Whenever the subway lurches off remembering ‘there’s a place for us’
My cube opened to a long hallway, which led to the street. The sun shone in a rectangular pinhole at the end where the door had been burned off. As I neared the light I ran my finger along the wall that was dyed black from fires. Particles floated in the air. A film of smoke surrounded everything outside like a ghost over a grave. In one hundred years from now the haze will never leave. I made a mask for myself by ripping the rest of my bed sheet and tying it around my face. As suffocating as it was outside, the outdoors still felt fresh and breezy compared to the rot in my cube since the fire last summer that turned all of my screens off. The map would lead me to the station in Sect A and whoever might be on the other end to meet me there.
The dawn was dim spreading the shadows out like falling mosquito nets. I walked along what used to be a street, but looked more like a dried out river. Stairs led to buildings of cubes that rose high, almost blocking the sky out completely. I would be walking this way for about four hours before turning due south at the old courthouse. I had never ventured further than that courthouse. This route was familiar though, jumping from one unearthed cement block to another, easily avoiding the mines. We were forbidden to open our windows in the summer, and I knew why when I stepped out the first day I was bold enough to leave the living situation when I almost choked on the dry air. Between glimpses of the map I sipped a jar of water. Despite regular hydration my lips soon dried, my clothes grew wet with sweat and my legs felt as though they were slivering into strings. Every other block was destroyed and the sun crashed into the cavity illuminating the uniform blue glass of the structures like sleek backs of whales. Or maybe I was hallucinating. No, not yet, I was used to exercise, it must have been an effect of anxiety.
excerpt from The Optometrist in Lost Cities
At Printed Matter right now
Form.
I just saw the exhibit at the MET on kimonos, only after getting hopelessly lost in Edenic celadon pottery from Korea. If you haven’t been to the South Eastern part of that museum in a while, it does the soul some good.
But I was talking about Form:
A person in the western world, according to their culture, is an individual, known by their personal finances and deeds… i.e. what they achieve on their own from birth to death. Therefore, the shape of the clothing must be constructed to fit the wearer in their proper profession, wealth, or social standing. In a sense this person is the owner of the material and must control it with his or her physique. I think this is political as much as it is social, by means of the dominating, consumerist culture from which these countries have sprung).
The person who does not fit the clothing they are wearing, provided by clothing designers or companies, does not fit in society. This is to say, they do not have the means for clothing to be tailored exactly to them, or buy clothing at more expensive boutiques. These people must wear the pret-a-porter Target (not that Target can’t be awesome) - cheap clothing, which are the standards for what size one should be. The person who does not fit into the clothing is the outsider, the way they bulge out of the contours, or fall into it reveals ones difference. I can’t remember all the times I’ve laughed at a girl (including myself), who wears pants or bras that are too small for her and parts of her body fall out like goo beneath uncomfortable lines of the restrictive garments. Maybe I was a mean kid…
In the form of the kimono, the East seems to offer a different approach, the differentiation between clothing constructivity is subtler. The quality of the fabric, thread, and proficiency of the tailoring defines and classifies the individual. The robe itself does not need the shape of the wearer as much because the form is forgiving to many body types. The embroidery might reveal the wearers personal taste. The hue of the silk may lend a classification. Kimonos reveal a value system that relies on mastery, and relieves the human of their punishments that take the shape of clothing.
The fashion industry is becoming less restrictive, clothing has lost its sharp edges and is becoming more an more wholesome in shape. Not grunge or even sporty, that is last season. Fabrics are softer, clothes are looser, holes appear purposely where they had not before. A woman’s long skirt or dress does not appear dowdy or prude the way it used to when I sauntered Chatham Middle School’s halls in the early aughts. The simplicity in color and texture of the kimono often remains missing in contemporary clothing. The movement, stated, is therefore not complete in its circle.
I believe Fashion advice, like anything, should be given from the intention to promote inner peace, so I hope your body swims like the goo in a lava lamp. Like lava lamps, may the quality, not the shape of your clothing be considered admiringly for a long time always.
Axe and windex.
In my past life, that was the smell of new and fertile days lived in the linoleum halls of teen-hood when I couldn’t have known myself from all the other girls with bellbottoms and airwalks and all the girls with banned flipflops and banned spaghetti straps, and all the other girls who trickled along the halls unseen like streams of honey.
Back then the bathroom was the only safe place in the school and we would congregate there with makeup in our jeans and tampons and bracelets that passed from one hand to another as we whispered through each other’s long healthy hair.
