Visions of the Future

My friends, I am a terrible blogger. Didn't I just promise you all I'd be better about updating? And yet here it is, the end of January and I think I've posted twice this month. Not only that, but I'm bad about reading other people's blogs. It's ridiculous, really. As a writer, I should be jumping on every available opportunity to read others' writing and to share my own. There's probably a deep, significant, all-encompassing Psychological Reason as to why I'm so lax about this - I'm finding more and more recently that there seems to be one for everything - but that's a story for another time. I am, however, in the process of thinking out a piece about one of said Psychological Reasons, so with any luck, that'll be up here soon.


In the meantime, here's the end of my thesis.


Rejected

I don’t know about Kara’s graduation party until two days after it happens when I read about it in Kate’s internet journal.
“I don’t know why I didn’t invite you,” she tells me.
“I meant to. I thought I did.”
I’m glad I’m so memorable.

Really, I should be used to this by now,
but even so, the sting isn’t entirely gone.
I’m tired of always being the one
not invited, the one everyone forgets to call.

 Eventually I just give up.
It’s easier that way, or at least it should be,
but no matter how many times I tell myself
my hopes aren’t up anymore,
they’re still up, just a little bit.

“Hello?” I ask into the phone for the fourth time this afternoon
and try not to sound too disappointed
as I take another message for my mother.

The Two Times I’ve Been Beautiful

The first time, my mother:
“You need to be careful because
you’re a beautiful girl
and there are scary people out there.”

The second time, Steve, my neighbor
who walks his cat on a leash,
drinks beer at ten in the morning,
and is one of the Scary People Out There:
“You’re a very beautiful woman,”
probably looking down my tank top
as I pet his cat.

These are the Lines I Read Between

Everything always starts out innocently,
with the best of intentions, then escalates
into something only vaguely recognizable.

The cat’s face was so sweet, his purr so soft
I had to pet him.
His favorite place to sleep during the day
is the exact middle of my parents’ big bed.

Next to the bed, on both sides, are white nightstands
with drawers. I’ve seen inside them before.
My father’s drawers are boring: an old alarm clock, a pair of socks, extra pens.

I don’t remember what’s in my mother’s drawers
so I open one and find a notebook.
I know I shouldn’t…

Cat long forgotten, I know I shouldn’t
and do anyway.
It’s a rare glimpse into my mother,
a woman I realize I don’t entirely know.

I enjoyed the time Anna was at camp.

Maybe I don’t want to know her.

I could let my days be solely dictated
by what I wanted…

The words on the page before me tremble
and I don’t know if it’s my hands shaking
or my vision tunneling with tears at-the-ready.
Now I’ve started, there’s no going back.

…It was a vacation from the usual routine,
and I liked it a lot. 

I could stop here.
I should stop here.

Now that she is home
it’s hard to watch her old habits…
She looks like she put on weight at camp.

I feel heavy now.
There’s something weighing down my heart
and settling deep, deep inside.

Before she left she was going to the gym
and seeming to moderate her eating.
It took her almost a week
to work out again after her return…

I could stop here.I should. For my own sake I should stop here.

…and she appears to be back
to her old dietary ways.
I had gotten to a point
of being able to dissociate from that
and not be troubled, but right now
I’m back to being made tense and uneasy by it.

All of the words I keep in my head
are gone, replaced by a white hazy heat
that at once numbs and hurts
like no pain I’ve ever known.

Somehow I’m back in my room,
though I have no memory of walking there,
my mother’s notebook tucked safely away
exactly the way I found it.
The cat is on my bed now,
face sweet and purr soft.

My mother is more of a stranger
than she was an hour ago.
I’m not proud. I’m not innocent.
I know I’m not innocent.

Neither is she.

Depression: A Practical Definition

It requires far too much effort
to rise from bed and walk downstairs
to eat. Nothing tastes good anyway.
My whole body protests my existence.
There is an arrhythmic pounding in my head
and bricks tied to every one of my limbs.
My wrist cries out for a blade
as if it’s empty and boneless without it.
Singing, writing, reading…I fail to see a point.
I fail to see anything at all,
blinded to everything the world has to offer.
There isn’t anything to see.
It’s easier this way, lying in bed,
surviving, but failing to live.

Rejected: Same Feeling, Different Arena

There is no good reason why
I never made it into my high school’s a cappella group,
and if there is, no one has ever explained it to me.

I deserve it. I’m really good
which I have always known but have never said
because I don’t want to be a snob.

It’s easy to forget that I’m really good
when nobody cares I can sing
or even notices I’m around.
There must be something wrong with me.
I am defective somehow.

When my friend looks me in the eye and says
“Susan is the best singer in the whole school,”
I think maybe being a snob wouldn’t have been so bad.     

Mazel Tov

At seventeen I realize
I am a fraud.
Based on the belief that
Children should celebrate
In the winter,
My family has
Loosely observed Hanukkah
For the past thirteen years.

For the past thirteen years,
I’ve lit candles –
Blessed them in a language
I don’t speak –
Given (but mostly received)
More presents than I can remember,
Eaten so many potato pancakes
I don’t need to look at a recipe
To make them from scratch.

I’ve gotten angry
On someone’s behalf
Because in store windows
There are no blue and white
Pictures of menorahs and dreidels
But we’re blinded
By Christmas lights and
Rudolph’s glowing schnoz.

I’m Jewish by association.
My father had a bar mitzvah,
My mother’s parents were
Raised observant, but in our house
We don’t talk about G-d
Or temple
Or blessings on our heads.

I have been in a synagogue
Exactly four times.
I don’t even know all the holidays –
I just know Hanukkah
Is actually the least important
Because Yom Kippur and
Rosh Hashanah
Are the High Holy Days.
(Someone once wished me
A happy New Year in September.
I smiled and walked away.)

In seventh grade social studies
We learned about
Religions of the world,
Creation stories,
And how maybe
G-d created us all
While in science we learned about
The Big Bang,
The Origin of Species,
And evolution.
Believing in science
Made so much sense
I laughed at how
Clear-headed I’d become.

I believe in science,
But also in the Hebrews
Escaping their slavery,
In the Maccabees
Burning oil for eight whole nights,
In a people’s strength
To triumph over adversity,
In Holocaust survivors,
In love,
In kindness,
In peace.
I don’t need presents to know that.

Mazel Tov.
My mitzvah is now.