paralysis

I missed the turn because of the tears, and thought there was a turn where there wasn't, so I waited at the intersection at the light in the turn lane with nowhere to turn, and cried. I cried because I felt my leg. I felt my leg on the break, and I realized 3000 miles away, she couldn't. 3000 miles away my mother's leg was numb, and it burned, the plaque intercepting her nerves from the feeling. I realized the plaque could grow until there was no feeling left and that she, just not it would be paralyzed.  I thought how many times we've used that word, misused that word, 'paralyzed'. "Unable to act, the absence of motion, of feeling".  Perhaps for a moment i have been unable to act just for a moment, a second, by fear, or guilt, or life, or just that feeling of not quite being in your skin. But i have never really been nothing, felt nothing. I feel too much, there has always been a something to feel; whether it be pain or fear or joy or even apathy.  I have never felt nothing. "Nothing, no motion. Frozen. No life, no heat. Dead. Numb."  There's nothing after that, no kick, no step, no freedom. Stuck.I thought of this as I waited I thought of her feeling nothing.

It was a quick call, hours earlier. It was an after the fact conversation about emergency rooms and plaque, and a casual reference of not being able to move much less walk. A simple 'So this thing happened' like she was telling me about a minor bump in a parking lot. My mother mentions her illness with the casualty of  sharing going to a new restaurant. "So by the way I'm on IV's now".  There's a certain flair for the dramatic and self indulgence she's never had, so I inherited most of it for her. Since seven I've been feeling for her, but I couldn't feel this.

 Here I was, on the opposite coast, my foot on the break, my foot on the gas, in motion, mobile, a task I do mindlessly. Music purring through the speakers mindlessly. When I walk, steps I take mindlessly,  thoughts forming words mindlessly, these fingers I type mindlessly, ungratefully.  I can't be grateful after every step, every task ,because that gratefulness is too scary, the fragility is to scary.  The trust is too scary. The brain tells me to move and i move, I scratch my head, I squish my toes, I think to speak and before i can think it, it is done. But tonight maybe she can't, in weeks she might never,  so  I feel my foot on the gas, and turn. Not quite sure where I'm going, but I turn because I can.

frequency

LAURA
Maybe they were all lies. Everything they said what they saw. Maybe they were the kind of things that people think they want, but the idea of sustaining that being in the presence of that is too much. Maybe I'm..forget it. This isn't about me right? You said this isn't about me? And I know you think you're different, but you're not.  I mean you are because you're you, and I care about you but- You all talked about, my hands, my fingers like you talked to each other like you were paraphrasing the same script. Because you can say all those things, you can say all of it, and I can say things I don't really mean to try and make you stay. Recycled turns of phrases that I can twist but I'll believe in the moment, and it doesn't matter what you say, or I say because you're still going to leave. That's how this is going to go. After we have that obligatory cry you're going to leave.  You left in your mind weeks in, moments in, and you've just been riding the obligation of that presence. Because they all leave. I mean I guess everyone leaves everyone eventually right? And it's my fault my frequency that I'm sending out in the universe... the same thing just coming into my orbit, listening for a bit.

 And yeah sure, in about two sentences you're going to say that we'll keep in touch, that I'm 'special' or some bullshit that you want to be part of my life in some 'context', but you won't, we won't. Because I don't turn it off, can't turn it off. And I wish, I wish I could change the channel to some pop song or something, but I'm.. I'm Phillip glass. No that's pretentious I'm.. I'm that Bon Iver album you listen to when you first get it, and then after a while it's just too hard or it reminds you of something else... it's just too something. And you like it, it's a good album it's just not a 'fun' album.  I don't know.  And you'll try to call at first, and we'll get coffee twice and pretend it's normal so you can feel good about yourself, but then you'll just let it go. Let me go. All over again. And I'll find out over the internet that you're engaged to some girl, some boring, simple easy girl, at least I'll tell myself that that's who she is. Simple. And I'll envy her for being so simple. And staring at a screen I'll wish I could be more simple.