Majestic tenements tethered by fire escapes on Broome are not altered by the weather, nor are they a bit shocked that summer pounced on the city in a night. The buildings stand solidly in lines pointing east to west, cascading north and south in that order, while New Yorkers can’t stand the sudden change. Either the pedestrians are inappropriately dressed in long heavy pants or they thought it might get cold and are lugging giant sweaters around. The first days of summer are an awkward transition. This year winter had no chance to come at all. The heated absence made people suspicious. Of course, the fainthearted became afraid and preached the end. The buildings have grey countenances but the color is not abnormal. No matter the season, shades of grey are the city’s morning.
Lower Manhattan is a valley of sun surrounded by mountainous dark clouds.
Even through the rays the rain feels so present that it might as well be falling already. In anticipation for the rain, the season’s sprite trees erotically fold the underbellies of their leaves open.
The gypsy cab drivers must get tired in their eyes from looking, the construction workers in their hands from grasping, even this early. 9 in the morning, and the city has been awake for hours. A third generation Iranian-American cabby with his dark sunglasses steps out of his black car to stretch his legs and rub the back of his neck. His closely shaven face makes the purple scar on his cheek glimmer chrome.
Subway Writing
Light morning. Light sleeping in the knots of body. Sing into the dream and soften the hard cold edges of forgetting a hat and a scarf and all the things that make the season bareable. The bird is still dead as far as I know but I haven’t had time to look out the window. It’s bizarre how in death he could so soon become mine, like the adoptive child of a red and hopeless mother.
“The break isn’t bad . I can make it down the hill as long as I am slow. I can make it down and I will never tell anyone about this. I will forget this happened in the first place."
The fall had a smell then. I had time to smell it now, with my ankle twisted ‘round like a rubik’s cube. The pain made it smell harsh and hotter than autumn should smell. Pain is always warm. Old leaves smell like parchment that has been blowing outside for months. They fell so that a cautious drum role sounded with each awful step down the hill. When it got too painful and my foot threatened to dangle and fall from my foot, I got down on my butt and slid. The ground was slightly moist. My body temperature was descending with the hill.
There must have been birds. There must have been deer sneaking like regal ghosts, soft and seeing in the distance. I didn’t notice them. I didn’t cry either. When I had fallen I didn’t wait to think but proceeded, alternating from my two feet to the ground for what seemed to be hours.
The trees were not threatening. Nor were they particularly welcoming of my presence. The temple of solitude. The forest. The only real thing. I wondered how long I might go on like this. For the entire night? I might have to sleep next to a tree.
How long had my legs been running up this trail. How fast I had run too, how long had I been out? Was my dad wondering where I had gone off to? When he pulled into the workshop parking lot I burst out of the grey VW and bolted towards the forest, fast as a mad girl, a monkey girl, set free into the wilderness.
The pain was twisting the muscles in my neck, it was making my eyes hot. I moved to the ground and began to slide along the trail. I couldn’t get up again and hurt my ankle, break it more, so that the bone bore out. That was when a figure rose from the ledge ahead, a dark figure like a giant rising from his home in the cavity of the earth. He walked towards me on that wide woodcutting trail - no one had driven on it with their large trucks and cars in months. The leaves were mine and his to shatter. Seeing him, as he came towards me, I knew that I was terribly alone. I knew that sleeping next to a tree would break me. That when darkness comes the forest changes. You don’t need to be an adult to know that.
He picked me up and brought me down the hill.
"What were you thinking?” my father asked. The question that was posed to me so often as a child. “What were you thinking?” What was I thinking? My thoughts, I believed, were not my responsibility.
Later with my foot bandaged - too tight - I answered “I don’t know.” That’s what I always said. Thoughts come and go. Whose business is that? They would just carry me from one thing to another, and I went on bouncing like that. Somehow thoughts have so little to do with the other when side by side - which is why I thought it was insane to try to make sense of them. As a child I was extremely predictable, until things got into me. Until I was slapping someone in the face, until I was in the middle of the woods with a broken foot, until I was chipping the tooth of my best friend with a hockey stick. Adults would just stand back and say. “You’re such a good girl. What were you thinking?”
I am working on being responsible. Unpredictable people are crazy. I am not crazy, obviously.
The owner of the downstairs mini store has piles of things young people in their 20’s might find useful. I did: His tall metal screens for the show I am curating. The Show - A distant being, the sun of my mind.
“Where’d you get those screens.”
“No, nope, no, those are not for you. My friend gave them to me.”
“No, no, I don’t want them no, I’m just asking because blah blah blah, putting a show up.”
He said the show sounded easy, he went on to say that his friend works at Anthropology and they always put window displays up that would warrant the cost of a full on installation on Park Avenue. Not true. He went on to say “Are you a libra.”
God help me if I was a Libra. “I’m a Taurus.”
“You seem so stable,” he said “but then… you seem - you write worlds.”
Flattered of course. “What are you?”
