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<center>http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...on/freedom.jpg
I intentionally wrote it out to be an illegible mess.
You wanted me to write you letters, but I'd rather lose your address
and forget that we'd ever met and what did or did not occur.
Sitting in the station, its all a blur of dancehall hips,
pretentious quips, a boxer's bob and weave.
and here's the kicker of this whole shebang:
You're in debt and completely fooled that you can look into the mirror
and objectively rank your wounds.
Sewing circles are not soley based in trades of cloth:
There are spinsters all around here taking notes, reporting on us as
Information travels faster in the modern age
in the modern age, as our days are crawling by so slowly.
DCFC
____________________________________
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<font color="#000002" size="1">[ April 06, 2006 12:21 AM: Message edited by: pseudonymous ]</font>
-
For the most part, the scene was melting into a hazy, clammy sort of room a person would find themselves in just when they thought they'd freed themselves from the awful prison of their youth. It was luke warm at best; faces that looked similar, masking personalities that were askew and far from anything tepid. They'd learned to mask themselves over this way; they'd learn to make puddles of their lives, and in doing so they stepped very carefully over the cracks in the sidewalks of their pasts. Against the menagerie of a room that once was rather cluttered and in disarray like scattered pieces of the Parisian jigsaw puzzle Mattie never finished, she found herself in a place that no longer held pieces stuck together with masking tape and kid's Elmer's glue. No. Life would not be so simple, and she would no longer be so determined. The pieces had fallen apart much too soon, much too quickly, and far to great for her to ever dream of finding the picturesque landscape her life once was.
It had come down to a science: a spectacle of bubbling vials and half-filled beakers that bred potions sworn to the secrecy of her youth. It had come down to sterilized needles that poked and prodded at her past with such precision that the others had given up. She sat with scattered photographs laying like virgins at her feet, ready to be thrown into the fire of her jurisdiction with a penance none could afford. It was obvious each and every still-framed moment had been plucked up and cried over, the sheen paper glossed with smudged fingerprints. Some curled in the corners as she'd rocked over them, her spine curling for her shoulders to bow forward in some sort of attempt to hide her shame. But others simply sat there, staring up blankly, offering no remorse for whatever sins Mattie felt the need to repay.
It was all rather unnecessary, and no one really knew what set off the spark that drove her into plucking at strings that had been silenced for years. Her life was far from tragic; it was rather dull, though she made it sound like something kind. She had a way of examining and torturing herself until she found something beautiful, be it blood or bruises, metaphysically speaking. The flashlight of her youth had grown dim, though her years were no true calendar to her age. "I've spoiled myself," she muttered over the silent virgins. "I've done nothing but defecate on whatever life I had a shot at."
Do not misunderstand her imagination for pessimism.
"You've been staring at those photos for a long time," Hart chimed in. By now he'd planted himself in front of the sofa, his neck craned ever so slightly as he shifted his eyes towards the ceiling, already carving stars into the plaster. He played connect-the-dots with the bumps in the paint with his eyes. "And quite frankly, it's not all that appetizing to hear you say you've shit on your life."
The photographs were shuffled around like a game of Solitaire, only Mattie had trouble finding the queen in any of the pictures. The Joker, the Jack, even the Ace of Spades, perhaps -- but the queen? No. Certainly not in these photos. "I need a cigarette."
"I need a blowjob," Hart clucked, "but it looks like we're both just shit out of luck for the evening. Besides, I thought you gave up smoking."
"I gave up a lot of things, but smoking wasn't one of them," she protested. Pausing, she picked up a photograph and skimmed the edges of the landscape in the background, memories sloshing about lazily as she recalled the exact moment the picture had been taken. "I'd like to go back to Paris."
"You sound like a fucking Frenchie, you know, with your 'ohn-hohn-hohn I am a smoker' attitude," he mocked her with his head teetering from side to side, his lips spewing a thick French accent. "Really, Mademoiselle, it's disgusting."
