to be honest / apr 26

Towards the end of the month, I have a theologic experience with the trees. It’s a sort of faux spiritualism that I used to engage in much more as a teenager. There was a weekend spent purifying stones in sunwater, in a windowsill, at the top floor of the house, for a boy I’d stop speaking to pretty soon later, who lived near where my dad worked. I don’t know what made me so sure that any of it would work, that if the sun could reach the egg-cup of water or that I was convinced I could become something more or that the boy’d like me by any means at all. I’d ask the rocks, have you changed? and I’d ask the water, are you more? and I’d ask the dog, do you want a walk? So, of course, at twenty five, I ask the trees, what do you want from me? And of course, they tell me nothing.




    I spend the month of April closing myself off from my writing, and fail to assume any of the heights that I’m after. I make a professional blunder, soon edited, and learn to shut my anxiety behind the skin. There’s a world in which this is a month where I am stretched out to each and every sinewy component, to be examined, exercised, and ideally completely rebuilt. I am not made of that interrogative interiority. I am a woman in my mid-20’s, getting older each day, and worrying that I’m not going to become something I can't quite put my finger on. In terms of the criteria I set myself in March, we’re looking fairly dire. I wrote two pieces, both of which were submitted to conferences. I wrote 30,000 words of feedback for students. I got an idea about a fake trading card game, and some poor boy who I’m haunting about it. I write a fake interview in my A4 notebook, and take an hour to walk home. I develop a series of spots on the back of my hand that worry me, and up until two days ago, I do nothing about. I worry about everything I touch, that each time my hands find something, I’ll return to find the red lumps waiting there. I hold the rocks Wren got me for christmas and worry, sat still, leaving undone work on the desk. I Feel Like I Must Worship All The Data That Surrounds Me To Understand, But I Know None Of The Prayers, or even, When I Speak In Terms Of Devotion, The Words Don’t Come Out Right, and I’ll Eat Whatever It Is That The Waiter Puts Before Me.


    But, despite the noise, despite the spots, despite the thinning and drying of my top lip, the month of April is not a psychological surgery, and no scalpel forged in saline mettle and ego death cuts through my sense of self. I’m changing, slowly, and another month ends, and I’m here again. After each period, I find myself with two feet, and look through at what I’ve become. I’m not new, but I’m not myself either. I’m running through a series of corridors, and turning each corner at full sprint, where I’m chasing a shadow. Thanks, Trent, Atticus and Alex. It’s wearing my colours and knows its role better than I do. All I’ve known is to follow it, to nauseate myself trying to see it, but neither of us can know what it is, right?

At least one of us knows what decisions to make.

    You see it too, right, those corridors whose shadows fold onto each other, whose carpet is torn from where the shadow runs on and on and on. Towards the start of the month I am a woman, who goes on walks, who goes to the football with her friends, who worries not about the consequences but how long she can go without worrying -- towards the end of the month all I am a woman, just about, with enough in her bank account to plan a journey, cancel it, failing to refund, not really listening, hardly breathing. There’s so much skin that’s wearing me. I’m the organ and you’re the pulse, baby, and if there’s art then you won’t find it here.

    I don’t send anything off for publication. I ride the dip and see Picard in a blue uniform, bumbling and farting his way through to nothing. I sit still and feel time moving nauseatingly forward. I book a long distance train that I know I won’t catch. I see a man throw money from his outturned pockets before his bike, brittle and corrugated, finds more purpose in crashing than continuing. I thank God it’s only a motion picture. I scratch the back of my irritated hand. I check for a pulse but can’t tell if it’s my fingers, or my heart, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be listening for. I cook inedible meals for three. I see no need to sleep for more than four hours. I am read but disagree vehemently with the frankly reckless and spurious conclusions that we come to. I wish I was a Klingon. I delude myself into believing a gardener in Castle Park is going to come by and offer me some cuttings, in a chivalric and adoring act. He is waiting for a friend. I am just watching him, half drunk on hope, dizzy with the thought of being thought of by some caring stranger. I reply to an email only after I’ve chewed it and taken out all the bits between my teeth. I fetishise my own suffering, and wonder what could be done to monetize a transsexual woman of this composition. I realise that if this market existed, I’d have made a dog’s ear of it already. I watch football only to see my team lose, then draw, then lose, then draw. I stop dreaming. I sleep through another afternoon. I write a proposal that gets swiftly rejected. I am consoled by friends on the other end of the island. I light a flare in broad daylight and the light doesn’t catch and all I do is cough. I draw the blade from the heart of the beast and Strike Down Principal Skinner as He would want me to. I get to ascension 10 with the Regent but drop the ball once marking comes in. I was disciplined this time. I’ve stopped dreaming and scratch the back of my hand and when a friend asks, what’s up with that, I feel infectious and tell a lie: oh, this is just stress. Eczema. I am a prototype of a beautiful woman and all I know is to dance! I am a freak made of gunk and sobriety! All I live is dull, all my energy is spent, all my love is rotten! I must have something to believe in so I close my eyes and point and spin around the room until I’m so dizzy I say the wrong name again and again and again and my my right hand index finger finds

 

sure. whatever

    In other words, when the trees come, and I’m still fifty-fifty on whether the front wheel of my bike is flat or not, I will listen. I’ve been running on uncertainty for a long while now. I have a cannibalistic desire to become more than the sum of my parts. I mean this - and take this as a warning - but when I catch him, I’m going to eat him. I’m going to make sure my teeth find his arteries and I will feed freely and recklessly and I’ll make you watch. My eyes won’t move too far from yours. When I’m done, I’ll ask you to take me back to the trees, where I’ll offer the carcass of the shadow. The trees will stay quiet then, wavering, unoccupied by this small and material act of devotion. My stomach won’t long be able to handle the meat, the sinew, the flesh. It will be an image you won’t want to keep. I’ll try to sing my way home. There’s good music for this time of year but I’m sick, I’m tired, my tire is flat, my tire is fine, I just need to get back on the bike, go for another run, fix myself, prune myself, shave my face, shave my arms, shave my hands, let the skin wear itself, enjoy the ride, it could be my last. One of these will be my last. The trees have offered their message but they’ve changed now, and my hands are covered in a shadow’s innards.




    When writing these, I want you to know that I’m intruded by an image of grovelling for your sympathy. Look at me, qualified but not, woman but not, writer by trade but no cards to sell, shouldn’t this make for love? Shouldn’t you want me to do more than this? Surely, my hands used to be smaller, but I didn’t try to keep an eye on them. I’d just count my fingers and bite my nails and chew on the skin and come home from school and wait until the day would tick over and it could be tomorrow. All you can hear is the wind, and there, and there, and there, and there.




    In May, I must demand more of myself.

    I must continue, but seek to pursue. I must not catch the shadow man for the shadow man does not need to be caught. I must become more. 

    I will reject adequacy and embrace only excellence from myself. I must forge the blade myself, and also wield it with two hands. I will be the writer that was promised. 

    I will strike down all that which causes me fear and I will stand in my own skin again. There are no eyes in my skin, but I must feed. I must stand. I must write. I cannot accept my conditions because they seek to unfurl me. Hear ye, hear ye, and watch me stand as timid as I can be. 

    Hear ye, hear ye. This voice is drying out. This voice is drying out. This voice is drying out.