Thursday, January 20, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
The Past Is A Grotesque Animal
And I look at my past with disgust.
Not because of my own mistakes (although there are many), but because of the illusions I believed in, the attrocities I ignored, as a child. Flipping through this photo album, I find a picture of me in my fourth grade Halloween costume. The Statue of Liberty. As I flip to the next page, I notice it's a little bit heavier than one would expect a simple 4x6 photo to be.
Oh, yes.
I reach behind this picture and find three smaller photographs I hid behind it years ago.
Picture 1:
My brothers. Infants. Dead. Dead dead dead. Right after havin been stillborn. Glistening, freshly delivered. Skin blackened. Wrapped in white linens, wearing blue beanies. Dead. One of the twins is barely in the picture. Closed eyes, his face chocolate-brown except for his pink eyelids and pink upperlip. The other twin, next to him, arms crossed, face smushed. Dead. I am haunted. I cannot look away.
Picture 2:
The twins' funeral. In a small little casket. Dressed in ridiculous knitted outfits. Blue hats, again. Arms flat at their sides. One's face so black I can't make out any features. The other's head at his feet. His face is wrinkled and his mouth is agape, as if permanently frozen in a wail.
Picture 3:
My family in the grave yard kneeling behind the casket. It looks like a cooler. My mom looks miserable. I'm not even a twinkle in her eye yet. My oldest sister on my dad's lap, frowning. Her shoulder obscures my dad's face, which has been caught mid-blink in this picture. Amanda, our middle sister, perched in the middle of the family, barely peaking over the casket. She looks sad, but confused nonetheless. And if you look at the foiliage in the background, you can almost make out a god-like face in the leaves of the trees...
To take my mind off of these images, I turn back to the Statue of Liberty picture, remembering nothing but fond memories from that Halloween. However, now, upon closer inspection... I realize everything is wrong with this picture. I'm wearing a ruffled teal sheet, for god's sake. Over a white hooded sweatshirt. And wearing blue gloves? With a flashlight and composition notebook wrapped in green tissue paper. Face paint that manages to be blotchy as hell, and still not match any of the colors of my outfit. And some gaudy ass dark blue tennis shoes. Perhaps it's a product of the 90's, but I still look at it as another failure, another cheated experience of childhood... That I wasn't even aware of.
I know I sound like a pussy, complaining about a damn Halloween costume. I know it's no big deal. I know I sound melodramatic. But I Just. Don't. Know.
Black, and dead, and.....
She always told me the reason they died was because one of them broke the umbilical cord.
I always wondered if it was really alcohol, or drugs, or perhaps my dad beating her.
Dead and blackened. Completely horrendous. And yet I got to share the same room they did for 9 months. I was in the same place they were, only a year or two later. And when I look in the mirror, I see the same image. I wonder if I ever made it out of the womb alive either.
I wonder what's wrong with me. I wonder what else she could have possibly done to put me in a worse situation. Perhaps her substance abuse had an affect on me.
This lack of knowledge is what kills me the most. Are things as bad as I imagine?
Well I don't really know, and I don't think I ever will.
I suppose I just need to focus on the future. Something I have control over.
"Don't kill yourself to raise the dead;
It never works- you'll only end up joining them."
Not because of my own mistakes (although there are many), but because of the illusions I believed in, the attrocities I ignored, as a child. Flipping through this photo album, I find a picture of me in my fourth grade Halloween costume. The Statue of Liberty. As I flip to the next page, I notice it's a little bit heavier than one would expect a simple 4x6 photo to be.
Oh, yes.
I reach behind this picture and find three smaller photographs I hid behind it years ago.
Picture 1:
My brothers. Infants. Dead. Dead dead dead. Right after havin been stillborn. Glistening, freshly delivered. Skin blackened. Wrapped in white linens, wearing blue beanies. Dead. One of the twins is barely in the picture. Closed eyes, his face chocolate-brown except for his pink eyelids and pink upperlip. The other twin, next to him, arms crossed, face smushed. Dead. I am haunted. I cannot look away.
Picture 2:
The twins' funeral. In a small little casket. Dressed in ridiculous knitted outfits. Blue hats, again. Arms flat at their sides. One's face so black I can't make out any features. The other's head at his feet. His face is wrinkled and his mouth is agape, as if permanently frozen in a wail.
Picture 3:
My family in the grave yard kneeling behind the casket. It looks like a cooler. My mom looks miserable. I'm not even a twinkle in her eye yet. My oldest sister on my dad's lap, frowning. Her shoulder obscures my dad's face, which has been caught mid-blink in this picture. Amanda, our middle sister, perched in the middle of the family, barely peaking over the casket. She looks sad, but confused nonetheless. And if you look at the foiliage in the background, you can almost make out a god-like face in the leaves of the trees...
To take my mind off of these images, I turn back to the Statue of Liberty picture, remembering nothing but fond memories from that Halloween. However, now, upon closer inspection... I realize everything is wrong with this picture. I'm wearing a ruffled teal sheet, for god's sake. Over a white hooded sweatshirt. And wearing blue gloves? With a flashlight and composition notebook wrapped in green tissue paper. Face paint that manages to be blotchy as hell, and still not match any of the colors of my outfit. And some gaudy ass dark blue tennis shoes. Perhaps it's a product of the 90's, but I still look at it as another failure, another cheated experience of childhood... That I wasn't even aware of.
I know I sound like a pussy, complaining about a damn Halloween costume. I know it's no big deal. I know I sound melodramatic. But I Just. Don't. Know.
Black, and dead, and.....
She always told me the reason they died was because one of them broke the umbilical cord.
I always wondered if it was really alcohol, or drugs, or perhaps my dad beating her.
Dead and blackened. Completely horrendous. And yet I got to share the same room they did for 9 months. I was in the same place they were, only a year or two later. And when I look in the mirror, I see the same image. I wonder if I ever made it out of the womb alive either.
I wonder what's wrong with me. I wonder what else she could have possibly done to put me in a worse situation. Perhaps her substance abuse had an affect on me.
This lack of knowledge is what kills me the most. Are things as bad as I imagine?
Well I don't really know, and I don't think I ever will.
I suppose I just need to focus on the future. Something I have control over.
"Don't kill yourself to raise the dead;
It never works- you'll only end up joining them."
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
129- Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged
The war not won
The war hardly waged
By a mind so plagued
A mind so blank.
Atlas, oh Atlas,
Where have you fled to?
And do you intend to
Fulfill all of your duties,
Or any at all?
Atlas, are you watching,
Watching my world fall?
You are not Atlas,
But merely a man.
Here, let me take
That world from your hands.
I can hold it
Higher than thou,
In height and esteem
There is no doubt.
The war not won
The war hardly waged
By a mind so plagued
A mind so blank.
Atlas, oh Atlas,
Where have you fled to?
And do you intend to
Fulfill all of your duties,
Or any at all?
Atlas, are you watching,
Watching my world fall?
You are not Atlas,
But merely a man.
Here, let me take
That world from your hands.
I can hold it
Higher than thou,
In height and esteem
There is no doubt.
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