edging ever closer, though, ever closer to the edge, to the dizzy heights, the cliffs of love.
Jeffrey Dahmer loved his boys. He loved them so much he tried to keep them with him forever. I’ve tried to keep love forever. I’ve tried to bottle it, but love sours fast.
Love soars, love is vast.
Love is a vampire, drunk on your blood...love is the killer you thought was your friend.
from ‘The Beast’ by Concrete Blonde
It’s better than ice-cream, it’s better than an orgasm, it’s better than Christmas and kittens and sleeping in. It’s all of these things and none of these things and it’s more than the sum of anything, it’s everything. It’s walking in the rain and crying and being unable to tell the difference between tears and rain. It’s listening to your favorite song twelve times in a row. It’s memorizing a poem and reciting it to yourself quietly while the world around you collapses. It is not words, it is not sound, it is not taste or touch or smell. It is waking up to sunlight on your face. It is sunlight. Love soars, love is vast.
Jerome was sliding and climbing on top of me and it felt like it had the night before, like a crushing weight. So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.
from Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
I have loved him for eight years. He hurt me; I hurt him. We played the game that lovers play. We worked hard to destroy each other. We did it well. I didn’t speak to him for years. I thought about him every day for years. I hated him; I loved him. Even while I hated him I loved him. Even while I loved him I hated him. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted desperately to see him suffer. I enjoyed my suffering.
This is an old story. You’ve read this story before. You’ve lived this story before. This is my story; this is his story; this is your story. This is our story. This is the only story that’s ever been written.
When I was young, I thought that love would save me. I thought that if only I loved and was loved in return, I would be happy. And now I have loved, and been loved in return, and I have been happy. I have also been sad, scared, hurt, bewildered, amazed, scarred, bewitched, and I’ve soared. I’ve reached the staggering heights of physical and emotional delirium. I have lived every adjective. I have tasted the word ‘love’ on the air, and I have spelled out ‘love’ with my fingers in the sand. I suppose I was saved by love, then. I suppose it is everything I hoped it would be.
This is me circling it, again. Why can’t I write about love? Fuck all this poetry. Love is not poetry, or it’s not all poetry. Love is storyline and dialogue and specifics, too.
Try again.
I have loved him since I was twenty-one. When I was twenty-one we met in a strange place, at the top of the world. The sun never stopped shining, or it never shone. The days were endless in light, endless in darkness. A fairy tale beginning. I would like to avoid poetics, but the place where we met is too perfect – too unbelievable - to describe any other way.
A place of extremes. The coldest cold you have ever felt, and the fattest sun you have ever seen. Liquor and cigarettes and money, and the longest nights. Long nights waiting for the sun to set (and it never does), or waiting for the sun to rise (and it never does). You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to fall in love to the tune of a vanished sunset, to the song of a sky that goes on forever.
This is not what I meant to write.
Try again.
Despite everything, despite the ways we have destroyed each other, we remain together, somehow. A couple, of sorts. A couple of misfits, a couple of freaks, a couple of outcasts. Despite the fact that he makes me angrier than anyone I’ve ever met. Despite the fact that he disappoints me and has always disappointed me and will continue to disappoint me. Despite the fact that I did my best to destroy him. Despite the fact that I cannot be around him. Despite all this, I still love him. He still loves me. Two people who will never be happy together can still love, despite the impossibility of it. This is love. This is what soars, this is the vast impossible sky of love.
That is what I meant to say.
Love soars, love is vast.
***
A caveat:
I cheated this week. I read ‘Beloved’ last Friday, and it was poignant and sad and full of ideas and imagery; writing a ‘reply’ should have been easy. I started something, and I even figured out how it fit, snugly and succinctly, next to ‘Beloved’. I wrote 519 words, and then I…stopped. Those 519 words are jostling against each other, restless as tiny nervous birds, in a file on my desktop. The file has a name; the words have a purpose; there is a story there, somewhere. Somewhen.
I’ve not found it yet, so this week you got an old piece, 'Three More Ways of Looking at Love'. It was written many months ago, and although it was not directly inspired by ‘Beloved’, it was written in an attempt to write about love the way Zach writes about love; clearly, sincerely, and unequivocally.
