Laillapalooza’s Weblog

I’ve swallowed my own voice.

 

Previous Post

This is a poem I have been working on for over six months now. It has another part to it which has not been (successfully) written  yet. But tonight I realized that it might not need it. Maybe some day the first part will want to get itself written. Until that day, here’s what I have:

I have a river

running through me,

emptying out

between my legs,

there is endless water

pouring out, and with it

schools of fish,

a city built on boats

with streets that

weave up and down

not side to side,

there are street corners

and a house that could have been ours,

there are endless family photographs

floating away with the tide,

there are broken telephone lines

which lie like snakes in the grass

spurting electric shock waves

from their mouths.

There is a moon

which tends to stay out

longer than the sun.

There is silence within silence.

There is a mattress which

cannot forget your contours,

though your scent is long gone,

which was, I think,

what most mattered.

A more accurate account:

*** Cont. from Feb 25th post

There is a chair with a hole in it.

There is a table with a flat top that comes loose.

The window is open. There is no breeze.

The computer stares at me.

Nothing happens. There is nothing to write about.

Previous Post

I do not mean to sound suicidal here

but today I got to thinking about cutting my wrists

with a smooth knife.

A serrated knife

is good for cutting into breads and fruits

because those teeth will get at anything,

but almost immediately I thought of it,

I remembered that I love myself

so it would have to be with a smooth knife.

Let us call it an experiment.

This experiment would fulfill the very specific purpose

of measuring the centimeters of flesh

between the skin and the vein,

to count the layers of flesh as you might count

the rings of a tree,

and to decide, beyond a measure of a doubt,

how the meat’s discoloration reflects

on age and emotional maturity;

which is to say,

this experiment would have no purpose at all.

 

If I were to try this out on other people

I would draw the following conclusions:

-people with thick veins

are not destined to work in some cubicle somewhere,

punching numbers on a keyboard.

-People with dull muscles and bright colored veins

should turn to music in times of duress.

-People with fewer layers

of muscle are young at heart,

should never listen to their elders,

just follow their dreams of becoming homeless painters.

-Those of us with veins that hide from needles

will never know where they will be going, so they should

surrender here and now to whatever wants to come next.

Retraction

The poet would like to apologize to her readers for having taken some creative license in the previous poem. She was not residing with any ghosts at the time that the poem was written. The ghosts were, in fact, two very nice women who are very much alive. It was merely a symbolic tool to communicate the poets sense of isolation, and it was a stupid and obvious one at that. The poet would like to extend a sincere apology to these women for any confusion this may have caused about the nature of their relationship with the poet which was always very friendly, or for any self-doubt leading to a sort of identity crises which the poet’s thoughtlessness may have occasioned.

In addition, the poet’s muscles did not atrophy.

Furthermore, there were actually a few photographs of women on the walls and one painting had two female figures, which I am sure would have loved to sing with the poet if they could.

The poet would also like to clarify that the clouds did have places to get to, but it was their job to get there, and any implication that they were negligent towards her should be regarded as a falsehood.

In fact, the poet would like to apologize again, right now, to the reader because she just said she took some creative license when really all that means is that she was lying. She is sorry she lied.

The second House

(A reworked draft of the first post I made this month)

 

There is a lull

that comes with the humidity.

It’s a sedating silence that

trickles in from the streets.

 

There are a lot of walls,

plain white walls,

that stare me in the face

and refuse to partake in the conversation.

 

I look out the window to the sky

and see thick clouds rolling by.

They can’t stick around.

They have places to be.

 

The thing is, I try to remind myself,

as the desperation bubbles inside,

At those heights, there are no streets

and there is no logic to limit movement.

 

Meanwhile, the muscles begin to atrophy

and new, lazy pains pulse

throughout the body,

mainly in the legs and knees.