SARAH

Prospective addition for the play 'Carrying'

It was better. It was better that way. It wasn’t something I was ready for or he was ready for. It was just better. At least I thought it was, think it was. And I felt better because I knew I wasn’t the only one. Before it happened I had taken my friend Erin, and I sat in the lobby and watched these teenage boys, wait for their girlfriends and play xbox. With their hoods up playing video games, kids playing games. And I was a kid. And I’m not saying we used it as birth control or making excuses for the girls I knew, know that have had three or four. Or excuses for me or whatever. But it was better. I was 23, 24. A year out of college. And it wasn’t like I had been with a lot of guys, and it wasn’t like he was an important one. Before this, important. He worked at the bar I worked at, he played keyboards in some ironic cover band, he sent things into McSweeneys, and was tall, and sweet and I didn’t know his middle name. Because we had only hung out for a month. But I usually ask people what there middle names are, it gives you a false sense of intimacy. I mean you don’t think about that, if you thought every time you had sex ‘would you be willing to be bonded for the rest of your life with this person in raising a human being together’ no one would get laid. So it was better. It was the better thing to do, and I called Lisa and cried and decided. And she offered to come and go with me, and he offered but Erin said she would. And the appointment was all set, and the night before I just started bleeding. And I bled until it was gone. I just sat in the bathroom and I bled. And I felt relieved and guilty all at the same time. And I’m not saying that I’m being punished or whatever, with this thing, now, because I don’t know that I believe in something bigger to punish me. And maybe it was my body just rejecting it, saving it. And maybe that’s what this thing is too I don’t know. But the thoughts we have, something has to be listening right? Even if it’s our smallest cells listening, something has to be listening. Something has to grow.

the why

If I wrote poems I'd do that, but I am no ee. except my grammar is reckless and I hate capitalization. My phrases are too long for lyrics, too many commas, and semicolons you can't sing. And I don't love you to write a love song, and my rhymes would be all wrong. Because the truth is I'm just a Melisma, a single syllable slid up the scale. Least that's what I've been told. And reading lyrics always seems trite, unless notes are held close. Songs and poems are too contained, too cool and I am not cool. I have accepted this and am cool with this. So I will write you words, I will give you words, some from my brain others from my heart to my brain, others just wedged in between silence blank spaces I need to fill. Others to fill the silence, ...like that sentence there was to fill the silence. And I will speak these words in your head in my voice, in your idea of my voice, my pauses, my rhythms, my stops, and goings, and redundancies repeated. And you will think my thoughts for a moment, have my thoughts swim in your head and give birth to new thoughts thought babies. Children that will quietly play blocks in a corner that you'll forget about or scream, or bellow in sing song voices, or leave with a babysitter. And for a moment, a brief moment we'll have shared something. Like a kiss with your eyes closed. where you don't quite know where all parts are going, and thoughts flutter in and out but it's just that kiss. In the moment that kiss, that word. and that kiss makes you want to kiss back, kiss differently, or to never kiss at all, but it makes you want to do something, think something, feel something, all cause of a moment. And if I wrote songs I could express this ever so much better, but I still wouldn't get kissed back.

A FINAL REQUEST

DAVID, 37
Validation, That's all we want right? Validation? You see me, you hear me, you care that i exist. That somehow my non existing would make some sort of hole, some void, that I'd like to think you couldn't fill but you probably could.

They can hire someone new for my job, and my parents will be sad in so much as I'm an extension of them. The love they feel as any parent does out of obligation, not to demean it, but  it's not a love they'd feel if I was wasn't their kid, just someone they met at the farmer's market or a dinner party. So that's them. And my friends have other friends, other people to call and vent to, or laugh with, and yes on occasion they'll miss me, and say it's a shame but they'll learn to fill the void. And it... I will be something that sneaks up on them from time to time. And you can and will meet someone new, or have already. Look at you meet people every day. And I am and will not be your last one. The deli guy where I get my coffee will think I moved, as will my cobbler, my pharmacist, people so rarely say good bye. There will be one less person at mass on Christmas, one less voice cheering for the phils, one less person waiting for the N train at Ditmas.. And the cats will eventually make noise to alert a neighbor, or the smell will be too much, or Johnny will come over like I asked and pick them up, check on 'em. Please don't come over, you're allergic or say you are or whatever. It will be okay, they'll find other laps.

