~KYO
(((((((((churches)
her laugher was a bottle of champagne opening. it was the tickle on my nose forcing me to close my eyes smiling and shaking it off. pushing tears through her vision like she was a stormcloud of waiting that comes out all at once until her cheeks go flush. and she hits me still laughing and says stop, stop, iie kyo, my stomach hurts.
then she holds her side, lifts up a deep breath and then drops it quick. looks up at me, and thats when i see the girl i married. the girl who was sixteen and crying in her room when her okaasan caught her wearing lipstick. the color of marshmallow bunnies at easter and so she wiped it right off her daughters face and grabbed her long thick sixteen year old hair, twisted it round one small hand then threw the hair down on the kitchen tile. along with her sewing scissors and said so she sat there and looked down at the sea of tile stretching out faded rosebuds to meet morning breath papered across the walls.
and when it was all dark and the television was on mute, because papa was asleep on the couch then her okaasan. she just hugged her girl who sang like the taste of lemonade when its summer. hugged her beautiful musume and smelled her forehead like fresh linen, and she said
this is the girl i married. the girl who reads old romance novels that smell like churches. the girl who falls asleep in the bathtub and then wakes up and the waters cold so she puts on one of my sweaters and climbs into bed. but this girl doesnt laugh like champagne anymore. or like the cathedral bells on sunday morning. or cartoon mice when its raining outside. instead of the big stormcloud, shes stark and thin across the sky. always tired and gray. like a tin pan under a leaking roof.
(((((((((shut)
turn of the lock in the front door and then click as it closes behind with keys tossed onto the counter and briefcase set on hallway chair. feeling like air and wanting to see my natsuki,...
~KYO
(((((((((churches)
her laugher was a bottle of champagne opening. it was the tickle on my nose forcing me to close my eyes smiling and shaking it off. pushing tears through her vision like she was a stormcloud of waiting that comes out all at once until her cheeks go flush. and she hits me still laughing and says stop, stop, iie kyo, my stomach hurts.
then she holds her side, lifts up a deep breath and then drops it quick. looks up at me, and thats when i see the girl i married. the girl who was sixteen and crying in her room when her okaasan caught her wearing lipstick. the color of marshmallow bunnies at easter and so she wiped it right off her daughters face and grabbed her long thick sixteen year old hair, twisted it round one small hand then threw the hair down on the kitchen tile. along with her sewing scissors and said so she sat there and looked down at the sea of tile stretching out faded rosebuds to meet morning breath papered across the walls.
and when it was all dark and the television was on mute, because papa was asleep on the couch then her okaasan. she just hugged her girl who sang like the taste of lemonade when its summer. hugged her beautiful musume and smelled her forehead like fresh linen, and she said
this is the girl i married. the girl who reads old romance novels that smell like churches. the girl who falls asleep in the bathtub and then wakes up and the waters cold so she puts on one of my sweaters and climbs into bed. but this girl doesnt laugh like champagne anymore. or like the cathedral bells on sunday morning. or cartoon mice when its raining outside. instead of the big stormcloud, shes stark and thin across the sky. always tired and gray. like a tin pan under a leaking roof.
(((((((((shut)
turn of the lock in the front door and then click as it closes behind with keys tossed onto the counter and briefcase set on hallway chair. feeling like air and wanting to see my natsuki, my tsuma kawaii, go into our bedroom spin her by the waist and drop her onto the bed, every inch of her stretched out, a body of water at daybreak, secret because everyone else is fast asleep but here she is all to myself all crickets and morning dew.
but no. the only light in her room is whats crept in, a thief between vertical blinds striping bed and carpet. and there she is on the edge and facing me. head down. green robe. handkerchief wrapped around her left wrist. looking up like a doll with twenty-eight other dolls inside of her. twenty-eight stormclouds but all of them empty. right hand brushing her hair just like every other night. and she says < > well actually she doesnt say anything. she just brushes until soon her arm will be too tired so ill leave the room before that happens because tonight i cant look. my mind stays with her though, every night. every night i sit down beside her silence wishing for that champagne laugh or a smeared lipstick cry or a song like lemonade or hell even this is what i wait for when i sit and try to stop asking questions. when i sit and watch my body walk out the room and close the door shut like a book.