"You're talking about blowjobs, and you're going to tell me I'm disgusting?" Turning, she rested her chin on the knob of her shoulder, batting thick lashes at him.
"You know how I feel about the French," he retorted. "The smoking I can deal with. Everything else has got to go."
"Hart," she purred gently. "You're full of it."
"Mattie," he echoed. "You're a seedy bitch, but you don't see me complaining much."
"It's because I put out that you don't complain, isn't it." She meant for it to come out as a question, though it hardly did. And silently, she asked his forgiveness for her mock pout. When Hart gave a diluted laugh, she simply curled her lips into a smile.
"Well, at least you've got one thing right."
"What's that?"
"You haven't forgotten that it's all about the blowjobs."
Pushing up from the floor, she abandoned the photographs and left Hart there in front of the sofa, shoving her delicate fingers into the back pockets of her jeans. Even they were a masterpiece in progress, ripped at the knees with thread-bare holes polka-dotting the denim haphazardly. She wandered to the kitchen and leaned against the counter adjacent to the sink, the flesh of her palms clapping to the lip of the countertop. Three.. two.. one.. her mind was a ticking time bomb. Where the temperature of the house went unnoticed and a breeze licked through the partially opened windows silent as death, everything around her felt stale. The linoleum her naked feet slapped against with a desperate attitude to (temporarily) run away from Hart. The lip of the counter that she could peel with her fingers, it had been around for so long. The paint that chipped and left streaks over the walls that at one point in time offered silent soliloquy and cause for daydreams, and now only made her blood boil and her hatred for the house sizzle. She felt trapped in a broiler. A tepid broiler, if there could have ever been such a thing.
Ever bone of her body was numb as it was silently getting burned.
-
Hart,
It was June. I remember because Frank had passed away only a few days before, and mother was still rather pessimistic about my leaving. Or really it was our leaving, I guess. I remember because I had on that green skirt you said you liked, that hit just below the knee. You said it made me look innocent, like I had something to hide and was playing hard to get. I know you remember that. I know you remember Frank's passing. I know you remember it was June, and Chris promised he was going to come see us and help us get settled. I know you remember Jack ranting about how Paris was a 'pathetic nicotine-driven society' and you adopted his ideology instantly.
I still think about Frank. I don't know why, it's not like we were particularly close -- but sometimes I just wonder what he would look like now. His hair was thinning and he'd lost so much weight, but his eyes still shone like stars and his mouth still curved in this gentle half-moon that hardly showed his wit and barely showed his humor. He was something soft, you know? He was something to be fond of and stay fond of even in his passing. I think about Carol and I wonder if she and the kids ever made it to Sophie's, or if she's still teaching. I think about how it must have hit her when she received the call; did she cry? Did she suck in a sharp breath and see the world coming to an end? Or did she just nod politely, hang up the phone, and continue on with her routine?
Routine.
I hate that word, and you and I both know that's what we've become. When did we go from being young and free and (hardly) innocent to something monotonous and unbearable? I don't want to be your unbearable; I don't want to be the thing you wake up to and wonder how we've become this way. I suppose that's hypocritcal of me to say, given I'm writing this very letter, asking you the same questions I never want to have asked unto me.
I miss Paris.
Really, I don't miss Paris, I miss the idea of Paris. I miss what we were there, both as a couple and as individuals. You always said I should be my own person and that two halfs don't make a whole, but two wholes make something lasting. I always scolded you for it and laughed it off. I always laughed everything off. I never should have laughed us off. I feel like the same cheep china you remember. I feel like the same shitty lovesongs we crooned at each other just for kicks. I hated the walks you loved. I hated everything you loved.
I hated me.
I think you should know I still dream of you standing in front of the stupid statue near the bus station. I dream of the way your head is cocked to the side and that stupid grin is smashed over your mouth. I dream of you because you're familiar, and you're the only sort of love I've ever known. I dream of you because you're the kind of familiar I never want to give up, and I never want to lose, even if I've already lost it. I'm trying. I just need you to know, I'm trying.