***
Fuck it. This is an experiment, right?
Here.
Read it.
Unfinished, or In Through the Red Door
Yeah, there are a few clubs here, in the City. The usual mix, I guess; lots of filthy dives like this place; an exclusive trans-bar that’s almost im-fuckin-possible to get into, believe me; a rain-blow dance club for the queer kids – you know, the kids looking for cheap sex and even cheaper drugs; a couple of your classier S&M joints, where everyone wears Carnival masks and drooping feathers; and the Red Door.
Well, to be precise, the Red Door used to be here. Now, it’s no longer. I mean, the building is still standing, and the sign is still there, but that’s it. No more lights. No more music, unless the clanging of bones against bones against splintered table legs counts as music.
It was the place to be, the Red Door. Everyone went there, and I mean everyone. Kids from every scene imaginable (even the Vampire kids, who are way too fucking elitist to ever mix with City scum), every kind of trans-creature, even City men in suits and slicked-back hair.
I guess the big twist, and the reason we all went there, is that the Red Door was all about love. Yeah, the front door was red, but if you looked closely you’d see that it was actually a hundred different shades of red, made up of interlocking hearts, some of them the ‘O’ in love, some of them just perfect little hearts, like the ones you make when you’re a kid: fold a piece of paper in half, draw a wing, and cut. The walls inside were painted red too, and we used permanent markers to write on them. Management allowed one love story each; other than that, there weren’t really any rules. I guess there was a whole city’s-worth of love stories written on the walls.
I mean, it’s no fucking wonder the place went insane.
Can I remember what I wrote? Jesus. I actually wrote a lot of things on those walls, to be honest. I don’t remember them all. They were probably mostly long strings of drunken expletives, anyway. I mean, that’s what I do. You’ve figured that out by now, I bet.
I think it was around the time when I first met Fresia that I wrote something coherent. I don’t know. Ask her if she remembers.
Personally, I remember a lot of stupid fucking poems.
Have I ever been in love? Wrong question. Moving the fuck on.
It was a nice place, the Red Door. Not like this place, just another goddamn dive in a city full of goddamn dives. The drinks were good and strong. They had names like ‘The Beatrice’ and ‘Temporary Madness’ and ‘Ophelia’s Cunt’ (yeah, that was my favorite). No black lights to pick out the lint and semen on your dress; they wouldn’t have worked with the red walls. Just dim lamps on each table, and a few rippling spotlights on the dance floor.
I actually remember the song that was playing that night:
I can't forget I am the sole architect
I built the shadows here
I built the growl in the voice I fear
Hey pretty, don't you wanna take a ride with me
through my world
Friday, November 13, 2009
Beloved
“So tell me about this girl who stole your heart”
Received: 1:32pm, 06-Nov-09
“Merely a combination of sweet slumber and mental inspiration. A dream. Don’t worry – my heart is kept safe under lock and key.”
Sent: 10:46am, 07-Nov-09
A shoebox, actually. One of those black ones with the pull off lids. A size 7 men’s. It’s a sturdy thing. Solid and unassuming. There is a layer of dust on top that leaves fingerprints when grabbed from the top shelf of the closet. There is a slight suction and a soundless pop when the lid is pulled from the box.
Inside, there is a bag. It fills the whole box, and has torn holes from where sharp edges have pierced it. It’s one of those no-name plastic bags that you get when you buy something not quite worth a proper bag at a drugstore. It was grabbed randomly, in a moment when resolve overpowered emotion but knew it didn’t have long. The bag handles are crimped and tied neatly in a knot.
This is not a movie. This is not a contrivance. This is real life. This is a true story.
The bag handles are carefully undone. They are not to be torn or cut. Inside that bag, there are scraps from a very old and sacred script – even the most annoying knot is to be treated with dignity and respect. The sides are carefully propped open, and there is a hesitation.
There they are.
