I made a new friend in New York in July. Her name is Stephanie Diamond and she is a photographer. I love her work and am going to do some writing exercises inspired by some of the work on her website (see sidebar for link). This is the first one, as stream-of-conscious as it can be.
I've got nowhere to go. Pity me. A walk through this tattered landscape, paint peeling from walls, my mind, memories lost, even from a week ago.Slinking through the streets, up one block and down the next, kids playing. Someone is hiding behind the handball wall, a stolen kiss, a fallen line, electricity on the ground. I can't help myself: I reach for it.
I'm fighting for my breath. I see people looking but nobody offers a hand. Flying heels over head; not love. Something as big as that but different because I'm all alone.
I think I'll write him a letter, while I recover. He'll wonder why he hasn't seen me at the deli, why I don't smile and bite an apple at the same time, an act, a near-obscene gesture, bis head red as a Washington State; I'd meant to take a bite out of that, but not today, I'm dying.
Would he come visit me on my sickbed? I bet he would if only he knew. Why else would he stand so far away watching me stretch, my methodical, ridiculous moves I call yoga. But there's no outcome; I'm not making my posture better so I can meditate longer. My thoughts are only of him, and I don't even know his name, so it is a lesson in futility, trying to clear my mind of him.
Apple-head, that's what I'll call him. In my letter. Dear Apple-head, I am missing. Are you missing me? Please bring me an apple to eat, if not your head! Signed, a Silly girl. Very silly.
I light on the boardwalk railing like a butterfly, arms flapping like a newborn, freshly out of its cocoon. Concentration, everything is about this moment; there is nothing but this. If I don't get past this -- to an unfurled state, a damp dryness, a stretch, outstretched to the wind, let go! Let go! Flying -- I'll never make it.
I can't think of anything but Frito's. Apple-head is in there, but the crunching is so loud, I can't think of anything else. I'm chewing, slowly, the salty sweet good for my painkiller drugged up suicidal feeling. I can't take my own life; it's not mine to take. I belong to you, Apple-head.
I'm going to get a book, get it right, take a class or something. Something to impress. Something to impress that special someone. A flirtatious crunch of an apple. A giggle, an exchange, I take flight and he'll have to catch me.
And he does! By the last toe to the ground, as it floats up, makes its escape with the rest of me, into the clouds, the numbered clouds, and there's a special one up there for me. Me and him. It's mine but I'll share. Oh, happily. That's why I'm here, Apple-head, it's all because of you.
And I will fly, and he will soar beside me, and the world will be right, down there on my silly city streets, my ransacked little neighborhood, the gruff super not bothering to say hello back even when its sung to him in the newest morning's freshest sunlight, crisp and special. Edible sun.
We hold hands when we're together. And we're always together. Except for now, in my apartment with my fold-out couch up against the window, my head peering over the sill, making believe with the shapes that pass by three floors below, reflected in not-so-harsh shadows on the theatre wall across the street.