I hate trying to be something poetic when I'm not, and I hate trying to write in words the way I feel about you when it should show through my actions. Everyone always says 'actions speak louder than words,' and Jesus Christ Himself knows I'm trying my damndest to show you how much I care. Things have just changed, Hart. Things have changed and we're growing up, but I don't want that to mean we're growing apart. I don't want to slough off this relationship like it's some disease I'm being driven to kill myself over, because it's not. It's not so dramatic. It's not so new. It's not so different. It just is. It's just us. You and me. I'd like to think there will always be a you and me. I never wanted this letter to turn into something so desperate sounding, because desperation isn't what I'm feeling right now. I feel a sense of loss for something I probably haven't even lost. And the child in me says, 'Take me back to Paris, everything will work out if we're there.' Everything will work out like it was June.
I still love you. My God, how I love you. I survive on the breath you are finished with.
Mattie
-
Rather than the perfume he loved, she wore tears that slid down her cheeks in steady streams of defeat. Her only recollection of him was the way he fit around her, their bodies two cinder blocks that snapped together to boyou around in a fresh sea of regret. For the majority of the morning, she lay on the sofa, reading and rereading the letter over and over again. I will always love you. Why did he write that? She pushed him away -- all the way to New York -- why would he leave her with the temptation of knowing he would always love her? Did he want her to chase him? Did he think she would? Knowing him, he expected she'd already booked a flight to follow him. Or maybe that was just her desperation talking.
Everything was a blur. She didn't remember dialing the phone number, she didn't remember listening to the drone of the ringer. She didn't remember ever pulling up off the couch just as she didn't remember wandering into the kitchen, leaning against the lip of the same counter that held her previous night's aggrivation. I will always love you.
"Hello?"
"Carol?" She didn't remember how shakey she was, how little her mouth moved as she blurted out the name of the new woman Hart would spend his time with. True, it wasn't competition -- not for romance -- but it still inflicted a sort of death in her heart knowing Carol would pull smiles from his mouth that Mattie never would.
What waited for her on the other end of the line was not an excited tone by any means, but more of an aggrivated sigh that leaked from a woman's mouth that donned a small, forced grin, purely out of pity. "Mattie."
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Strands of dark hair dripped forward into her eyes like splattered paint as she dipped her head forward, tilting her chin for her eyes to focus on the blurred floor. If it weren't for her violent grip on the lip of the counter, she wouldn't have kept her footing. "I don't mean to disturb you or anything, I was just going through my things and found your number."
"Do you expect me to believe that?" Carol laughed at her, a soft chuckle that again sang pity through every note. "I know why you're calling. Hart's here, he got in about an hour and a half ago. He's fine. The kids are happy to see him."
"I'm good, how are you?" An automatic response that proved she was running on nothing but nicotine and autopilot (in)sensibility.
"Mattie, listen to me." Carol was hardly smiling anymore, and she offered an exasperated tone that hissed trouble if Mattie didn't wake up. "I don't think you should call here anymore. Hart needs space, that's the only thing you can give him right now."
"I just don't know what I did." Monotonous. Lacking any energy at all. However, valid.
"I don't think it's anything you did. Look, I've got to go. Please, don't call her anymore. And for your sake, I'll tell Hart it was a wrong number. Please -- if you do nothing else, please just give him space. Take care of yourself, alright?"
"Carol, wait, I--"
"I've got to go. I mean it, Mattie. Take care of yourself."
"Please tell him I--"
"Remember. Don't call. Give him space. Goodbye."
She stared at the opposite wall, continuing her conversation silently behind trembling lips and salt-licked tears. Please tell him I'm sorry. Tell him I will be there soon to visit, and I'm sorry I've been gone for so long. Tell him I'll send postcards from Paris, or Venice, or anywhere. Please tell him I'll have dinner ready when he gets home, because if June Cleaver is who he wants, that's who he can have. Tell him...