02 January 2006.
Zachary Webster:
This is my grad picture, picked especially for you. I hope you like it. To be more serious though – I love you. Sharing my life w/ you for these 2 years has been wonderful. All my love – B
A highschool grad photo. The edges crumpled and creased: the result of it being found in a drawer somewhere after a joke about exchanging wallet-sized high school photos. They actually met in university.
July 7th, 2005
My dearest of darlings, my heart of hearts, my dilliest of pickles, my Zachary how are you?
A hand-written letter. There were a lot of those in here. They spent their summers apart. This one was on lined paper, her cursive writing carefully outlining how her life was going.
...Either way, my love, let me part with you by reaffirming my love for you. I love you, Zachary, I love you! I want to jump up & tell & shout it into the wind so that the whole world might know at least a small amount of joy that I feel when I say those sweet, simple words:
I love you.
- B
PS – I Love You was never imaginary to them. It was never an unrealized fiction. It was found. He lived it. There was nothing finer, or more pure. She wrote it in blue and black and green inks. In scrawls and sparkles. He wrote it in silly love poetry. The laughable kind.
The very bestest thing to happen,
Was the day you came a tappin'
When you knocked at my front door,
And gave me love ('cause I was poor)
Now you're the bestest on my street,
The prettiest girl I ever did meet.
And now I'm richer than them all,
'cause you gave a dragon's haul!
The bestest years you gave to me,
You didn't need to, no-siree!
I would've settled for a penny an' a pat,
But instead with love you made me fat!
You made me the bestest ever rug-bug
Ya made my life SUPER snug!
I can't believe it, no way I can!
You're my Very Bestest, B!
They were 19 and 20. Then 20 and 21. But he couldn’t help but be a child in his whimsy. To them, everything felt silly. And silly felt okay. And everything began with
(Undated)
My Love,
...
You are a dream... my dream. I would rather be with no one else in the world. Your company keeps life interesting; your thoughts and words put everything into perspective. You are my best friend, my dream come true.
With all of my heart, your B
All of his heart was kept there. He was nothing, if not true to his word. It’s not that he longed after her now. This was not a shrine to her. The box, and the bag, and the fragments were about love. About them, and who he had been. It was a memory of who he was capable of being.
There was a blank page that she had filled with many “I love you”s written in different languages and colours. Love. They lived there. He spoke it. He went to work and classes with it. He typed email after email about it. And he, true to a lover’s stereotype, wrote lengthy poetry about it.
...And to frame such magnificence that it may be shared,
Into a single word for every care,
Seems almost unfair.
That there can be no better way to say,
All the things that our journey together brings into play,
(And all that it will, come what may)
Than with that word: Love.
Yet still there is more that I would declare,
My happiness.
Ways in which I would compare,
All the moments you’ve made in me.
So that you could taste the picture with my fingertips,
What we have that dazzles me.
Frazzles me.
And if you ask me to speak of this,
I would happily whisper all the writing that is here,
Into the tender blessings of your ear.
And a thousand other thoughts could ensue
Until naught but awe would be my hue,
Over, just how much, B,
I Love You.
There were other items beyond letters, to be found in the box. A silver wrist chain, with his name and his pet name engraved on it. She called him Binx. He called her Smiles. She always wrote out “smiles” on MSN whenever he said something that she liked. He always smiled seeing it there, typed out. She was his Smiles and Sunshine.
There was a wooden spoon and a small framed picture, too. Memories. But the most important of objects was a large book. An album of pictures and little paragraphs that she had put together to commemorate their first year together. There were photos of her, of the two of them, of their friends: stories of their first kiss, their first meeting, and all sorts of small happenstances. It was a collective history that conjured the feelings of the memories it contained. The last remaining relic that was whole.
(Undated)
Zachary –
You have been much in my thoughts these past days. ... Love, you see, is not governed by certain rules that we create for it & ourselves. Love is as free flowing as the sea, as big as the sky & as beautiful as the eyes of an angel. How lucky we are to have this, to be able to experience it, regardless if we say it all the time or mean it exactly the same way every time we utter the phrase.
I shall love you continuously for the rest of my life. It won’t necessarily be for the same reason as today, but it will always be there: I promise.