out the room across the hall and to my office. to my closet with tomorrows suit with tomorrows shoes with all those hangers just the same as what hangs on them. just the same as the man they hang on. kyo, my fathers name. shut the closet, i dont want to change just yet, not ready yet to be comfortable. desk, phone, address book, and a dial tone but no destination. once she resigned from reality, the doorbell slowly stopped ringing. guests left early after too many dinners with a full spread on the table and an empty chair for the hostess. sitting in her room still in her dress and her okaasans pearl necklace. staring into the mirror with her lips parted and she might as well have been humming that same dial tone.
the phone slammed down sitting back in my chair now with my hand over my eyes and shes all i want this minute but shes right across the hallway on the other side of this earth. so thats where were going together, to the other side completely and no more metaphors. to japan. hyoko-ken. to see if we can find ourselves there. you think i havent looked hard enough yet but ill show you. get up out of the chair and out of my office, across the hall and into our bedroom to look for that misplaced girl. my eyes her chin our brows and forty-two days pass then finally i say but shes already gone. mad with fright and clutching the brush to her chest. clamoring backwards off the bed and into the powder room when i hear the door lock and her breath heavy like my heart.
(((((((((white)
it was the doctors with their hmmm uh-huh. the doctors and their tell me mores, their whys. the doctors who cannot cure anything tangible so they say words that used to be real life and are now reserved to more hmmm, interesting. they say depression and borderline and tell her that shes like a broken doll. that those white pills will take care of all these white american words. but they dont know about all the other dolls inside and how none of them are really broken but maybe just confused and speaking a language of green tea and the smell of tempura batter and her okaasans hands. that she doesnt want to talk to a notepad and a hand-on-chin. that pills leave a filmy chalk taste in her mouth that reminds her of communion wafers because it was a saturday, sleeping over with lucy diamante and when they woke up she wore her nice skirt and looked at all of the stained glass once upon a times.
and then its not enough that shes a broken doll. then its me. me the breath of the tiger, his yellow forest eyes. tree roots pushing up sidewalk. me the great mountain standing in the way so they break me down and pin their words onto my own chest. facilitator. uncooperative. they turn me from the mountain to the rock. covered in moss and like the stubborn cocoon refusing the spring. too many question marks they say.
(so here we go)
airport terminal, parking lot d. a big revolving door, a sign for everything, us inching our luggage through the line. along the walkways, to the terminal, at the desk and the smiling woman who stops smiling and looks up at me with eyes like the doctors. natsuki embarrassed and looking to her brown shoes for an answer. the woman she says and if i was angry like the doctors i would write passive aggressive across her forehead and say tell me more about that.
the airplane seats are comfortable, and not like they say in the movies. she sits beside me, hana onna no ko, full of summer. i go to kiss her left cheek and she closes her eyes so i trick her and kiss her on the right. take her hand and its fine,alright,okay,whynot even if she doesnt squeeze back. but four minutes fifteen seconds and then she looks over at me and shes smiling.
~NATSUKI
((((((((( miniature)
on the inside im smiling doll smiles and feeling like yellow. on the inside its wooden porches and im barefoot because its summer and the boards warm the soles of my wet feet as they creak and turn dark where theyre dripped on, wrapped with a towel smelling like chlorine. on the inside, its ahhhhhhhhhhhhh and nothing hurts because it all turns to air.
my braid clenched tight in a fist until i face the ceiling and then i understand the songs that birds sing and what they think when they look at me with their head to the side. my jaw burning and at that moment every piece of art reduced to miniature and i hide its secrets in my pocket. the buckling of my knees. the wall against my back and then the doorknob into my side. a phone receiver. a table knocked over and me trying to pick up what fell. when i put everything back in its place and when i stand in front of myself in the bathroom with a warm washcloth, then. i can see beneath the waves, and whisper with the crickets, and i can say
the blows are like light, like the sun. the sun were not supposed to look at directly but i did and now they say i cant discern one shadow from the other. thats why they dont understand i think, because they dont want to look. the doctors scribble faster and shake their heads, shake the sun away from their eyes.
