CHAIR – 1
Before dinner he told me he had 2 kids and an ex-wife. After
dinner, he fucked me without a condom and told me he was 28 and his parents
were rich, so he could have a huge TriBeCa apartment and not have to worry. He
said he had stopped taking his meds because they were making him fat. He said I
had nice eyes and I said that he probably says that to all his dates. He said
“you’re cute”. I said “you lie” and he smiled and threw his cigarette to the
ground. I never saw him again and can’t remember his name, even though I
remember it was tattooed on his arm.
Let’s say talking about rape is a table with two legs. Let’s
say it’s akin to a song about love song told in reverse, the hidden meaning
that made you mean in the first place. Let’s say I had a heart attack and woke
up to a nurse wiping my ass and I say “call my lawyer”. Let’s say eight is not
nearly enough. Let’s say being a man doesn’t count, that being a man makes you
able to overpower, overturn, the events of the evening. Let’s say let’s not say
no. Let’s say wet spinach and leave it at that.
Teenage fantasy done bid done wrong. Spending the night in
the city, forcing the something out of anything. Untidy slaving slapping you
silly and you say you like it, you like
it. I saw the revival of “Carrie, the musical” and could tell the
difference. The something still hidden under the bed, coming up through the sheets
and into the blood, and into the dreams, and get replaced by memories, as such.
As such. This is how you feel, baby.
People have two feet, but chairs have four. Our family has a
history of families of four, so four seems stable, routine even. Two, while
even, technically, seems uneven to me – almost more than one. I once said, in
response to something on the TV, when I was a child that “family isn’t the
foundation of life, a person is” thinking that it takes a person to build a
family, so why would the family build the person if it’s just people (singular)
to begin with? I still think this, even as I rest and recoup myself on the
backs of my family. I’m still me. My family is still me.