With that I remain faithfully yours –
- B
The love story had a tragic ending. She wasn't faithful. After a couple of years, the terrible plague of betrayals and deceit descended. Along with anger, they tore at the words and feelings of the partnership, hacking the meanings asunder. The world showed no mercy, and shredded every moment it could find. Very little survived. In the end, the heart was deeply wounded. He was devastated.
In the lingering aftermath, any bits and pieces that had survived – the letters and pictures, poems and promises – were picked gingerly up and placed far away from anything that might again do them harm. Placed into an unassuming black shoebox, all the world was locked out.
And locked in, was the memory of how well a man can love, and be loved.
Spiralling,
Softly
Down.
To rest with all grace and ease,
lightly.
Found in lovers' lips and grips,
Heart and mind and fingertips.
Found in comfort, found in care,
All their thoughts linger
there.
Laughing, crying, lust's desire,
Cold as ice or hot as fire,
No matter what the thoughts would say,
Black as night or clear as day,
The den of lovers' holds them all.
Each
and
every
One.
Old, and new.
Small and tall.
And in every moment of their blissful stay,
They hear what called them on their way:
"I love you."
Received: 1:32pm, 06-Nov-09
“Merely a combination of sweet slumber and mental inspiration. A dream. Don’t worry – my heart is kept safe under lock and key.”
Sent: 10:46am, 07-Nov-09
A shoebox, actually. One of those black ones with the pull off lids. A size 7 men’s. It’s a sturdy thing. Solid and unassuming. There is a layer of dust on top that leaves fingerprints when grabbed from the top shelf of the closet. There is a slight suction and a soundless pop when the lid is pulled from the box.
Inside, there is a bag. It fills the whole box, and has torn holes from where sharp edges have pierced it. It’s one of those no-name plastic bags that you get when you buy something not quite worth a proper bag at a drugstore. It was grabbed randomly, in a moment when resolve overpowered emotion but knew it didn’t have long. The bag handles are crimped and tied neatly in a knot.
This is not a movie. This is not a contrivance. This is real life. This is a true story.
The bag handles are carefully undone. They are not to be torn or cut. Inside that bag, there are scraps from a very old and sacred script – even the most annoying knot is to be treated with dignity and respect. The sides are carefully propped open, and there is a hesitation.
There they are.
02 January 2006.
Zachary Webster:
This is my grad picture, picked especially for you. I hope you like it. To be more serious though – I love you. Sharing my life w/ you for these 2 years has been wonderful. All my love – B
A highschool grad photo. The edges crumpled and creased: the result of it being found in a drawer somewhere after a joke about exchanging wallet-sized high school photos. They actually met in university.
July 7th, 2005
My dearest of darlings, my heart of hearts, my dilliest of pickles, my Zachary how are you?
A hand-written letter. There were a lot of those in here. They spent their summers apart. This one was on lined paper, her cursive writing carefully outlining how her life was going.
...Either way, my love, let me part with you by reaffirming my love for you. I love you, Zachary, I love you! I want to jump up & tell & shout it into the wind so that the whole world might know at least a small amount of joy that I feel when I say those sweet, simple words:
I love you.
- B
PS – I Love You was never imaginary to them. It was never an unrealized fiction. It was found. He lived it. There was nothing finer, or more pure. She wrote it in blue and black and green inks. In scrawls and sparkles. He wrote it in silly love poetry. The laughable kind.
The very bestest thing to happen,
Was the day you came a tappin'
When you knocked at my front door,
And gave me love ('cause I was poor)
Now you're the bestest on my street,
The prettiest girl I ever did meet.
And now I'm richer than them all,
'cause you gave a dragon's haul!
The bestest years you gave to me,
You didn't need to, no-siree!
I would've settled for a penny an' a pat,
But instead with love you made me fat!
You made me the bestest ever rug-bug
Ya made my life SUPER snug!
I can't believe it, no way I can!
You're my Very Bestest, B!
They were 19 and 20. Then 20 and 21. But he couldn’t help but be a child in his whimsy. To them, everything felt silly. And silly felt okay. And everything began with
(Undated)
My Love,
...