Her spine split a trail as she slid down the front of the cabinet, her knees loosely bent to spike towards the ceiling as she folded her arms atop the knobs of her knees, her forehead hitting the cotton-covered meat of her forearms. I've lost him. And not only have I lost him, but I lost him to that god-forsaken city I vowed to never go back to. That's why he went there. He went there because he knew I wouldn't follow him there. I couldn't follow him there. Her shoulders shook in defeated sobs, last night's mascara smudging along high cheekbones to make warmarks for the battles she'd lost. I've lost him to New York.
-
Our hearts were lined up like boxes of Chinese take-out, though our muscles were already snapped in half like fortune cookies. Mine must've read, "There's something better coming to you," because from where I am right now, it can't get much lower than this. I know I shouldn't have called the other day, I know I ought to let you go. It's not like I have any reason for you to come back; you have Carol and the kids, and I need to move on. I need to find myself. You know that, Carol knows that, everyone knows that. I think I'm just afraid. What if I round the bend the very second I get over you and there you are with outstretched arms? What if I start anticipating your second-coming like Jesus Christ, only to find you've been strung up to a cross-beam and put to your death? What if I could stop playing the what if game and start living my life; who would I be? Certainly not who I am now; certainly, I will be someone better. Better suited for a relationship, better suited for inconvenience. You and I both know this was nothing but convenience. Neither of us were cut out for a relationship from the very beginning. I dragged you to all of those foreign places just to call them 'home', you dragged me back to the States because you knew we were living a lie.
My mistake was not realizing this sooner. I think I started out playing a game of house with you, and fit into the role so easily that it quickly became familiar and convenient. Casual, and comfortable. Rolling over to see you there became something I just anticipated; no, it became something I expected. I knew before I ever opened my eyes that you were there waiting for me. Maybe that's where the plan went awry -- we were never supposed to become comfortable with each other -- we were never supposed to settle down together. It was supposed to be something short, quick, and painless. It was supposed to be something fun and easy. Our mistake was in taking it beyond that. Our mistake was in falling in love.
I suppose if I could tell you something, I would tell you that in the time we were together I turned into something I've never been before. I smoke too much, I drink too much, and I talk too much -- but for the first time, I felt like that was okay. Lord knows I've never cared for myself, but you always found ways to make me feel beautiful. You knew I was real, even if ultimately you thought I was being fake. I can't help that I slapped layers of shit over me to try to smother out my genuine feelings. Our feelings were never supposed to be genuine to begin with. But you should know I tried. I tried my hardest to show you how I felt about you in subtle ways, and when those didn't work then I became obvious. I'm dying over you, and that is so obvious. Our china has suffered because of it. Our china. We were never supposed to purchase china.
The beauty in this is that whatever I'm feeling you won't know anymore. In time I'll become nothing but a memory, and with any luck the same will go for me. You'll become another stain on the linens, another second ticked over by my internal clock, and a hiccup in the rhythm of my fate. I never believed in fate, but I have to believe this all happened for a reason.
God knows if I don't, I will go insane.
-
Over... coffee. Or something equally unimportant.
Viv: I think Bryce is staying at the Sheraton. Some swanky suite; it's really very disturbing.
Matt: The Sheraton? I would've guessed he'd stay at the Omni. Who's he trying to impress this time?
Viv: Raquel Guinness, have you ever heard such a name?
Matt: Her last name is... beer.
Justine: Speaking of beer, how's Tuesday for ladies' night?
Viv: I'm in.
Matt: I'm sort of in. I don't know. Yes, I'm in.
Justine: Yes, you are in. Get over him, Matt.
Matt: Would you know I had a letter from him the other day?
Viv: A letter? How old fashioned.
Justine: Cheesy is more like it.
