The Eyepatch: a fable

You have decided that if you ever lost an eye, for whatever reason, you would wear a black eyepatch. You would accept the piratical jokes, and maybe even embrace them. Get a parrot or something. You wouldn't get a fake eye or try to hide it with your hair or do whatever people who have lost eyes usually do. You would wear an old-fashioned black eyepatch. If they even sell such things anymore. It would give you character, maybe even distinction. People would know that you weren't afraid to draw attention to this thing about yourself that would always demand attention anyway.

And one day, improbably, some man would fall in love with you. He would look into your one good eye with so much love and affection that it would tire you out, having only one eye to stare into both of his, so full of love. Sometimes, you would lay your head on his shoulder, or his chest, just so that your eye could rest from looking into his eyes.

And when he had loved you for a while, a long while even, sometimes when you were comfortable and unguarded, he would ask you to take off the eyepatch. He would ask you to show him your scarred or missing eye. You would shake your head, maybe hiding your face behind your hands, your eye and your eyepatch behind closed fists. You would cry and cry from your one good eye and tell him No, No, No. You would walk around without an eyepatch all day, let every stranger see and look away, before you would let him look full on your injury even once, you would tell him.

Eventually, of course, you would show it to him. But you know that you would keep your good eye closed while you did. And you know that you would not let him mention it afterwards.

Smoking Cigarettes

Smoking cigarettes does wonders for your social life. Or, it would, if  the sort of people you wanted to meet smoked cigarettes. Correction: if the sort of people you wanted to meet bummed cigarettes. Smoking a cigarette while sitting on a park bench, or at a cafe table, or while loitering is  like holding a sign while sitting on a park bench, or at a cafe table, or while loitering -- a sign that says "WILL TRADE CIGARETTES FOR AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS TRANSPARENTLY INITIATED FOR THE SAKE OF CIGARETTES." 

Everybody's a palm.

"I always believed in you."

(There was a beat, longer than a heartbeat, but not much longer.)

"You never believed in me."

"What? That's so not true!"

"You've never said one encouraging thing to me. You'd ask to read my stories, and you'd read them and read them, and you never said anything. Nothing. You said nothing."

"That does not mean I don't believe in you. That has, like, zero to do with whether I believe in somebody."

"Well, it made me believe you didn't believe in me. Which is the same thing."

"I can't believe this. I can't believe you."

(Another beat. Several, actually.)

"It's the same thing to me. What am I supposed to think? It feels the same."

"Well, I don't understand why you always have to read into everything all the time."

"I read into things because that's what you do. You read into stuff. Everything's just there to be read into. Like, the way you're sitting there right now is just--just--like, asking to be read into! You're telling me I'm not supposed to be reading into stuff when there's so much stuff there to read?"

"I'm not telling you to read me! Stop reading me. Don't read me -- I'm telling you to not read me."

(Beat.)

"Well, how am I supposed to not read into that?"

"Fine. How am I supposed to not read into your reading into me? Like I’m--like I’m a hand or something and you’re this palm reader, this God-almighty palm reader just--just freaking reading me all the time, like I’m so easy for you or something. Maybe I’m the back of the hand, huh? You ever think I could be the back of a hand, and you’re trying to read me, and you’re just reading me wrong?”

“You’re so not the back of the hand. Don’t be stupid. Everybody’s a palm.”

“You don’t be stupid. I don’t have to be a palm. You know what? I might be a leg. A leg with no lines and you can’t read me because you don’t even know I ‘m not a hand. You win some award, and you think that’s it. You think you get me, that you know what I think about you, because you can make shit up. You think that’s a way to get people?”

“Ya, thanks, well, now I don’t have to make anything up. I don’t have to read into anything. You’re just, you’re just spelling it all out and now I know I was right! I was always right about you.”

“F. off.”

“No, you f. off.”

“No. I’m staying right f.-ing, fucking here. I was here first.”

“Fine, a.-hole. I’ll leave, but don’t act like I can’t read into you because I know I can, because you just showed me I was right. You’re right I’m a palm reader. I’ve read you all the way down, okay, and I know you don’t think I can do it, but I’m doing it anyway.”

“Whatever. I’m just sitting here trying to watch TV, and, like, relax, and you’re all demanding -- I tried to say something nice, do you get that? I try to be supportive, and this is what happens. You have to be able to read me.”

“Well, I have to read you because you don’t just tell me!”

“I -- I don’t -- what the h-- I just told you. I told you I believed in you.”

“No you don’t.”

“Fine! I don’t! Whatever. You’re the mindreader.”

“Palmreader.”

“Shut the fuck up, please.”

“Great sentence. Great sentiment. Thanks for adding the ‘please’ or my feelings would really be hurt.”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I’m trying to watch TV.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

(A lot of heartbeats, pretty fast ones, but not too many.)

“Look, do you want some popcorn or something?”

“What? Do I -- what?”

“Look, I’m just gonna make some popcorn. I want to know if you want some. It’s not a hard question.”

“Are you trying to be nice now? Because you’re not doing a good job.”

“I’m doing a better job than you.”

