Friday, December 29, 2017

29 December 2017


I want to write an honest sentence. Forgiveness is arbitrary, but the arbitrary is not. The one time the old man came to him in a dream, he was lost and confused. The sun kept rising and setting behind him. Go into the light, the younger man said, and he did. Take your trauma and run it in fast-forward until it's funny was the worst piece of advice. The best was to tell stories, but he couldn't remember in what order they fell, and they did fall. What was the relationship between trauma and the ordinary world? If what's ordinary is sacred, what of moments torn from its rib, given half-life and an apple for the teacher? If not sacred, then rimmed by a migraine's aura. When she reads in church she cannot see the words; there's a hole in the text, or in her head. Scripture drains away in flash flood. Why is it funny that the Noah's Ark Theme Park flooded? my daughter asks. Our explanations fail her. The myth of a myth is perhaps a truth. Or, the president* hit a birdie and was on television to boast about it. We don't get cable any more, so his face blurred as if protected from our gaze. Witness protection, you know. We need him re-elected because otherwise ratings would plummet. He's the engine of the fake economy, one where talkers talk and fact-checkers go on holiday. Someone made the mistake of calling this paradise, so I responded in a little box. Is tropical suffering worse than that in cold climates? He should feel better, someone said of a friend, because it's so sunny out today. But this today I walk between bands of rain. If you peel the film away from the screen, and only watch the screen, your memories will turn clear as rain water. I am obsessed with my memories, but don't hold onto them. I put them in small plastic sleeves and give them away like toothbrushes or hand soap. It's what I do to forgive myself for living in this world.


--29 December 2017

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