Diary of a Human (2 page)

DIARY OF A HUMAN

1
Winter

1.0//life of a writer

Before I find easy sleep, I empty my brain. 

I wash my face,

brush my teeth,

a
nd scrutinize myself under the harsh glow of an overhead light. 

As I pad from bathroom to bedroom, I unscrew the bolts that keep this brain within my cranium, slowly feeling the day’s events freeing themselves as my brain slogs from one side of the hollow space to the other.  I reach into the cavern and feel the drama between my fingers, sticky and sweet. 

I spread my insides out, emptying my thoughts on the recycled page like a woman with her purse on the kitchen counter.  Just a few more shakes and this etch-a-sketch will be prepped for another 24
.

24 hours of life, a 24-hour sitcom.

1.1//lessons

It’s a good thing I’m an excellent swimmer.  Mom and Dad would be happy they paid for those lessons so easily on in my life or I might drown in the depths of your sea-green eyes.

I never took lessons on love though.  I guess Mom and Dad had their own priorities in mind for me.

Piano lessons, gymnastics, Girl Scouts – but who would teach me about Love?  I’ve got a 4.0 in Science.  I can tell you all about the human heart, but who can tell me about my own?

Anatomy might not be my specialty, but Emotions are my worst subject.

1.2//nothing gold can last

Like freshly fallen snow that remains undisturbed, so you now rest nestled under the blankets of our unabashed sin. I daren't disturb your uncomplicated sleep and instead take leave of your side in search of a glass of water to quench my burning insides.

And I would walk to you through the biting snow. My glasses becoming a windshield soon overwhelmed with flakes like my soul is overwhelmed by your presence. Blinded by the weather, I walk blindly on faith, your voice, your scent; the undeniable map of your body my only guide.

I know I should guard my vulnerabilities more closely. My mother always warned never to let on of my true feelings, never to give up too much of myself. But this coat is too heavy with relationships of the past. I would rather run naked through the snowdrifts. To feel the ice chew hot on my toes and ankles, even though I know...like the winter snow, we too melt.

1.3//a persistent cough

I can't shake you
. L
ike a persistent cough that rails the lungs and ribs. I'm normally a big self-medicator, but this cough remains. My breath comes in ragged gasps and if I dare breathe you in deeply, I
will suffer.

The average passer-by may toss me a sympathetic glance and a cough drop, but I have many layers and the medicine is ineffective. You have always tortured me, but until now, I had always surrounded myself with distractions. Lovers from my past float through my thoughts, but their features have become
blurred and indistinguishable.

Save one.

She has burned her maker's mark upon my skin and I have felt its sting. Salty ocean air burning the fresh wound of my daily guilt.

But you play the part that has always been mine. Flitting in and out of my life only so often that you are always on my mind. Like the persistent cough that nags and haunts my lungs. It is only when I believe myself free, does my throat itch and rage.

1.4//saw a man about a lemon

I visited a man today to cure me of my illness. I sat in a room with neither mirror nor window. The only proof of my existence was a shadowy reflection in a framed print that hung on a whisper white wall.
             
He looked up at me with large, helpless eyes. "I don't know what to tell you," he started. "I've never dealt with this type of emotional intoxication."

So he sent me on my way with a ten-pack of antibiotics. And my lungs still burn with you.

1.5//w
hiteness

Whiteness all around me reminds me of my place. Whiteness on the barren ground, whiteness in the clouded sky, whiteness in the strangers' hands, bags full of capitalism, who pass me by. I appear as one of them, but only for so long; until some uneducated twit spouts faggot this, faggot that. Whiteness turns to anger turns to rage turns to blood.

Whiteness is my savior, my disguise among the naive. Would she clutch her daughter's hand tighter? Would he smile and leer as though he knew my sinewy muscles grew tired with their flight? Would they, if they knew I would trade my
breath for a smile from you?

Your skin, love, saves me from the daily pain, your salt my nourishment. I feast on the depths of your soul. I devour your gla
nces, your laugh, your sighs.

I will not fade, I will not trip into mossy grave where teeth and bone crumble and become one with rocky pleasure. Skin into worms and rot. Our skeletons will still embrace and death not do us part, despite how the pillared house on t
he hill may shriek and groan.
             
Your soothing words fill my ears before dirt and death rush in, blocking out the rats and worms who have come to take me away. Barefoot in the snow, whiteness swallows me. But delicate limbs and lacing fingers will be my salvation, t
o pull me from the deep gasp of
the world.

1.6//not her fault

I spill thick, melodic, dark prose onto the page. But to what benefit? Words will go unread, emotions unexpressed, thoughts unheard. We sit at our private tables meant for two and do not dare suffer eye contact.

It's not her fault it's so comfortable. It's not her fault I want the pain that makes the sun shine brighter.

Eating dainty gourmet sandwiches and wraps with our designer teas. This world within our apple, pretending to be self-sufficient. The Ands and the Semi-colon; there are adjectives and adverbs I am too cowardly to express.