And eventually the money I owe will be paid,  my things will be sold and dispersed and people will have pieces of me. Things  that they'll find in their closet or catch their eye on their bookshelf. I'm giving Stef my copy of Denial of Death,  just cause it'll piss her off.  And a friend from college or high school, or a drinking pal will say one day 'whatever happened to?..' and they'll think for a moment to call and then go on having their drink. And that's not a slight, it's just ilfe.

I don't know that we ever get this feeling of validation, and maybe a secret little part of me thinks I will after the fact. And another part knows there is no after the fact. My mother would hate me for saying it, but let's face it it's a possibility. I am an autonomous one. I have had no measurable impact on my community, created nothing of great substance, have no real family, no official relationship, no dependents, no ones life or livelihood is resting on me. And you will say my dear that I am wrong. That I am needed. You will scream from the rafters that I am validated. YOU will validate me. Scream, validating my existence. And I won't be there to hear it. Because the truth is, it's not something you can ask for? And if you have to ask, it's too late.

Kerry, 28

Ok, so I don't want to know about your hopes and dreams. I know about too many people's hopes and dreams, and where they are from, and their parents, and siblings, and their thoughts on relationships, relationships that we never had. I listened to too many people's hopes and dreams who became no one, I've invested in and imagined and counseled too many hopes and dreams that left. and the truth is I'd just be pretending to listen. And I'm sure yours are great, and your upbringing was great, and fucked up and all that, and you have some schpiel on love that is going to make me think you're damaged in a really lovely way, that I am going to think I can fix.
But I think. I think we should just be direct here. Because i have this problem. More of a habit really . Where I'll let you, men, boys, whatever, have all that small talk and the entire time I'm thinking, do you really want to sleep with me? And I know that biologically most men want to sleep with any vagina, unless unless of course they think the head and the heart that go along with the vagina are attached. And by my listening to all this; your hopes and dreams and bla bla bla, whatever, you are going to think that I want more , that I want to be a part of those hopes and dreams and thoughts on relationships, and future thoughts on relationships. And I don't think I do. I might but I don't know. Because I don't know you. But I do know that before I decide any of that, listen to any of that, invest in any of that.. can we just point blank just get to it. And see if that other stuff works. Can we just see if we have fun? Like actual unweighted fun! Because I'm tired of listening to things I"ll never be a part of. And one day when we're tired of having fun, you'll ask me about my hopes and dreams and aspirations and for the first time I'll speak. And they'll mean something, because you'll know me.

Insecurity Speech

for Grayson, who I will someday force to hop on a coffee table.

EXCUSE me everybody. Everybody, I'd like to say something. To all of you, fine, fine people. First of all I want to thank you so much for having me, to this party, event, thing. And um Happy Birthday to Francesca, I don't know you but you seem real awesome. And I know we only talked really briefly when I walked in and said 'I'm a friend of Brian's, Happy Birthday' but i felt something. I did.
I would just like to say from the bottom of my heart that i think you are really cool, like super cool, like cooler than cool. shit i already said cool.. And um I just uhhm i really don't think i belong here, because i am um not you know um cool. And I know cool people don't acknowledge the existence of cool, but I'm not. And that's ok, thats ok um but i just wanted to um thank you for giving me something to aspire to that i will never reach because you guys are just so fucking cool it makes me nauseous. So cool that I've been sitting in a corner pretending to check my phone watching how cool you are. And there isn't an app for that. Which is really really cool, like worse than ice cold. And um yeah. Because I look at you and it's like fuck man, your shit is more attractive and intelligent than me, not that I've seen or carried a conversation with your shit but... I should go. I'm going to go. Also Xander if you could tell me where you got that shirt man, I'd appreciate it