“The clumsy architecture of our happiness is only based on my ability to manage the seemingly unending vastness of my own jealousy, of envy.”

The dialogue was quite sudden and unprovoked. It caused a stir in the room. The particles in the thin curtains adjusted to this new environment, swaying slightly in the wave of frequency, stretching out to fill this new space.

He had thick, dark features. Hair, beard, eyebrows, eyes. All of them were burnt and dark. They stared into the oddly placed mirror. The mirror was hung from window to wall, but too high to seem normal—or, at least, unnoticeably placed. The mirror was, in fact, placed noticeably higher than most and only reflected a person from the top of the shoulders and up.

It also reflected the tiles in the shower behind them—they, too, were noticeably different. The yellow light scattering across the room was no longer as even as it had originally appeared. And, in fact, they too had some odd quality to them. Their nature of oddity was a bit more subtle than the mirror. Perhaps it was a trick in the light or maybe a trick of whiskey. Either way, the tiles were odd.

“Just because we are both lost. Just because we are both alone. Just because we are both lost and alone doesn’t mean that small commonality will save us. “

This time, he sighed and waited for the room to react once again. A barely visible film swarmed over a small, oblong circle on the mirror where his breath reached the mirror. Much unlike the mirror and the tiles, this reaction was almost unnoticeable as if he truly were lost, as if the way back to this bathroom was much further than the distance between his mouth and the reflective glass of the mirror.

He did feel, then, the consequence of the water in the sink, of the closed white door to his right. It stayed in its place and seemed to communicate that there was no chance for divine intervention. No beautiful creature would open the door and hold out its hand. It would not open up the cabinet and crawl into a forest and it wouldn’t have long, wavy hair. And it would not hold his face and it would not kiss him on the mouth.

The door, in its own nature, remained closed—absolved to serve as a disappointing token of reality—none of which was altogether too peculiar when he allowed the moment to pass. Moments later, this only seemed particularly insignificant. It was only an annoying distraction, like a bug on a paper plate.

“Because it is not required of loneliness to be lost but the truly lost are always alone. That is what defines being lost because to be truly without direction will always mean to be entirely and absolutely alone.”

I let the gas click a few times.
It clicks on and presses against the red paint.
One million tiny fingerprints
thumbprints on Christmas cookies.

all of it
is completely pointless.

I just smoke and think about how shamefully inconsequential all of it really was.

Grey morning in the window and coffee bitters
are griny ice and sour gin.

I want to be fair, honest, and simple.

My brother spoke first, “If I lived here I would go right back up and come right back down. This is crazy.”

I tried to avoid thinking about what he had said for a few more minutes but as we climbed the stairs to my apartment and opened the broke knob, all I could think about is how I would never just go back out.

I would never go out into the crowd. That was a different lost–no, that was being lost. All caught up and vulnerable in the chaos. I was never lost and this realization burnt in my fingers and toes. I ducked into the bathroom and kicked off the ridiculous shoes I had worn that night and wiggled my toes. I could feel all of the knots and tangles undoing themselves. There were no windows in my bathroom and in between swallowing all the tangles and pressing my fingers to my eyes, I could feel myself putting this strange notion together–that somehow if there was a window in my bathroom, that everything wouldn’t be so bad.

It struck me as sort of odd and annoying. How isolated and ridiculous I had become. I had put my faith and control in the absence of a window. I could hear my brother and Mike moving around in the living room but I couldn’t bring myself to unlock the door just yet. Why not them? Why didn’t they make everything okay?

I sat on the sill of the bathtub and pressed my fingers into my eyes again, hard, until the fireworks were erupting again behind my eyelids.  I opened my eyes again and stared at the dirty blue grout lines in the tiles in my bathroom. They never really got clean. I could never really clean all of the dirt out. The lines started to blur and I kept fighting the urge to blink because I knew once I lost sight of this tangible thing, this silly observation, that I would lose it.

But when I closed my eyes all that I could think about were the families I saw sitting on balconies in the apartment buildings right behind where we had set up our blankets for the night. We couldn’t see the stage, but I remember walking past it a few times and staring at the enormous amount of people huddled in front of all these purple and blue lights. I thought about Max and Melissa dancing down the sidewalk and all the people that smiled back. But mostly, I thought about all the people.

