An update
A little hungover today. And it’s grey and icy outside. All I want to do is go curl up back in bed for some mid-morning cuddles, after we eat something.
A job offer came in this week. Assisting a dentist.. at 14 hrs a week. As it stands, I really need more hours than that. After a few more days, I may decide to go ahead and take it, but I’d barely be working enough to cover the cost of gas.
Note to self: You were right. Damn.
Oh. Yeah.
I’m the mean one alright.
:/
I’m only accidentally in this space
My head is thick and I can’t quite open my eyes all the way, like my body knows that it’s not supposed to be here in this place in this time. The air is cold in that middle of the night way, it can only feel this way when the sun’s been asleep for this long. There’s a place in our bed that’s still warm and I know I will have to warm it up again when I go back, but I know to wait until my eyes will barely open at all anymore before I go back. The act of finding just the right way to lay in the warm indention in my bed will wake me up again, until I am in just-the-right-spot.
A yawn, the big kind that fills your whole body and your ears and your eyes, and I know it’s close. I wonder whether I should go to him, curl my body against his, but I know that the idea of his arms is nicer than the reality, that his sweet embrace is actually rather hard to get comfortable in, when I’m trying to sleep and not “sleep” with him. There is always the morning for that sort of sleep anyway, when we both doze in and out after I slide under his blanket, the blanket I am only ever under when I want to feel his skin. if I just want to sleep and be warm, I have my own blanket and my half of our wide ocean of king size bed.
Another big delicious yawn and I know I will leave him be until morning, though he’ll probably wake up when I clumsily crawl back up the bed searching for my pillows, and he’ll probably ask me if I feel better and I’ll say yes and the benadryl made me sleepy and I’ll maybe move towards him, forgetting in the dark and the sweetness that I meant to stay on my side of the bed, and I’ll lay on his arm until I remember that it hurts my neck to stay that way for long, hurts my back to arch (even gently) against him and I will never fall asleep, have never fallen asleep that way.
And I’ll kiss him goodnight and go back across the continental divide of our blankets and pillows and tell him I’ll sail back in the morning.
On Blood
I tug at the dry skin on my lips with my teeth
especially when I am very very nervous
or worried, which means I do this a lot.
I do it until there is blood, sometimes,
and the skin is left skiny-smooth, raw and split,
and the taste of copper dances on my tongue.
I cut my ankle the other day, shaving my legs.
The bathtub floor swirled with red
and I watched my life running down the drain.
“That happens,” I sighed,
and tried to stop the bleeding with tiny pieces of tissue.
It seems i’m very very good at wasting blood
For three days now
whenever I blow my nose, there is blood.
This happens to me sometimes, and it is no surprise,
weather changing quickly as it has been,
but i still feel as though
i am bleeding to death inside myself.
And as i realize my blood must be searching for something more
must be craving more life than my body can offer
must be setting out on a journey
to find itself
i feel the dull familiar pain deep inside
that says i must be bleeding soon.
Of Snow and Blankets
Mazes, fighting, claws, running
I pull myself across the ocean of empty bed between us and slip beneath his blanket, dragging his dead hand across my body. His instinctive reaction is to pull away, but he stretches a little to cover it up. I tug his arm back around me, murmuring into his warmth that I had a nightmare, and he is instantly in protector mode, wrapping me up in comfort.
“Roll over and I’ll hold you,” he says in a voice thick with sleep. I sit up to arrange my pillow. Tendrils of nightmare fall away from me and litter my bed. “Look,” I point. Through the slice of open window I see white. Snow always excites me; happiness like a child when it’s even in the forecast. He smiles a little, pulling me down into place. “I know,” he says, and I slide down to lay against him, my pillow nestled in the crook of his arm. He is asleep again instantly, comfortable and happy to have me in his arms.
And I forget just what it was I was dreaming about.
Traffic
So I’ve been getting a teeny-tiny bit of traffic here lately. It’s directly related to the fact that I’ve been reading other people’s blogs, but maybe I’ll one day build up a little following of my own. Yeah, I’m crossing the line between “Amy’s space to put up shit no one else will read” and “Amy’s constant desire for recognition.” I’ll get over it.
I’m thinking about starting a wedding blog. Most of the blogs I’ve been reading lately are wedding blogs. I’m obsessed right now with my own – in case you didn’t know. Although if you’ve talked to me lately.. you know. I don’t even have a date set, but the planning part is SO much fun! If I start a separate blog for just wedding stuff, then no one who isn’t interested will have to be bothered. Also, it will be a place to send the family to get updates on the process, without necessarily exposing my writing to them. Most of my stuff gets crossposted to several places, but this is the one I consider “private”. It’s not, I know, but I like to think of it that way. (How funny would it be if I just crossposted this blog. “No, YOU’RE the most special of all of them! The only truly original one.”)
