Shell

Tonight, I walked into a gas station to buy some oil for my car. When I found what I needed, I approached the counter to purchase my items. I plopped down the two quarts of oil and watched the clerk visually assess my purchases and then I saw the birth of his eminent confusion as he juxtaposed the purchases to the purchaser: a 5’11”female, alone at a 7-11 at 11pm.

He babied me with his eyes and asked "Are you sure you know what to do with that?" Ignoring his condescension, I smiled and politely said "yes." He lackadaisically completed the transaction, and then said, "I'm not sure you do... Is your boy-toy going to help you with that? You know, so you don't get too dirty? Girls can't do anything with cars."

I gave him a blank stare and just said, "Nope. And this girl can." I then asked for a paper funnel (for obvious reasons) and he smirked back and said, "Why- are you gonna bake me a cake, babe?"

He winked at me and I walked away.

On my drive home, I had a lot of time to think about this whole transaction, and to go slightly Anne Lamott on you, here are my thoughts.

Initially, I was shocked, but I was shocked because of the absence of what I felt. I realized that I am not disgusted by this, not saddened by this, not offended by this, nor furious about this. I am not overwhelmed; I am not even upset.

What I am is curious: curious how this individual has become immune to the existence of other human beings and completely disregards any level of sensitivity. I am curious how reality looks in his brain. I want to know what color his thoughts are, how he shades his words, and what he highlights.

Maybe this event struck me because I have not experienced this level of disrespect in my young adult life. Or maybe I just have never been aware of the consequences of what was actually happening to me. He wasn't telling me that I'm dumb, that I'm pretty, or that I ought to be in the kitchen. In his words, what he said was “You are a shell.” He said, “I do not see you.”

My intention in sharing this experience is not to shake my fist at all the men in the world, or to push any feminist agenda or shame men for being so patronizing. This is not to dismiss encounters of chauvinism and misogyny that have become far too regular. Misogyny is real and it is alive, and we women are very good at fighting fire with fire.

I want to share this because of what this event showed me in an inexplicable way was: I have been blessed a million times over to have grown up with men and women that respect one another: in speech, in action, in thought, in practice, in theory, and in mind. The men in my life have modeled for me what I deserve and how I deserve to be treated (further-- how I deserve to be spoken to.) I have been given the gift of personhood in the eyes of the men in my life.

This one instance at a 7-11 in the middle of Aurora with a rude stranger was a small and futile experience to me. But it still stuck, because here I am, writing this. I keep asking myself "why?" But I am trying to listen to the impulse i my soul to write.

Maybe I should have defended myself. Maybe I should have chewed him up and embarrassed him. Maybe I should have given him a taste of his own medicine. But I didn’t.

I didn’t because I don’t need to prove my womanhood to him or to anyone else. I do not need to justify my purchase of motor oil simply because of my gender.

When I look at someone, do I see them? Or do I see what I want to see? Do I see what I expect to see? Am I really seeing someone as they are? As unique, wonderfully and fearfully created children of God? Or am I putting them in a box?

I think we underestimate the power of our words in the potential to alter someone’s reality. Language is the currency of life’s transactions. When I wake up tomorrow, I want to choose to put on my humanity. The only way to put out a fire is to neutralize it.

When we put out a fire, we do not douse the entire fireplace with water and change the square footage into a pool. We do not tear down the fireplace and vow to never be warmed again. We put out a fire by ending the flame at its source and not replacing it with anything. We put out misogyny by choosing to fight as pacifists. Respect and sight will be my weapons of choice.

What I want to share is a thank you. A thank you to the men who treat other men and women with respect. To the women who treat other women and men with respect. To the people who treat other people with respect. To the people who buy motor oil and the people who bake cakes. To the people in front of the counter and the people behind. 

Reaching

I just wish that for once, 

you'd be weak.

Instead of numb,

That you would descend into the foggy caverns of your need 

And grapple with your hunger,

Face it, name it,

No longer hide behind the circular sound or crumpled up pages,

scratching aimlessly at your temples, 

and bleeding Cabernet.

That you would carry its broken consequences to the precipice of my skin

And let me reach into you 

Star struck, wide eyed,

with whatever homebound magic remains left in me, and

Again resemble the fickle girl

that fell in love with you.

A mask that allows me to stay,

Together we would stay, held,

or-

I would stay-

Within the cold, embraced,

Under the unforgiving pavement.

It is dark

and we are not light.

But you are familiar, stable,

I blanket myself in this consistency.

Armed against my unintentional and imminently hollow soul. 

I dance with the devil.

Convince myself that I am safe.

Bargain my dignity for a crumbling and fragmented

poor excuse for a 

match,

You light the spark.

I am not illuminated,

I can not see.

I am not light, not lovely, not bright,

You are not seen,

But you are deeply aglow.

Subtle. 

So that maybe you would not know

Or need to

How desperately

I crave the caress of your poison

the hearth of your shackles .

How automatically

and voluntarily 

I reach in your direction,

Abandon integrity 

And charge toward 

my own demise,

An unconscious ideology of heroism.

Choosing to put

the storm before the calm. 

I repeat anxiety

Then awoken by unprecedented flags.

In the heaviest hail, the thickest whiplash,

I bow my head to the shame, 

to the longevity of my prophetic and burning heart.

You retreat, 

I am swallowed in my vacancy.

The smoke lingers in the dead air,

the settling ash collects upon my open palms,

dirtying my grapple for life 

like water running through my guilty fingers,

That I plead, beg, 

check every box

Until I am defeated,

I cannot reach, and

I won,

And you wave the white flag for me.

