| When I remember that day, I remember walking
up the hill from the library and feeling blisters develop between the sweat
and the pressure in my sandals. And I remember the grating scratch
of my nylon backpack straps on my bare shoulders, rubbing uncomfortably
against my neck, forming tiny red bumps. And I remember hours later,
being suddenly aware of myself totally naked, in full summer sunlight,
and thinking, “my God, it has never been this good.”
While most people may be fooled again and again by a compulsive liar, I, being raised by one, can detect immediately that spark of truth before it is hastily subverted. His pupils will subtly constrict and the muscle above the upper lip on the left, the one which is made for smiling, will spasm slightly. That heartbeat of a second before the lie comes is, for the compulsive liar, the only truth. So I’m aware that Dennis drove his ‘83 VW Rabbit back to my house only because he needed to cover his tracks, but it’s amazing what we’re willing to settle for under even the best of circumstances. No one else noticed that you almost cried then, as her soft arms gently released their grasp for the last time. Only I saw your chin tremble for half a moment, and then your hand reach up to your face and pull down your jaw, a gesture which can appear masculine. Ignoring me saved you the embarrassment of self-awareness. They hung non-committally like sacks of flour, pale pink nipples dangling toward the floor without the remotest suggestion of sexuality. The feeling of one’s skin against bare skin is soothing, masturbatory without the guilt, sensual without the sex, a quiet reminder of the inherent humanity of our universal form for a woman growing and existing among vinyl pants and itchy underwires. If I could draw for you the palpable knowledge
of cigarette smoke killing lung cells, I would illustrate the shaking hands
of a daughter of an alcoholic as she tucks a well-rolled joint into her
Camel Lights on Christmas Eve. I will be the first to say it is wrong
to leave your cousins’ house Christmas day to smoke in their driveway,
regardless of the example your parents set. It is wrong to consciously
place foot in frozen-over canyons in the snow where he once stepped, only
to get your tights wet.
|
|
|
|
|
|