You are a dream... my dream. I would rather be with no one else in the world. Your company keeps life interesting; your thoughts and words put everything into perspective. You are my best friend, my dream come true.
With all of my heart, your B
All of his heart was kept there. He was nothing, if not true to his word. It’s not that he longed after her now. This was not a shrine to her. The box, and the bag, and the fragments were about love. About them, and who he had been. It was a memory of who he was capable of being.
There was a blank page that she had filled with many “I love you”s written in different languages and colours. Love. They lived there. He spoke it. He went to work and classes with it. He typed email after email about it. And he, true to a lover’s stereotype, wrote lengthy poetry about it.
...And to frame such magnificence that it may be shared,
Into a single word for every care,
Seems almost unfair.
That there can be no better way to say,
All the things that our journey together brings into play,
(And all that it will, come what may)
Than with that word: Love.
Yet still there is more that I would declare,
My happiness.
Ways in which I would compare,
All the moments you’ve made in me.
So that you could taste the picture with my fingertips,
What we have that dazzles me.
Frazzles me.
And if you ask me to speak of this,
I would happily whisper all the writing that is here,
Into the tender blessings of your ear.
And a thousand other thoughts could ensue
Until naught but awe would be my hue,
Over, just how much, B,
I Love You.
There were other items beyond letters, to be found in the box. A silver wrist chain, with his name and his pet name engraved on it. She called him Binx. He called her Smiles. She always wrote out “smiles” on MSN whenever he said something that she liked. He always smiled seeing it there, typed out. She was his Smiles and Sunshine.
There was a wooden spoon and a small framed picture, too. Memories. But the most important of objects was a large book. An album of pictures and little paragraphs that she had put together to commemorate their first year together. There were photos of her, of the two of them, of their friends: stories of their first kiss, their first meeting, and all sorts of small happenstances. It was a collective history that conjured the feelings of the memories it contained. The last remaining relic that was whole.
(Undated)
Zachary –
You have been much in my thoughts these past days. ... Love, you see, is not governed by certain rules that we create for it & ourselves. Love is as free flowing as the sea, as big as the sky & as beautiful as the eyes of an angel. How lucky we are to have this, to be able to experience it, regardless if we say it all the time or mean it exactly the same way every time we utter the phrase.
I shall love you continuously for the rest of my life. It won’t necessarily be for the same reason as today, but it will always be there: I promise.
With that I remain faithfully yours –
- B
The love story had a tragic ending. She wasn't faithful. After a couple of years, the terrible plague of betrayals and deceit descended. Along with anger, they tore at the words and feelings of the partnership, hacking the meanings asunder. The world showed no mercy, and shredded every moment it could find. Very little survived. In the end, the heart was deeply wounded. He was devastated.
In the lingering aftermath, any bits and pieces that had survived – the letters and pictures, poems and promises – were picked gingerly up and placed far away from anything that might again do them harm. Placed into an unassuming black shoebox, all the world was locked out.
And locked in, was the memory of how well a man can love, and be loved.
Spiralling,
Softly
Down.
To rest with all grace and ease,
lightly.
Found in lovers' lips and grips,
Heart and mind and fingertips.
Found in comfort, found in care,
All their thoughts linger
there.
Laughing, crying, lust's desire,
Cold as ice or hot as fire,
No matter what the thoughts would say,
Black as night or clear as day,
The den of lovers' holds them all.
Each
and
every
One.
Old, and new.
Small and tall.
And in every moment of their blissful stay,
They hear what called them on their way:
"I love you."
Friday, November 6, 2009
Scraps
Fragment 1 – Beginnings, False Starts
When Fresia was a child she never looked in the mirror. Children are endlessly fascinated by themselves, their bodies; every excretion, every lump, every surface of skin is examined, prodded, touched, with scientific scrutiny.
Not Fresia. Fresia saw her reflection when she was five, saw how fundamentally wrong she was, and didn’t look again for ten years.
