Tag: Writing Life
veins beneath the water
Marilyn Monroe took all her sleeping pills
to bed when she was thirty-six, and Marlon Brando’s daughter
hung in the Tahitian bedroom
of her mother’s house,
while Stanley Adams shot himself in the head. Sometimes
you can look at the clouds or the trees
and they look nothing like clouds or trees or the sky or the ground.
The performance artist Kathy Change
set herself on fire while Bing Crosby’s sons shot themselves
out of the music industry forever.
I sometimes wonder about the inner lives of polar bears. The French
philosopher Gilles Deleuze jumped
from an apartment window into the world
and then out of it. Peg Entwistle, an actress with no lead
roles, leaped off the “H” in the hollywoodsign
when everything looked black and white
and David O. Selznick was king, circa 1932. Ernest Hemingway
put a shotgun to his head in Ketchum, Idaho
while his granddaughter, a model and actress, climbed the family tree
and overdosed on phenobarbital. My brother opened
thirteen fentanyl patches and stuck them on his body
until it wasn’t his body anymore. I like
the way geese sound above the river. I like
the little soaps you find in hotel bathrooms because they’re beautiful.
Sarah Kane hanged herself, Harold Pinter
brought her roses when she was still alive,
and Louis Lingg, the German anarchist, lit a cap of dynamite
in his own mouth
though it took six hours for him
to die, 1887. Ludwig II of Bavaria drowned
and so did Hart Crane, John Berryman, and Virginia Woolf. If you are
travelling, you should always bring a book to read, especially
on a train. Andrew Martinez, the nude activist, died
in prison, naked, a bag
around his head, while in 1815 the Polish aristocrat and writer
Jan Potocki shot himself with a silver bullet.
Sara Teasdale swallowed a bottle of blues
after drawing a hot bath,
in which dozens of Roman senators opened their veins beneath the water.
Larry Walters became famous
for flying in a Sears patio chair and forty-five helium-filled
weather balloons. He reached an altitude of 16,000 feet
and then he landed. He was a man who flew.
He shot himself in the heart. In the morning I get out of bed, I brush
my teeth, I wash my face, I get dressed in the clothes I like best.
I want to be good to myself.
Trouble, Matthew Dickman
i blink my eyes into morning, your smile the only one i see.
They told me that I was meant for the cleaner life;
that you would drag me through the mud.
They said that you would tread all over me,
that they could see right through you,
that you were full of hot air;
that I would always be chasing,
always watching you disappear after sleeker models—
that it would be a vicious cycle.
But I know better. I know about your rough edges
and I have seen your perfect curves.
I will fit into whatever spaces you let me.
If loving you means getting dirty, bring on the grime.
I will leave this porcelain home behind. I’m used to
twice-a-day relationships, but with you I’ll take all the time.
And I know we live in different worlds, and we’re always really busy,
but in my dreams you spin around me so fast, I always wake up dizzy.
So maybe one day you’ll grow tired of the road
and roll on back to me.
And when I blink my eyes into morning,
your smile will be the only one I see.
No Matter the Wreckage
Sarah Kay
heavier than you thought.
inside of me.
the pain i don’t say out loud builds a home inside me.
Olivia Gatwood, Life of the Party
Emma Glows at Sunsets
I don’t know her. But I imagine Emma glows at sunsets. She radiates like the sun. Even now as I am writing this, I could see her face smiling at me and it gives me warmth in my stomach. How tender she must have been with you. You smiled differently, you seemed happy. When I saw you with her, I felt peaceful. If you should be with anyone, it should be her.
I imagine all sorts of things about her. How she takes her morning coffee. How she sings in the shower. How she glides on stage, singing and chanting her lines. I imagine the crowd inside the theater mesmerized by how she moves, how she speaks, how she shines. She has so much light. She was the light you needed in times of gloom and darkness. I’m thankful for her, but only in some hidden parts of me.
To say that Emma is talented is an understatement, but she’s humbling, even more with a star’s qualities. You met her when you were working on music scores for one of her sold out plays. They took it out from Broadway, touring around the globe. You needed a space to forget me, and so you two met.
Joe told me this.
He didn’t mean to set you up with her, you just happened to be there when Joe, Shelly, James, and Emma had dinner at the Bel Air. You were at the bar, drinking alone yet another night not long after we broke up. Joe dragged you in to join their table.
You didn’t even say much, nor did she. But you and beautiful Emma, you two exchanged looks like no one else was there. You loved the way she smiled almost immediately, how enchanting that you couldn’t take your eyes off of her.
She drove you home that night because you were a bit tipsy. You gambled fate by asking her to stay the night and she did.
But she wasn’t me. She didn’t wake you up the way I did. She didn’t make your coffee the way I did (too much sugar!). She didn’t make you breakfast. She went into shower and head off to work. She didn’t say goodbye. She smiled at you from the door as if she knew you weren’t really there.
And just like that she’s gone.
And you were alone (and lonely) again.
But perhaps she did wake you up the way I did. She did make your coffee exactly the way you wanted it, and she made you perfect breakfast: french toast with sprinkled Swiss cheddar, or just a plain old blueberry pop tarts, piled and warmed up, glazed with honey. She kissed you goodbye and said would call for a dinner date, you didn’t have to do anything. She’s perfect and you fell in love head over hills for her.
Only years after I would know you weren’t with her. The whole time I wasn’t there you were lonely, working like a dog, then hopping from one bar to another, drinking.
things that disappear
most days i write you
into things that disappear
sometimes i write you
into concrete
there’s a small stain in the left
hand corner, it is having a hard time
letting go
and i think, it looks a lot
like us
what i couldn’t explain via text.
maia diaries 