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the first question asked, is who she wants to be "I" or "she", then she begins.
I chose to use she after being told things from my first words column - which might have been kind of widely read - as in like five people instead of zero -- that "you could be the next Salinger. you could be the next ... just change the 'I' pronoun to 'she'"
so I tried it,
a lot.
the other advice was given by rich: "Martin, you need to put spaces in your writing. paragraph breaks".
you know what you'd never know? I didn't think I deserved paragraph breaks.
I thought that
hearing my voice
was a burden that should be mercifully gotten through as quickly as possible for the poor recipient.
god I was
scared.
and speaking of Sappho. I came rushing to the tele-words because the lesbians are cutting their grass. it's the second time I've seen it. and again, they are cutting the six inches of my property - or maybe 18, and I love them for it. even if they haven't invited me to a single party or walk. but I haven't invited them either.
I was called a narcissist by my first husband.
(the room still remains cat pee smell free - huzzah)
obvi, it was the first question I asked when I felt able to be vulnerable with the post-divorce therapist that I paid for with my own big girl money.
"am I a narcissist? you've seen me enough to know by now. am I?"
I believed her when she said, "oh honey. you are NOT a narcissist. but your father, he's a card-carrying textbook narcissist and I'm not sure about your mother."
I just never could figure out why
why why why why why why what happened happened.
it just ruined everything
that feeling of
it was all a lie
he didn't love me.
it was all fake.
I was deceived.
I should have known.
my life is over
I am dead.
my father is a zombie.
my mother is no use.
I am alone.
and finding chuck and mark - well, they were so kind. it's so ironic that they're not literal fathers because they were the very first auditioned fathers I ever had. they raised me. they made me believe - BELIEVE - I was beautiful.
I murdered them both of course.
cheated on both of them.
just like my father.
if it makes you feel like perhaps I'm not a monster, I have a few saltwater tears rolling down my face.
and I'm so very sorry.
I loved them. I love them. they were excellent fathers.
what did I want though?
what did I want?
what would you think?
I wanted to grow up - and keep the relationship with my "father" and move forward - into romantic love.
it was sick. it is sick.
I'm sorry.
it's so obvious, but it still takes me a long time to know.
what do I want?
I want to feel love without the quill.
my mistake - and I knew it from the start - was that it would devastate me - it did devastate me - to lose him. once seeing/knowin him.
I don't talk about it much, but I have never in my entire adult life - and it's hard to say never but it felt singular - the second day after I met Leon. July 4th night at 3am waking up and being bizarrely conclusive from the hours of unanswered texts I had sent my new possibility - that
I got out of bed.
popped open a brewski - and kids, I had never recalled doing that in my life before. never. I'm a polite semi-alcoholic who waits until the evenings and weekends.
but that night, I listened on YouTube to a vic chestnut album I'd never heard before - the one with chinaberry tree, and I just repeated it over and drank two beers. I don't even remember what kind they were now. I didn't have a tropicalia ipa then. and I felt kind of the same thing - I don't know why but:
I was so stupid to believe.
it was all fake.
how lonely I will be
forever
again.
and the lesbians have stopped cutting their yard. they have what I do - the edges trimmed but not the healthy top patch. I can't stand the fucking tv weeds, and my manual reel mower - yes of course I still wear the cowboy boots as I saw a snake a month or so ago.
and you saw what I just did there.
I deflected
because it was so painful to realize the symmetry and how close it was to
exactly the same hook
and children.
he was so bill before the fall but better.
he was calm. he was not a used car salesman begging for love/attention.
he was contained.
he had sparks.
he had mystery.
he listened to me.
we talked forever.
blah blah
I just can't stay in the vein. it hurts. I have breathe a bit.
the cicadas still sing.
maybe I wrote you out of existence from the beginning.
maybe it was all doomed.
maybe it was me.
maybe it was you.
I never asked you what you wanted besides "do you want a long term relationship?" I hadn't meant with me - it was just one of those beginner in or out questions.
"yes. definitely."
let's roll.
and it crapped out, and I don't grow him on trees. I'm not sure how to conjure up another non-mated man to connect with me.
I know I put too much faith in my brain.
it was the only thing I knew for sure my mother respected in me - was in awe of - recognized.
but I wish so much
I could have learned the trick earlier.
to just be still.
last night, it was storming. I tried it. I tried JUST listening to the rain. I tried to just listen to the rain.
it was hard. I kept making up stories and drifting off into random thoughts.
but at least now I know what I want.
more stillness
--
and she wondered if the reason she was so emphatically - even though she understood it - non-lesbian. she was always like "well, I want a dick in me. I don't really understand the lesbian thing for me. I mean, I could get off with a woman - but I wouldn't seek it. maybe in prison. I think for me, it's maybe linked to the auditioning father's thing - the adamancy."
and god in starry heaven she hoped she was done blindly auditioning daddys
now she felt like Sylvia plath
again.
she loved how Sappho and her island of Lesbos was so cool of etymology but she wonders if that memory she has is correct - that somewhere she jumped off a cliff to kill herself from unrequited passion and that Byron had mimicked it...
but shit.
she didn't know.
she remembers going to the macon historic yard sale with him, and they were going to go walk at ocmulgee park afterwards. she had only gotten some cds that she'd never listen to, a parcheesi game "I saw that and thought of you", and ok basket "you can use it for your sunglasses collection", and the fluted glass he liked to drink out of "I feel like I've appropriated this glass."
and on the way to ocmulgee, she asked if they should stop at the new football watching bar "it's so exotic to watch football - the pageantry and shit. I have never dated a watcher before. it's hilarious to me, and maybe I can better bond with the women in my family - who are devoted. want to get a drink and bit to eat first?"
He started trying to find a parking space, "well, you know we won't be going walking then."
"maybe"
"we won't"
"I'm ok with that."
he had already parked. he had the app. they went into cash mans on cherry street. it was already filling up. the barkeep asked what they wanted. there wasn't much craft choice, so she hesitated, Leon did something she loved but would never say, "you want a Tropicalia. you'll like it. it's practically the town beer of Athens."
"ok. I'll have that."
"two please."
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