 

I am sinking into the gap

between one sofa cushion and another

like a penny that has

slipped out of a jean pocket

 

into a dark underworld of

dust bunnies, hair balls, pens, and paperclips,

which wont get found for another year

when someone misplaces their cellphone.

 

I tried to sing to the paintings on the white walls,

see if they would join in, but I stopped promptly

because none of them looked remotely human

and some were outright menacing.

 

The two ghosts that live with me

don’t like to rise above a whisper,

except when then they laugh out loud, sounding really chummy,

but only in another room at the far end of the hall,

and I never go there.

Where does my time go?

My time goes. It goes.

My time goes to the European continent only to swing back around like a boomerang. My time goes into fulfilling small, every day goals. I leave the house, I go to the park, I go to the store, I talk to one person or more, I come home. My time has been swallowed by the living room couch and I will never get it back from the monster’s belly. I spend a lot of my time acting like a monkey. Food is the only thing I think about. My subconscious likes to press rewind so often my time doesn’t know up from down, two years ago from now. My time likes to hide in perfume bottles. Time draws up plans for surprise attacks and acts them out successfully at least once a month. My time is only ever spent on the big picture. I spend a lot of time in space. My time goes on trips to California. I am always losing time, and then I have to go out into searching among crowds and calling its name out.

In the nick of time

All last night I dreamed about being saved.

I woke up at 2 am having just seen my little brother hang from a cliff. He and I and my mother had been hiking along a mountain, somewhere dry, where green shrubs poked out from the pale yellow rocks. There was a blue sky, we were all smiling when my brother slipped. He clung to a boulder and my mother had him by the arm. I was on my stomach, trying to get a tight grip on his other arm. He was slipping, he was slipping and it looked like he wouldn’t be saved. But then I did find his wrist, and we did pull him up off the floor. I woke up feeling excited, quiet, and slightly confused. I had just dodged a nightmare.

This morning, I awoke with much the same feeling. Moments before I had been on a plane with my mom, dad, and brother, about to crash. The plane had been jolting and spiraling toward the ground, I had clenched my eyes shut, bracing myself for the crash… and then I was on the ground. We had landed safely. We ran out of the plane, elated, hugging each other, laughing. There were no tears or shock about what could have happened. Just merriment.

A bracelet purchased in Baja recalls some of the best years of your life

The subway car smelled slightly of public restrooms, but in the most pleasant way possible, meaning that it brought to mind family vacations to cheap motels and hotels; an amalgam of piss, moisturizer stored in miniature plastic bottles, and cheap cleaning agent. Tucked along the edges of the subway car’s windows, folded within the fragrance, were memories of tile floored rooms, of springy mattresses with crisp sheets and pillows of questionable integrity; memories of water – all kinds of water! The bitter sting of chlorine pools where you delighted in the ingenuity of the water’s layout: a tear droplet, or an oval with an arching bridge along the middle, or an unidentifiable amoebae; always delighted, whether you were sitting below the bar’s palm-leaf roof, sipping coke from inside the pool (which violated the most fundamental rules of pool-propriety in all other parts of the world but, magnificently, was encouraged there), or whether you were posing for a picture like a little lady Jesus on a stepping stone made of concrete in the very middle of the pool.            Better yet, that shining mass of water, impossible to quiet, whose energy and noise always brought with it an imperturbable peace. How many hours did you spend riding waves in the glory years, your hand gripped tightly to the body board, I gripped tightly to your wrist, and together, gliding and tumbling over the exhilaration and giddy fear that came when you were on top of the swell!        And then, small, almost imperceptible in comparison to the sea, the quick shower before dinner, where you were relieved to rid yourself of the salt and sand that clung everywhere, that made your hair bulky and your inner thighs chafe.    Smaller still, the heavy humidity, when you emerged and attempted to dry yourself. But water always prevailed, as if your skin was laminated by it, almost imperceptible, but there. This is it, the crux of the story: water always prevails. It is here, you are breathing it, you are swimming in it still.