“Yes, YES. Okay? I want POPCORN. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my whole life. I’m starving for popcorn. It’s a popcorn famine over here. Please. Thank you. Popcorn. Yes. Great. Gimme.”

“Screw you.”

(Many beats.)

Yelled into the next room, “I did too believe in you. You can’t read my mind. My mind believed in you, just because you couldn’t read it doesn’t mean it didn’t.”

“Then why -- you know what? Never. Mind. I’m making popcorn, and you’re not getting any.”

“Right. Like I wanted any.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Whatever.”

“And I did too believe in you.”

Coming in from the other room, “I can hear you, you know. I’m not dumb. Or deaf or whatever. Why didn’t you ever tell me, then?”

“Why do I have to tell you if I believe in you?”

“Because how else am I supposed to know?”

“You said you knew. You said you could read my freaking mind.”

“Well, I can’t. Hello. Obviously I can’t.”

“Well, I did.”

“Fine. You did.”

(A beat exactly as long as a heartbeat.)

“But you should tell me if you did.”

“I’m telling you I did.”

“Fine. Whatever. Fine.”

(Maybe only a single heartbeat, maybe two.)

“Thanks, I guess.”

(Beat.)

“But you should’ve told me then. You should tell me when, not after.”

“Okay, okay. Jeez. I will. I’ll tell you then.”

“You don’t have to be a palm, you know. But I don’t want you to be the back of the hand either, with no lines.”

“Well, maybe I’ll be...like, an old back of the hand with, like, wrinkles and stuff.”

“No. Wrinkles aren’t lines. You can’t read wrinkles, everyone knows  that.”

“Fine, I’ll be the front of a hand then. I’ll be the front, so you can read me.”

“No! That’s the point! I don’t want to have to read you. I want you to read yourself to me. Because I can read wrong.”

“Well, I can read wrong too.”

“I know, but -- I know. But. Please?”

“Fine. I’ll read myself to you. When I believe in you, then, then I’ll read myself to you. Okay? Alright?”

“Okay. Good.”

“Fine?”

“Fine.”

(Beat. Beat. Beat.)

“I guess I’ll have a half a bowl.”

“I already made you a whole one, with the butter and stuff.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

(More beats.)

Anecdote #2

The man delivering my Thai food couldn't find my house. He called me, and we talked about where he was, and where I was, and we each worked to get him to me. Finally, I went out on my front porch to find him. (Night had fallen very suddenly, and it was very dark.) I stood in the small circle of my porch light and looked into the dark and waved my hand. And he saw me, and walked up the drive to meet me, to give me my food. We both spoke excitedly, first on the phone and then face to face, when we had located each other -- interrupting each other, stumbling over the words, laughing. I felt like we were separated lovers. There was a certain real joy in his coming to find me through the dark.

I didn't give him a tip, though. I mean, how hard is it to read an address?

A Sad Thing

I thought a sad thing today. A very sad thing. A thing so sad that, if I were not myself, but someone else, a stranger to myself, and I, as a stranger or mere acquaintance, had said that thing aloud to me, or even within earshot of me, I would have stopped what I was doing at once. I would have stopped and turned and reached out and touched my face, a face I could tell I had carefully arranged not to look sad. I would have made a soft sound that expressed my empathy, and my inability to put that empathy into words -- "Oh" or "I'm sorry," something wholly inadequate. But I would have said it with all the gentleness I had.

Maybe I would even have said something that wouldn't be appropriate to say to me, a mere stranger or aquiantance, like "Oh, my dear." If I were a child, and I heard myself say such a thing, I would pick my young self up in my arms, and hold me for a long time. I would wish for myself that I had never learned the thing I had heard myself say. Not that the sad thing isn't true, because it is an undeniable truth. But I would wish for myself that I had managed not to learn it, that chance and happenstance would so collude together that I would never have had to learn that true, sad thing. I would have wished blissful ignorance for myself, if I were an acquaintance I could have sympathy for, could clasp the hand of.

Home: A Villanelle

I don't even know what I mean by 'home':

a shoe leans against another shoe,

a few stray hairs lay tangling in a comb,

(each thing's discarded where it's thrown)

a jacket flings an arm around two shoes --

and what do these have to do with home?

The drunken brothers' laces groaned

to tighten what was always coming loose.

What little they ever knew of home

they shed by leaving, alternate, alone.

The castoff jacket lay disused

among a few stray hairs. Toothed like a comb,

a darkness swept the floors. A night-light shone.

The jacket shrugged and settled, tired from use,

in a silence that does not -- even now -- seem like a home,

though the shoes dropped back, each like a stone,

into the jacket's folds. And tired and loose,

a few hairs caught and tangled in the comb.

I don't even know what I mean by 'home'.

Anecdote #1

Today, I stopped what I was doing to write a note on a small piece of paper, because of a song. The song was melancholy, and made me feel melancholy. The note I wrote because of it said, "It's so sad being in love. It's almost as sad as not being in love." I folded the small piece of paper in half immediately, and put it in my pocket. Then I went back to what I was doing. I don't know if what I wrote is true, or even if I believe it is true. I almost didn't mean to write it; I didn't really think about the note as I wrote it, or after I wrote it. And I soon forgot about the note in my pocket, though the song continued to play.