Noah loaded his arc with twos. But I like my ribs where they are, so I return to the comfort of the page.

1.7//inches high

The early morning woman lies her delicate fingers on the grayness of my sleep. Blinds meant to be fixed allow her passage and a glowing mist hovers in the room. I feel her eyes although mine own are sealed. I can only concentrate on the deepness of my breaths in my cowardly rest.

A hand, as though to rouse me, like I had done only days before. I feel her eyes pensive at the doorframe and a whisper of love…and goodbye.

The pepper shaker stands solo on the kitchen table. He looks out of place without his pair, but manages to look di
gnified and proud on his own.
It escapes his memories how long it has been since he has been in this position, taking advantage of the fact she had always been there. And one day, she isn't.

1.8//a face in the crowd

She did not recognize me when she breezed into the room. Had I changed that much in the handful of hours we had been apart? Perhaps I had grown wiser. Perhaps more determined. My mind less foggy or indecisive. Or maybe I was merely thinking of you.

My features softer, my jaw unclenched, my eyes not so narrow or brow so furrowed. She walked past me standing in a group full of strangers, yet my face did not stand apart.

1.9//bright blue grave

The river's icy breath cannot touch me. I feel neither pain nor hesitation as the waters swallow my tired limbs. I bob along the flowing crowd of strangers crashing all around me, head held high. Minnows scurry to nibble flesh on wrinkled fingers and toes, coveting my skin as I do yours. They seek no emotion however, only the feeling of belonging to a part of something grander.

Pockets laid with heavy guilt and burden, I will not resurface to feel your warm smile upon my bronzed skin. I find my quiet company with the seaweed and discarded tires now. I take my tea with the Empress of the crushing waters and smile politely at her unpolished conversation.

I have been soggy for so long, I forget the sight of seagulls and sailboats on a salty summer's dawn; but I do not forget the depths of your eyes in which I am lost forever, my bright blue grave.

1.10//light bulb

A light bulb cannot thaw a frozen heart. Its dull humming only allows for the pretense of enlightenment without depth. The angelic brightness calls organic, wholesome sunshine, but no poor pauper would be so delusional to expect its heat. The unfortunate are not so easily misguided as I.

My frozen heart has seen the brilliant light emitted from such lamps of varied shapes and sizes. Each wooing me with their stylishness, their practicality. But ice-bitten fingers and red-tipped ears will not benefit from flashy neon greens and blues. A light bulb cannot warm bone and flesh let alone this one muscle reserved for you.

1.11//broken mirror

She stares blankly at the mirror image of a naked stranger. Sad eyes graze over skeleton joints, hands fumble over a hollow stomach starving for control. Signs of her womanhood have melted away and only skin and bone prove her existence.

Death by
Glamour
and
Cosmo
.

She fears she may crumble away and be but a vague memory of limited space and contribution. The winter has been hard, but warmth brings bikinis and the shame and disgust of public opinion. She stands alone, like she has always felt, so exhausted from t
his full-time haunting.

Cheekbones capable of slicing warm hands that attempt to embrace her broken pieces. Shoulder blades like fractured angelic wings, useless for flight.

1.12// open book

Acrid smoke fills my lungs and the space around me. And I think of only you as the air becomes ghosts of my past that betray these short 22 years. The embers burn hot and red with no sense of cooling. It has been many lifetimes since I feasted upon your features, but they are still crisp despite the dense fog around my soul.

I am an open book. But most people struggle with the vocabulary.

2 Spring thaw

2.0//March is a hard month

March is a hard month. The trees refuse to smile and the sun has eloped in San Francisco with a woman called Luna. Puddles exist in my head where solid ground had formerly been overwhelmed with consistency. A tentative step into murky blackness, swallowing toes and foot, biting off ankles and shin and knee, lapping at thigh and barren wetness. I am waist deep in this sludge.

Dirty digits wriggle like worms in rich soil, always tunneling towards freedom but condemning themselves to an eternity of blackness. The earth is saturated with the tears of lost loves and abandoned women as corpses grow fat in their earthen beds, slowly
floating towards the heavens.

And there is no stirring from within this womb. No memories of first steps and words, only scabs that will not fade, long after scar tissue has dissolved.

No one ever tells you that it rains in hell. I had been looking forward to the change in climate -- a little war
mth after so many icy nights.

But
for
now I invest in rain pants and boots in a color to remind me of the absent sun.

2.1//fairy tale

Former lovers have accused me of a crime with jealous eyes and serious mouths. A broken doll, pieces strewn about. A puzzle complete in its own peculiar, queer pattern.

Kings and Queens have gathered from far-away lands to compete for the fabled prize, each assembling the scattered bits to their liking. Fashioning a cook
ie-cut replica of themselves.

And I pretend to impress, becoming som
eone else for every stranger.

Man and Woman each confident to be the One who can make the shards stick, only to stand helple
ss as the pieces deconstruct.