the habit of being

Under the covers, I slowly unwrench my back; my vertibrae pop. First thing in the morning, threadcount is the measure of my happiness. My sheets are freshly laundered. I rub my feet against each other. I do not want to get up.

It is cold and bright outside my bed. I am tired from dreaming so hard. I peak outside the quilt timidly. The light from the window pierces my eye, white lightning strikes my retina, and I retreat. In the sheets I shut my eyes again, tears float up toward the corners, and then the pounding sets in. The apartment is shaking with a drum beat. The clock ticking. The water dripping from the bathroom faucet. My heart echoing. Bam bam bam. Get up get up get up.

* * *

I’d be so thin if only it weren’t for the fat that spills out over my hip bones.

Every headache or mood swing is a potential pregnancy. Every quiet moment is a potential poetry. The more I live the more I realize I am unfit to write. Yet I hope for some revelation.

* * *

I guess we were happy, sometimes. Or, there were some times when we might have called what we were happy. I liked riding in his car when he was driving and it was dark out. When he still had a car. I’d slump down low in my seat and look at the stars. Or I’d lean over and put my head on his shoulder, though there was stuff in the way and most of me wasn’t comfortable. Or I’d put my hand in his pants and later he’d say he thought he’d have an accident. I never could tell the difference.

* * *

I walk around my apartment with a fist full of hair on the back of my skull, searching for a ponytail holder, a “hair tie” as they say in the north. I never think to let go my hand while plundering, and my arm gets tired and the hairs peak out from my scalp in little waves.

I want to talk to no one except my mother. My mother with her hair so like mine, her twin grip unyielding. I wonder if she could teach me everything. I thought not as a teenager but now I find her wise. And yet she says I taught her compassion as a child. I wrote in my very first little journal - My dad has lots of problems. But I love him, just because he’s my dad. Did I? Do I? Yes, I do love my father, but it’s not just because he’s my father. Everyone has lots of problems. It seems the more problems someone has the easier I find them to love.

* * *

A letter comes from my father in That Place. He includes a print out of the Twelve Steps of a Relapse. Step 6: I became willing to help people get rid of their defects in character. He says he couldn’t help but think of my mother. He also sends me seeds, folded in the plastic of a cigarette pack wrapper. They’re little brown seeds in the shape of tiny imperfect hearts, which are not referenced in his note. He’s working at a plant nursery, though, and my little half sister is 13 and really bloomin’. She’ll be dancing in the Nutcracker this year. He says nothing about the seeds and I do not know what they will grow. Or if they’re even seeds. I cannot imagine what else they could be. My mother asks me if they have any smell and says well whatever you do, don’t smoke them.

* * *

A blonde-headed girl in a blue pinafore and little socks stood holding her mother’s hand in the early morning dew. She was dressed as if for Sunday school, but it was not Sunday. It was Thursday - abortion day at Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge. The girl’s mother held a sign in her other hand, a blow up of a blown up baby, and a look of righteous indignation set across her lips. I did not hear the women shouting or the men shouting. I did not attend to the gruesome placards lining the street. I walked along the other side of the road in my ragged clothes with only my head scarf to protect me from all those glaring eyes, and I could not stop staring at the little girl. You shouldn’t be here, I wished I could tell her. I wished I could tell her mother. I shouldn’t be here either.

* * *

I don’t have any realization to impart. I haven’t realized anything new. Not today or the day before. I read on the subway, I sleep in my warm bed, and I long for that which I do not have. These things just continue on. I just go about my living, seeing things now and again. I have occasional silent moments of great calm, and even then somewhere I will tell myself I ought to write about this feeling, but I cannot. I would rather just have the moment and let it be. I will curse myself for it later, when the moment is gone and I can’t conjure it back, but I hope that I have them saved up somewhere inside of me, a little glowing spot. Such greed. Why is it that I am so obsessed with forgiveness and yet give no thought to being thankful?

* * *

My little brother has written a poem or two that we cannot help but admit are good. The thing that seems to bother me the most, apart from that I was supposed to be the writer in the family, is that he didn’t have to do anything wrong to get these poems. They’re not swollen with guilt, loaded with regret. A good writer is made by his honesty, not by his drama. I’d hoped by writing I might somehow make my drama useful.

And there’s also that he hasn’t spent years upon years trying to write before now. How wonderful it must be, to suddenly discover writing.

What if we’ve got only one shot at representing something? The more times one tries to write about something the more confused the something becomes with the writing. What if I’ve mined my life already?

* * *

My stepfather won’t give up his tub of change for Christmas. My mother just doesn’t understand. He wants to fill it up, he says. She says, If I’d've known that I wouldn’t've gotten him such a big tub. It’s a big galvanized silver thing from a hardware store. It has two handles, but even only halfway full I can’t lift it. He puts his pocket change in it every day after work, when he lines up his wallet and his comb and keys. I guess it’s a nearly a year’s worth now. Apparently when she said she wanted it for Christmas gifts, he rolled his eyes. She’s told me this on the phone three times. He must not even like Christmas, she says. But I’ve sure he’ll relent. I don’t know how they’ll get all that change to the bank, but I’m sure he’ll relent.

* * *

I have vague notions of the art I could be creating, and yet I slip into my clean sheets and say, tomorrow, tomorrow. I envy the clicking keys of my neighbor, working, yet let her metronome pass me into dreamlessness, all hopes for tomorrow. But tomorrow I will only again be seduced by vile television, consumerism, candy, politics. Tomorrow I will do no better. There is no tomorrow for an artist. There is only now. If I am not creating now it is unlikely I ever will. And so it is that I meet my worthlessness and caress her in my fresh linens, my messy room, my cold city.