House. Billy. 2 Kids. Lawyer. Hummer.
You spent years slinging through men who
mistook hyper-intellectualism for emotional
self-awareness. The unconscious mind
games. The physical attacks. And then it
came time to settle: the husband-sized dick,
the man who thought that rabbits laid eggs,
and how you loved this so much that you
didn’t have the heart to hurt him. That time
he referred to “telepathy” as “tilapia”,
“loins” for “lions.” He was never very good
with animals. But kids: two. Twins, fraternal,
named after his “favorite Greek gods”: Juno
and Janus. My god, it was so easy, the way
you dressed them in matching outfits. How
small they looked in the backseat of the
Hummer, their tiny legs so far from touching
the floor. Billy, he wasn’t a bright one. Some
part of you still thinks he tricked his way
through law school on that smile—Chiclets
varnished in Vaseline. You and the white
picket fence. You love to plan family
vacations to Disney World, all four of you in
mousy hats. You stand at the entrance to
Cinderella’s castle and when the sun hits just
right you see yourself reflected in his teeth
not as you are, but as you actually are.
Apartment. Him. 15 Kids. Garbageman. Clown Car.
Him. It could have been worse. You could
have been unluckier. Some rabbit’s foot with
rot under the nail bed scratching into your
skin, becoming part of your blood. And your
blood, your cells, how you split them again
and again. Osmosis. It was like some
punchline, how you made the children find a
partner and hold hands. How they loaded up
one by one, skipping down the cement steps
of the apartment complex, hopping into the
backseat of the polka-dotted car. A visual
gag. Some Lucy-worthy laugh of the body.
Purple circles against chartreuse. The entire
family out for a Sunday drive. A single errand
to the grocery store. How it takes hours to
make enough macaroni, to put the children
to bed. This is your life now. How he wakes
you up at 3am before he gets ready for the
oncoming day. He of body of banana peels
and body of eggshells and body of sweet
carob clenches. You, thinking: pencil or
paper, game or dream, prediction or destiny.
It doesn’t matter. His feverish form holds
you down, blows petals of lavender into your
unrelenting mouth
Shed. George Clooney. Dog. Cam Model. Ferrari.
You watch him from the bedroom, and by
bedroom you mean the fabric you ducttaped
down, hanging in geometries, to
create some semblance of a floor-plan inside
the shed. Your fat pug, George Jr., snores
beside you. Outside, rain smacks into the
blue tarp that covers the equally blue
Ferrari. The sound could not be described as
calming. You are watching him watch the
computer where he half-exists inside. He
shouts; you, startled, spilling coffee on the
floor mattress again. He is excited by some
Scrooge McDuck sound effect of coins
hitting coins. Goal, he says, and lifts his feet
up towards the quiet eye of the webcam.
Goal, he says again, turning around, slowly
dropping his Joe Boxers to tease. You see
him turn around, reading the old CRT screen.
There are instructions—there are always
instructions and requests. The room is quiet.
You hear yourself wheezing, the rattle of the
Dell’s fan clogged with dog hair. From low to
the ground, you see George bending at his
waist, arching back towards the desk lamp.
In some other space there are hundreds of
voices shouting in text. Culo!, they shout.
The liting is bad, get closeer J. The coins hit
harder. From your space you see a blankness
on his face, dim, but see his arms flexing,
imagine the whiteness of his knuckles as he
stretches his cheeks further, some part of
himself hidden away from you, watched by
the silent gaze of shovels and hose, the
population inside the dial-up. Like a hall of
funhouse mirrors, everything depends on
where you are standing in the room.
Mansion. Current Crush!. 0 Kids. Doctor. Bicycle.
He doesn’t love you. You used a children’s
game that would bind him to you. You, the
thaumaturge, who dangles the crystal
pendulum down, down, divining, searching
for a source of water through each of the
eight bathrooms. You of miracles. You lean
off your banana seat and drink from the
faucet. But he doesn’t love you. You ride the
Mongoose through the empty corridors of
the mansion, hands off bars, letting your
weight steer as you brush your fingers to the
corner of frames, tip the antiquarian
paintings until they are all evenly crooked.
The library is empty and the sun room is
empty and how the island feels impossibly
long like some marble nucleus of the kitchen.
And still, he doesn’t love you. He is always
gone. My god, how you watched him for
weeks, for years, and you stuck ink to paper,
and you got him. You roll through garage to
empty garage, down the lit pathway of the
hill. You don’t need to pedal anymore, but
still you tuck your feet in occasionally so the
free-flying pedals slap the underside of your
soles with such force. This is power, you
consider. It is not unusual for you to ride
down to the hospital. It is not unusual for
you to hope to catch a glimpse of him out on
a secret cigarette, smiling towards an ER
nurse with a face you’ve never seen. It is not
uncommon to be spying and recall that still
he does not love you. There could be
accidents. Traffic. The tire popping and the
frame skidding on slimy leaves, your entire
body going overboard a steep cliff. Or
emergency. The knife going in just a tiny bit.
Lean into a wall if you must. Enough damage
for him to stitch you up. No arteries. The
clenching of the tooth as sooth, and you will
say it. If there is angst, you will wear it like a
wafer on your tongue. The mouth in ecstasy
trying to speak conscious. Yes, this could be
it. Yourself on a stretcher, him, sewing you
up. Look for anything that could be a sign.
How the pinkie ducks down in mistake,
brushes a tender gesture underneath your
neck there.