Last night, I dreamt my sister drew some fanart for one of ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
kassrachel's stories, and I was just like, "But you've never made fanart for me!" (My sister actually is a talented artist. She is not at all involved in media fandom.)
Then I dreamt thatluzdeestrellas joined me and my friend Lee (and Lee's sister Ann) at the shore house we were renting (this is the same house where I once shared a sofabed with three other girls and this guy named Brian, because Lee's stepsisters and their friends showed up the same weekend Mary and I were there, and there weren't enough rooms for all of us), and the weather was rainy, so we were kind of stuck in the house. We ended up playing cards and drinking beer and watching a lot of MTV (which is actually what we used to do when it rained, well, minus the card playing - we were actually down there once during a hurricane - and I remember waking up the next morning thinking I would never ever get the taste of stale beer and Doritos out of my mouth, even though I'd brushed my teeth, like, four times trying to. That was also the trip where I learned to put one foot on the floor to stop the bed from spinning. Ah, youth.), which actually was playing videos, something I don't think it actually does anymore. We even had the old school remote that was still wired to the television - it was flat, like a box, and you moved the channel selector up and down the board.
***
I am having thinky thoughts, but I can't quite articulate them yet, so have a poem instead. I found this one while I was looking for something else. It made quite an impression.
Benevolence
After my older brother died and I had punished
the migraines with enough codeine
to sleep through the night I walked out
into the backyard with the moon illuminating everything
like an antidepressant and threw a rock
at two feral cats who seemed bent on fucking or killing
each other. It was not a mystical moment,
or a therapeutic one,
I did not link the feline fight of wills with my own, it just
felt good to throw something.
The fact that I missed
is not a telling sign of my own benevolence or a metaphor
for the inaction of violence,
it only means that I have always sucked at baseball. That I
couldn't throw a ball into a glove
if the ball was in my right hand
and the glove in my left. That I preferred to be
standing in the outfield where the grass had grown tall
and the clouds formed a menagerie
of animals above my head. Standing there
with only one wish:
that no one would hit the ball hard enough to reach me.
But the weight of the rock
and the sound of it ripping through the trees,
crashing against the fence,
was enough to make up for all the Little League humiliations
I had garnered through my intense fear
of physical injury. The time I actually dove
out of the way, the ball sailing beyond the dugout. The time
I could have scored if I had slid into the dirt
but instead, walked as if I had nowhere important
to be. Even as I watched my older brother
skin knee after knee, break bone after bone—
always surviving, always
being able to bite down on what
the world had given him, what he had made
of it, and still walk along the bases, the streets, the rugs
of countless therapists, still swallow
the glowing pills humming in the bottom of countless paper cups,
his arms bound to the bed by cotton straps,
the razor he once slid along his arm like a beam of light—
I couldn't manage the smallest cut,
the most laughable bruise. When I walked out
into the backyard and held the rock in my hand
I wanted so badly not just to throw it, but to hit something and make it hurt.
~Matthew Dickman
***
kassrachel's stories, and I was just like, "But you've never made fanart for me!" (My sister actually is a talented artist. She is not at all involved in media fandom.) Then I dreamt that
luzdeestrellas joined me and my friend Lee (and Lee's sister Ann) at the shore house we were renting (this is the same house where I once shared a sofabed with three other girls and this guy named Brian, because Lee's stepsisters and their friends showed up the same weekend Mary and I were there, and there weren't enough rooms for all of us), and the weather was rainy, so we were kind of stuck in the house. We ended up playing cards and drinking beer and watching a lot of MTV (which is actually what we used to do when it rained, well, minus the card playing - we were actually down there once during a hurricane - and I remember waking up the next morning thinking I would never ever get the taste of stale beer and Doritos out of my mouth, even though I'd brushed my teeth, like, four times trying to. That was also the trip where I learned to put one foot on the floor to stop the bed from spinning. Ah, youth.), which actually was playing videos, something I don't think it actually does anymore. We even had the old school remote that was still wired to the television - it was flat, like a box, and you moved the channel selector up and down the board.***
I am having thinky thoughts, but I can't quite articulate them yet, so have a poem instead. I found this one while I was looking for something else. It made quite an impression.
Benevolence
After my older brother died and I had punished
the migraines with enough codeine
to sleep through the night I walked out
into the backyard with the moon illuminating everything
like an antidepressant and threw a rock
at two feral cats who seemed bent on fucking or killing
each other. It was not a mystical moment,
or a therapeutic one,
I did not link the feline fight of wills with my own, it just
felt good to throw something.
The fact that I missed
is not a telling sign of my own benevolence or a metaphor
for the inaction of violence,
it only means that I have always sucked at baseball. That I
couldn't throw a ball into a glove
if the ball was in my right hand
and the glove in my left. That I preferred to be
standing in the outfield where the grass had grown tall
and the clouds formed a menagerie
of animals above my head. Standing there
with only one wish:
that no one would hit the ball hard enough to reach me.
But the weight of the rock
and the sound of it ripping through the trees,
crashing against the fence,
was enough to make up for all the Little League humiliations
I had garnered through my intense fear
of physical injury. The time I actually dove
out of the way, the ball sailing beyond the dugout. The time
I could have scored if I had slid into the dirt
but instead, walked as if I had nowhere important
to be. Even as I watched my older brother
skin knee after knee, break bone after bone—
always surviving, always
being able to bite down on what
the world had given him, what he had made
of it, and still walk along the bases, the streets, the rugs
of countless therapists, still swallow
the glowing pills humming in the bottom of countless paper cups,
his arms bound to the bed by cotton straps,
the razor he once slid along his arm like a beam of light—
I couldn't manage the smallest cut,
the most laughable bruise. When I walked out
into the backyard and held the rock in my hand
I wanted so badly not just to throw it, but to hit something and make it hurt.
~Matthew Dickman
***
sleepy
relieved
headachy![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
complacent
hot
awake
determined
cranky
shocked