Viv: Don't you dare start getting roped in, you hear me?
Justine: Oh, leave her alone, Vivian. She'll make her own decisions, won'tcha, love?
Matt: I guess.
Viv: So, where's the letter?
Matt: Here.
Viv: You carry it with you in your purse?
Justine: How old fashioned!
Viv: How cheesy.
Matt: Look, do you want to read it or not?
Surround Sound: Yes!
<font size="1">Mattie,
I'm hoping this finds you quickly and easily, and that all is well in your neck of the woods.</font>
Viv: Whoa whoa, hold the phone. 'Your neck of the woods'? Who the hell says that?
Justine: Would you shut up so we can keep reading? Jesus.
<font size="1">I'm writing you to tell you I will be back down in the area to pick up some more things. I realize this may be awkward, but there are some valuables I don't trust to the airlines.</font>
Viv: What valuables has he got?
Justine: Honestly, shut the fuck up and let the woman read, would you?
<font size="1">I will be in the area later in the month; I have booked a flight and will land promptly at one-thirty on Tuesday, the twenty-fifth. I realize you may not want to know this, but I felt it necessary to tell you incase you want to make yourself scarce so we don't run into each other, accident or no accident. I want you to know I have every intention of getting right back on that plane and coming right back here to New York. There will be no getting back together. There will be no making up. Do you understand this? I hope so, with all sincerity. Anyhow, stay well. Hart.</font>
Viv: Well, you know what that really means, don't you?
Matt: What?
Viv: He wants to see you.
Matt: I was hoping you'd say that.
-
Back when we lived in the other house, there was a fountain about a block away over the boarder of the Art District. It had been a landmark for decades, but no one really knew when it was installed. Some say it was originally installed in the center of the Square, but others testified it had in fact been there all along, since the Twenties.
It wasn't anything amazing, but it was its simplistic beauty that captured the attention of both locals and travelers. The bowl of the fountain was shaped like a shell, its spout spiking towards the sky like a fine pearl that had been surpressed for years, needing to flee the mouth of the clam. The spout sprayed in such a way that from a distance you'd think water would splash carelessly towards passersby, leaking its tears over women in finely pressed suits and men in double-breasted jackets. Even though it was at the edge of the Art District, it was sandwiched by the other half -- the 'banking district', as we liked to call it. On one side of the fountain you could see young men and women with guitars and vintage clothing from the Seventies; on the other side of the fountain, you could see top business professionals chatting on their cell phones, checking their Gucci watches. Perhaps that was what made the fountain so special, not its simplistic attitude with its spraying water, but the very fact that it brought two worlds together to make some sort of collaborative peace. At least, some of us locals liked to believe that.
Last night, I dreamt about the fountain. I dreamt that the bowl was shaped in a square rather than a shell, and the men and women that draped themselves against the lip of the base were all in black. They wore sunglasses, and spoke on cell phones, and had their hair away from their faces. They looked like something out of a science-fiction flick. They spoke quickly -- to quickly for me to make out anything they were saying -- and by the time I came close enough to hear bits and pieces of sentences, they were gone. A new breed had swept in and swarmed around the fountain; people with boom-boxes and bellbottoms, joints and needles. They didn't don flowers or have long hair -- and they wore the same sunglasses. Their hair was away from their faces.
Normally, if I had been awake, I think I would've said something. I would've screamed out of sheer shock at least, wondering how these people changed and yet were so similar, and so much the same. Or perhaps I would have screamed when I came even closer to these people, men and women alike, and realized that their faces were all the same. Not masked, but naturally.
They all wore my face.
-
The Resurrection, Part I.
