it's a wonderful life
most of my life i’ve spent wishing myself away or into different skin, different mind. no matter how perfect the moment, i’d rather be dead. i never thought i’d live past twenty-one, would end it before it could even begin. i was twenty when i became grateful. sat on the rocking docks of lake paradox in an ocean of thirteen-year-old girls & was shaken to find i was happy to be alive, sharing this moment with god & youth & friendship & sky. it’s hard to write about being happy. about gratitude. about breaths that actually satisfy the lungs, quench the thirst for air. remember again dancing drunk on a midtown rooftop in the rain, kissing, & laughing, & “you love me, & i love you, let’s stop pretending.” memory is often spoiled by the sequels, the succeeding events overshadowing the past presence. but breathe. be present in the past before the past future came to be & poisoned the memory. it’s okay to still love the love that was fleeting. a red lit studio full of sinuous women & their limber limbs telling their stories, the press of body on mine, gentle & sensual & always so special. happy birthday, mr. president. miss america. it’s always my bones. i can’t borrow the flesh of another & i don’t think i ever really wanted to, anyway. joy has been confusing, guilt inducing. how can the deserving of clean air, & laughter’s tears streaming down my face, another soul’s body heat, belong to me? my niece’s smile. my niece’s giggle. her tiny little voice. never would have known it. never would have encapsulated & imprinted her embrace, repeatedly, on my father’s sixty-second birthday. the shock of radiation of knowing her little sister on my mother’s sixty-first. & thirty years with my mother, sixteen more years than was never even promised, & i get to press my lips to her forehead every night before bed. there could have been so much less, but there’s more, there’s more, there’s so much more. sitting in the greenery watching the fairies go about their duties, in a kingdom we weren’t meant to see. sitting in the tent & being sucked into his envelope. in the backyard of a warehouse rave with shy, whispered secrets. on the floor of a stranger’s apartment while gongs crashed like atlantic waves. jamaican beaches. my cousin’s wedding. mom reunited with her siblings for the last time…would have missed out on paragliding, dolphin riding, sea lion smooches. sometimes it’s nausea at the loss. spoiled by all the rotten fruit. unzip it from the rest, they are each individuals & the good hasn’t been washed out. like tie dye. like acid wash. it’s so easy to forget the good. so hard to forget the bad. i don’t know if they would have been better off without me, only god can hold that judgment. but dad comes into my room & wraps his arms around my shoulders & tells me he’s proud of me & i can run up & down the stairs for mama & i can babysit on sundays while they play pickleball & there is still so much time. so much time left to do it over & again & new & fresh. new oranges will grow to be peeled off gently in one long strip of flesh & all the attempts that ended in too many flakes & bits will be left behind to turn to soil. new music will be made to dance to & cry to. new moves will be found in the joints & new tears in the ducts. new dogs & new humans & new friends. new books & lattes & new cells. always new cells. replacing the damaged old ones. reparations are always possible, with a skilled enough hand. if you tear out each stitch, one at a time, & replace it with a newer, better, stronger one, before moving onto the next, you could create an entirely new garment without anyone noticing. it’s all just thread, woven & wound & tightened. into patterns, into warmth, into shelter, & protection. i am just a single stitch made up of thousands of tinier stitches, constantly coming undone & redone, spun up & around. pause. breathe. the needle & the knife. & again. yes, it is a wonderful life.
