Pausing All Meaning
I am eight pages from finishing a book, a good book. I set it down across from me and put off ending it.
I missed a call the other day that I might have picked up, if it were several weeks ago.
My purple Globe shoes have salt stains crowning the toes and I keep meaning to clean them off, every time I look down. I keep meaning to check the weather before I leave the house. I keep meaning to leave the house earlier so I don’t have to speed walk nervously to work, half-jogging when I think no one is looking.
My jacket with the fur on the hood still smells like last Saturday’s exploits; like dingy bars and strange houses; like conversations on repeat that you’d rather not hear but listen to with a smile caked on your face, nodding.
There are still broken cigarettes lining my pockets and bottle caps choking my throat.
A friend in Morocco tells me to fly across the world and join him; ride camels through valleys of sand; get tanned and blend in with brown faces, again. I’m in my closet unearthing shorts before I let myself stop believing. Before reality crashes down like a seventy pound weight directly on my chest. Rooted.
I wish the word “home” stopped sounding so much like “cage”. I wish I loved this city enough to stay put. I wish I loved anything enough to stay put.
When I close my eyes I am living all of my lives at once. I jot the details down in my leather notebook so I don’t forget and then I consume my memories, anyway. Live grasshoppers that jump back up my throat. Crickets that sing from the bottom of my stomach. Fluttering moths and buzzing wasps that sting the lining of my cavities in blind panic. I drink milk because I heard that calms queasiness or maybe that was for relieving spicy food. I drink flat ginger ale because it’s all I have left.
I lay my forehead flat against the mirror and try not to vomit when my eyes change colour.
I put my Ipod on shuffle and when it plays this song I press my lips together, stitching the wound with pressure, the swarms in my stomach beating faster, growing stronger.
I press play and your voice is the key. Your words are a scalpel at my mouth. A sharp glinting blade. I press play. Ripping my body in two, a clean slice down the middle, the sides falling away to reveal my shadow; hovering insects. A million tiny wings beating.
I press play and they scatter; living dust in a storm.
I press play and am nothing.
I press play.
The Joy Formidable – Whirring
Well a giant thank you to Stephen K for drawing me to this blog.
You are such an amazing writer, your words are so personal. They hit me. I think I just fell in love with your blog.
Best,
Hannah Katy
Lindsay, maybe you should get out of your city.
I get those salt stains too on my shoes. I like how when I read this I could almost smell the fur on your coat, as undesireable as it may be in real life, it smelled pretty cool to my imagination.
To quote myself…
To be content a sin
To be reckless a blessing
To be oh to be
You may need a shovel. Cause it just got really deep in here. Another great post.
Every post you write is a polished lucky pebble that I tuck into my secret pockets and carry with me through my days.
If you ever feel like crossing hemispheres for a winter migration to ease things for a bit, I am here.
Don’t tease me, woman.
My restlessness is an untameable beast.
We’ll fly soon, Bird.
“…the sides falling away to reveal my shadow; hovering insects.” –Just loved this.
I so often feel I am living so many of my lives at once—daughter, sister, lover, friend, writer, yogi, searcher, seeker, woman. I want to tame just one, just one, into faithful obedience, so that I’m not carrying oh so many leashes.
You’ll get to Morocco one day, even if it’s just a metaphor.
“I am eight pages from finishing a book, a good book. I set it down across from me and put off ending it.” I wanted this to be the book you were writing and was ready to implore you to finish it, quickly, so I could read it…then I realised you were only reading it. sad face.
I’d like to read your mind like a slow book.
Savored in corners.
Stored in pockets.
Cherished.