‘a blink on the turning away’ (now slightly edited)
by justalil
Posted to Stories on 2002-12-30 07:59:00
i can sit naked staring at a blank computer screen, coffee in hand one sleepless morning and find a softness in subtleties sleeping silently on the morning of departure. my apparition i left behind some human’s defined eight hundred and fifty-seven miles away, just where i found her bleeding in the street of some home i chanced upon one chilly night frost-bitten and quivering somewhere off the edge of an icy lake. what of it? i exchanged a familiar persona for some faraway exhausted identity and yet left her exactly where i left her, but thought enough to carry some pocket change and a few lines of poetry that she left behind in her wake.
she is mine and i am hers, and as i’m not exactly sure what i am i can’t truly define the madness of my second half abandoned on that faraway shore. i have a memory of her and some remnants of nostalgia inhabiting myself perhaps in the form of a curl of cigarette smoke, a wafting halo of haze encircling my perplexities crowned by blunt thorns stabbing as if a wooden spoon. carved, molded, shaped finger-artistry some gray walls caving into stalactites and stalagmites reaching exchanges of one for another, a slight bit of gray matter within my skull pulsates for familiarity in a homeland of forbidden security traded off for a bit of adventure. perhaps it could all be mistaken for a memory game, matching cards holding the upper hand groping in the darkness for a familiar touch. though no hand was found i saw a lone solemn face seeking comfort in mine and trading warmth mingled with gusts of frigid whips of frost blanketing that newborn unsettled plain. i pocketed a piece of that but no more than i could claim as carryon on the plane within three days.
as i sit here alone tending some minor office equipment sending some fabricated voices i pull forth a slight exhalation elated slightly on the sound of a risen voice uttered softly. it whispers to me of what is hidden in the depths of another’s forgotten memory that only i can remember.
i saw a child huddled within a blanket of soft cries, shushed lullabies squelched by muffled screams intoxicating and infectious in the marrow of the bones of my inner child released and playing in the street. a ‘clink’ of golden coins and small talk teetering on the tip of a tongue greeted my ears. listening became deafeningly silent as i could not accept my half of the exchange of yin and yang fusion but never before have i felt an utterance so well.
i was never one to choose the plumpest fruit or the shiniest quarter. instead i offered the half of myself that i found in your pocket for safekeeping. might i keep warm in a radiating pocket? might i be heard, spoken of and released as a butterfly to return home with a bit of your pollen on my wings? i may have exchanged the part of myself that you offered to me for a bit of yourself nestled into the bare crannies of your bones, but passed exchanges like some fleeting trade-off never before sang a sweeter tune.