She couldn’t define it at the time, of course. She didn’t know the words yet. But she recognized the feeling in her stomach. Now she would call it ‘revulsion’. Back then it was just the feeling she got when her mother made her eat green beans. Or how she felt the time she found a dead cat, roiling with maggots, the flesh of its tiny pink nose half-gone.
Hideous. Nasty. Sick. Ugly. Horrid.
Over the years, Fresia learned a lot of words. She has no shortage of words to describe herself.
The word she would choose now is, simply, ‘finally’.
Fragment 2 – A Conversation, A Gambit
Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?
Not you, my child. Dear god, the gall!
What’s wrong with me mirror, am I so awful to see?
My child, strange creature, you are a monster to me.
Mother mirror, I’m lost, I don’t know who I am.
Daughter, you’re nothing but reflection; you’re for the slaughter, little lamb.
Fragment 3 – Chrysalis
The headaches are the worst part. When she started taking the pills she knew there would be side effects; she signed a thick sheaf of papers to prove she was prepared. It’s change she was after, for sure, and she knew there would be consequences. She was removing parts of herself, adding new parts, sucking up hormones like a thick grey milkshake, stripping herself down to essentials and re-building from scratch.
Still, though, she wasn’t prepared for the headaches. Everything else makes sense, and she relishes it, the pain of it. But her head has always been right. What’s inside her head has never been the problem.
Fragment 4 –parts and flaws, An alphabetical, but by no means comprehensive, list of
ass, flat and inconsequential; back, acne’d and hairy; clitoris, unresponsive; dick, shriveled, turtle-like, a vile insect; feet, flat, peeling, like spatulas slapping against the ground; glands, swollen, leaking, milk-heavy, plump and female; heart, thundering and smacking against ribs; intestines, knotted and sinuous as snakes; joints, crackling like popcorn; knees, too big, too raw; larynx, shaved painfully, and shaped ironically like a vagina; mandible, weak; pituitary gland, put in backwards and upside down; testicles, deformities
Fragment 5 – How Fresia and Lilith Met
This happened a few years ago. I was on a boy kick at the time, especially the kind that I could actually kick, if you know what I mean. I was real angry back then, so my tastes ran toward the S&M boys, the kind wearing dog collars, with scars on their backs and slave names tattooed on their necks. Personally, it’s not my thing – but if you like being led around like an animal, that’s cool, I’ll oblige. Especially when I’m in a bad fucking mood.
As long as everything is consensual, you understand. I’m not interested in rape. I’m only interested in games. And I’ll take power wherever I can get it.
Anyway, I was into pretty little boys at the time, and it takes a lot to make me want a woman. I don’t mind pussy, but it’s got to be special – I’ll use and abuse a slave, but I will only let a true goddess really fuck me. I’ve found that true goddesses are in short supply, at least in this world.
I led my boy – some whimpering slave whose name (slave or otherwise) I have forgotten – into a club called The Red Door, which at the time was shiny and new. Now it’s a bloody splintered mess. The Red Door, in-fuckin-deed. ‘Abandon all hope’, and all that.
Anyway. That’s a story for another fucking time.
I let his lead go slack so the boy could get me a drink, and I took stock of the place. The usual scene kids: trans-humans like me (a pretty good assortment, actually; I saw cats and jackals and lambs, even a dragon or two), a few medical marvels that the City doctors must have let out of their cages for the evening, stunned normals slumming it, Gothic Ghosts flitting from table to table, stealing cigarettes and sips of drinks: the usual.
Ah, but then, there she was.
And she was.
Even though things are long over with us, I still get wet when I think about it, that first look. She stood a head above everyone else, and her own magnificent head was set at a weird angle, looking down at all the kids around her. Her hair was a crazy neon shade of pink back then, and she was wearing a silky dress that clung to her and showed off every curve and dip and carefully plotted map of skin. Her breasts were so full they hung like peaches on a branch.
In other words, totally fuckable. I mean, this girl would make a poet out of anyone, even me. Especially me.
