Friday 19 March 2010

Untouchable

Sometimes I am untouchable, even when your stone face stares up at me and you drop your words like flat rocks on water. You aim at my heart but miss, miss again. Subconsciously you see yourself missing, see me not moving yet dodging every throw. The thing is, I can whisk myself away to a place you cannot visit. I watch you in your square room while I am dancing over here like a round thing, grass under my feet.

The antidote is in these words, and the knowledge that one day the stopper will be pulled on all the things you are trying so hard to hold in. You stack your definitions like a tower of socks before the great eternal funnel, because if you let them go, let them pass, you know you will be washed away with them. Everything - all those lies knitted into in your perfectly framed life- crumpling like trees in a mudslide.

The pain, when it comes, will be immense. There is no reason to pretend it won’t be. This is the plaster you have left to fester on your skin rather than face the task of pulling it off. Death pulls everything off, and I think deep down you know this. This is why you cannot touch me - because I recognize this terrible fear in your eyes - the fear of eventual disuse and annihilation.

Imagine standing and having unseen hands grab hold of your skin and strip you like a willow. It will be like this, when it comes. The best thing any of us can do up to that point is to wiggle around, get to know ourselves so well that we become loose, so the process is less painful or even strangely pleasurable. I think of you on that day, fearful as a child, your skin clinging tight around you like scar tissue over an old wound. Oh it will hurt, so much. I know it will.

It’s strange to watch you, looking at me like I am some kind of dirt you wish you could scrape off your shoe, and know I can do nothing. I can’t even warn you, because it would be like throwing a rubber ball against concrete. So I just stay untouchable, move over here and wiggle myself a little. Get loose, ready for freedom.

15 comments:

Notes From ABroad said...

This is very beautiful, very touching and very sad.
But I thank you for it .

Anonymous said...

don't die.

Tammie Lee said...

your writing, this post made me sigh out loud. Your words so creatively expressed, the pain, frustration and the knowingness. I know this dance...
but never could I have written it so well.

ellen abbott said...

A creative exercise or an unhappy event?

Rosaria Williams said...

You took us there with you, made us care and identify with you. The end, when it comes, will not be so hard, you say. Wow!

Zhoen said...

I love this. This helps me deal with the person I had to deal with all day.

And the longer it goes, the more pain awaits.

Julia Christie said...

Oh the depths you plunder, reaching into our cores with your prose, resonating like an eternal echo...
The knowing and not being able to tell is acutely felt. Deliciously macabre!

kj said...

whoa!

this is a vigorous and vibrant piece of writing. i don't know your situation but the narrator sounds both helpless and capable.

i have been hurt by betrayal and an abrupt goodbye and yet i still care, cannot carry bitterness. this reminds me of that somehow.

the narrator is a realist, knows whats coming, and yet....

thanks for your visit to my place pg, i always appreciate seeing you there.

and keep writing.


kj

* said...

You go girl. In writing & in life, whether this is a self portrait or no, it is beautifully writ. Yeow!

PurestGreen said...

Thank you for these sweet comments. I am just processing an ongoing work issue, trying to write my into some sort of distance from it. It did help. :)

Carol Anne Strange said...

A captivating piece of writing and a good way of letting go and gaining distance from the stuff of life that doesn't nurture us. Have a lovely, peaceful spring weekend. xx

Notes From ABroad said...

Sticking wee pins into wee little man-dolls might help too :)

Mike McLaren said...

Wow! A great post. The voice has such power and knowledge.

What About The Girl? said...

You are one of the best writers out there!

Lucy said...

I love that stripping willow image.

I hope I never forget to wiggle.