“Libra - I hate it. I don’t believe that astrology stuff." Time felt tight - as it often gets to be in New York City. But he went on. "Do you believe in God?” Hassidic Jews lumbered past, stoic and serious owners of this entire Flushing Avenue charade of an apartment complex.
“No. I mean, yes."
"You believe in something bigger."
The show. The show. I had to leave. “Yes.”
"The world is scary when there’s nothing above you."
My heart knows that feeling. It is the image of the sun in the ocean after the sunset. It is the mystery. It is when I was aware of the dark next to all light, just rolling around each other. That was when I knew fear. It walks next to me - a friend - a shadow. I would not be without its presence. I would not kiss with such desperation. I would not dance so feverishly in my hot shoes. I would not cry for beauty. I nodded because I think that’s what he meant. “I know.”
"The break isn’t bad . I can make it down the hill as long as I am slow. I can make it down and I will never tell anyone about this. I will forget this happened in the first place."
The fall had a smell then. I had time to smell it now, with my ankle twisted ‘round like a rubik’s cube. The pain made it smell harsh and hotter than autumn should smell. Pain is always warm. Old leaves smell like parchment that has been blowing outside for months. They fell so that a cautious drum role sounded with each awful step down the hill. When it got too painful and my foot threatened to dangle and fall from my foot, I got down on my butt and slid. The ground was slightly moist. My body temperature was descending with the hill.
There must have been birds. There must have been deer sneaking like regal ghosts, soft and seeing in the distance. I didn’t notice them. I didn’t cry either. When I had fallen I didn’t wait to think but proceeded, alternating from my two feet to the ground for what seemed to be hours.
The trees were not threatening. Nor were they particularly welcoming of my presence. The temple of solitude. The forest. The only real thing. I wondered how long I might go on like this. For the entire night? I might have to sleep next to a tree.
How long my legs had been running up this trail. How fast I had run too, how long had I been out? Was my dad wondering where I had gone off to? When he pulled into the workshop parking lot I burst out of the grey VW and bolted towards the forest, fast as a mad girl, a monkey girl, set free into the wilderness.
The pain was making my neck, it was making my eyes hot. I moved to the ground and slid there. I couldn’t get up again. That was when a figure rose from the ledge ahead, a dark figure like a giant rising from his home in the cavity of the earth. He walked towards me on that wide woodcutting trail - no one had driven on it with their large trucks and cars in months. The leaves were mine and his to shatter. Seeing him, as he came towards me, I knew that I was terribly alone. I knew that sleeping next to a tree would break me. That when darkness comes the forest changes. You don’t need to be an adult to know that.
He picked me up and brought me down the hill.
"What were you thinking?” my father asked. The question that was posed to me so often as a child. “What were you thinking?” What was I thinking? My thoughts, I believed, were not my responsibility.
Later with my foot bandaged - too tight - I answered “I don’t know.” That’s what I always said. Thoughts come and go. Whose business is that? They would just carry me from one thing to another, and I went on bouncing like that. Somehow thoughts have so little to do with each other when next to each other - which is why I thought it was insane to try to make sense of them. As a child I was extremely predictable, until things got into me. Until I was slapping someone in the face, until I was in the middle of the woods with a broken foot, until I was chipping the tooth of my best friend with a hockey stick. Adults would just stand back and say. “You’re such a good girl. What were you thinking?”
I am working on being responsible. Unpredictable people are crazy. I am not crazy obviously.
The owner of the downstairs mini store has piles of things young people in their 20’s might find useful. I did. His screens for the show I am curating. The Show - A distant being, the sun of my mind.
“Where’d you get those screens.”
“No, nope, no, those are not for you. My friend gave them to me.”
“No, no, I don’t want them no, I’m just asking because blah blah blah, putting a show up.”
He said it was easy. He went on to say “Are you a libra.”
God help me if I was a Libra “I’m a Taurus.”
“You seem so stable,” he said “but then… you seem - you write worlds.”
Flattered of course. “What are you?”
“Libra - I hate it. I don’t believe that astrology stuff." Time felt tight - as it often get to be in New York City. But he went on. "Do you believe in God?” Hassidic Jews lumbered past, stoic and serious owners of this entire Flushing operation.
“No. I mean, yes."
"You believe in something bigger."
The show. The show. I had to leave. “Yes.”
"The world is scary when there’s nothing above you."
My heart knows that feeling. It is the image of the sun in the ocean after the sunset. It is the mystery. It is when I was aware of the dark next to all light, just rolling around each other. That was when I knew fear. It walks next to me, a friend, a shadow. I would not be without its presence. I would not kiss with such desperation. I would not dance. I would not strive for beauty. I nodded because I think that’s what he meant. “I know.”