I know, I know. But, listen, I have been saving up stories for you. I figure I will just do what's easiest and go from nearest to furthest....
1: The doors are swollen shut.
The tips of the fingers on my right hand are stained from the blackberries I bought from teenage boys that I squeezed into the vodka I drank while watching / listening to a band called VCR record at a place called the Recorditorium.
The line between my hips that draws itself out right beneath my belly button can be traced with the bites of bugs that attacked when I laid myself down on a friend's bed to read a treatise on linguistics and that line was revealed, vulnerable there where my shirt stretched just enough from the waist of my pants.
If someone were to ask about what happened all this season, I would only say it was the summer that rained. It was the summer that rained.
2: The dancing bears.
Greg Will was leaving town and had found me, there, getting ready for work. I laid back across my bed and he told me the story of the dancing bears.
The thing about traveling with a dancing bear is that you can't just get on the next train, you can't thumb rides, you can't simply turn up in town for a hot meal and a decent bed. You must walk with the bear everywhere. You must take care to avoid the roads to keep from scaring the horses. You must take your meals with him outside of town, you must sleep curled up besides him at night. You must wake up and continue on until you find a town in need of a dancing bear.
3: I try.
I try to hang out with the new kids, but mostly I am just sad before and after.... you know, that sadness that is only factorially increased by any amount of hope that is there, seeping. Afterwards, late late at night, I ride my bike around in loops across town, singing the Decemberists' version of Sweet Clementine to myself / to anyone who happens to hear.
4: The green zebras.
I hike up my skirt and set about eating the green zebra. An heirloom tomato--I tried to explain the concept of heirlooms to Richard from the Czech Republic; I said It is like how your grandmother gives to you a necklace her grandmother gave to her... only these are tomatoes--small and lime green, striped with white stripes. I slice it thinly, salt it lightly, and eat it alone.
5: I know there is more.
But I can't tell it to you. I will tell you this, what I wrote in July that still holds too true: All I want is to listen to Mahalia Jackson sing "Trouble of the World" to know somone relates, and "My God is Real" to know there is something better than this.