Work wasn't an option for the day; where she should have been writing proposals and answering numerous phone calls, she was home, doing more remedial tasks such as spring cleaning. Smoking. Eating pounds of chocolate. All of the selfish things she shouldn't have done, but needed to do. The chorus that sang through her head repeatedly sang only one line -- sometimes upbeat, sometimes it more closely resembled that of a funeral dirge -- He's coming today, he's coming today, he's coming today... The letter had been unfolded and refolded so many times it could've been torn easily, its creases so thick and heavy every line would've been torn like scissors. Quick, swift. Almost as quickly and swiftly as he'd left. There were phone calls from friends letting her know they thought of her; Matt, they'd ask, how are you doing? We're thinking of you. We love you. None of it mattered. From the moment she crawled out of bed and stepped into his favorite pair of jeans (the ones with the holes scattered through the thinning fibers like patchwork) to the time she shed her night shirt and peeled two tanks over her torso (the first a flimsy pale blue, the second an even more flimsy ribbed white), to the time she leaned over the lip of the counter to look into the mirror at herself, to the time she made coffee blindly and drank it deftly. It was all a haze; it was all a dream. This was the day she hoped would never, never come.
The airline food had been rather stale, which was to be expected. Some joke of an omelet and half of a cup of coffee later, he was peering out of the small window, waiting for the wheels to touch ground. Landing was always his favorite part of a flight: that jolt you get the second you hit earth; the leap in your throat right before it happens, wondering if something will malfunction. He liked the way his knuckles turned a pale color as they gripped the armrests of his seats; he liked the way he tightened his seatbelt until he felt a knob the size of a lung in his throat, both from fear and from restriction. He knew he shouldn't have gotten on the plane in the first place, and perhaps part of him wanted to find a reason to not set foot on the other side of the flight. It's always easy getting up into the air; one feels so free, as they travel to a new and distant land. He, however, wished the plane had never landed -- he wished the hiccup in his throat had been his last -- and when the plane cut a path down the runway and pulled up to the hanger, he felt a sickness in his stomach he'd never felt before. Guilt. Anger. Resentment. Fear. All of these beautiful obscurities that rushed and collided at his chest, first, then his stomach, then his... bladder. Bathroom. The 'urgent' light went off in his head, and he quickly fumbled with the seatbelt, fastening and unfastening, squirming in his seat frantically. Bathroom! I need a bathroom!
The house rarely felt like a home anymore; then again, nothing in America ever felt like home to her. He always ridiculed her for smoking, and even more than that he hated the way she loved Paris. Time and time again, he told her she was an American and she ought to live like one -- he rarely accepted her for what she was -- and so, she tried to conform. She tried to do the things he wanted her to do in the precise way he wanted them done, but none of that really mattered anymore. When she did decide to pick up the phone, it was to return a call from work, though it wasn't to answer anyone's question or fill any deadline. Rather, it was to request a transfer. "I can do all of this from the comfort of my home," she explained quickly, but calmly. "I can overnight things to you as best as possible, and of course my writing will be the same. Proposals are proposals, it's not like editing or creative writing." Her boss hummed on the other end of the line, a monotonous tone that spelled 'no' in every language possible. When the phone call came to a close and nothing had been accomplished, she did what any smoker would do: she lit up, and let the homefires burn.
Once his bladder had been emptied, he found his luggage and hailed a taxi, with specific directions to go straight to the hotel. A nap was needed; it would clear his mind, rid him of his nerves (at least temporarily so), and give him ample time to figure out how to face her without really facing her. As the taxi pulled away from the curb, he sank lower in the seat, his fingers pressing to rub over the subtle lines of his forehead. He felt so old, yet he was so young. He felt so deprived, yet he was so blessed. His eyes caught the skyline and held it, until buildings and lampposts became nothing but blurs. "Turn right!" He barked, lunging forward in his seat. With his hands braced on each seat in front of him, he barked again, the driver giving him a started expression in the rearview mirror. "Turn right! Right here!" Swerving, the cabdriver slammed on the brakes and quickly cut across the other two lanes, moving in a completely different direction. Maybe it was instinct, maybe it was insanity. Either way, he was going home.
Taken from play.