And I forgot to mention the horns. See, this girl was a trans like me, and she had a set of huge curly horns growing out each side of her head. She had colored them blue and sprinkled them with glitter. She fucking shone. She shone like a goddamn goddess that night. The boy came back with my drink, but I shoved him off. When I see something I want I always get it.
Of course I ditched the Worm and went home with her. Slave boys are a dime a fucking dozen around here; goddesses not so much.
I have no interest in giving you the details of our first night together. Suffice it to fucking say, I found out what it’s like to fuck a goddess, and I found out the meaning of the horns, and I found out that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
And that’s all I will say about that.
Fragment 6 – The Dreaming
She is sitting at her work table and sewing a dress. The pattern is laid out before her; she smooths the soft silk flat, and admires the rainbow pools of light that shimmer in it. Her mind wanders, and she’s on a high hill now, sitting under a tree with purple leaves. Fat wondrous fruit drip down its branches. She pulls a downy pink fruit off the tree, and bites into it. The juice drips down her arm, and she’s back at her work table, sewing a dress. The pattern is laid out before her; she smooths the soft skin of the dress flat, and admires the way the blood bubbles out from beneath it. She threads her needle with a slippery blue vein and stitches arm to torso, leg to hip, elbow to forearm. A drop of blood trickles down her arm, and she licks up the juice. It may be the sweetest fruit she’s ever tasted. She knots a vein tight, and smooths out her new dress. It’s coming along nicely.
Fragment 7 – This is the Picture
Picture this. Listen to this:
A white room. A white light. The white sheets. Faces swathed in white. Eyes peering brightly out.
beep beep beep
Sharp things, all in a silver row. Sharp angles, all the world at a tilt. Sharp eyes, boring down.
beep beep beep
There are dresses that will never fit. There is fabric that must be trimmed. There are scraps that must be snipped.
beep beep beep
Count down from ten. The needle goes in. The needle dips and skims.
beep beep beep
Wake up. Now, it’s finally time to wake up.
When Fresia was a child she never looked in the mirror. Children are endlessly fascinated by themselves, their bodies; every excretion, every lump, every surface of skin is examined, prodded, touched, with scientific scrutiny.
Not Fresia. Fresia saw her reflection when she was five, saw how fundamentally wrong she was, and didn’t look again for ten years.
She couldn’t define it at the time, of course. She didn’t know the words yet. But she recognized the feeling in her stomach. Now she would call it ‘revulsion’. Back then it was just the feeling she got when her mother made her eat green beans. Or how she felt the time she found a dead cat, roiling with maggots, the flesh of its tiny pink nose half-gone.
Hideous. Nasty. Sick. Ugly. Horrid.
Over the years, Fresia learned a lot of words. She has no shortage of words to describe herself.
The word she would choose now is, simply, ‘finally’.
Fragment 2 – A Conversation, A Gambit
Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?
Not you, my child. Dear god, the gall!
What’s wrong with me mirror, am I so awful to see?
My child, strange creature, you are a monster to me.
Mother mirror, I’m lost, I don’t know who I am.
Daughter, you’re nothing but reflection; you’re for the slaughter, little lamb.
Fragment 3 – Chrysalis
The headaches are the worst part. When she started taking the pills she knew there would be side effects; she signed a thick sheaf of papers to prove she was prepared. It’s change she was after, for sure, and she knew there would be consequences. She was removing parts of herself, adding new parts, sucking up hormones like a thick grey milkshake, stripping herself down to essentials and re-building from scratch.
Still, though, she wasn’t prepared for the headaches. Everything else makes sense, and she relishes it, the pain of it. But her head has always been right. What’s inside her head has never been the problem.
Fragment 4 –parts and flaws, An alphabetical, but by no means comprehensive, list of
ass, flat and inconsequential; back, acne’d and hairy; clitoris, unresponsive; dick, shriveled, turtle-like, a vile insect; feet, flat, peeling, like spatulas slapping against the ground; glands, swollen, leaking, milk-heavy, plump and female; heart, thundering and smacking against ribs; intestines, knotted and sinuous as snakes; joints, crackling like popcorn; knees, too big, too raw; larynx, shaved painfully, and shaped ironically like a vagina; mandible, weak; pituitary gland, put in backwards and upside down; testicles, deformities
Fragment 5 – How Fresia and Lilith Met
This happened a few years ago. I was on a boy kick at the time, especially the kind that I could actually kick, if you know what I mean. I was real angry back then, so my tastes ran toward the S&M boys, the kind wearing dog collars, with scars on their backs and slave names tattooed on their necks. Personally, it’s not my thing – but if you like being led around like an animal, that’s cool, I’ll oblige. Especially when I’m in a bad fucking mood.
