"I am made up out of dreary routinely aspects."*
.
The afternoon always spans out throughout each morning,
And I awake within each in a bed I have spent eternity within.
I unveil the sheets, stand myself up onto the ground,
And rub my eyes of their tiredness.
I adjust the straps of the clothes I wear, and stand up
And just wait there.
The room is usually empty and often I feel like I am apart of the paint of the walls.
Like I am stuck upon them like a rock in the concrete or a figure that can be scraped from it.
I un-mount my position like a fly un-mounts a jar and swindle across my bedroom to
The door and go through the unfamiliar house to the kitchen where I collapse onto the chair.
I stare at the table, and caress its granite. I stand up and fix up the coffee in the corner.
I listen to the whistling of the kettle as it replaces the birth of an old silence.
'Its cold outside' it reminds me. It's always cold outside.
I pour the coffee and add the sedatives that would otherwise leave my thoughts racing within me,
And sip from the cup as I stand in the corner.
I leave it, sit at the table, and stare at the granite again.
The wind outside is not whistling, but rustling the leaves. I am reminded of thunderstorms.
Lightning, thunder, clouds, lightning, thunder, clouds,
I sip the cup again.
There is an old familiarity behind the noises outside the window,
I **** myself uselessly to infatuate a rhythm to the steps of the branches of the winter trees.
The kitchen is filled with the noises of these audacities,
and once, perhaps last year July,
Their repetitive sounds would escape their waves and induce me frightened alone in my kitchen chair...
But now, they do not frighten me.
Not since last year July.
I pick up the teaspoon from the side and enter it into the cup,
Neither have been washed from their last usage or usages.
As I stir, I hum a melody that is quieter than the rustling. A melody that is quieter than me myself.
When the coffee cup is empty, I lay my hands onto the granite and force myself up.
I stumble towards the door and through the house and back into the bedroom.
Sometimes the days are loud, and sometimes I am a figure to its silence.
I enter the bedroom and sit at the rocking chair that would of belonged to someone else
In another world where there was furniture for the restless women who stayed awake...
And I do not rock, I only sit.
My sleeping gown covers my legs,
but if I could, I would imagine a dress much shorter than this.
Showing the scars, the marks, the knees, the bones, the skin layers, the worn-out
Wrinkles and the sighing thighs.
I would picture their lengths dominated by the visibility of threads of cloths that
Are for some other woman in some other world.
I sit up and almost fall,
Then use the armchair to balance me as I mount onto the carpet,
Where I stand again and tremble.
I walk towards the bed,
Then turn around. I exit the bedroom.
I walk through the house and past the kitchen and enter
The bigger room with the chandelier and the grand piano.
There are picture frames in this room, but they do not show faces-
They only show sentences.
Scriptures,
and I ignore them, and sit myself at the grand piano.
Middle C has turned from the ivory color to
Brown. And I blow the dust away.
Ave Maria begins with the note G,
But I play the highest note on the set of keys
With my left hand,
Then roll across it one by one as if I'm playing an infinite scale.
And watch my fingers as they shake upon each valorous key.
'One, two, three' I whisper
Then play another note.
'One
Two
Three.'
I put my hands to my side then realize that there are tears rolling down my cheeks.
There is no window in this room,
I hum again and now it is the loudest sound in the house...
But it is still, oh so quiet.
The furniture in the room is all in standard condition,
As I stand up, I close my eyes and remember them without having to look at them.
As they are, as they have always been.
I walk to one of the walls that present four picture frames.
All of them show a man and a woman in each-
And all of them are blank.
There is a quote underneath one of them that reads, "The house must be tendered well-
for now home is where the heart is."
I read it out aloud, repeat it, then read it out a third time.
"If home is where the heart is," I then say, "then my heart must still be in July."
I look around...
"Last year."
This is my house... And it has not been tendered in a very long time.
I walk away from the wall again, face the piano,
Then walk out of the room and past the kitchen to the bedroom again.
There is a bathroom to the side, I remember,
I enter it and place myself fragilely at the sink and the mirror.
My face is in its center, and the tiles around of me create a green shade to my pale skin.
There is little hair left on my head, but I brush it away and look deeply into the shallowness
Of my eyes.
I hum again,
and I am echoed by the tiles of the bathroom walls.
But I am still oh so quiet. I hum louder.
Then I turn to the bathtub in the area of space in the corner of the bathroom.
There is still water inside of it from the previous day...or week.
I walk to it and realize that there are no windows in this room.
I enter the water, and sit in the bathtub.
The dress floats at the surface.
I am still humming.
I submerge my head within the water,
then bring it out after a few seconds.
I submerge it again and keep it in for longer,
then bring it out again.
I submerge myself within it again...
It is drastically cold and it's temperature permeates my bones and leaves me feeling
Bloodless.
The water enters my nose, my mouth, goes down my throat and suddenly,
I am out of it again and choking at the head of the bathtub.
I bring myself out of it, weakly and exasperated, onto the bathroom tiles.
I exit the bathroom and walk back into the bedroom.
I collapse onto the bed and then pull the sheets on top of my dried shaking body.
I exhale...
"The sheets used to love you." A voice in my head says.
"If you were to veil yourself every-night like a queen in marriage to a dead man,
Then no one would blame you for never actually showing yourself."
And I listen...
Then that is exactly what I do.
I think about the loss of my neurons,
Then append my thoughts to race under their sedatives as I pull the sheets around my entire body.
Eventually, I stop shaking.
But when I open my eyes, I realize that only my body has.
"I wonder how these memories would feel like," I whisper again,
"If they were in the mind of some other woman,
In some other world..."
I close my eyes,
I close my mouth,
And I go to sleep.