But

I did not fight a good fight.

I am caught

with skin still in the game,

between what I want

what I need

and what I deserve.

So yet again

I surrender,

Open palms. 

I succumb to the pull of the tides, 

Hold my breath, cover my face,

Reach toward the compelling evidence of my soul on the ocean floor.

A white flag dances atop a lighthouse.

You are that lighthouse. You are

that island, my vessel,

and the waves.

You are guiding me, saving me, delivering me, and killing me.

So with open palms 

I lay down my armor, 

my Rorschach camouflage,

and stand bare and tall 

through what I know I don't know.

I trace the edge of infinity's shore

With the frayed edge of the white flag

that once traced your skin.

There are more than two sides to every story--

I know it now,

Maybe you would say that I have seen the light.

I am not done reaching yet.

"Welcome home."

It is quiet

And I am too dry,

too susceptible,

to turn a page in the grasses.

Paralyzed in grief

Forcing a stillness to comfort me

Hearing resonance in news anchors

And non-existent whispers in the staircase

My steps are opaque

but my heart is what bears the affliction.

My only choice

Has already been determined.

Silence is everything.

Swallowing words

And choking on soap

This invisibility is heavy.

And it’s bruising my bones with rings,

and stripes

that I have earned,

or,

so I am told.

I am cemented in hushed sounds.

A statue of faded zeal,

Face chipped with snide

decorated,

seen and not heard.

“Don’t let it get to you” and

“This doesn’t concern you”

Like I am to be as forgetful

as a generic apologetic template;

As silent and ambiguous

as early morning fog.

On that 747

I thought I had escaped the nightmare

when really, I just entered a new one.

A new one that

that

I used to call

“home.”

Fill-in-the-blank

You’ve rid me of my symmetry.

I'm desperate for a closure that seems to be

as impossible as rain, as magic,

as light.

In my absence

I am curious.

How is it that you

will fill in the blank?

When I find myself alone

with

the things I think…

I am trapped.

Compassion,

somehow,

in the cruelest trick of fate,

becoming synonymous with pain--

that is what wins.

Because of your fire,

my mind is forged and skewed and marred

and

perfected.

My memory fits. 

Because, it is poisonous

to the logic

that you require me

to adhere by.

Now, my body doesn’t possess

any degree of symmetry.

And for you,

still.

Still

I’d tear down

the walls of my flesh

and race for the moon,

for every fucking double meaning.

Pounding heart,

dry faced,

asymmetry of soul and thought,

of voice and recall.

But at the end

I know what I would I find.

that

I poured,

relentlessly,

I poured.

and somehow,

I was emptied.

Here is where I exist:

Empty on the lunar plexus,

the metallic trampolines of your psyche,

where I have no recollection of a healing scab.

Yes, perhaps, it is,

almost

tongue-in-cheek.

Am I too tongue-in-cheek?

thanks to you

even that has double meanings now.

And never fast enough can I shed the illusions

Or fail to acknowledge,

That you are the contingency

which bends upon

the hinge of my dreams,

while I have become

some shade of absurdly dependent 

upon your levy

that makes me

whole.

Under the bridge

Perpetually I seem to remember
the day that we went under the bridge.
It was a sunny Monday,
strategically we went,
leaping from rock to wet rock,

celebrating because
every moment together
was a recess from reality.

I wore the brown boots, 
the one from our first date.
In the middle of the river,
you gave me your hand
and pulled me close.

You held me, 
and I held you back.
We stood in the wind,
resisting the current,
beating time.
I was safe,
and I was free.

As we kissed,

I remember wishing 
that someone was taking our picture.
That maybe somehow,
someone could capture

the adventure you gave me,
the beauty you activated in me,
the way my soul lit up around you.
That maybe-

(you felt it too)
we were going down in history.

And we were.
We were.
And now
that I know it,
it is too late.

This-

This is how I will choose to remember you
You, perpetually tapping
You, in the rear view mirror
Your quiet energy, your sweet persistence,

How I was a diamond in your world of playground rocks.

I will remember you with your skinny waist,

I will remember your suede promises,

the lightning of our first embrace,
all the way to the edge of desire.

Your body in the back seat,

the way you taught me and

our perfected chemistry.
You, my best friend,
my only one.

I will remember you in grocery store parking lots,
on Denver sidewalks,
the volume of your snaps,
you on top of the Space Needle.
I will remember you in your element,
and when you met me in mine.
I will remember you on every long drive,
every mountain pass, through tears,
craving you to make my brain feel quiet
one more time.

Because you,
you remind me of home.
I know because I loved you first,
I could love you forever.

So I don't know how to stop.
I don't know how to stop being innately me.
I don't want to.
Please,
don't let me go,
don't let me go,
don't let me go.

Because I love you,
and I can't.

Still,
I search for you nightly,
And wait to stop shining
until I see you meet the coast,
or at least until
the sun comes up again.
When it's time,
I wait for you in between breaths.
I wait for you where the needle meets the vein.
I wait for you like you loved me,
across every galaxy.

I'll never ask for anyone but you.
I ask, and I ask again,
but it is
and I am
too late.

I cannot be close, it breaks me, and
I keep my distance.
Heartbreak was a foreign word,
till I was loved by you, and
I need you to come translate for me again.
I need your voice to 
unlock all the love that's trapped in me.

Only when I am far away,
From far away,
That is where I choose to remember you.
I will remember us under the bridge.
Before we lost our footing on wet rock,
Before we drowned.

Because if I put you there,
under that bridge,
then I cannot remember you
in all of the other places
where it still hurts.