Nine Lives of Attempted Flight: 1

The river, dirty and full of urban run off, passes through city mostly ignored. The same color as morning cappuccinos, tinted by silt, rat carcass, car exhaust, starling shit, and Vatican dust, the Tiber flows south eventually rapping around an ancient ait associated with healing. Right before this island, (which is shaped like a ship, housing the same hospital since 1584, and goes by the name "Fatebenefratelli") there is a small cascade, a man-made crest that the water arches across. The smooth fall creates an undertow, and all things that float get trapped there. She stands watching that water. Every bottle with cap still in place, each lonely football, and pieces of wind-swept Styrofoam bob in the sunlight, churning, almost escaping towards the island, but eventually being pulled back. There was one out of place tree today, bare-barked and leafless, rotating like a cumbersome crocodile in the current. The branches of the tree kick blue water bottles away. She get’s hopeful, thinking maybe one will eventually break free. Her heart falls a little as the garbage buoy drifts back. No one else in the city seems to notice the water. People do nothing else but cross the bridge. What would it feel like to fly today? She stood on the white marble ledge; a breeze brought smells from the see and blew her hair into her eyes. None of the scooters or mini cars driving by knew who she was; even fewer people noticed the new, brightly colored and fleshy sculpture in place. She leapt. She expected that she would never reach the water. Even if she were wrong, at least she’d be caught in the whirling.

Superhero Complex

I shift between feeling that I am responsible for my world, the world, and feeling like there is no way I can be. I feel like I am on some quest of sorts, like Joan of Arc trying to lead the French to freedom. I feel like I was touched with something, some great hope and understanding to the accessibility of freedom, and I am trying to rally my fellow humans into fighting for their own liberation.

I get on my horse, I battle cry, I hear a few bellows and cheers behind me, and I look back after galloping forward to see my men arguing over syntax, talking about the laces in their boots, complimenting each other, and complaining about how oppressed they are.

I go back, I circle around, and now I feel maybe it is too much to expect them all to fight. Perhaps only a few can. I look for those who are not satisfied by the conversations, who seem restless to go again. I put that one person on the back of my horse, (that is all that can fit) and go forward again. I feel renewed. We have camaraderie, a connection, strong will. So maybe the rest of them are behind, but I am not alone, there is this one with me. I’ll show him, and he can then go back, he can tell the others. The two of us will cause a chain reaction, the inspiration will spread. Freedom will seem, once again, accessible, and there will be hope for them all to run forward again.

Oh, but the man on my horse, he loves the ride, but wants me to do all the work, he wants to peak over my shoulder, feel safe behind my armor. He is completely unaware that his back is completely exposed the whole time, where his eyes cannot see. His hands will clamor, restrict my arms, and I begin to see and know that I am hindered by the person’s presence, and that his weight makes it so I can do less for both of us- and me.

I let him off the horse. I go ahead. He is scared, out in the middle of the battle field, between the collections of men, and the place where the action is occurring. He either chooses to go back, waits, or decides to go forward on his own accord.

Where are the women? The women are too busy fighting with each other for the attention of the men, to even care about the other battles going on. They have every strength and capability, but they have two gates holding them in place instead of one. The people I am fighting put it there, the men reinforce it, and the women, mostly, stay inside.

Maybe I should just go forward, alone. But what am I fighting for if there is no one to share it with? How can I forget them all? I can’t.

I consider what happens if we all succeed. I am the loudest. They’ll burn me at the stake.

But being alone with my mind, and what I know, feels like a great irresponsibility, both to myself and them.

Where are the other Horseback riders? Why can’t we fight for all of our revolutions at once?

Blue Match

In my hand I hold this blue-tipped match
As my head rests on my arm
And my lashes on my cheek
In that corner or these stone and linen walls
I have a pink candle lit
I know that that little flame is dangerous there
Left unattended as I sleep
I know I will be scolded for my supposed irresponsibility
So I sleep lightly
Ready to extinguish the little warmth left in this musty room
But I wait with this strike-anywhere match
Knowing that I would want it lit again.

