... for Room
It’s hard to write to you—there is nothing I want to say. I have nothing to reveal. All speech feels like a waste of breath. I have no secrets. To have a secret would mean to put importance on the past—I try to neglect the past. There is nothing I want to deposit in the hollow spaces inside my relics. I leave my relics. I let them be. They are arranged neatly in my room. Some more dusty than others. Some more neglected, piled under each other’s weight. They change shapes. They move. They relocate without me. They arrange themselves into words, into sentences that spell out my destiny.
Sometimes I catch them moving out of the corner of my eye. Instantly they stop shifting; they freeze. I look away again. Bored, disinterested.
Sometimes I dust them and make a small effort to arrange them. Not to make something better of them, not to make them spell out a different meaning, but simply because. Simply because they are there and I have nothing to do.
Maybe I should stuff them all into a large, black, glossy sack? Maybe I should take them down to the river and let them sink like unwanted unborns. Deep. Into the mossy dark syrup that frames the order of our streets. Maybe I should let them be taken by the drift. They can softly brush the rocks of the riverbed. Helpless. Properly forgotten.
But that would give them too much attention. They would instantly latch onto my effort to negate them. What if they learned to swim? I know they would! They would cling onto the bottom of the Staten Island Ferry. They would swing back and forth between two
lands. They would feed on mollusks and the excrements of the city. They would grow and catch some shrimp. Time would pass and they would assimilate to the movement of the boat. They would pick up sentences from the passengers. They would imitate their speech. They would speak to the disillusioned and the desperate. They would call their names from below. They would drag them down with them into the promise of the unknown. They would convert them. Feed them and feed on them. They would caress their cold limbs and grip them tight. To never let go. To never be neglected again. They would make them speak all of my unspoken words. They would drink their meanings and longings. They would make them fill all of my unfilled silhouettes. They would make them trace me. They would make them walk my walk. They would make them trail me.
They would use their cellphones. Penetrate into the bowels of the city. Pushing away from the ferry, they would crawl under the streets. Battery Park. Broad Street. Bowling Green. Starting from below they would hack into the stock market and spell out my name, all in ones and zeroes. They would flood the market. They would print money and breed commodities. Multiply. Multiply. Multiply. Until it all spills.
They would multiply to get my attention. They would seep from under the adblock, spreading to each of the open chrome tabs in my laptop. They would post on my facebook wall and read all my emails. They would respond for me. They would seep back into my fingertips through the keyboard. They would write to you. They would copy and paste. They would delete. They would infuriate me and bore me. They would make me bothered and sad.
They would make me dance. They would grin at me from the videos of a porn site. They would invite me to chat. They would seduce me. And as I touch myself they would finally unite with me and rejoice. They would cling to my clit like a hungry child to a mother’s nipple. They would moan for me.
And as I lay on my bed, stupid and numb, they would neatly arrange themselves back to their neglected shelves. They would camouflage themselves with familiar dust and pretend as if nothing ever happened. I would continue not to see them. But to know that they are there. In my room.