My self-worth is a little high today because less than 24 hours after emailing my resume, I got called for an interview. I didn’t go, because I wasn’t expecting it to happen that fast and they wanted me to be there likerightthen. It would’ve been a good job though, so that gives me hope that I won’t end up flipping burgers. The lady sounded excited to have me come in, but yesterday was “the only day” they were interviewing. Sucks.
Oh well, there are actually a surprising number of listings for this area right now. It works out anyway because Eric’s grandmother is staying with us, and his mom asked me if I could look out for her when they’re at work. (Actually, that was one reason I went on the frenzied send-out-my-resume-right-now job listing search, but now it’s too late and I already said I’d help. Because I always say yes.)
Anyway, eventually I’ll put more creativity into my writing and less into planning a wedding-without-a-date, but for now, something has to suffer. I’m not good at obsessing over multiple things. So less crap poetry and more crap centerpiece ideas! Love.
Amy.
three-and-four a.m.
Three-and-four a.m.
hopeless hours
too late for sleep, too early to wake
God, is there anything worse?
Maybe four-thirty-a.m.
Or right before the sun comes up
when the sky gets that rosy hue that
always makes me feel nauseous.
Jaundiced clouds, sick with leprosy,
they start to unravel as soon as the sun bursts through
Diseased flesh decomposing
as the world begins to stir.
If you’re awake at three-or-four-or-four-and-thirty
you’re already outside
You day-slash-night-dream about
orange juice and toast
rushing out the door
sitting in traffic to get to your desk justintime
And all the mundane little
make-you-want-to-blow-your-brains-out details
- business suits and meetings, wpm, irs, iras -
seem so appealing.
This hour
these hours
I always feel empty
literally
something about this time of morning makes my stomach hurt
I’m probably hungry
but eating would make it worse
I’ve been through this hour enough times to know.
Nothing good comes of these hours -
Worry, fear, paranoia, and you forget all the little sweet things
that make you so happy at three-and-four p.m.
I know now,
a malicious witch hovered over my cradle at birth,
her breath, sickly sweet,
carrying her disease,
wrapped around my tiny frame.
- “There is nothing you can do,
I have claimed you as my own,
my three-and-four a.m. child”
How many three-and-four-a.m.s have I spent on a weary laptop
reading, talking, finding other
three-and-four-a.m. children
But at this hour
you are always only alone,
a stale donut from yesterday’s a.m.
with too-pink frosting and pale characatures of sprinkles.
Yes, three-and-four-and-four-thirty-and-five a.m. -
the cocaine hour.
No matter how many years pass,
it’s still the cocaine hour,
I am still the empty vessel at the black desk.
The paint was soft, like wax,
sometimes it came off
and the soft white powder was mixed with soft black paint.
As if that were the greatest of my worries.
Parcelling out my time in lines and bumps,
“Only this much this time, then none for an hour -
or forty-five minutes or thirty-five if I get
a lot of work done
between then and now”
Then it was easy to explain the nausea
the emptiness of three-and-four-a.m.
The cloudy thoughts.
Now, though, no reason,
only my witch’s curse,
my hideous benefactor.
In whose dank image was I formed, putrid Mother?
What demon have you set on my shoulder to whip and torment me?
Your foul breath lingers still in my nostrils
and I am always nauseous
at three-and-four-and-four-thirty-and-five a.m.
At the Library
We’re walking out of the library; I’d had to send a fax. It’s a gorgeous afternoon, and we’re so rarely outside during the day now. I’m walking about two steps ahead of him – I always am, because he always opens doors for me.
There’s a girl walking past us; I don’t pay much attention to her, except that when Eric quickens his step to catch up with me and starts to lean in to say something, I think he’s going to talk about her.
She’s really not that cute. Not enough to catch his attention, I think.
He leans closer to me, almost close enough to whisper except it’s hard to whisper when you’re walking, and we’re still walking to the car. His voice is low, though; it’s a secret.
“You have a really cute butt,” he says, and takes an affectionate swipe at me.
“She has a really cute butt,” I think I hear, but only for a second. I start to laugh and grab his hand, even though we’re at the car and it’s keeping him from going to the drivers’ side.
“I love you,” I say, and I mean it.