And then, selfishly, I thought back to myself. I thought about sitting on the cooler and drinking without ever really getting drunk. A few of the tangles in my stomach loosened and I opened my eyes again, desperately looking for some sort of center of gravity. There was toothpaste all over the sink and a candle filled with cigarette ash but it didn’t work and I stopped thinking that any of it mattered.

I probably wouldn’t change in this lifetime. It’s funny though. I’m so full of shit, you know? What a bullshit piece of shit liar I am, dolling out advice like I have some kind of clue as to what the fuck is going on when I’m falling apart in my bathroom because I didn’t have the guts to walk into a crowd of people or go after anything that I actually wanted in my life. I thought about high school. I thought about people I met in bars and parks and libraries. I thought about the self-deprecating witticisms and desperate calls in the middle of the night. I thought about college and dropping out. I thought about smoking and drinking and about the people who are vulnerable and what that must be like. I thought about Soupy and Cody and Aaron. I thought about their faces and all the missteps I took and all the selfishness and wrong that I’ve done.

Whatever the fuck was happening had been happening for years. I had been doing this for years.

I’ve been trying to do this for years. I keep staring at this blank page as if I can write the code down, like I can crack this hilarious joke that is my life–as if I can read over it, edit it, and make sense of all this bullshit because even the thing that’s supposed to untangle the bullshit, and finally choose to hollow out and let go, and be torn apart into a million pieces of glass and paper and steel and iron and wool and organic matter and molecules and bullshit–all of it never worked because I made it the center of gravity.

I didn’t cry.

I won’t cry now. It’s a hilarious twist. I can’t be mad, and because it’s logical and moral and right not to be, I’m truly not angry with anyone. I’m finally completely in control and the only thing I could ever want is this utterly gorgeous idea of completely and totally fucking up.

The size, the white paint, the rug. I think about the piles of clothes, unfinished crafts and papers all over the desk. All of it. The posters hanging off the walls, the scotch tape, newsprint and also the wires tangled on the floor. I pull the fabric down to cover the windows and the light changes from natural to orange. I can feel the rug collecting the heat from my feet. It feels warm and I push my weight into the webs of my toes. The movement reminds me of putting my feet in water, all salt and sun washed. The AC unit kicks and makes a funny noise and my vision adjusts again, focusing back on the four walls, the weird collections of dust on the ceilings.

I sit down at the desk and push my toes against the carpet, my elbows hard against the wood. I think about roots. I think about them coming through my toes and into the carpet. The screen was still blank and I blinked a few more times. With no end to this pattern in sight, I fumble quickly with the corners of my cigarette box. I pull one quickly out and strike a match against the matchbox. And it was there, almost as quickly as the cigarette lit up, that thing. It was this image I couldn’t see and a feeling I knew was gone. It was that elusive thing that everyone tells you that you lose eventually. But I can’t remember what it was or when it happened. I can’t remember ever having it.

The saddest part was that I had been trying to do this for years and I laughed because it’s always been true that life is a mother fucking comedy.

I pull at them from below.

The sun shines from underneath the millions of gallons of water.
Everything is green and everything is blue and perfectly clear.

I pull at them from below and the people above follow along.
We are like little boats in the river.

The scaly book pages are floating around on the surface–
they do not come down into the water. But each has a little hole
and I tied ropes to all the little holes.

I pull at them from below.

The sun shines through all of the the millions of gallons of water.
Everything is good and everything is new and perfectly clear.

creative commons - Colleen T. Reese

——————————————————————————————————

I wrap all your dirty sheets around my ankles.
I drape them across my shoulders and I fall (in love)
down

the

stairs and hit the ground and the deep grass r u n n i ng

And the sheets turn all different colors. And your fingers grow out of them

And your fingers grab my ankles.

And we walk together down the street. Springing gardens, thirty-three feet high.

I wrap all of your beautiful colors around my ankles.
I drag them across the gardens and I fall (in love)

with

each

l a u g h i n g air warm the and hill the hit and light

And the lights turn all different colors. And my eyes pour out of them

And my fingers touch them.

And I walk alone down the street. Springing gardens, thirty-three feet high.