(story written at age sixteen, virginity intact, four years into Mom's cancer)

Perhaps the beauty of her first child made her so worried. How she was born with already thick hair and open smiling eyes. The way the little girl learned to walk and talk long before other children her age had, and how her work in school was always above expectations. Worry seemed misplaced, though, more of a question that lingered in the background of parties and family conversations. Mother watched as her Perfect child grew, and knew that something so sublime would sink one day just as Mother had sunk.

Perfect’s eyes saw as though everything was circumstantial. People existed with their own knowledge that was always right for them. She was the kind of person that would talk about her faults in order to make others feel more comfortable with their own. And she would listen. She would listen like clouds that surrounded you both for miles and miles, the only thing existing besides vapor was you, your words, and your thoughts. Perfect knew more than a sixteen-year old girl should, but understood that she didn’t know more than age did. She was solid bodied, and soft. Her lips were always smiling and waiting to laugh, consequently scaring away those less confident. So she searched for more people she could listen to and help. She searched through her neighborhood, her school, her town, and she always ended with empty hands. Perfect stood alone. And Mother watched with growing worry. Mother saw the signs of someone who was too eager to help and give of herself.

As Perfect’s breast grew, as her black hair got longer, as her gray eyes got sadder, Mother watched. Mother watched Perfect swim in the lake behind their house. Mother watched through the kitchen window with her arms folded on her stomach. Mother watched as her Daughter would dive below the surface with toes pointed in the air, watched as her Daughter would let no bubbles of air escape, and sensed how happy her Daughter felt in the depths. Mother distinguished this as being the only time Perfect was ever happy. Happiness, Mother saw, is something that Perfect only achieved on her own.

Through Perfect’s door many handsome, lonely Boys walked in. These Boys had heard stories of an untouched girl who wanted to listen, and was happy to give. These Boys had been damaged in previous battles with conceited deities. Boys who told Perfect everything that had ever hurt them, Boys who became addicted to her lips forming comfort, Boys who always needed another hit. Mother saw Perfect love them, love being needed. Surrounded by words, Perfect was feeling each syllable of every word as though they were people with their own emotions. Perfect took every painful thought that was said to her and felt ashamed for not having felt the other’s pain. She felt guilty for being innocent and unscathed. Mother saw what Perfect was missing with her age. Mother saw Perfect making Their problems her own and developing scars from accidents that she wasn’t a part of.

So tonight Perfect is bathing in the great-white-footed tub. Tonight she isn’t singing, and Mother is listening for the sounds of sloshing water to stop instead. Mother stands outside the door to the bathroom and slowly lets the steam escape in tumbling swirls from the opened door. She leans over her sleeping, naked daughter and kisses her forehead and then stands again with lips pushed tight together and eyes pensive, but not worried. Mother drains the tub of its murky soapiness, and opens the only set of French doors in the house. The doors had been placed in the bathroom, intent on sowing romance. Mother had never reaped the harvest of those doors, and she was now saving Perfect from those seeds. The tub moves easier than Mother expects. It moves across the tiled floor and out the doors and over the deck and down the stairs and onto the sandy beach. Mother kisses Perfect on the forehead again, and pushes once more on the porcelain vessel. The tub floats and drifts slowly out into the lake, the almost-not-there-moon using her light to pull the arc. The drain in the tub begins to work in reverse, filling up more and more until the center of the lake reaches over the edges and pull the tub and all in. No bubbles escape, the perfect girl does not wake, and the mother thinks to herself that this gold will stay.

So at the bottom of tourmaline waters there exists this one perfection. Preserved while surrounded by porcelain and algae, the pale girl rests. Seaweed watches her motionless body, and fish use her for protection from other, bigger fish. And she sleeps as herself, alive and innocent with wisdom that cannot expand inside her mind and a body that will never change. And her mother lives through each day knowing that her daughter was saved from her mistakes. And her mother still worries.