Friday, January 17, 2014

aftermoon

It's not always like this.
There are always shadows, and there are always old ghosts, running through any of our houses, but some nights they are just louder than on others.  I try to pay attention to the pretty things, instead of the loud things, but sometimes the loud things are loud because they need a little bit of our attention.
There is a dog, and there is a moon, and they're both loose in the house, and they're both asking for things.
In every room, wherever I go, they're there, I turn around and bump into both of them, usually both of them, rarely not one or the other, they're moving together, and following me because they want to get my attention.  They have it, but there's really nothing I can do.  They're both speaking to me in a language I can't understand.  I've tried.  I'll keep trying.  But it's difficult to want to try when there are all these things in front of me.
I don't know what could be more important than a dog or a moon, really.  Really, I don't know, but these things are there, not loud, not yelling, not so insistent, but there, and I'm trying to focus on them.  They are also speaking in another language, a language of signs and symbols that I think I know, almost but not quite.
It's hard to explain.  It's hard to explain without explaining too much, and when you explain too much, the blue heart beat behind things goes away and that wouldn't be helpful for anyone.  I'm coming up with ideas, something about something important, something like Desire, but not that, something like the Other, but not that either, and something like Love, and maybe it is that.
There are signs of love everywhere, and that's what I'm trying to pay attention to.
She is in another city, this isn't what it sounds like, she didn't leave to leave, she left to come back.  Everything is ok.  This isn't about me not being ok.
She left footprints everywhere, and handprints over all of the things that I touch, during the course of any day, I keep meeting with her handprints.
The dog and the moon are busy with her footprints.  They hunt them together.  The moon finds them, and the dog eats them, and it's upsetting, but there's not much I can do about that.  This particular dog, and that peculiar moon, that's what they do.  It happens all day, until there are no more footprints by night, but when the night comes, I don't know who does this, someone does this, I don't know who puts them back.  And the inside of the house, it's not dark, the light from the moon (not the same moon) comes through every window, and her footprints are lit up in blue, and I like to pretend that I'm walking on the moon (not the same moon, not any of the moons already mentioned, this moon is metaphorical).
And I walk on the moon, then, looking at her footprints, and everything that is an object is lit up from within, and they are all disguising themselves as my father, and he keeps telling me, "I'm not very close, but I'm not that far, I'm right here on the other side of the veil, I would tell you more but you wouldn't understand, because those things can only be spoken in a language you forgot, and won't remember until you are very very old."
I suppose I'm happy to find out my father doesn't think I'm old.  It's not that I feel old, but since he left this place, I'm feeling older.  Feeling a little like time is like that friend who keeps having affairs, he tells you about them, and you don't want to believe him.  You like to hear about the flirtations that lead up to it, but he always wants to talk about the big event, and when he talks about the big event, it's disappointing, because you don't think your friend is really capable of that, but he is, he always is, and always does that, and it's disappointing that he keeps doing that.
He used to tell me it was his nature, and I always thought that was a bad excuse, but now that I know time a little better, maybe he's right.  We all have our own natures.
So it's like that, it's not always like this.  Sometimes there's just a light glitter covering everything, and everything is easy, like a tango, a tango made of butter and soft white petals.
This time, though, this time right now, is hard, harder than most things, but not unbearable, just hard to describe.  This house, this house at night, where the dog is sleeping on her bed, with her moon tucked under her arm,   a child who is not really a child any more, sleeping in her room, and me, in the middle of the house, standing by a window so the moonlight can touch me, I'm wearing one of her shirts, and I'm surrounded by her blue footprints, and I'm in love with this time, standing on my own feet and surrounded by her prints, like they were islands, like this was an ocean, like I was in the middle of the ocean, and so far from home, but so, so very far from alone.  

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