As long as everything is consensual, you understand. I’m not interested in rape. I’m only interested in games. And I’ll take power wherever I can get it.
Anyway, I was into pretty little boys at the time, and it takes a lot to make me want a woman. I don’t mind pussy, but it’s got to be special – I’ll use and abuse a slave, but I will only let a true goddess really fuck me. I’ve found that true goddesses are in short supply, at least in this world.
I led my boy – some whimpering slave whose name (slave or otherwise) I have forgotten – into a club called The Red Door, which at the time was shiny and new. Now it’s a bloody splintered mess. The Red Door, in-fuckin-deed. ‘Abandon all hope’, and all that.
Anyway. That’s a story for another fucking time.
I let his lead go slack so the boy could get me a drink, and I took stock of the place. The usual scene kids: trans-humans like me (a pretty good assortment, actually; I saw cats and jackals and lambs, even a dragon or two), a few medical marvels that the City doctors must have let out of their cages for the evening, stunned normals slumming it, Gothic Ghosts flitting from table to table, stealing cigarettes and sips of drinks: the usual.
Ah, but then, there she was.
And she was.
Even though things are long over with us, I still get wet when I think about it, that first look. She stood a head above everyone else, and her own magnificent head was set at a weird angle, looking down at all the kids around her. Her hair was a crazy neon shade of pink back then, and she was wearing a silky dress that clung to her and showed off every curve and dip and carefully plotted map of skin. Her breasts were so full they hung like peaches on a branch.
In other words, totally fuckable. I mean, this girl would make a poet out of anyone, even me. Especially me.
And I forgot to mention the horns. See, this girl was a trans like me, and she had a set of huge curly horns growing out each side of her head. She had colored them blue and sprinkled them with glitter. She fucking shone. She shone like a goddamn goddess that night. The boy came back with my drink, but I shoved him off. When I see something I want I always get it.
Of course I ditched the Worm and went home with her. Slave boys are a dime a fucking dozen around here; goddesses not so much.
I have no interest in giving you the details of our first night together. Suffice it to fucking say, I found out what it’s like to fuck a goddess, and I found out the meaning of the horns, and I found out that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
And that’s all I will say about that.
Fragment 6 – The Dreaming
She is sitting at her work table and sewing a dress. The pattern is laid out before her; she smooths the soft silk flat, and admires the rainbow pools of light that shimmer in it. Her mind wanders, and she’s on a high hill now, sitting under a tree with purple leaves. Fat wondrous fruit drip down its branches. She pulls a downy pink fruit off the tree, and bites into it. The juice drips down her arm, and she’s back at her work table, sewing a dress. The pattern is laid out before her; she smooths the soft skin of the dress flat, and admires the way the blood bubbles out from beneath it. She threads her needle with a slippery blue vein and stitches arm to torso, leg to hip, elbow to forearm. A drop of blood trickles down her arm, and she licks up the juice. It may be the sweetest fruit she’s ever tasted. She knots a vein tight, and smooths out her new dress. It’s coming along nicely.
Fragment 7 – This is the Picture
Picture this. Listen to this:
A white room. A white light. The white sheets. Faces swathed in white. Eyes peering brightly out.
beep beep beep
Sharp things, all in a silver row. Sharp angles, all the world at a tilt. Sharp eyes, boring down.
beep beep beep
There are dresses that will never fit. There is fabric that must be trimmed. There are scraps that must be snipped.
beep beep beep
Count down from ten. The needle goes in. The needle dips and skims.
beep beep beep
Wake up. Now, it’s finally time to wake up.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)