you see i forgot. i took every pot and bowl and cup out of every cabinet and i scrubbed the insides until they looked like the outsides but i didnt leave the house and if i had i would have remembered to pick up the dry cleaning. his suits for next week because its friday and theyre all done and waiting but i only remember at the turn of the key at the click of the doorknob. the keys on the counter and the briefcase on the chair. so i sit and i brush my hair and i look like its all the same but it isnt, and he looks at me and he knows. he walks across the hall and hes opening his closet doors now and he knows. slides them shut picks up the phone and is he calling the cleaners does he know that theyre closed by now and that they wont open until SLAM! the phone its down hard on the base and pushed across the table and now silence.
footsteps across the hall and with each one i can feel the bruise on my hip and the swell on my cheek and im biting down hard now still brushing still everything the same and waiting for the rainbows to come. because they never come easy. he says and i dont wait for the last syllable to drop because in my mind the brush is out of my hand and im on the floor and the blood in my mouth tastes like metal and rainwater.
bathroom tile is the holy ground of the crying virgin and the sink is her altar. everything washes away.
(((((((((weather)
his arms. the two pillars. electric adrenaline. denki. he tells me that soon all the leaves will fall through my hands and that together well push those clouds away. so i unclenched my fingers and watched the furniture clear out and the walls go bare. i watched my suitcases fill up with photographs and letters and too much clothing. too many memories sewn into fabric. and i walked up to the counter with him at the airport on his right side with my head against his shoulder. but when we got to the woman at the terminal i stood upright and watched the look in her eyes change as she saw the shades of blue and purple beneath my blush. and my handkerchiefed wrist as i nervously pushed hair behind my ears.
dropping my head as the blood rushes to my face and i dare not come up for air. ballerinas in music boxes dance behind my eyelids.
when the airplane boards everything starts fitting together now. the havent i been here befores come out of me and i feel like every page has been written and now im remembering what was transcribed. already stitched into my insides, this story. behind forty-five miles of nerves and charting every step which got me here---- this is my completion.
i dont say any of this. i sit patiently in my seat and keep my seatbelt fastened even though the sign says i dont have to anymore. he leans over to kiss me, me closing my eyes and feeling the sun in my mouth like warm tea. then smiling as his nose almost touches mine, but he must have seen all those shades of night sky like the woman at the counter, because he kisses me on the other cheek instead. its the weight from my shoulders dropping into my gut and i wonder how anyone can not look away. my sadness the bad weather that never lifts.
but when he squeezes my hand, i remember my papa. proud of me, of my soft strength. of my stubborn laugh. i take back my breath and count to hyaku. then i take the sun and hold it in my mouth. as i look to my kyo, my otoko yama, and smile.
~AND THEN
japan, nippon, hyoko-ken. playing cards and laughter. kare kyo the mountain, strong and alive. kyo sitting around the table and there are friends and good drinks. smoking and pushing cards across and dress shirts with collars loosened. kyo, the otoko yama. no more the kyousai-ka. kyo whose wife is quiet and who listens. his okusan who laughs like a mouse.
no more words and no more pills. ano hito natsuki. natsuki the great painting on the wall, hidden behind a bookshelf and now framed against the great soil of nippon. where was this masterpiece they said, where was this soft flower growing? no more cracks of the sidewalk for her, she is not hard and white like cement.
natsuki the still water. yoi tsuma, the obedient wife. who smiles like the thin wisps across sky. not heavy and gray like a stormcloud. delicate like the littlest doll preserved within the twenty-eight others. without trumpets or thunder or birthpains. there and gone.
a novena for the full moon, pregnant with milk and honey. saint natsuki, our blessed lady of the lucid reflection.
I'm ADD and sleepdeprived. I sense interesting writing. I will be back, when I'm worthier.
Alexis