Bones to pick’

Today was somewhat ‘meh’. I had to wake up at 6 am to get a medical exam for a potential job (selling books… why do I have to get a physical for this?). I was and still am feeling sensitive about what I saw on Wednesday, so when I left the house in the morning and got the typical cat calls, it really hit a nerve.

Cat calls in Buenos Aires are surprisingly common. As a teen I’d felt somewhat uncomfortable by the creepy old men who continually greeted me (“helloooo”) on the street, but I could never tell whether they were being intentionally creepy or genuinely wanted to wish me a good day. It wasn’t until I moved here that I realised how often men make inappropriate comments to us as we’re walking along. I’ve brought it up to a number of women, but everyone has said to ignore it. “What’s the big deal?” they ask, “as long as you don’t pay them any attention…” In fact, I’ve heard women embrace it. A co-worker once told me, “When I don’t get any cat calls, I think ‘uh-oh’. It means something doesn’t look right that day.” I have to admit that I also slip into that mentality – when I don’t get any cat calls, I think back to this co-worker and wonder if I’m looking shitty.

We all know how objectifying it is, how problematic it is to be constantly under the male gaze, not to mention how sometimes the comments are offensive and hurtful, and how I’ve actually had men get up in my personal space. This ticks me off. But usually, I follow everyone’s advice and ignore it. For a while, I struggled with whether to hold a likely cat-caller’s gaze as a way of challenging him, daring him to call out, or whether to avert my eyes (usually by looking at the floor) and pretend I don’t hear or see anything. Here’s the thing: I’ve found that if you make eye contact with a sleaze ball on the street, even if you try to communicate defiance, they will likely take it as an invitation to call out to you. I find this problematic in and of itself.  I don’t like feeling like I have to keep quiet, make myself small, and hope that no one says anything to make me feel uncomfortable. This behavior should be addressed and challenged, not ignored.

Anyway, the point is that today, I finally said something. On two separate occasions, men muttered “preciooosaa” at me as I walked from my house to the subway. The first time, I looked at the man with an expression on my face that clearly relayed my disapproval. The second time, I was so frustrated I swung around and made and angry grunting sound at him (hey, it was really early in the morning and words were not forthcoming). Then another man started talking to me on the way out of the subway. I didn’t want to be rude, so I answered his questions, but I did so curtly. I think it was pretty clear that I was uncomfortable with him. As soon as I could, I said “later” and sped up. But he caught up to me on the mechanical stairs. “No te despidas tan rapido” He said. Something about the way he said it seemed to relay his ownership over me, like he was saying “hey, I’m not done with you yet!” I ignored him. He muttered “preciosaaa”. Finally, I said “You know what, I don’t like being spoken to that way.” By then we were on the street and I walked away. I think I felt so frustrated and dis-empowered on Wednesday that I had to assert myself against this patriarchal and machista society someh0w.

I’ve been thinking about it since this morning. I often wonder what goes on in a man’s mind when he talks to a woman like that. Does he really think it will lead to anything? Is he trying to exert power over her? To show some dominance or sexual prowess? Does he actually think he is paying her a compliment? Making her feel good about herself? I’ve asked a few male friends what they think, but I know these are men who don’t act like this. So they don’t really know. I’ve decided that, if the opportunity arises again and I feel safe enough, I want to ask some guy all these questions after he’s cat-called me. Not in a confrontational way. I think if I understand what is going on, I can address it more effectively.

Also, I called the Buenos Aires goverment’s center for women to see if they could give my any advice, if they offered any support for battered women, of if they could do anything for this woman. They gave me the police’s number, a special number to report partner abuse (basically the same as the police number) and said they could offer counseling if the woman went in. So that wasn’t very helpful. Hopefully tomorrow I can check out the Asamblea Popular in my neighborhood. They might have some ideas, or know of organizations I could contact.

Well, that’s all. Here ends another post that is not about the moon or dreams.